January Presidency Message

Happy New Year, sisters!

I am so excited for this new year, and of course with a new year we feel it is time to make new beginnings as well.  I feel very blessed to be able to serve each of you, and I feel love and concern for you and your families as well.  This new year started out with an exciting event for our family as we welcomed home our son Kaleb from his mission,  What a joyful yet humbling experience it is to see your children put their full heart into the work of the Lord.  I was humbled and touched as I listened to him report to President Witt and share experiences from his mission, particularly how prayer had been such a strength to him.  Later as we talked more about serving and prayer I saw the love he had for the people he served, and was reminded that we truly do love those we serve.  I remember in a letter that Kaleb wrote home he asked that we pray for a certain investigator.  Of course I had always prayed for my missionary, but it brought new thoughts and testimony building to team up with his missionary efforts, and pray with him for an investigator.  What a great experience, even though he was many miles away I felt the love Kaleb had for the work, and the love our Heavenly Father has for each of us.  We are so blessed to have the knowledge of the Gospel and the power of prayer.

This Holiday season my family had the opportunity to welcome the missionaries into our home to teach.  We had a friend, Catherine, staying with us for Christmas.  She is from China and has been living in New York going to school.  This was the second year she stayed with us.  Last year Catherine had lots of questions, being new to the states and then throw in the gospel, it was a lot to take in!  She really related to my son McKay, who was 12 at the time.  He got questions that were easy to answer and some not so much, including the big one of "Who is Jesus?"   What a great missionary experience it was for him!!  This year she was much more comfortable with life in the states and with us as well.  Catherine is so curious about the gospel, and she was ready to meet the missionaries!  She met with them three times while staying here and they introduced prayer to her.  What a beautiful thing it is to witness the very beginnings of a testimony of prayer.  She has posted about prayer on Facebook, talked to the Sisters here, and to us, and is now texting the missionaries she will meet with when she returns to New York, expressing that she is still praying!

  In our last General Relief Society meeting President Monson Quoted President Ezra Taft Benson:  "All through my life the counsel to depend on prayer   has been prized above almost any other advice I have...received.  It has become an integral part of me-an anchor, a constant source of strength and the basis of my knowledge of things divine.....

"....Though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul.  That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life's greatest blessing."

Let us not forget the simple beauties of the Gospel, our Heavenly Father loves us and he has given us the power of prayer to feel His peace and love for us, He will never leave us alone. 

Love,

Sister Barfuss