BURN BABY BURN!!!

 Malia made me a bracelet for my birthday!

i slept on the couch cushions in the middle of their beds. i was out in the valley 1,5 hours away. i got back to SD at 10:30 this morning

it was 100 ALLLLLLL WEEK!!! it was so hot

 sunsets during the fires, taken driving 55mph no I wasn't driving :)

The title of my email is supposed to be said like the Grinch when he burns the Who's Christmas tree down! BURN BABY BURN!!! 
But the reality is these fires have been super destructive - so
 PRAY FOR US!!! PRAY FOR SAN DIEGO!

Well this week was somethin' else... here are the FUN FACTS!

1. it was over 100 degrees all week. it go to the point that i could not function. i had sweated (swat?) out of my three layers and i didn't have a drop of water left in my body. we had to take a break in the church. yeah, yeah, all you missionaries that served somewhere hotter (brennan) are thinking that i'm a baby, but holy cow it was HOT. let me complain okay?? :)

2. you know how we have snow days in idaho and we get school off? well here they are called fire days. and you get school off.

3. it was so hot this week that my vaseline melted in my drawer. it was liquid.

4. my favorite feeling is getting up at 6:15 on saturday mornings and going to do service at 8:00 AM. yeah boy.

5. i hit 13 months this week..... STOPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!

6. there was a parade going on in ramona while i was mowing a members lawn. that was fun!

7. there was a camel farm in ramona. CAMELS. what the hay? ......do they even eat hay??

8. this week we taught a family and for dinner they fed us hot dogs wrapped in bacon. 

ohhhhhhhh sweet mercy.....

9. sister kylie mckee and sister brittney baker from pocatello are companions now. hahahhaha

10. when my GPS says certain names it says them wrong. like in-n-out burger is "in north burger."  4S ranch road is "four south ranch road" hahaha

11. check out the hash tag "#realbookofmormon" or "#realbom"  it's a campaign for the REAL book of mormon because the book of mormon play is coming out this week downtown. there will be pictures of me and sister landeen on that twitter account

12. i love the indian dish "dhokla" man that stuff is good. it's like corn bread with cilantro. mmmmmmmmmm :)

13. this last transfer sister landeen and i gave out 44 copies of the book of mormon. most of them were on the street!

14. we did some service in ramona and we went to "the back 40" meaning THE BOONIES! we went over cattle guards, through gates, next to tractors, over dirt roads. it felt SOOO good. 

15. this week divorce, drugs, anorexia, and anxiety became even more real. we meet a lot of people that have very difficult lives. some self inflicted, some not so much. 

hey some of my YSA ward members are taking a road trip to Idaho over memorial weekend!! they are bringing a bag of stuff :) you gotta realize that you are going to meet my ward mission leader and my relief society president! they will have talked to me like the day before they see you! haha

okay lets talk about the fires!! so the first one started right after i emailed you last week. and it was in our area! like our stake was burning! so the closest fire to us was the Bernardo Fire. we couldn't go to that part of our area for 3 daysish. it was about 10 minutes from where we live but it was TOTALLY in our area. i think 3 companionships actually got evacuated. it was super smokey and way nasty. the YSAs in our ward from the west part of our area had to get evacuated. missionaries almost had to stay at our house for the night. our stake and the stake next to us were a mess for a little while, but it's all good now! i'll send more of the fire and then the aftermath in just a bit. pretty much i SUPER DID NOT LIKE not being able to watch the news... BUT! i made up for it by going "fire chasing" from afar... i had to bribe sister landeen with Subway so she would give up her dinner hour so i could fulfill my fire chasing dreams!! hahaha Mamas you know how that is with me :) STORM CHASING!! it was wild. 

i love you guys! like super super lot :)

sister barfuss 

Skyping was the BEST!!! you all looked ravishing :) seriously. the best few hours of my life. oh man man man. i love you guys WAYYYYY TOOOO MUCHHH!!! hollah for eternity!! i try not think about it because it makes me too happy :) :)
lets be together forever!? yeah? i was so excited to show sister landeen you guys :) 

FUN FACTS:

1. for my birthday my zone gave me a cake and a balloon that was 3.5 wide!!! oh man it was awesome! the elders said it wouldn't fit in their car so they had to hold it out their window from the store to our church building!! hahaha

2. it's so dang hot. like 94, plus the santa anna winds from the east. it's SO hot that after we run for 30 minutes in the morning i get straight in the shower and i don't even turn on the light in order to keep it cooler in the bathroom. NOT EVEN JOKING.

3. i'm 21. that's weird.

4. i have a "court side seat to the hastening of the work." yeah boy.

5. for fhe yesterday our ward had a pool party and then watched The Sand Lot... we had to 

GET OUT OF THERE. sometimes i laugh at my life.

