Getting by. 8-11-14

C

Corey Barber

to me, Conco, jodie, +1
5 days ago

Details

Dear family and friends,

                       It was an alright week out here! It was kind of a slow week. We have the awesome members out here in Casper who are always willing to come teaching with us. But when we take them lessons fall through. So it was a really hard week that we just had to get by! We did end up teaching a lot of Less Active lessons which are just as good as any lesson! So all in all we taught ten lessons. Two of them being investigators. We taught Tammy this week. She is still struggling with the Word of Wisdom and it is very hard to get her to commit to church. We will continue to work with her, but she needs to start progressing or we will have to let her go. We weren't able to meet with Taylor and Cynthia this week mainly because they were in Utah. For a part of the week, and when they told us they could meet they didn't answer the door. We have been working with Ronald who is a less active. He is not less active for the typical reasons. Some of those reasons are members being offensive, and over stepping their bounds. Some reasons are they don't see how it can bless their life. There are many reasons why people are less active. Ronald is less active because of health reasons. It limits him to come to church sometimes. There was a period where Ronald was coming pretty consistently to Church. So the thought came to me "lets get Ronald to the temple". So we visit him twice throughout the week every week. And we read over the temple preparation booklet. The progression with Ronald has been amazing these past few weeks. He has actually located his floppy disks which have his genealogy on them. And he took them to Church yesterday, and he stayed the entire three hours. At this rate he will be able to attend the temple by next year. We are also visiting with Sister Groso. She is an older lady around 80. She has been a member her whole life, but went inactive at a young age. She still doesn't go to Church for personal reasons. But we visit her twice a week as well. She is a widow and she loves our visits! But she tells us she wont come to church, but she loves the feeling she gets when we teach her. So hopefully the Spirit will work with her enough to convince her to come to Church one of these weeks. Yesterday evening we had a General Priesthood meeting. Stake President Smathers announced that the Church has purchased land here in Casper. He didn't specify for what reason. But it was really exciting news! Well that is about it for the week! I love you all and have a wonderful and safe week!

Elder Barber

Baptism 8-4-14

Dear family and friends,

                  It has been a great week this week! On Tuesday we had the baptism of Aaron and Erika! That was an awesome experience to baptize them. Aaron and Erika were very prepared for this gospel. At the baptism we were a little late starting because we were waiting for Erika's mom to show up. She had gotten out of work late and was rushing to the stake center. Her mom is a non-member so it was really cool to have her there. Her mother was in tears at the very beginning when we had a talk on baptism. You could tell that she was feeling the spirit strong. We had a great service, and right after we had some awesome refreshments. Chocolate covered cake balls are officially one of my favorite desserts now! Right after the baptism the earth was then baptized it started pouring crazy hard outside of the church! It has really been a stormy week out here! I can't believe how fast this transfer is going. We are starting week 4 out of 6 this week! It has really cruised by! But that is mainly because we are teaching a lot more than we used to! This week we started teaching Janessa who is engaged to a less active member named Justin. Justin is Dave Martons step son (so Cynthia's son). We taught her the Restoration and committed her to pray about the Book of Mormon. We followed up a couple of days later, and she had actually read! She said when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she felt "butterflies" in her stomach. It never ceases to amaze me when somebody prays about the Book of Mormon and receives an answer. It just shows that if you have real intent you can know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It is Gods promise to all of us that he will manifest the truthfulness unto us by the Power of the Holy Ghost. We met with Tammy this week, and it is still a struggle to get her to come to Church. But we figure we just need to be more persistent with her. Well I hope all is well at home. I wish all of the students luck at the beginning of this school year. I also wish all of the teachers luck as they start this year! It is crazy that school is back in session. Those 3 months of summer probably went faster for me than those school kids ;). Well I love you all and I hope you have an excellent week!

