Time is Flying. 4-27-15

Dear family and friends,

                      How's it going?! I hope you are all doing well. The time is really flying by. It almost didn't feel like a whole week has gone by. Monday comes and goes, and then it feels like two days pass and it comes again. We had such a great week! Each week it seems like the work increases. I haven't seen that since the days of Casper. And I feel like soon the work load in this area will surpass the work load of Casper if the Lord is willing. It is amazing! We were able to teach Camille this week and have Brother and Sister McQuillen present. It seems like Camille really needs someone to talk to so hopefully Sister McQuillen will stop by this week. PawSay is doing really well. It really helps to have his Sister Paw Htoo translate for us. He is doing really well, and we are 98% sure of his baptism this upcoming Saturday! So we are stoked to see him baptized! It will be incredible. We are also working with a guy named Jason. We teach him a few times a week. We actually got him to attend an institute class! Which he seemed to enjoy the fellowship there. Brother and Sister Olsen do a great job with the lessons each week! On Saturday we were able to drive to the small town of Leola, SD (the Rhubarb capitol of the world.) There is a member family there that had a house fire recently. It only fried one side of the house, and nobody was hurt and nothing was really lost. So they were pretty fortunate as far as house fires go. But we got to climb on ladders and rip nails out of the wall, and rip the siding off the house. Lets just say I probably have smokers lung after inhaling all of that ash. We were able to meet with the Hinton boys. They still haven't secured an official baptismal date. They want their Brother to do the baptism. But he needs to get the Aaronic Priesthood before he can baptize them. So it may be a little while. They took us out to lunch in Eureka so that was really nice of them! Sunday was amazing! We had Camille, Jason, PawSay, and the two Hinton Boys were all at Sacrament Meeting! So that is five investigators at church! We were super blessed. The work is really awesome here! It seems like we teach a lot! The Lord is really blessing me with a hard working area for my last six weeks that are coming up soon. Elder Price and I are doing well. I am really helping him stay motivated to work hard, and he is doing an awesome job. I'm looking forward to next transfer. My goal is to walk around and bike around Aberdeen as much as possible so we can drive to the out skirting areas to do work more often. That is my plan of action so far, and I am excited to see how it plays out next transfer. Well thank you all for your letters of support! I really do appreciate it, and all of you! The Church is true! 

Elder Corey Barber

Miracles Happening. 4-20-15

Desr Family and Friends 

                      It has been a very great and eventful week! The warm temperatures are here and it feels awesome! All of the farmers were very happy because we have gotten a little bit of rain this past week. Hopefully we have more to come! Even though this region of South Dakota looks like one giant wetland apparently it's a "dry" year. The wind here is INSANE. When it blows it almost knocks you over! Good thing we don't do a whole lot of walking here I might blow away. The members here are pretty awesome! The longer I am here the more of them I meet, and they are all pretty awesome! It is always funny when were at Dinner appointments they always look at Elder Price and say "I know you're almost done with your mission." And then they look at me and say "So are you new? Is this your first assignment?" And of course I give the response. "Actually Elder Price has been out one month longer than me." So they are always shocked to see two OLD missionaries serving together. This week we had a strait up MIRACLE happen. We have this investigator named Camille. She has come to church once and is seriously investigating the gospel. All of her friends and family are telling her "don't go to the Mormons!" And they tell her all sorts of rumors that we have to clear up. She has a friend that gave her a book that has a whole chapter about Mormons (anti material). She intended to read it and also read the Book of Mormon. One day we were driving by her apartment and we saw her sitting in her car with the door open. I felt like we should go talk to her so I had Elder Price pull over and we talked to her. We had a good conversation for 25 minutes or so and we left. We got a text from her about an hour later saying "well I guess I wont be reading that book my friend gave me. I left my daughter alone in the house while she was napping and apparently she woke up and shredded that book to pieces. And the Book of Mormon was laying beside the shreds peacefully, still open to the page that I left on." It was cool to literally see the Book of Mormon break down the walls of pride. It was a true MIRACLE! And we are meeting with Camille tomorrow night! We hope to put her on date for baptism soon! Another miracle was I survived three meal appointments yesterday. After Church we had our third Sunday potluck. And immediately after that we had a Qurin birthday party we got invited to. And people from Thailand like to feed you well. It was really good food I liked it! And about an hour and a half later we had a dinner appointment with the Vensils. So you could say we were stuffed. We got to visit with Pawsay last night and we had his Sister Paw Htoo translate for us. Which made the lesson really nice because PawSay Doesn't speak English fluently yet. So we knew for sure he was understanding what we were saying. But he is still looking awesome for May 2nd, and he wants the Bishop to baptize him. So there is a lot of awesome things happening here in Aberdeen. Well that is all for this week! I love you all and have a great week!

