Getting by. 8-11-14

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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

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Blessed. 7-28-14

Blessed

InboxCorey's Mission Letter and Pictures

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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