Love, Elder Barber   

 

Aaron and Erika and Elder Bench and I

​

Blessed. 7-28-14

Blessed

InboxCorey's Mission Letter and Pictures

C

Corey Barber

to me, Conco
6 days ago

Details

Dear family and friends,

                      Thank you so much for all of your letters this past week. We had such a great first week of the transfer! This transfer I wanted to work as hard is I could and push hard to reach high goals and break personal records. This past week was a great blessing! We had a lesson with Erika and Aaron we taught them the Word of Wisdom. Both of them knew this lesson was going to come sooner or later. The lesson went over really well, and it turns out they have been trying to quit drinking tea and coffee this past week! At the end of the lesson Erika and Aaron pulled out all of the tea and coffee in the house and we put it into a glass bowl. After we gathered it all we went out and threw it on top of their garden for fertilizer! It reminded me a lot of the Boston Tea Party. If I were to give this event a name I would call it "The Casper Tea and Coffee Party". Tea and Coffee may not be good for the body or the belly, but it sure is good for your tomatoes! We also got a new investigator named Norm. His wife was recently Less-Active and is trying to become more active. Norm has had the discussions before, but he feels like maybe he should get baptized. So we will give it a shot! We sure do have a good fellow shipper for him! We took Brother Munger over to his house, and he loved him to death! And when I say love I mean that after the lesson was over he had to go hug him. You know you have a good fellow shipper when hugs are given! Norm is pretty cool he has a huge guitar collection. He told us that every time we come teach him he will show us a new guitar. Last time he showed us his "Jetson" Guitar. It was pretty retro and cool looking! He told us of see through guitar he has! I can't wait to see that one! When we were taking Brother Cassity out teaching with us we were able to get in with Brian again. He has been doing awesome with his Book of Mormon reading! He is already in 2nd Nephi. It is just a struggle to get him committed to come to church. He has a concern with organized religion. We tried to address it to the best of our abilities, but he still would not commit!  So we will continue to work with him and try and get him to try it at least once! We know that if he does come to church he will be able to feel the spirit if he comes! Last night we also got in with Erica. We thought she was a really solid potential, but it turns out she is an inactive member of the Church. She wanted us to drop by so we could teach Mike her non-member husband! We were actually able to talk with Mike and Erica for a little bit! She said she would give us a call when she would like us to come over! We hope she comes through with that! We really would like to begin teaching Mike! Well that is about it for this week! I love you all, and have an excellent week!

Love, Elder Barber

Big transfer. 7-21-2014

Dear family and friends, 

                      This has been another great transfer out here in the Casper 5th ward. We really saw the Lord work in our area. I believe this has been the biggest transfer for teaching that I have ever seen. Transfer call Saturday was an exciting day. Most everybody predicted that I would leave. To I think everybody's surprise I am going to be staying another six weeks out in the Casper 5th Ward. There was a mix of emotions that came over me. One part of me was looking for change and a new experience. The other part of me didn't want to leave all of this behind, especially the great members down here. Regardless of the mix of feelings I had on the inside I heard the spirit tell me to not dwell on my feelings and get to work. Excitement filled my heart and I committed to work harder this transfer than any other transfer so far. Instead of battling with emotions the Lord wants me to stay, and the Lord wants me to work. And that is the plan for the next six weeks is to work. We have an exciting transfer ahead of us! We have put Erika and Aaron on date for August 11th! And they are looking forward to that date. They said they want the Elders to baptize them. So it will be another great experience to baptize another person! We are still working with Tammy, Drew, and Ashley! Tammy was out of town this past week so we couldn't get her to Church! I am also really excited this Transfer because Elder Anderson the Elder I trained back in Devils Lake has become a District Leader here in the Casper Zone! I am really excited to work with him this transfer! Well I hope that all is well at home I love you, and have a great week!

Love, Elder Barber 

Transfer end 7-14-2014

Dear Family and Friends,

                 It has been an excellent week! This past week we got to teach Tammy three times with a member attending the lesson. Tammy is doing fine her daughter has been in Utah this past week and will be returning soon. And her son is home, but it is hard to get a twelve year old interested in the gospel. But that wont stop us from trying! On Tuesday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Jameson. On that exchange we received a referral for a married couple named Erica and Aaron. Erica and Aaron have a good friend who is a member of the Y.S.A ward here in Casper. They had investigated the Church before but the missionaries who taught them did not really respect them and came off the wrong way. So they stopped investigating. The Y.S.A ward put on a demonstration of "The Mormons Next Door". Aaron attended that and was very impressed with the statistics the Church has with married couples staying together and not getting a divorce. He was also impressed with the health statistics of Latter Day Saints. So he wanted to investigate. When we taught them Aaron told us he knew the Book of Mormon was true. Erica is still investigating the subject and is trying to find out if it is true. Aaron wants to get baptized with Erica so we will have to continue to work with her to get her that testimony. The Lord truly is preparing people in our area!! Elder Jameson and I were out tracting one morning and we found Ally who is sixteen years old, but was interested in learning about God calling another Prophet. So Elder Bench and I went over there and taught her the Restoration. We weren't able to actually finish the lesson. But we will meet with her once she gets back off of vacation. We also tracted into Zack a couple doors down from Ally, and he works for a member of the Church. He was super nice to us, and said we could stop back by! We haven't been able to get in with him, but hopefully soon! 