Elder Barber. 

Grand Forks Zone with Elizabeth Smart UND

Full Week in the New Area 4-13-15

Dear Family and Friends,

                       It has been good to get into the swing of this area! I love it here! This area really keeps us busy! This past week I hit a personal mission record of a 7 lesson day! So it was crazy busy and full! One of the days we went up to Oakes, ND. It is a town that we cover here in Aberdeen. It was fun to get to know the members up there, and teach the investigators up there. We are working with a couple up there named Betty and Jason. They are awesome we just need to see how committed they are before we baptize them. They didn't end up going to church so we will have to follow up with that one! But we also are working in the town of Eureka, SD. In that town we are teaching the Hinton family. The parents are members and I think some of their kids are baptized. But we are working with they two young boys who are 11 and 9. They have been taught everything, but we just need to pin down a date for them. It's hard because the Dad is always out of town. And they are still trying to figure out who will be baptizing them. So we have a lot of work there! Something I love about my mission is you pass through all of these little towns and each one has its own "claim to fame." On our way out to Eureka we passed through this town called Leola, SD. Their claim to fame is they are the "Rhubarb capitol of the world." I have never seen such towns take pride in the littlest things. Leola is a town of maybe 200, and they are the Rhubarb capitol of the whole world supposedly. And then we got to Eureka and Eureka is the hometown to the man who started USA today newspaper. This is clearly stated in Large letters on their town sign. Each town without fail has it's own claim to fame. Aberdeeen is the hometown of the Wizard of Oz. The man who wrote the story of the Wizard of Oz wrote it in a house that you can find just across the street from the Library. It's pretty funny. I am loving the mission! We are trying to work as hard as we can with both of our missions coming to a close. I am thankful that the Lord has given me a strong desire to finish strong! We are still working with Camille! It was awesome we had a great lesson this past week with Camille. We brought Brother McQuillen with us, and she loved that he too was a convert of the Church. And Camille came to Church this past week! She seemed to really enjoy it! And her daughter did really well at being reverent the whole time. We are also working with an investigator named Paw Say. We put him on date for May 2nd. We feel like he will be able to reach that date! So we have a lot of good things happening in our area. There is a lot to keep your head up for! I am thankful for all of your letters and support! I love you all and I hope you have a good week! The church is true!

