Dear family and friends,
What a wonderful week we had last week! We were able to prepare Janessa for her baptism. She was excited all the way to the day of Saturday! And on Saturday we were blessed to see her enter into the waters of baptism. It was a very spiritual experience! I was then able to confirm Janessa in sacrament meeting in the Casper 5th ward on Sunday. I will never forget the wonderful experiences I had in the Casper 5th ward. I had a lot of great memories serving in the 5th ward. I loved serving with the member. I loved the investigators and the less actives I served with. But like all great things they have to end. On Saturday I was anticipating a call from the Assistants. As we were about to head out to go try some less actives I received a call from the assistant to the President Elder Kirton. We had a little bit of small talk about the District meeting of mine that he attended. He told me that on behalf of President Anderson he wanted to thank me for the hard work I had put into the District and the area. I then asked him the exciting question of "Well, where am I going?" He told me I would be serving in the Grand Forks Second Ward. My jaw almost hit the floor with shock and extreme excitement. I have been longing to come back to the Devils Lake/Grand Forks area for a long time. He told me I will be serving as a Zone Leader, and opening up the Grand Forks Zone!! He then told me my companion would be Elder Cannon. Elder Cannon and I served here this time last year when I was in Devils Lake. He was my District Leader in Grand Forks for two transfers and then I became a District Leader following him. When I heard it was Elder Cannon I might have caused Elder Kirton to lose his hearing. As I said goodbye to all those in Casper it still wasn't easy. But when I got on that train I was more stoked than I have ever been! I got to ride with my favorite Zone Leader Elder Parrish pretty much the whole way. He was my Zone Leader for a total of 9 transfers. Which is a year in the mission field. It was like saying goodbye to a best friend you know you wont see for 8 months! It was very hard. But Elder Cannon and I were together all the way from Rapid City to Grand Forks. As we both pulled into this familiar area it was fun to see all the billboards we recognized all the stores. I got to see the Devils Lake Highway sign which excited me to get out there some day. But we got here and it turns out the Elders who have the super nice apartment with two bathrooms want to be placed in another apartment closer to their area. So we get the super nice apartment! But for now were sharing the super nice apartment and sleeping on the rock hard floor. We are now very motivated to find them a new apartment. There are a lot of things I would rather do than sleep on that rock hard floor again. But I will probably have to spend the night on it tonight. On the transfer van I was talking to an Elder who had served in Devils Lake after me and he said Donnada might be getting baptized here pretty soon. Bruce is getting close to marrying her! So you can almost guarantee I will be there! Even if I have to walk the 90 miles to Devils Lake. I am excited to serve here as a Zone Leader. Elder Kirton told us we were making history by opening up this zone, and I believe him. We got a lot of things to do to get this organized but Elder Cannon is an awesome Leader and I have learned well from the Zone Leaders my whole mission. I am also excited to be travelling to Rapid City once a month for Missionary Leadership Conference (MLC). Well I hope all is well at home! I am sorry I had to leave you hanging a few days! Just know that I'm doing fine, and I'm back in my beloved area of North Eastern North Dakota. I love you all have a great week!Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Push Back 9-29-14
Dear family and friends,
