Maddie Barnes and Madie Pope

Note:  You can buy these cute owl hats from www.sweetkiwicrochet.com .  

Madie's homecoming

Signing off with love!

HA! I did it!  I am sending you my last email (probably) from the mission field. And thus It is almost finished - one more week and a half to go. It's hard to tell you what a mission is like without giving you a list of very cliché sayings. I could go on forever telling you things, but I would rather show you. My mission is a montage of moments that's made up a clearer picture of life, the gospel, the Savior, and myself. These are some things that I've seen, felt, and heard.

A lady ran out of her house carrying a strainer, chased us down, and told us to leave the street.

A Turkish Muslim man showed my where to find Allah's name on my hands.

A member of the seventy asked us to express our feelings about a song we listened to about the Savior. I wanted to share, but I was too shy to raise my hand. A few moments went by. He looked at me, and pointed at me to speak.

I listened to Sufjan Stevens songs for Christmas countless times on repeat for the last year and a half.

I sighed after leaving a less active members house and said, "I really thought he would come back, I guess there's nothing we can do." The next day he came to church and bore his testimony.

My companion and I each talked to 150 people in the center of Birmingham. Only 3 stopped to talk to us.

We sang "Sweet Hour of Prayer" at a zone conference and all I could do was weep as I realized the ultimate being of the universe asks us to talk to Him.

It was the middle of winter and there was so much snow that we couldn't drive. It was late at night and all we could do was tract near our house. We stowed away individually wrapped Cadbury chocolates in our pockets and rewarded ourselves periodically.

Someone asked us to sing them a carol, and afterwards looked completely unimpressed.

We were finding on the streets of Birmingham early Sunday morning. No one was outside. I thought it was useless, but we felt prompted to go a certain way. Within a half hour we gave out 5 Book of Mormons.

Our investigator was struggling, although the answers were right in front of their face. We left the house and cried as we walked into the windy night.

The water was so hot at Ann's baptism that they had to jump in and out as quick as they could.

The Relief Society's little boy threw up everywhere while she was holding him and giving announcements in the front.

A woman's son had broken her finger in a drunken rage. The gospel principles lesson was on forgiveness. She asked, "How can I forgive my son?"

My recent convert passed me the sacrament, I passed it to a returning member who was able to take it for the first time since coming back, who passed it to another returning member.

When Sister Clark left Evesham, Maddy Barnes decided to fast for her. She skipped breakfast, and then decided she had to eat two marshmallows.

I cried myself to sleep countless times and then God answered my prayer.

A young man we talked to in the streets called us to ask us why his heart felt like it was on fire when he was talking to us.

We were going to go visit an investigator at 3:00, but it didn't feel right, so we went earlier.

When she opened the door she said, "oh, it's a good thing you came now, I have a hair appointment later this afternoon."

A drunk man offered us his chips then asked if we could have a group hug before we split up. We hesitated, "uhhhh" and then he said, "only a little one," lifted his hands a little bit, barley touching our backs, "like this" put his hands down, and we split.

I cleaned the flat every p-day in my gold stretchy spandex.

Before a zone conference, Elder Magpantay, who was our zone leader, was on exchange with Elder Baxter.  Elder Magpantay suggested watching some clips from the missionary DVDs  "the district."  At the zone conference the area seventy showed us some of the DVD clips. Elder Baxter told us that they showed every clip that Elder Magpantay had previously chosen to show him.

We were the first dinner guests ever at a less active family's home.

We smelled like smoke for days after teaching a chain smoker.

We read Moroni 10:3-5 with an investigator who had studied with the missionaries 12 years earlier. I felt the spirit so strongly that I looked up. She was in tears. "That same feeling I had the first time I read this 12 years ago is here again."

Garry Barnes was baptized, confirmed, received the priesthood, and ordained his eldest son.