6. so i secretly asked president clayton about extending because i felt a prompting to. he talked to me and said that i don't need to..... *did i almost make you poop you pants mom!!??*  :)

7. the water around here tastes like garbage lately!! haha. seriously i feel like i'm drinking out of the American Falls reservoir. hahaha. there might be a dead salmon in the pipes.

8. last night there was a quaggle of coyotes eating something outside our house at 2:00 AM. it sounded like camping at grandma preece's. i was freaked out. we live right next to some wild land.

9. i am a trained family history booth sitter! people come up to our booth on saturday mornings at the farmers market and i act like i know stuff about family history, then i refer them to the SD family search library :)

10. my emailing stinks this week because we talked like yesterday..... sorry!

11. transfer calls were today and we are staying!!! thank goodness.

12. sometimes i feel like my pictures are cooler than my email. hence this week :) hehe

13. i just opened a packy from kayloni and malia! :) they are so nice to me. there were some treats, a bracelet made by malia, copies of a book, popcorn, and little happy flower, flower pen and sunny seeds! they are definitely going to help me be happy :)

Shout outs to those that made my birthday even better than i could imagine with 3D items :)  

aka- packy action

1. AUNT NAT!!

2. KATELYN!!

3. SISTER MURDOCK!!

4. GRANDMA PREECE!!

5. MAMAS, MOOMOO, AND DADDYS!!

6. KAYLONI AND MALIA!!

i also got kind emails from brennan, anneli, kellie, seth, elder blair -i mean kevin hahaha, and jayna!! :) i love you all so so so much!

well there it is! another week in poway land :) i love it up here. keep praying for me and i'll keep giving you funny stories okay!?

loves,

sister barfuss

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARYSA!! MAY 9th!!!

Happy Birthday Marysa!

We can't wait to SKYPE on Mother's Day!

"dude. are we on mars?"

FUN FACTS!

1. Because the "Book of Mormon" play is coming in 6 weeks to San Diego, the mission is starting a twitter page that is all about what REAL missionaries do. So President Clayton had us take pictures of us doing missionary things and they are going to get uploaded. It's our way of having positive publicity #realbookofmormon   :)

2. The #BecauseofHim video is my favorite thing in the world!!!! I've watched it with everyone I have met. The Spirit gets me like MAD in there.

3. We came out of Walmart and a lady saw us and said, "SISTERS!!! I have chocolate for you!" she gave it to us, and disappeared. It was awesome.

4. On our year mark we had to contact a bunch of referrals for people who work at stores so we went to Walmart, Costco, Coldstone, and Sprouts. hahahaha for reals though. It was a weird day. 

5. On May 4th the CES fireside for the world is coming from San Diego!!! and guess what... Elder Ballard (Sis. Clayton's Dad - mission pres. wife) is speaking and it's being held at the stake center I went to church at last transfer! I prayed at the pulpit the will be showing it from!!! We'll be going because we're taking investigators! HOLLAH FOR YSA WORK!! I love my life.

6. We asked to speak in church because Sister Landeen and I have both NEVER had to on our missions. A year!!

7. We just got a new ward mission leader. He got back from his mission 4 weeks ago. hahahahhaa

8. We got home one night a decided that from 10:00-10:30 we were going to watch a church video. well we did, and I fell asleep in like 5 minutes. I'M STILL LIKE THAT! my college roommates will laugh...

9. For FHE this week our ward had a pool party. Before we went we said a quick prayer that sounded like this, "Please help us to be social and reach out to others. Please also help us to also maintain our dignity in this environment." :)

So we went on an exchange to the Imperial Valley this week. It's about 2 hours away from us and close to the Arizona border. On the way there the terrain starts looking super weird. 

At one point I said out loud, "dude. are we on mars?" 

Then it started looking like the Sahara Desert. 

Then it was super hot. 

Then we went to a McMonalds and EVERYBODY was speaking Spanish. 

We were the only white people for sure. Everyone was looking at us weird. 

It turns out the valley is 40 feet below sea level!! whew!! 

But on the up side, it was the best exchange I've been on so far! oh man, I was having so much fun! I love seeing the sisters I served with at the beginning of my mission! We did service and part of it included burning tons of branches... so it was a combined 110 degrees! whew! 

And then for lunch they fed us Menudo. Yes my friends, that is cow stomach. I totally ate it. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew doggy. 

On the way back we had to go through a border patrol check point station. I was driving because I was getting carsick in the passenger side. 

Well we pull up and all these lights shine in your car (it was dark outside so they were intense). Then a drug dog comes and stiffs your car. Then a border patrol guy looks at you in the face and then at all the people in the car and racially profiles you and then makes a decision. 

We made it through.

This Easter was amazing! We read the "None Were With Him" talk and it was so powerful. 