This has been a great week! And luckily for us we have not had any more snow! We actually have had some really great temperatures! This week we were able to meet with Janessa a few times. Before our first visit with her Elder Bench and I both felt that we should push her date back a little ways. So when we sat down with her she told us that she wont be able to be baptized this week because she was going to be out of town. We also told her that she needs to be living the Word of Wisdom, and the law of Chastity. She also had a tragedy happen in her life this week. We were able to give her a priesthood blessing, and I was the one who performed the blessing. It was absolutely amazing. It was one of those blessings where you didn't know where the words were coming from, but when it was over it was hard to have dry eyes. It really built my testimony in Priesthood blessings. We had an awesome success meeting with Monty a couple times this week! He is still struggling with the Word of Wisdom. We taught him about tithing this past week. It is really funny trying to teach Monty because you can get so side tracked so fast! We were teaching about tithing and next thing we know he's bringing out his bow and arrow to show us. So it is hard to keep him on task, but we will find a way I'm sure. I was on exchanges with Elder Black on Thursday in our area, and we didn't have a dinner appointment. Which for Casper is quite a shocker. A thought came to me to go ask Ronald for a dinner appointment, but also commit him to invite his neighbor Rose to dinner. So we acted on it as soon as we could. Ronald accepted having us over for Dinner, and he also accepted the commitment to invite Rose. He invited her and she accepted! It was awesome just to fellowship her for the evening. We were able to share a message with her about having Faith in Jesus Christ. It was awesome! Though she isn't investigating she now knows that we worship Christ and he is the Center of our Religion. We had great support from our members this past week! We taught nine member present lessons!! It was an awesome week! Well that is about all for this week! I hope you all have a great week!Love, Elder Barber
Know Where We Face 10-6-14
Dear Family and Friends,
Thank you for all of your letters this week! It has been a great week out here! This week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Nixon who is from St. George. He lives on the opposite side of town kind of by the In-N-Out Burger. He is an awesome Elder to be with! We had a lot of fun on that exchange. He wants to make a list of fun things to do when he gets back! He is awesome! When I was on exchanges with Elder Nixon we got to teach Janessa. She reported to us that she had relapsed into smoking and drinking tea due to some stress she was going through. But she said she is done, and I believe she is still clean! So that is good. It is fun to see how excited she is! When Elder Bench and I were teaching her this week I was called upon to say the opening prayer. In this prayer I asked Heavenly Father to help Janessa to prepare for her baptismal date. When I said the word "Baptismal date" she kind of squealed for excitement, and tried to contain her excitement. It's amazing to see her excitement for this baptism! And we are excited as well we just got to help her stay clean this week and forever after that! We got to teach Monty this week, and we committed him to watch conference! And he kept that commitment so he is progressing along! This week in Conference we as a zone were challenged to ponder the question "How can I contribute to the zone to help it be more unified?" As I pondered this question the talk "Know where we face" (given by Elder Lynn G. Robbins at the Saturday Morning Session) stuck out to me! I had to ask myself "Do I know where I face as a missionary?" I could think through some things that I did well, and also that I need to work on. I hope we all can ask ourselves the question of "Do I know where I face?" Some questions to ponder could be "When I have an opportunity to share the gospel, do I do it? " "Do I reach out and help others in need?" These questions can help us know where we face in life, and whose side we stand on. It is crazy to think that it has been two years since that lowering of the age for missionaries. The world has been affected for good because of that announcement. When that announcement was made I started telling everybody "before the conference the mission seemed off in the distance, and now I am staring down the barrel over night." And now here I am two years later and I am staring down the barrel of coming home. Sure it wont happen for 8 1/2 months. But the time is slowly trickling away from me. It is weird to think that by next General Conference how little of time I will have. But for right now I need to know where I face and keep serving. I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!