We listened to the April Conference. President Monson asked us to all go to the temple. I had an overwhelming desire to go to the temple. I wished so badly to go, just once on my mission. There isn't a temple in our boundaries, so we don't get to make the trip. I listened to the desire and offered a heartfelt prayer that I would please be able to go to the temple on my mission.  Two days ago, on Saturday, I sat in the sealing room of the temple and watched my cousin Bradley Stewart, hold the hand of his wife, Jessica, across the temples' alter to be married and sealed for time and eternity. I watched the little hands of their baby boy and little girl be placed on theirs, and see them sealed for time and all eternity as well. I got to hug my family and enjoy that time in the sunshine of the London Temple.

This is what my mission is, and this is what the gospel means to me. The gospel is my life and I living it. I absolutely know that my Savior lives, and I love Him!

See you soon. 

I love you. Thank you for every prayer, every letter, and every encouraging thought.

xo 

Sister Pope  




Oh the HORROR!!!!

God, in his loving mercy and bountiful kindness, saw fit to bless me with at least one more good "mission story" before I get the boot in two weeks.

So there I was, Thursday morning, washing my hair, and I notice a little bug on my hand. Well, that's disconcerting, so I start scrubbing a bit harder. After a couple min, it seems fine, but I find another little bug. At this point I jump out of the shower and scream! Sister Baker comes to inspect and finds a few more, and we realize that.... yes, I have head lice. I can't tell you how absolutely horrifying it was!!! It completely stressed me out. We ran to the store to buy whatever we could to kill it and then, Sister Baker, bless her, spent the next FIVE hours combing out...stuff from my long locks of hair. And I also washed all my clothes and sheets and everything! And I took three showers. The best part was that it was district meeting that morning and we had to tell the zone leaders not to come pick us up, and everyone was quite amused by the situation. "uh, sister pope - just don't ask us to give you a blessing!" To my defense, lice are no respecters of clean or dirty hair, and it can happen to anyone. gah. It was a completely emotionally draining experience for me.

To top that off, I also accidentally lost Elder Habicht's camera card at mission football. It had all of his pictures on it from the last year and a half of his mission!!! I was also horrified. Man, if someone did that to me, I would kill them! Despite the fact that he is German and served in the army for four years, and fought in Afghanistan, he told me not to worry about it and offered Sister Baker and I a lift to the train station! I think it stressed me out even more that he was so nice about it. It haunted my dreams for the next few nights!

But soon our brakes will be fixed on our bikes! Our bikes got a bit beat up when someone stole our lights off them. I can only use a few gears and I have no rear brake. Sister Baker's rear brake pad simply fell off, and her front brake pads are worn down. So we've been pumping around slowly and using the heels of our shoes to stop when the occasion calls for it. A member looked at our brakes and is getting some parts for us! Fantastic. And then the Edgson’s, a missionary couple here, offered to buy us bike lights, and another member is mounting them for us today. Wow! We are so blessed!

This week I have just felt like a bag of stress, I'm trying to find the meaning in this so that I can leave you with some profound spiritual thought that will impress you...but sometimes, things just fall apart! And even though you only have two weeks left, it just can't be a breeze through. And that's okay. That’s just life. Keep going. I'd rather be falling to pieces at this point of my mission and I'd rather be tired than anything else. We had some sweet experiences teaching two of our new investigators this week, and those moments stand out to me above all the rest. That’s where I found the most joy and fulfillment. Teaching the gospel, and learning from the people we teach. In fact, I feel a bit selfish because I end up learning so much from the people that we teach, that I wonder if I ever leave them any better off! And Sunday, it was just nice to be around the wonderful people of the Solihull Ward.

Godspeed!

Love!

Sister Pope

Ice Cream

Madie informed me that she's in the picture on the church website of Elder Bednar's visit to Europe.  Here's the link. http://lds.org/church/news/elder-bednar-completes-tour-through-europe?lang=eng.  She's in the "photo gallery" section (7th picture from the beginning - she's sitting directly behind E. Bednar), but watch the video clip as well - it's so cool.  Well, Elder Bednar can't help but be way cool!!!!  

