Wednesday, November 26, 2014

WELCOME HOME ELDER BARKER!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, November 24, 2014

Querido Família,

Só falta dois dias! Estou muito animado ver todos vocês.

Can´t wait to see you all. Any last requests? Did you get the email from E. Dean? I´ll be arriving in SLC at 10:27 am on Wednesday.

So, Dean asked if I could get some brazilian clothes for his kids. I´ll do my best, but there is not really `traditional` clothes, I´ll try to get some indian stuff.

Love you all. Just got out of my interview with Pres. Dalton. Pretty crazy. See you soon!

 

Elder Barker

Monday, November 17, 2014

Dear family,

I love you all soo much. I´m excited to see you too! I´ll be flying home on the 25th and I´ll get there on the 26th. So, don´t worry about a thing ;) So Monte already got married or is engaged? I´m confused. 

The weather has been great these last few weeks, it´s a little warm for my liking, but I can´t complain.

I´ll be visiting recent converts today and on Sunday I´ll get to go again, it´ll be really cool to see people from my past areas. 

Great things are happening here and we have three baptisms planned for this last week. It´s going to be a great way to finish my mission.

Next week, I think I´ll just send a quick message from the office, so if there is anything you need to send, I´ll still be able to read it next week.

 This has been the absolute best experience of my life. I´m so grateful that I have had this opportunity. I love these people, love this country, love the food and most of all I love the eternal truths that I have taught for the last two years. I know that this church is the restored church of our Lord Jesus Christ. He really lives. The doctrine and organization are perfect. It is to bless our families and bring about eternal life. How blessed we are. There is no better work than this. The Lord gives His spirit to those who are in the front lines of the battle, the people who share the gospel! That´s one of the reasons that I will ALWAYS be a missionary. 

One idea I had is to start inviting a lot of people to church for the 30th of November. Use my talk as an excuse to invite people that have never visited, it´ll be a good opportunity for them to get to know the church.

I love you all! I´m very excited to see you here in a few short days :)

 Elder Barker

Monday, November 10, 2014

Dear Family,

Well we had another fantastic week. I love this work. We´re seeing a lot of results in the ward from reactivation and retention. The bishop couldn´t be happier. Really good things happening. 

Meg´s engaged?! Good for her! That´s great, is Beau getting close as well? I guess I´ll be home for the wedding... sweet.

We´ve had a dry, dry year here in São Paulo. It hasn´t rained hard in a really long time, but apparently in other parts of Brasil they are flooding. So, the area presidency sent a letter asking all members in Brasil to participate in a special fast this weekend to ask for rain in the dry places. It´ll be cool to be a part of it. I haven´t been affected by it, but a lot of people go two or three days without water, get water for a couple days and then go without again. 

A mission is great because you learn to feel what others are feeling. When investigators and recent converts go through conversion I feel it as well. When they succeed we´re happy and when they quit we´re devestated. It´s actually quite the emotional roller coaster. We´re teaching a family that has gone through a lot. They love the church because it´s the only place they´ve felt real peace. The three teenagers (Sabrina, Samara and Alex)  went to a church dance on Saturday and they said that they loved it. They had never been to such a clean dance or had healthy fun. The gospel may seem to restrict us sometimes, but it really does set us free. The commandments and Jesus Christ are the only path of true, lasting happiness. It´s incredible.

Well I love y´all. (E. Fisher´s got me saying y´all) 

Is it really at this point? I have to admit, it´s a little bit hard for me to accept the fact that I´ll be leaving soon. I´m sure it´ll sink in at some point.

See you soon!

 Elder Barker

P.s. Mom, I´ll talk to the secretary about the travel plans, you don´t need to be concerned :)

 

Monday, November 3, 2014

Dear Family,

I am so very blessed. I love you all so much. Thank you for your emails and words of support and encouragement. A mission is really hard for some people, but it´s the easiest thing in the world for me because I have all of you back home rooting for me! I had an incredible week. I´m learning so much about faith. Pres. Dalton let everyone read Calling Down the Powers of Heaven by Grant Von Harrison. I´ve been studying it for a while now and it has really helped me exercise faith as a principle of power. There are some things that are out of our control, but there are many, many things that can be controlled by the powers of heaven. Something interesting I´ve learned is that the Lord will always try our faith. He wants to see how bad we want it, he wants us to depend on Him, and he wants us to be purified, be cleansed and grow in the process. Tribulations are blessings!

