Great news. 4-28-14

Dear family and friends,

                  This has been another end to a great transfer! I added up our totals and we hit 18 member present lessons this past transfer! I hope to get 20 this upcoming transfer! Transfers did do a great number this time! And it even gave us a great surprise here in the Casper Zone! Us and the Casper Mills Elders were at a barbeque out in Bar Nunn. We got a call and it was for another Elder who was being transferred to Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Our phone shortly rang after theirs. And it turns out Elder Hardman is being transferred to Montevideo, Minnesota. My new companion will be Elder Bench who is coming from Montevideo, Minnesota. All I know about him is he is a big time cowboy from Eastern Idaho! He came out with Elder Anderson. I was sad to see Elder Hardman go. He was a hard working missionary who loved this area. He will be missed out here in the Casper 5th! But on Sunday we met with Jeremy and Stephanie. And since Bishop Gallup volunteered the missionaries to perform the baptism that leaves me to baptize Jeremy this Saturday! And we also met with David yesterday! He is an awesome investigator and he is still looking strong for May 31st! We will begin meeting with him twice a week to prepare him for that date! We really are so blessed here in Casper. It will be amazing to live and see how another transfer here will play out! I am very excited about the work here!

                I know I titled the letter "great news". Mainly because there is a lot of great news! I have another announcement that brings great news. A few months ago I informed you all about Elder Parrish. Who lost his parents, and two brothers to carbon monoxide poisoning. He went home for their funerals, and to take care of his family. I have learned that he will be returning to the South Dakota, Rapid City Mission this transfer. And not only to the mission but he will be our new Zone Leader down here in Casper, Wyoming. I am very excited to work again under Elder Parrish as a Zone Leader. I am still in amazement to his choice to come back and serve! I can't even begin to think of the pain he went through. And now he returns to take on the work load of a mission. I marvel at that courage! I am currently with the other Zone Leader Elder Edwards until Elder Parrish gets here. He will arrive here in Casper on Wednesday, and for me Wednesday can't come soon enough. I am very excited to see him again! I got to see Elder Garfield again today! He is a Zone Leader in Rapid City, and they drive the vans through Casper! So it was great to see him for the first time in 5 transfers! I hope you all are doing well this week! I thank you for your prayers, and your letters! Have an amazing week!

Love, Elder Barber 

Because of Him 3-21-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 It has been another great week out here in Casper! We are seeing amazing miracles in our area! This past week we had a goal for five member present lessons and we got four! Which is really good for our  area! We got to meet with a new investigator David yesterday! His fiancees name is Cynthia and she is a member. They are getting married on May 24th by our Casper 5th Ward Bishop. So we are really excited for them! Yesterday we got to meet with David and we taught him the Restoration. We also set him on date for May 31st. So baptism will be a wonderful wedding gift for him! What was really cool is he said "the moment I walked in the door of the church it just felt right!" It is amazing to me that the Holy Spirit can touch someones heart in the matter of seconds. And a few days after attending church he told Cynthia "I want to be baptized". Lucky for us he lives a few streets away from our apartment. Yesterday we met with Jeremy at the Bishops house out by the airport. That was a great lesson, and Jeremy is looking awesome for baptism on May 3rd. This week is transfers so Elder Hardman may be gone or I may be gone! One of us may not get to see these people baptized, we will see! But that's not what matters! What matters is they're getting baptized! 

                                 I was so thankful for the wonderful spirit that we could feel on Easter yesterday! I love watching the video "because of him". It really makes me appreciate the Savior more and his sacrifice. It is my testimony that through the Savior we all can live again. And through the Savior families can be together forever. I hope throughout this year we can remember the Saviors sacrifice for each of us. Because of him we all will live again. I am so thankful for this gospel. And I am thankful to be a missionary in the hastening of the work of salvation. It is my testimony that God lives, and Jesus Christ also lives. They have bodies of flesh and bones that are glorified and perfected. And I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God. I know that the Priesthood has been restored. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and testifies and prophecies of Christ. I know that through his bounteous hand he guides each an every one of us! I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Barber 

An exciting time to be a missionary. 3-14-14

Dear family and friends, 

                                 This has been a great week out here in the Casper 5th ward! We got to teach Jeremy yesterday and he is still looking solid for May 3rd! It really seems like he loves the Gallup family and he loves his missionaries as well. Yesterday in Church we got re-inrtoduced to a lady named Cynthia who is a member, but her fiancee isn't. The exciting part is he wants to take missionary discussions, and get baptized! So we have another part member family that we will be working with! The Lord really is pouring out his blessings on us here in Casper! We got in to teach Hailey for the first time in a few months, and that lesson went good. This week I had agreat time interviewing the Arndt family for their baptism. One of my favorite things to do is the baptismal interviews. They're always very spiritual meetings, and the spirit is always present. The baptism was very spiritual! My testimony of the hastening of the work has grown a lot this week! 