Also, I asked her what "chuffed" means - she used it in her last week's email.  Here's here explanation: 
Chuffed is when you are splendidly happy about something, or excited about it! like, "I'm chuffed that my mum is coming to England to pick me up!"

October 3, 2011

This week it was completely sunny and cloud free. I was quite surprised to see how blue the sky it, it was like seeing an old friend! What a great week we had. There was the phone call at 6:35 on Wed morning from our AP, "Sisters, sorry for calling so early...yet so late..." there was a training meeting that Sister Baker was supposed to attend that day at 9:30 and he had forgotten to tell us. There was another sister from the Coventry area going and so we quickly arranged for an exchange in companions, and Sister Matapo came to serve with me in Solihull for the day. What a great day. Before lunch Sister Matapo spotted a keyboard, one of the greatest desires of her heart. So whilst buying that, I got to know Steve and Steve, the guitar guys and gave Steve (younger Steve-perhaps we could call him Steve “Young”) a Book of Mormon. Now we are friends with the tailor, the guitar guys, the lush workers, the girl that works at a men's clothing store, the homeless guy, the street cleaners, other random workers, and the repair men. It's sort of fun to be a part of the town center community. ANYWAYsss, we did that and then we ate lunch and then decided to let Sister Matapo have a go on the bikes!  We walked most of the way to our new investigator Alan! Amazing! Two nights before, Sister Baker and I were “finding” and she sighed and said, "I wish that we could meet someone, set up a return appointment, and then they would keep it." Suddenly Alan opened the door, set a return appointment, and come Wednesday, he kept it!!! And he followed along, and the spirit was there, and he expressed a desire to have faith like ours. Cooooool. Then Sister Matapo and I walked our bikes back to our flat. Nice. And then I carried her keyboard to the train station to meet back up with our companions. Nice.

We also have another new investigator. We were finding with our district leader and his companion. I was with Elder Salmons, and Sister Baker was with Elder Wheichers. Sister Baker saw a lady and felt like we needed to talk to her, but couldn't get to her. I saw that same lady, and because she was eating an ice cream cone, I took it as an easy way to start up a conversation and gave her a little shout out. Well, we met with her a few days later, and she had been suicidal and depressed and looking for some glimmer of hope. She was frightened to meet with us because she expected that we would just try to convince her to convert. We just listened. Then we were able to testify that God loved her and that Christ knew how she was feeling. She then told us, "I know we were meant to meet. I was in the right place at the right time. I never buy ice cream, and that was the first one I've ever bought in the town." that hit me pretty hard! Well, I can conclude by saying that it's good thing Sister Baker follows the spirit, and it's a good thing that I just like ice cream. Nice!

Love and the Like to you!

Sister Pope

APW (Assistant to the President’s Wife)

The Week of the Baker

It's been quite the week for Sister Baker! We spent the first two hours of our p-day in the hospital waiting for x-rays. Yesterday we jumped on our bikes to head out to see a referral and I heard a noise and looked back to see Sister Baker, sitting next to her bicycle on the ground. In fact, she had fallen quite gracefully and I was well impressed at how she finagled that in her skirt! She wasn't going very fast and her handlebars got caught on a flower basket thing and she toppled over and landed on her wrist. It started swelling up and the pain kept getting worse and worse, so thus! the hospital. But nothing broken! So that's good. Just gets to wear a..cool..splint and take pain meds. She hurt her dominant hand so her President's letter was pretty hilarious. It was in this little kid type handwriting and the first sentance reads, "Dear President Ogden, Today I fell off my bike and hurt my wrist." priceless.

