One more month. 5-26-15

Dear Family and Friends,

                   It has been an awesome week! I can't believe today is my 23 month mark out of 24. That absolutely blows my mind. I never thought I would be able to say that, but the day is here. We had such a sweet Zone Conference! It is always a trip to get to Fargo from Aberdeen. It is a total three hour drive one way. It was such a beautiful drive up on Wednesday. There was a sweet lake that I really enjoyed driving next to. It's called Buffalo Lake, SD. For some reason it was totally beautiful the day we were driving through. But on the way back it was cloudy so it wasn't as beautiful on the way back. But we had an awesome Zone Conference. The spirit was VERY STRONG. Like after the meeting I could feel the spirit burning in my heart for the rest of the day. It was crazy. I got to give my "final testimony" to my fellow missionaries. I don't know why but I was so nervous to get up and bear my testimony. I kept thinking to myself "this is the last testimony I get to bear to my fellow missionaries." But I prayed that I would be able to loose my nerves, and bear a strong testimony. And when I got up I was totally fine and I felt like it went over wonderfully. I got to go on exchanges with Elder Eckley in Fargo for a couple of days. It was awesome to be serving in the Zone Leader position again! It totally brought me back for a couple of days. It was good to spend time with Elder Eckley. He goes home one transfer after I do. So it was good to talk to someone who is in the same boat as I. But we had a great teaching week this past week! So far we have hit 22 lessons each week! The Lord is truly blessing us! This week will fly by. And we have another trip to Fargo on Friday June 5th for my last Zone Training Meeting. It is crazy how fast it will be from right now to then. But I love the work pace in this area. It truly is helping me finish my mission the way I have always wanted to. Well I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Barber

The Merge. 5-18-15

     Dear family and Friends,      

           Well we are off to the start of the last transfer and week 1 is in the books forever! Elder Price and I worked hard all the way up until Thursday, and then we sent him and Elder Winger to the van. So they are now officially home, and my last transfer has officially begun. So far it has been pretty good! And it has been raining a TON here. I feel like the Lord is really blessing this land. The farmers really needed it around here. They may have been praying for rain a little too much because it doesn't seem to be letting up. So far Today there hasn't been any, but I don't want to speak too soon. I am ready for summer to arrive! It feels like it showed it's face for about a week and winter is indecisive as always. So I may not get another summer on my mission. Maybe I will just finish in the cold rain. But that's alright! It has been pretty busy taking on the other areas work load. It seems like we are currently in the "lets figure out how we're going to do this" stage. And we have Zone Conference coming up this week so we probably wont figure this thing out until week 3 of the transfer possibly week 4. Lately it has been a tad bit discouraging with investigators falling through. It seems like getting in with people is becoming more and more difficult. Hopefully it becomes a little more easy to teach people. It seems like the adversary is really playing a role with our investigators. But nevertheless we will continue to work hard and try to do our part. I personally feel like you can sometimes relate your mission to the Saviors life. I feel like for a lot of missionaries the final transfer of their mission can be a trudge to the finish. I feel like the Lord is putting me through the final trial of my mission. I know this final transfer will be amazing, but I personally feel like it will go out with a final battle. But I know if I follow the Lord to the end he will assist me to win the battle. We are still teaching over 20 lessons a week. Which is awesome! But they are all hard fought lessons. In other words we have to fight to get there. But I love my calling no matter what struggles we are going through. Well that is about all for the week! I love you all and have a great one!

Elder Corey Barber

Peace Be a Still. 5-4-15

Dear family and friends,

                Thank you all for your letters! May is here! I can't believe it is here! I think it will be even more unbelievable when June gets here. But for now May will do! Hanging above my study desk is a calendar that has very beautiful scenes from around the world. Each picture scene on the calendar has a beautiful picture to accompany the time and season of the year. It also has inspirational Christian quotes on each page. For the Month of May the quote is "When wait patiently on the Lord we are trusting in His Love." For the Month of June I can't recall the exact quote but just to paraphrase it states "Pretty soon the winds and waves will cease, and all will be calm again." Sometimes I lead myself to believe that these quotes were inspired for me, and this time of my life. It seems that the Lord is telling me subliminally (or clearly) "I know it's May but be patient and trust in my love." And for the month of June it seems it is telling me "The winds and waves may be rough right now (as they have been for the past two years) but hang in there. Soon it will all be calm again." I know that the mission brings forth trials. It has it's times where the tempest of the work may toss you around. And it has it's times of peace and happiness. This past weekend it seems like it is one of those times where it tosses you around a little bit. We were on exchanges with the other Elders here in Aberdeen. Elder Mitchell is our District Leader and he was going to interview Paw Say for his baptism. He was able to interview Paw Say but eventually Paw Say revealed that he did not feel ready at this time for baptism. But on the bright side he still wants to meet with us to learn more. I'm not sure exactly what his concern is. I think he believes he needs to be perfect after he is baptized. And he is not sure if that is the kind of commitment he is ready for at this time. Which I can truly admire as discouraging as it can be. I would rather have him be baptized knowing what he is getting into rather than just trying to please the crowd. We also got a text from Camille on Saturday sharing with us that her friend Timmy told her three scriptures from the Bible that "disprove" the Book of Mormon. But she wants Elder Price and I to meet with Timmy and herself this upcoming week. She said Timmy is willing to hear us out (which is the good thing). I'm sure he will bring up concerns with the Book of Mormon, but we will do our best to help him to address those concerns. So it was a week of trial for us. On the bright side we reached our peak of lessons this transfer. So we were super busy teaching! 

                 While serving in Grand Forks we shared an apartment with Elder Dutton and Elder Lee. Elder Dutton had a box of these beautiful paintings of the Savior that the artist himself wanted him to give out on his mission. Elder Dutton told Elder Cannon and I we could both have one. I picked out the picture of the Savior calming the tempest. When I picked it out I told myself "I want this picture to remind me of who I need to turn to to calm the storm." I have had many moments since then where the Savior had calmed the storm for me. I can remember one occasion in Grand Forks where Elder Smith and I were out street contacting. And we saw a man underneath his car doing maintenance." We approached him and started talking to him. He was an older man in his sixties. He got up and started talking to us. Instantly he told us he was Lutheran and started bashing our Church. He told us how the Book of Mormon was thought up, and how "John Smith" was either telling half the truth or he was a complete liar. And if any of you know me I love the Prophet Joseph Smith and get extremely fired up when anyone disgraces his name. I have never felt such extreme anger in myself before. You could probably say the tempest of my heart was extremely stormy and intense. And then the weirdest thing happened, peace overcame me. I remember as Elder Smith and I opened our mouths we testified of the Savior. And instantly the storm in my heart was calmed. I have a testimony that day that the Savior filled my heart with his love and whispered to my heart "Peace, be still." We weren't able to change this mans mind, but that day I walked away knowing in my heart that the Savior can calm any storm. And this is his work. I know his peace can fill each and every one of your lives. He is our redeemer, and he will always calm the storm. 

Love, Elder Barber 

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