                                 Today when I checked my emails I got an email from Elder Winger (the Elder who replaced me in Devils Lake). He shared with me the pictures of Tanner and Deanna at their baptism. I can still remember the very cold night we tracted into them. It is so rewarding to me as a missionary to see the fruits and blessings of my labors. Just seeing their picture today grew my testimony. We can all change peoples lives for time and all eternity. We just need to simply act. I think back 5 months ago Tanner and Deanna had never heard the Gospel before. And now they are probably waiting out the year to be sealed for all time and eternity. I have a testimony of this gospel that it is true. That the Savior is preparing people all across the World to receive his truth. We all can make the difference. I love you all, and I am thankful for your prayers! I hope you all enjoy this Easter Sunday. I would invite you all to share the message "because of him" on Facebook and post your testimonies with it. What an inspiring message that video brings. I can promise you that even sharing that video and your testimony can change someones life. I love you and have a great week!

Love, Elder Barber  Tanner and Deanna's baptism. 

The importance of member lessons 4-7-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 This has been a wonderful week out here in the Casper 5th ward! We got to teach a potential of ours Alisha and we brought Sister Lipp to fellowship her. They got a long great! It was very sad for us to hear after the lesson that Sister Lipp will soon be moving to Montana. Elder Hardman and Brother Roberts got to go back and teach Alisha the second time. She told them that an anti-Mormon preacher guy told her to stop meeting with the missionaries and get rid of the Book of Mormon. So on her way home she threw the Book of Mormon out the car window. Hopefully that was an inspired throw. She did want another copy and promised not to do that again. And she said she would like to continue meeting with us. We have been meeting a part member family Roy is a less active member and Echo is his girlfriend who lives with him. Echo is pretty solid and wants to get baptized, but Roy just needs to marry her. They don't know when they will actually get married so we will be teaching them and getting them to marriage. We have a potential named David who wants to read the Book of Mormon. It is just hard to get through the whole lesson and teach him. But we will keep trying back! We got to meet with Jeremy again last night! We had dinner with him and Stephanie at the Munger's home. It was a good lesson. We taught the Law of Chastity! So it was as good as the Law of Chastity can get. Luckily for Jeremy he is already married so no big deal. 

                                The past week we have really been shooting hard for getting members at our lessons! We set a goal for five member present lessons and we were motivated to achieve that goal! We actually did hit our goal for the week! It was a lot of member present lessons! We hope to get the members more involved in our teaching! It was amazing to see Heavenly Father help us achieve that goal. Members play such an important role in the conversion of investigators. The ideal setting would be to have the members teach and have the missionaries testify. And then have the member extend the invitation. If missionary work was to work like that all around the world we would see an amazing growth in secure converts world-wide. I can personally testify that members make the difference in this work. We are in the hastening of our Heavenly Fathers work. It was a blessing to hear modern day Prophets this past weekend. What a blessing it is to have them in our lives. I hope we can all re-watch and re-read those inspired sermons. Happy Birthday to Blake this past week! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thank you for your prayers and support. I love you all!

Love, Elder Barber 

Becoming all you need to be. 3-31-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 It has been another wonderful week out here in the mission! There are a lot of great things happening because of the grace of the Lord in our area. This past week we went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. What prompted this exchange is we wanted to introduce the YSA Elders (the Zone Leaders) to Bri our on date investigator who is nineteen years old. We had a great lesson! The spirit confirmed to me in the lesson that she would progress better in the YSA ward. So we turned her over to them. She is still looking forward to April 12th as her baptismal date! But it will be with them and not with us. But as long as she comes unto Christ it does not matter where she gets baptized! We will be attending her baptism anyway. This week we got to meet with Bill and his member friend from Syracuse, Utah John. I really wish John would move from Syracuse, Utah to Casper! He is a perfect member missionary for Bill! But we met at the Ihop and John talked to him about being baptized! It was probably the most spirit felt in an Ihop in history! We hope to get Bill some fellowship that lives here in Casper! We hope to accomplish that this week! Bill has a strong desire for the truth and he can recognize the Holy Spirit really well! He goes and studies the book of Mormon on the steps of the Stake Center. He says he "feels peace" when he studies the Book of Mormon there. We just need to get him to come to church. He is running his office all by himself right now so work is keeping him really busy! But we will keep working with him! 