Well, the magic didn't stop there, we had quite the night in Birmingham! We were going to Harbourne for a baptism (an 82 year old woman that Sister Clark and Baker had taught). We were waiting at a train station for the Harbourne sisters to come and get us when this guy comes up to Sister Baker to ask directions. He's totally not with it. Drunk or high or something, and she's trying to look up in the map some bogus streets he keeps coming up with, and I'm on the phone with the other Sisters trying to tell them where we are. Well, I turn back to look at Sister Baker and see this guy leaning in with a huge pair of lips to give her a big old smoochy smooch on the cheeck. Oh the horror! The look on Sister Baker's face! Fantastic! Instead of helping I just lose it and can't stop laughing. Then he starts asking us if we have kids, "Hey do you have kids? I have three." We're like "no" and in an attempt to deter him and possibly connect with whatever brain power he may still have available, I tell him, "No, we're nuns." but I think that just got him more excited. I call the Harbourne sisters again to tell them to please hurry, but since I'm laughing so hard all I can say, is, "just hurry" and I wanted to communicate to Sister Baker to just STOP talking to the guy, but I just kept laughing (we were on a busy road and he had no idea what was going on) and the car finally pulled up and before he can get another kissy kiss,Sister Baker distracts him by handing him a pass along card. I jump in the car and am yelling at Sister Baker to hurry up, and our friend is yelling at sister baker, "Hey Bab! Where’s the numba?! There’s no numba on 'ere!!" Blast, he'll have to go onto mormon.org if he ever wants to see her again!  Oh boy! good times.

Marianne got baptized this week and Sister Whitaker and I got to go! It was so cool. I got to see the Stewart family at the baptism! Bradley goes, "Your mom told me to give you a big hug," so he does, and then I realize the Elders standing behind us are a bit in shock, so I had to explain that he was my cousin. ha ha. But Bradley got to baptize Marianne and I got a good view because I got to hold the towel for her when she came back out of the font, and the spirit was so strong. Marianne came out of the water and was just in shock at the power she felt. It was so beautiful.

In district meeting we were challenged to read Preach My Gospel and then apply what we learned. I started doing this and earlier in the week I read about how we should tell the First Vision in Joseph Smith's own words, saying it slowly, and then baring testimony of how we came to know it was true. I hadn't been the best at doing that so I had been going over the first vision, making sure I had all the words in order. On Sunday we were in our Gospel Principles class and one of our ward missionaries was teaching the lesson, Sister Lallyette. She started talking about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. She started giving his background and building up to the first vision. I was thinking, "dang, I'm even ready to give the first vision and we're not teaching today." She started talking about the great religious confusion of the time and how Joseph wanted to know which church was true. She stopped and then said, "Then what happened Sister Pope?" Sweet. So I picked it up, and went into the first vision and said slowly and carefully, "I saw a pillar of light..." and then bore my testimony and sat back and the lesson continued. Crazy! I was chuffed that the spirit was there to prompt Sister Lallyette, and that the Lord could use me as a resource. I've learned that the best lessons are the ones when we step back ourselves and let Heavenly Father give the lesson, and let us be His resources when necessary, as the Holy Ghost directs.

Good stuff!

Love you all!

Madie aka Sista Pope

Apostolic Week!

It was quite the week! Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came to talk with us for three hours! I can't tell you what it's like to shake hands with a special witness of Christ and then to feel him looking into your eyes for a brief moment. It was like looking into an ocean. He was great, just got right down to business. He first explained that it would be a discussion and he asked us to volunteer to answer questions and ask questions. He made it clear that he would not call anybody out or make anyone feel uncomfortable. When missionaries stood to ask something or make a comment about something, if he wanted to ask them a question, he always preceded it with, "Can I ask you a question?" And thus taught us a cool principle. He wanted us to understand that we are agents, not objects. We have our moral agency. We can choose to act and not be acted upon. Objects on the other hand, can only be acted upon. We need to act as if we are agents. We should never treat people as objects. He talked about strengthening our prayers. He hates it when people stand up in church and say in their prayers, "please bless those who are not here today, that they can come to church next week." he told us for once, he would just love if someone stood up and said something along the lines, "we know that we are missing several people, we know that we need to go and to visit them, and we just ask that we will all pay heed to the spirit so that we know what to say and what to do, and also where to go so we don't all show up at the same house." You are the agent, you are the tool that will help God answer your prayers.

Man he gave us a lot of cool stuff, I'll share more next week. twas really amazing.

All my love and stuff!