The interesting part is that I have never been more isolated from everybody/everything I love in my life, yet I've never felt so much love and happiness. I know it's because of Jesus Christ. We focused on Him every moment we could this week and I felt so good all week long. Man, I love my life. 

The true source of happiness is Jesus Christ. There is no other way. Seriously though, and the best part is that the Book of Mormon tells you all about Christ! It's the best little combo ever :)

And the biggest miracle of it all.... we are teaching a progressing investigator! I seriously haven't taught a progressing investigator since Grandpa Ted in November. What a blessing!! His baptismal date is May 10th. Heavenly Father has no idea how grateful I am to be teaching the refreshingly wonderful lessons! Sister Landeen is a great teacher, so lessons with him are fun stuff. I LOVE TEACHING!!

i love you. i love you. i love you. :D

sister barfuss

why is she HUGGING A PIG?

The #BecauseofHim  deal is awesome! We're supposed to be telling everyone we meet about it all week! Yay! I've learned so much about Christ this week... stay tuned. Katelyn's little tribute to you and dad was awesome! and i'm going to have to completely agree with everything she said! :) i heart you guys. 

I GOT THE CLOTHES BOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) OH MY I'M SOOOO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!! they are all so cute and so perfect!!!!!!!! SERIOUSLY THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!! i love the skirts :) they are the perfect length and size and you got so many cute colors!!! and the shirts are wonderful!!!! i'm going to be so cute!!!!!!!!! :D 

FUN FACTS!

1. the members we live with were on vacation for the last week and when they left they said "sisters, trash day is tuesday just in case you need to get rid of evidence of the wild party you are planning." hahahaha

2. i am SO GRATEFUL TO BE ON A MISSION! mamas and daddy thank you for supporting me and helping me be able to even be out here. the money spent is well worth the life experience and spirituality gained. i'm so so so so grateful! i love you!

3. i shortened one of my dresses this week and i felt like mamas. i always tell people that "my mom is way cooler than me." :D hehe

4. we serve in our ward along with a senior couple form utah. they are so dang funny! they feed us once a week! elder and sister Van Alfen are my favorite. we get laughing so hard all the time. you should facebook stalk them and add them :)

5. i hit a year this week. and i hit 21 in a few weeks. I'M AN OLD FART!

6. being in a YSA ward is interesting. you have to be in the ward, but not of the ward. my life is so funny hehehe

alright! here is my "new thing i learned about Christ." 

The Poway stake has been doing a 100 day reading program that leads up to Easter. Well one of the days this week i read about how He is the Light of the world. I though about that and thought some more. Here's what i came up with.... you how when people have depression struggles doctors often have them do "light therapy" where they sit in front of a lamp in the mornings and the light triggers chemicals that help us be happy?

 well i think that's just how it is with Christ being our light and our spirit needing to have light so it doesn't get depressed. If our spirit goes a long time with out Christ's light, it get's depressed. 

The only thing that pulls us out of the darkness is Christ's light. But to have the light we have to turn on the lamp (aka- read the scriptures, pray, fhe, read our patriarchal blessing, fast, read general conference talks, ANYTHING that teaches us more about Him!) 

So this week i want to "bask my soul in Christ's Light!" He is the reason I am happy. He is the reason i have hope. He is the reason that i want to talk to others about their potential. 

Jesus Christ is the reason that any of us have a chance. If you really think about it, without Him, it's over. I'm sunk. BUT IT'S NOT OVER! I'M NOT SUNK! I'M HAPPY!!! :)

okay. this week is going to be awesome. we're headed to the El Centro valley for exchanges and it's like 89 degrees there... AT NIGHT. i'm gonna die. 

 BUT NOT IN MY NEW CLOTHES :D

loveskies :)

sister barfuss

"oh do we have happy news!"

Where in the world is Marysa in San Diego???

 

She's in POWAY!! Okay so my life is 100% different than it was last week.

I went from down town San Diego to the country of San Diego, 

I went from a family ward to a YSA ward, and I went from living in a scary apartment to a members HUGE house,

annnnnnnd now I'm a Sister Training Leader, so pretty much my life is crazy!

 

My companion is Sister Landeen from Riverton :) She is 21, a physical therapy major, went to Utah State before her mission and is heading to UofU after the mission.

She loves basketball and has 4 brothers, so she is super chill and really obedient.

She and I came out together, so we'll hit our year mark together here in a couple of weeks! 

She is A  BOSS!!!!!!

Seriously though, she has taught me so much already and she is super good at everything I stink at still :) bahaha

So basically she and I go on exchanges 1-2 times a week and we cover the Sisters around us all the way out in the valley by the Arizona border... so we are going to drive a lot.

Our YSA ward covers a huge area too so we have to plan one day for each ward in the stakes we cover.

We cover two stakes and it goes about an hour north of us... into the back country of San Diego.

When I say back country I mean it! There are a few YSA members we need to meet and they live in the woods an hour from us in a branch!