                                This week I have really been trying to focus on who I need to become as a missionary. I have to commonly ask myself "Am I giving my all to the Lord?" or "Is there anyway that I could give him more?". As a missionary there is always room for improvement! And we can relate that to our own personal lives. Are we being the best members of His Church that we can be? Is there any room for improvement? I hope that we can all watch General Conference this week, and listen to the Modern Day Prophets and their inspired messages. As we watch I hope we can take personal note of the Spirit and what it is telling us we need to improve on. I hope we can take there challenges and apply them to our personal lives. In the MTC there was a Sister Speaker that spoke of the song "I am a Child of God". And in that song she changed the Lyrics from "teach me all that I must do" to "teach me all that I must be, to live with him some day". I pray this week as we watch conference we can all figure out who we must be. And become who we need to be. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet of God. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. How blessed we are as his children in these latter days to live in the fullness of times. I know that Christ lives, and he loves us. I know that God is our Heavenly Father, and will never forsake us. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Love, Elder Barber 

Warming up 3-10-14

Dear family and friends,

                                This past week has been a really warm and wonderful week to be a missionary! It is great to walk outside and feel the nice 50's or 40's! It is definitely suit coat weather outside! This past week was a pretty good teaching week! We got to meet with Maria again. We thought she was going to drop us. But we gave her a large print Book of Mormon and she looked happy to get it! And we committed her to come to church and she fell off the wagon on that! We even had a ride lined up with a fellowshipper. But we will visit her this week and see if she has concerns about coming to church. Ever since we began teaching her she says she has been going back to the Catholic church. We will see how things go! We haven't been able to meet with Bree due to their homes illness! We hope by tomorrow she will be feeling better and be awake when we go over! We got an invitation to go do a service project and road trip out to Martins Cove this Wednesday! Me and Elder Hardman are excited for that! They needed eight missionaries and me and him got raffled in to go! So we are very excited about that! Last night we got to meet with a member Stephanie (who just recently moved here) and her husband Jeremy (who is an investigator now). We had a great lesson out at our bishops home! And we are going to be meeting with them every Sunday! We are very excited to teach him! You know he is a good investigator if he already owns an LDS Scripture Quad. 

                              I have been very humbled this past week. They always say the nine month mark is the hardest month mark to hit in the mission. Mainly because it feels like your mission is going to last for eternity, and the homesickness increases! How true all of that is! But I heard a quote this week this week! "The Lord cannot give us everything, if we don't give him everything to work with". I know that as I pass my nine month mark and keep pressing forward in this great work that the time will sadly fly by. I so far have loved my mission and there is no where else I would rather be! This truly is his work! I hope we all can give the Lord everything to work with! I love you all and have an awesome week!

Love, Elder Barber 

Casper Plague 3-3-14

Dear family and friends,

                                 It has been a great week this week! We were pretty much home confined from Wednesday until the end of the week! I had a cold last week, and then Elder Hardman caught a really bad one! So we were confined in the home for three days. And then on Sunday I came down with it. Except I have the medication which makes it a lot better. Elder Hardman didn't have the medication and he is still trying to get over it. So hopefully this passes soon! Lucky for us we were sick on the really cold and blizzard day the blew through Casper. We did get to meet with Maria (the lady who lives across the street from the ward mission leader). We got members at both her lessons, but she still has concerns for coming to church! We didn't get to meet with Bree this week. Her house was really sick and we avoided that. So we will be meeting with her tomorrow. We met with Tammy and Jim Bob. They are still kicking the Word of Wisdom. But that is about it for the week. You don't have to worry about me here in Casper our meal calendar gets filled every week! The ward here is awesome and they are really kind to us missionaries. 

                               It has been a really spiritual week this week. We had a fast and testimony meeting yesterday that was pretty good! I love the first Sunday of the month! It is always amazing to be sitting in an atmosphere where the Spirit can speak personally to your heart. I hope that your fast and testimony meetings were great as well! It is amazing to me how fast time flies out here in the field and how fast this transfer cycle has gone. We are living in week 5 right now of the transfer. It is crazy to think that next transfer I only have ten left out of the seventeen. And then just wait one more transfer after that and I officially hit the single digits of transfers left. So far my mission has grown me so much! There is no other place that anyone can grow more! Even though you face trials great times are always just around the corner. We have to enjoy the lives that we live, and live in the moment. And even though some moments are tough. Great moments are surely around the bend. I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Barber