Warming up 3-10-14

Dear family and friends,

                                This past week has been a really warm and wonderful week to be a missionary! It is great to walk outside and feel the nice 50's or 40's! It is definitely suit coat weather outside! This past week was a pretty good teaching week! We got to meet with Maria again. We thought she was going to drop us. But we gave her a large print Book of Mormon and she looked happy to get it! And we committed her to come to church and she fell off the wagon on that! We even had a ride lined up with a fellowshipper. But we will visit her this week and see if she has concerns about coming to church. Ever since we began teaching her she says she has been going back to the Catholic church. We will see how things go! We haven't been able to meet with Bree due to their homes illness! We hope by tomorrow she will be feeling better and be awake when we go over! We got an invitation to go do a service project and road trip out to Martins Cove this Wednesday! Me and Elder Hardman are excited for that! They needed eight missionaries and me and him got raffled in to go! So we are very excited about that! Last night we got to meet with a member Stephanie (who just recently moved here) and her husband Jeremy (who is an investigator now). We had a great lesson out at our bishops home! And we are going to be meeting with them every Sunday! We are very excited to teach him! You know he is a good investigator if he already owns an LDS Scripture Quad. 

                              I have been very humbled this past week. They always say the nine month mark is the hardest month mark to hit in the mission. Mainly because it feels like your mission is going to last for eternity, and the homesickness increases! How true all of that is! But I heard a quote this week this week! "The Lord cannot give us everything, if we don't give him everything to work with". I know that as I pass my nine month mark and keep pressing forward in this great work that the time will sadly fly by. I so far have loved my mission and there is no where else I would rather be! This truly is his work! I hope we all can give the Lord everything to work with! I love you all and have an awesome week!

Love, Elder Barber 

Casper Plague 3-3-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 It has been a great week this week! We were pretty much home confined from Wednesday until the end of the week! I had a cold last week, and then Elder Hardman caught a really bad one! So we were confined in the home for three days. And then on Sunday I came down with it. Except I have the medication which makes it a lot better. Elder Hardman didn't have the medication and he is still trying to get over it. So hopefully this passes soon! Lucky for us we were sick on the really cold and blizzard day the blew through Casper. We did get to meet with Maria (the lady who lives across the street from the ward mission leader). We got members at both her lessons, but she still has concerns for coming to church! We didn't get to meet with Bree this week. Her house was really sick and we avoided that. So we will be meeting with her tomorrow. We met with Tammy and Jim Bob. They are still kicking the Word of Wisdom. But that is about it for the week. You don't have to worry about me here in Casper our meal calendar gets filled every week! The ward here is awesome and they are really kind to us missionaries. 

                               It has been a really spiritual week this week. We had a fast and testimony meeting yesterday that was pretty good! I love the first Sunday of the month! It is always amazing to be sitting in an atmosphere where the Spirit can speak personally to your heart. I hope that your fast and testimony meetings were great as well! It is amazing to me how fast time flies out here in the field and how fast this transfer cycle has gone. We are living in week 5 right now of the transfer. It is crazy to think that next transfer I only have ten left out of the seventeen. And then just wait one more transfer after that and I officially hit the single digits of transfers left. So far my mission has grown me so much! There is no other place that anyone can grow more! Even though you face trials great times are always just around the corner. We have to enjoy the lives that we live, and live in the moment. And even though some moments are tough. Great moments are surely around the bend. I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Barber 

How Agency can affect others 2-24-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 This has been a great week here in the Casper 5th area. We were truly blessed with teaching a lot of Less Actives this week. We also taught our investigators this week, and at some lessons we had members present. This week we taught Maria who is a fairly new investigator the Plan of Salvation. We had the opportunity to have Brother Luellen come with us. He is a really powerful member teacher! It was a pretty great lesson! We met with Bree twice this week. She is still on date for March 22nd. We figured out she is 19 years old and we may turn her over to the YSA 7th ward here in Casper. Which the people who run that ward are the Zone Leaders. But they said to pray and ask where she would progress most. We taught Ronald a less active guy in our ward. We taught him the word of wisdom and focused on health. We committed him to come to church and he did. He has come for two staright weeks! Which is awesome because he hasn't come in years. So it is great to see him at church. I can truly see the hand of God working with us and through us.

                                We got to have our zone conference this past week and receive trainings from President and Sister Anderson, and the assistants to the President. We did a great object lesson which involved me as the object. They made me pick a current investigator we had. And they placed a backpack on my back. They then said what is something that you could do as a missionary to hold this investigator back from progressing in the gospel. And of course someone said an idea. They came up and placed a fifteen pound weight in the backpack. And they repeated this process adding more and more weight to the backpack. It eventually built up so bad that they also attached workout bands to my feet and arms. They had a missionary standing about ten feet away from me who was holding a jar of "change" (pennies and quarters). They invited me to change my ways and quit drinking coffee. As I accepted the "Disobedient" missionaries held me back with the bands, and it made it near impossible to move forward to change. They then were asked to give ways they could repent and be good missionaries. As they did so they took the bands and weights off my back. I was then invited again to change my ways. As I accepted I was able to take the jar of "Change". It showed me that our agency and our choices can effect other people. Especially our investigators. I know that as we make correct choices we can truly help bring others unto the Gospel.

I hope you all are doing well I love you and I pray for you! Thank you for all of your prayers! 

Love, Elder Barber 

                                 

Sunshine. 2-18-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 This has been another great week! And it has been a really warm and sunny week! It was so warm for the first time in a long time I took off both my coat and my wind breaker. And then of course I ended up with a cold two days later. We haven't had too much success this past week with getting in on our progressing investigators. But we did have great success in finding. We tracted into a door of an old lady who is Catholic. And normally they're the ones who slam the door faster than anyone. But to our surprise she actually let us in. She told us she had a past investigating with our church, and had read the Book of Mormon before. We taught her the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. And when we gave her a Book of Mormon you could really tell it lit up her day. Some members that live around her have told us she is rarely home. So we hope to get in with her again! I guess time will have to tell on that one. But she lives right across the street from our Ward Mission Leader Brother Smith. So that is a big time positive! We had a spiritual lesson teaching the Dickerson's their new member lessons. The three boys weren't home so we will be going back! My Companion is Elder Hardman. He is from Ibapah, UT. He pretty much grew up there, and he likes to hunt. He also worked at a scout camp in the summers. He is a good missionary who likes to work hard, and keep busy. 

                                 This week we are going to have our Zone Conference again with president Anderson. I am really excited to see him and Sister Anderson again. It is going to be centered on the Power of the Book of Mormon in conversion (at least that's is what I have heard). And he told us in an email today he is going to commit us all to read the Book of Mormon before July 1st. It will be good for me to have a date to finish it by to give me some motivation. But I think that it is a great goal to have! I am excited to have the Book of Mormon finished by July 1st. Maybe it will become a traditional goal for me at the beginning of every year! Well I hope all is well at home! And I love you all and I pray for you all!

Love, Elder Barber