People are very wealthy around here and have big houses, land, and horses. It looks a lot like the expensive parts of Utah.

It's weird because I've pretty much always served in the scary parts that are a little dumpy.

 I love waking up to it smelling like horse doodoo... smells familiar :) hehehehe

We live with a member couple that is 70ish years old! We have a room upstairs and a bathroom next to it. Our fridge is in the garage and

 I use their magic bullet every single day :D HOLLAH!!! They had a bunch of family over for a family reunion this week so the house was quite lively!

 They ran the SoCal ragnar! The Quiggles are really into gardening so we have to take care of their garden when they go out of town for 2 weeks this month.

They have a huge pool that we can't get in, but I can sit in the pool chair next to in and drink in the sunlight!! :D I love my life. 

Wanna hear something weird? I now spend ALL DAY looking for people between the ages of 18 and 30 that are single. It's so weird.

G/C SECTION

Okay conference was the BEST. SERIOUSLY!! I was juiced from the very moment it started with Elder Holland! He get's me fired up!! And guess what... Sister Landeen is PUMPED about our area and the work! She's only been in this area for 6 weeks, so we get to do things differently!

 I LOOOVE it when I'm watching a talk and I'm all "yep. uh huh. say that again! dang. yep."

Okay so the talks that blew my mind were

Elder Bednar's- I can relate to getting stuck in the snow :) that imagery was money for me! And it really is ALL about the load.

Then when President Eyring talked about how the reason we aren't always blessed immediately for righteous things is because that would never build faith!

Same with sinning, it doesn't always bite you in the bum the second you do it... it takes time for the consequences to creep into your life.

 I can't wait for the conference Ensign! It's so hard to not be able to read the talks whenever we want! We want iPads!!!

This week we added three new investigators!!!!!!! :D :D :D We met 2 guys up in Ramona (google earth that town, it's awesome) and one said he smoked marijuana all the time.

He was 18 and I have never promised something so firmly in my life... pretty much we told him that if he took the time to meet with us and took everything we said seriously, he would change the rest of his life, he would change his current family's life, and then he would change his future kids!

Then we met a less active guy in our ward with his friend, his friend's brother passed away in March... "oh do we have happy news!"  

Answers are everything in this world of confusion :)

Well. Stay classy San Diego.

 

 "BE OF GOOD CHEER, I have overcome the world."

loves yous,

Sister Barfuss

THIS EMAIL IS NOT PARTICIPATING IN APRIL FOOLS DAY.

Dang today is crazy. I just got a call that I'm being transferred.... seriously though. I just got here 6 weeks ago and I got WHITEWASHED IN!! What is up with that!?? So pretty much I have to go back and pack today. I just finished unpacking. BAHH!! My life is crazy exciting. very crazy. very exciting. So I'm just going to spit out everything REAL quick :D

Fun Facts!!

1. I had dinner with Natalie Poole's sister (from Pocatello)... her name is Sister Bergendork-Clark. We talked about Justin for a bit! 

2. I got the best SDSU shirt. oh my lanta i LOVE it.

3. That picture of us getting ice cream on the missionary mom page?!? How in the world did you see it?? That lady that took it is our stake president's wife!... that ice cream shop is in the middle of Hillcrest 

4. We got to do service up in Ramona on Saturday for a stake relief society event.  We were in the kitchen the whole time and we got our bums HANDED TO US.  I haven't cut so many croissants in my whole entire life...

5. I wore jeans this week and every time I went to the bathroom I forgot to put up my fly... i'm just not used to zippers anymore hahaha

6. The General Women's meeting was wonderful!! I bawled the whole time... mostly because I knew that all of my favorite women (mamas, moomoo, katelyn, grandma) were watching it at the same time. I loved the music!!!

7. A member this week said to me "Sister Barfuss, you are SOO Idahoan. Just look at you. Listen to the way you talk!" hahahha what does that mean!!??

Here's the spiritual side of my week... we had a guy get all up in our grill at a restaurant this week. He was going off about how we are selfish and how we don't have an education and we're almost 21. After a bit I was getting a little annoyed with him and said "how old are you man? do YOU have a degree??" he was such a punk. Well, all the sudden -  a guy in a booth down the aisle stood up and came over and told him to back off. This random guy TOTALLY stood up for us and told the other guy to settle down. I learned that you might not agree with people, but you can still stand up for them and love them. Seriously, I thought I was in a "what would you do?" TV episode and the guy they were testing was a champ! After we ate our food and left we waved to him and said thank you... I am SO thankful for that man and I've never even spoken to him.

LOVE YOU!!!

I'll let you know what happens to me next week.... bahhhh my life is crazy!!

sister barfuss

POCATELLO - DOMINATING the CA SAN DIEGO MISSION
Elder Birch - Sis. Barfuss, McKee & Baker