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope" Romans 5: 3-4 

I remembered Elder Uchtdorf´s talk about being grateful in all circumstances. The Lord has a perfect plan. He is letting us participate in this mortal life. We are already eternally indebted to Him for His son Jesus Christ and the atonement. He has been so good to us. We should thank Him for the good times and for the hard times. He really loves us.

We have some great people that will be baptized this weekend. One family, specifically, is going to be very special. They are family members of a young woman who has been going to church on her own for the last three years. Her family just barely started to accept the church and most of them will be baptized this weekend. Her aunt, cousin and sisters. Her parents will just take a little longer because we had to mark their wedding this last weekend, so they won´t be baptized until December. The church is true!
Love you all!

Elder Barker

"As we act in faith we often find that the blessings of the Lord are much different than we expected, but much better than we imagined." - Elder Neil L. Anderson

I forgot to tell B-ridge happy birthday! Happy Birthday little brother, hope you had a great one! Now you can do home teaching visits, yess. (And go to stake dances ;) )

Love you!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Dear Family,

Loved the pics! Thank you for sending them. A good looking family. Could you ask the teenage boys to stop growing so much. Jesse? Carson? Bridger? Those aren´t the little boys that I remember. 

So, I´m short on time today, but I´m loving life. I can´t think of a better place or way to end my mission. We´re having great success. The Lord is really blessing us and great things are happening in our ward. The attendance got up to 110 this last weekend, which is great for this ward!

This weekend was election week in Brasil. It´s mandatory to vote here and everyone has to go on the same day, Sunday. So, there were some investigators that tried using that as an excuse, but we still got a good number of people to go to sacrament meeting. 

President Dalton announced a mission tour that Interlagos will have on the 26th and 27th of November. The Area President of Brasil, Claudio R.M. Costa is coming. How cruel. And on that same weekend, in this stake, another general authority is coming to call the new stake president. Bad timing.

We had success in reactivation this last week, which was great. A woman that hasn´t gone to church in three years. We visited her on Saturday night, and she went to church Sunday morning with her husband and kids that aren´t members. Her name is Simone, and she said that the kids said that they have to go to church EVERY week now. We were very happy to see them there, and the son and husband accepted baptismal dates in November!

This is such a great work. Love you all.

Have a great week!

 Elder Barker

 

Temple trip with recent converts and investigators

 

Monday, October 20, 2014

Dear family,

How are all of you? Sounds like the regional conference was pretty cool. Getting ready for Halloween festivities? I´m doing fantastic in my new area. I´m in Vila Natal (Christmas Village) with E. Fisher. We live with the Stake President, he´s also a great guy. I couldn´t ask for anything more. I can´t think of a better way to finish my mission. We´re already having a lot of success together.

 Elder Fisher is from Houston, Texas, but he actually lived in Evanston when he was really little. He says he has family there, Van Langens? I didn´t recognize the name, but maybe you will. He´s very talented, he plays piano and sang in the BYU men´s choir. We get along really well. 

 Yesterday, we had a surprise at sacrament meeting. Paulo, a guy that we taught one time showed up at church all on his own. His brother (Moisés)  is a member, but didn´t go on Sunday. So, Paulo went walking by himself. He´s only 18, but he´s really intelligent. He used to go to a different church, but said he prayed last night and felt that he should go. He loved church, went to an FHE last night and we have another appointment with him tonight. He said that he´s had trouble with the word of wisdom lately and that he had been feeling guilty. But he felt a feeling of peace and tranquility at the church. He gladly accepted a baptismal date. We´re going to teach the rest of his family tonight, including Moisés.

I could go on and on about the great people that we´re teaching, but it´s sufficient to say that the Lord is preparing His children. The elect of the Lord really recognize us as representatives of Jesus Christ. I could do this for the rest of my life. I love this work. 

 Heavenly Father loves all of His children. It truly is incredible.

 The work goes on!

 Love, Elder Barker

 

 

 

Elder Fisher

Baptism, last area