                What a wonderful transfer it has been. I have definitely learned a lot being here in Casper this transfer. There is a lot of things that Casper has taught me. This weekend transfer calls will be going out. I don't know if I will be staying here in Casper or not. If I get transferred there is a slight chance there will be no email next week. I guess we will see. I am thankful for all of you and I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Barber  

Land of the free. June 30,2014

Dear family and friends,

                This past week out here in the Casper 5th ward was great! We had a lot of member involvement! We taught Tammy, Drew, and Ashley twice with a member. The first time we taught them we had a wonderful talk about baptism. Brother Geddes is a solid member missionary. You can tell he was an awesome missionary! When he extended the invitation to be baptized Tammy was hesitant at first. He then helped us address her concern about baptism. He then re-committed her and she still gave us a hesitant answer, but she said she would. We will continue to work with her! We took Slade out teaching with us. He is an eighteen year old in the ward who is still doing his papers. He came out and taught Tammy with us again. We talked about the Book of Mormon. That was a really spiritual lesson! We went over and taught this elderly man named Allan with Slade. While we were teaching it rained cats and dogs outside. And then of course like it always does in Casper the Tornado Sirens went off. Except this siren was for a flash flood warning and not a tornado. We went out tracting yesterday and we tracted into a guy who grew up a member and fell away but was really open to us. And he wants us to come teach him and his girlfriend! We also got back in with Bryan and we followed up on his Book of Mormon reading, and he is almost done with 1st Nephi! So that was all of our successes this past week! The Lord is really blessing our area!

                Let me first off start by saying I love this time of year. The fourth of July is a time where we can be thankful for the freedoms that we do have. It is a time where we can celebrate the independence of our country. I think back to the time when our Country was fighting for our Freedom and Independence. The Lord definitely helped us win the battle and become our own nation and establish Freedom. I am thankful for this Country and the Freedom that we do have! I hope this fourth of July you can look back and see the Lords hand in our Freedom. I am excited to experience my first mission fourth of July outside the MTC walls. Last fourth of July we had a big devotional and we sang american hymns until my throat hurt. They let us stay up and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. I remember that that was a part of my mission that I was the most homesick. I know that I will be thinking of all of you this fourth of July. But it is my last one and I will enjoy it! I hope you all have a great week, and God bless America! 

Love, Elder Barber 

Heating up. July 7,2014

Dear family and friends,

                                 I hope you all had a wonderful fourth of July weekend! We had a wonderful time on the fourth of July. President Anderson approved all missionaries to stay out and watch the fireworks this year! I would say the Fourth of July is equal to or more than the homesickness of Christmas. But the Lord knew this so for both fourth of July's he approved me to stay out and watch the Fireworks. But we had a fun time! Bishop Gallup signed up for Dinner on the fourth so we got to hang out with his family. And they also took us to the firework show of Casper. There fireworks were pretty good! But nothing beats the Kaysville fireworks! Thank you for sending me those videos and pictures of the Barbie-Q. I will have to wait until later in the week to watch the videos with sound. But I did love the pictures that you all sent to me! The reason I title my email "heating up" is because it is getting HOT in Casper. Now it is nothing compared to St. George heat, but when your apartment doesn't have an AC unit it can be challenging! But the Mungers said they have a spare AC unit they can lend us for a while. But I still love the summer season where I don't have to wear a thousand pounds of coat. This past week we were able and very blessed to find a new investigator named Sharon. Her husband recently passed away last December and it is still really hard for her to talk about him. She brought up to us that she doesn't agree with "til death do us part". We taught her about how she can live with her husband again, and how they can be sealed for all time and all eternity. It was an awesome lesson, and we can't wait until we can teach her again! We have been teaching Tammy for quite a while. We had to quit teaching her back in April. But recently we have been teaching her and inviting her out to church. She had never attended Church with us before. So we were able to invite her to Church this past week and work out a ride for her. And she came to church! It was definitely a long awaited blessing to see her at Church! Well that is about all for the week! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Barber