Love, Elder Barber
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Early Winter. 9-15-14
Dear family and friends
It has been a great week out here in Casper! September 11th sure brought us a nice surprise from Winter! Around 6:30 A.M it was like misting outside and it was really cold! And then it quickly turned to sleet, and then of course SNOW. It was RIDICULOUS! Snow cannot be flying this early in the season. The ground was pretty hot from the summer season so it didn't start sticking until about 5 or 6. But it snowed ALL DAY LONG! It was crazy! If it was winter time we at least would have gotten a foot of snow! It was crazy! But now it is back to good temperatures! So we still get to see a nice transition into fall (at least we hope so 
) But this week was a pretty awesome week! We are working with Janessa and she made the personal goal of being done with smoking by last Sunday. We are going to follow up with her tonight about how it's going. Her baptism is on Saturday the 20th so we hope she can make it! Her boyfriend Justin is still here and wont be leaving until Thursday. We love Justin don't get me wrong, but she does need to be living the Law of Chastity to its fullest. But were hoping and praying she gets baptized this Saturday. I guess you will have to wait and see what happens next Monday. I am sorry to leave you all in suspense. If it makes you feel any better I will be in suspense for most the week too! Monty was supposed to be baptized this week, but we pushed him back to October 18th! He told us he wasn't going to be able to make it any way because he will be working this whole weekend, and he still needs to be living certain commandments before baptism. But we are pretty confident he will make that Date! We have been working with Ronald lately the less active. We have really been going over there a lot to help him prepare for the temple. When I first got to this area we thought it was impossible to ever get him to come to Church. And now he is coming pretty regularly, and he is preparing to enter the temple. This last Sunday he even set up a time where he could talk to Bishop Gallup about going to the temple. The Lord has really been blessing us! Even if he did send snow this week I am confident that he loves us and he supports the work that we are doing! Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Love, Elder Barber
Starting the Transfer Strong. 9-8-14
Dear family and friends,
This has been a great weak out here in the Casper 5th ward! It was weird starting off another transfer in Casper. I will try and enjoy this area as much as possible though the members are great, and I know there is a work for me to do. This past week we had a meeting set up with Monty McDaniel. We were just a tad late to the lesson, and he called us up asking "are you coming? I have questions!" We apologized for our delay and got on our bikes and cruised on over to his apartment. When we got there he reported to us that he had been reading in the Book of Mormon. He was re-reading 1st Nephi so he could better comprehend it. While he was reading the overview of 1st Nephi at the beginning of the Book he got caught up on "The Daughters of Ishmael". He wanted to know who the Daughters of Ishmael were. So we had to give him a little overview of 1st Nephi. But it was awesome that he was reading and actually putting forth an effort! We taught Monty about the Word of Wisdom and he's got some things he will have to work through before baptism. But he has a strong desire to come to Church and he feels that this is all true! We have been teaching Janessa this past week! She is still doing pretty well! Recently her boyfriend Justin has returned from Job Core in Montana and is living in the same house as her. But he should be going back up to Montana soon. They assure us that there is no Chastity issues right now. But we will see how things will play out over the next couple of weeks. Well that is about all for this week! It is great to hear that you are all doing well. I hope the rains don't wash you all away this week! Love, Elder Barber
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Defying the odds. 9-2-14
Dear Family and Friends,
It has been another wonderful end of a great Transfer in Casper, Wyoming. This week we were able to teach Monty twice! Which was really awesome because sometimes we are lucky to only see him once! Aaron our recent convert was able to fellowship him on both visits! In each visit we hard invited Monty to come to Church! He kept telling us "I will have to get my nice suit out". And on Sunday Monty came to Church in that nice suit! It was way cool! He told us after the meeting that he wanted to come to Church each week! So hopefully we start seeing him every week! Janessa is still looking forward to her baptismal date on September 20th! We were able to meet with her twice this week as well! We are really excited to see her get baptized! We are still working with her to get over her Word of Wisdom issues. This past Saturday were transfer calls. We had the Casper Mills Elders come pick us up to go take a media time. While we were getting ready to walk out the door we heard a phone announce that it was getting a call from one of the Assistants. It was the Casper Mills phone. Elder Wood got a call to go up to Fargo to be in an area. I knew that they usually call 5th ward in order (so if one fifth ward cell phone gets a transfer call the other phone will get one shortly after.) I expected that phone to ring, but it never rang. So it turns out I will be staying out here in Casper for another transfer. Elder Bench will be my longest lasting companion. I know that at times missionaries can get what we call "area trunky." But I know that the Lord has a purpose for me staying here. Though I can't immediately see that purpose I can trust that it is there. I am excited to hopefully see a couple of baptisms before this transfer is over. I think every member in the 5th wards jaw hit the floor to hear that I am still going to be here for another six weeks. I am truly excited for these six weeks because I know that I will learn a lot and continue to have uplifting experiences! So now is the time to get to work, and when a transfer call comes it will come! I hope you all have a great week! I love you!
Love Elder Barber
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