Love,

Elder Barber

photo Shoot

Starting off Strong 4-6-15

Dear family and friends,

                      This week has been an awesome week! Before I left Grand Forks we had an awesome P-Day. Around 8 O clock we got to go see Elizabeth Smart speak at the U.N.D campus. It was awesome! She really told an inspiring and uplifting story. It made you angry at parts but her outlook on everything is incredible! It was really cool! Afterwards we went and got our planners signed by her, and we also got pictures with her. I am waiting for the picture to be sent to me! It was an awesome way to leave Grand Forks. On Tuesday I got transferred so I went down to Fargo to catch the van to Valley City, ND. I got to work out in Valley City with Elder Edwards for the night. Which was cool because I am good friends with him from the Grand Forks Zone! So it was sweet to be with him again! Aberdeen is pretty sweet! The ward here seems awesome! And we drove by the airport and I saw a Sky West bird chilling at the airport! So it made me especially glad to know I can fly Sky West directly to EVERY area I have served in! So that is really cool! We have a dang nice apartment too. It is really new, and it has a washer and dryer unit in our apartment. So having free laundry is always a plus as a missionary! One thing I have noticed about South Dakota so fat is there is a TON of birds everywhere. I have never seen more birds in my life. Pheasants, ducks, geese, random birds EVERYWHERE. Right behind our apartment is a little marsh where you will always see ducks floating on the water. There is one Mallard duck out there that can quack really loud. I don't think I have every heard a duck quack as loud as he can. You can hear him pretty clearly with all the windows shut and were on the third floor. We have been seeing some awesome success in Aberdeen! We went tracting on my second day here and we hit this one door of a single mom named Camille. She has a daughter who is about four and blind. She was really emotional about the savior. You could tell she had a good relationship with him! She is really looking for change in her life, and she says she is looking for a place to go to church. So we are stoked to be teaching her! I absolutely loved General Conference. I am glad that that one was my last conference in the mission. It seemed to me that this last conference was the hardest one to make it through. Every time I see Salt Lake I can't help but think "there's home!" It was hard to endure the fourth conference. But it gave me peace to know that I will be home for the next one, and I will be in Salt Lake soon enough! I absolutely love being a missionary! I'm not the biggest fan of being away from home and family, but I am thankful for my mission and all the things I have learned. I would do it again if the Lord asked me to! I am stoked to finish my mission as strong as I can! This truly is the work of the Lord! I love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Barber

To the End. 3-30-1

Dear family and friends,

                         We have had an awesome week up here in Grand Forks! This has been such an awesome area! I have truly learned to love the people, and those around me. I feel like I have learned so much here in what seems like a short amount of time (even though it has been 6 months.) On Saturday we had transfer calls go throughout the mission. This transfer call was a little different then the other transfer calls. The transfer calls that were given this time around determined for many who would be staying in the mission, and who would be leaving the mission. On transfer call day around two O clock. Our Zone got hit with a whole bunch of calls. 6/8 companionship's will be experiencing a transfer. Which is a lot! For me the transfer call didn't come with the entire zone. It seemed like it came a little bit later. But on the phone was Elder Lott who congratulated me for the great work the Zone had seen. And he let me know that my new area will be in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I will be serving with Elder Price. This is Elder Prices last six weeks in the mission. So I will be sending him home. And then someone else will replace him to send me home. It will be awesome! The area is teaching around 20 lessons a week, and there is another former Zone Leader serving in the other ward. So I feel like we are going to get work done!! It will be awesome. I know Elder Price from serving around him in Casper, WY. He is a good missionary, and I think we will do well together. He is a spanish missionary so I'm not sure how this is going to work out. But we will see! I am sad to be leaving Grand Forks. I'm going to miss being in a town with such awesome people, and airplanes. But I am thankful for this change. I know the Lord is preparing a wise purpose for me to go to Aberdeen. I am excited to serve to the end there! This past week the new Easter initiative premiered! It is awesome!! I am so thankful for it. I am glad I can use it in my proselyting. I love that video and the message it shares. I love one of the videos final phrases "find him." I love this because it shows people we can't just merely say I follow Christ. It requires action. We must seek him to know him. We can seek him in prayer, we can seek him in our scripture study. I have a firm testimony of seeking after the Lord. I feel like on my mission I have sought after the savior many times. And every time without fail I have found him. I know he lives. I know he loves each one of us. If the atonement was to only save one he still would have suffered it all. I am thankful for my savior this Easter Season. I am thankful for General Conference coming up. What an amazing opportunity we have to listen to men we can call prophets, seers, and revelators. I love this time of year! Well I love you all and I hope you have an excellent week!

Elder Corey Barber