Sister Emma Rose Barker (2023-2025)

Okay picture this. This family reached out to a member in our ward because they're convinced an evil spirit lives in their house and also maybe their daughter has one too? So we're sitting on this cute family's couch and everything is normal and she's sharing how no one lives on the floor above them and sometimes they hear noises. So then we move along with the lesson, we're talking about the power of prayer and how we can find peace and all of a sudden she goes "ESCUCHE. do you hear that?" Qnd from up above there's all this clatter. Like someone walking around, a chair scraping the ground, a bed creaking...my heart def skipped a few beats bcuz um WHAT. it felt like haunted mansion or something...BUT GHOSTS ARENT REAL!...right??? People in Peru have so much lore. We were talking with our pensionistas daughter (who is basically our Peru bestie) and she was telling us all about duendes (elves. That Rob you. And have been known to steal children. And she...

Buenos días (o tardes o noche depende)! Bienvenido a this weeks spanglish adventure. To start off, I got to be a part of my very very first baptism as a misionera!!! It was literally so perfect and so peruvian. Mafer got baptized this week and literally I have never seen her smile so big. She's adorable. She came out of the font and said "i feel like i'm born again". We were her 6th and 7th missionaries...she's been taught since the pandemic! Just goes to show the Lord siempre has His own timing. I have never been so stressed on my mission as I was on Saturday...we told their family to be there at 5...first mistake. Baptism was for 530 ish...and there's 4 littles living in the house of Mafer right now. Needless to say, 5 rolled around...and then 530...and then 6...the entire youth program basically was there and still Mafer wasn't. Finally at like 620 we sent our Papito (the little viejito hombre incharge of missionaries in Tacna and also is nuestro misi...

No not really. It did "rain" one day but it was pretty much like the mist setting on a garden hose. Still, it felt awesome to run through the "rain" in Peru.  HIHIHI. I hope you are all doing swimmingly. I am doing swimmingly. Other than the fact I want to go swimming. But only at 2pm, when it is blazing hot. The mornings are cold here and after 4pm I need my chompa (sweater. Not sure why it's called chompa because it sounds like something you'd name your pet crocodile). I get a VERY stern talking to the other morning when I walked to breakfast without a chompa, our cutie little neighbor who waits for us every morning to wheel her to the curb told me "in MY country, if you're sick they leave you to die" basically that because I shower in the morning and didn't have a sweater I'm toast. She encourages us every day to not bathe because of the infirmities we will contract. She's awesome. No baptism this week, sad sad. But this SATURDAY...

Have I mentioned I love being a missionary? Because I do. Its pretty much the coolest thing to wake up at 6:30 to your neighbors operatic spanish church hymns and the clown horn of the man selling tamales, knowing you get to spend the whole day telling people how much Christ loves them. And it's HARD work. I'm not discrediting that. All I'm saying is it's been beautiful to feel really truly deeply happy for the best cause in the world, sharing about the Savior. Awesome awesome week got to do service for this awesome awesome lady. She lives on the side of a cliff and we leveled out said cliff...I think...not really sure what we were doing but moving dust. And we got so Disney music from an elder so now we have that to listen to which makes me so pumped. We had awesome lessons and Martin has his baptism hopefully Friday...pray for him !! This weekend was General Conference, which is basically a broadcast for the whole.worldwide church with talks from our leaders! AND...