Just a few things to clear up a few of his comments………..Bridger is going to try wrestling, that is if I can’t talk him out of it by tomorrow because he is starting jr jazz and he has a hard enough time keeping up on school work.  Howard Peterson is an old cowboy who Will home taught for 5 years or so, he passed away Saturday, he loved Will, in fact we just found out today that Will is an honorary pall bearer (made me cry). 

 

Family!

Happy new year! I love you all so much. The new year here wasn't very exciting... Just another day, but there was some good food and stuff. So apparently everybody is deciding to get sick here all at the same time. There's a bad flu or something going around and they canceled the devotional tonight because so many people are catching it. I feel fine and they gave me a flu shot when I got here so I think I'll be alright. Good to hear Kenz got a win, good for them! She's going to have a good season. I love to hear about the family. I'm excited for Bridge, hope he likes it. Is he still going to play basketball? I still haven't heard what everyone got for Christmas. Sounds like New Year's Eve was fun with the Walkers. I love them so much. It is so hard to hear about Howard. He is an amazing man and I love him and Bev both. He is the kind of man I aspire to be one day. I know that the plan of salvation is real and we'll see him again someday. Please tell Bev I love her and miss her. I am very excited to hear about Kayden, when does he enter the MTC? And I can't wait for Isaac to get here next week! I also have some of my good friends from college coming in tomorrow, so I'm stoked about that. I'll make sure and write Ty tonight. Is there anyone else I need to write? I don't know what's up, but I've actually lost weight since I've been here. Don't worry, I'm eating healthy and still work out a little. Elder Watt got re-assigned to Burmingham, Alabama. He was a really cool guy. He's from Idaho and we became pretty good friends right away. There's still no word on Visas for any of us, but I'm not too worried about it. It's all gonna work out. I'm still in a Trio with Elder Bowers and Elder Steadman and it's going great. They are great men and examples. I finished the Book of Mormon today, so that's a new record for me. I love that book and can promise you that it is true! All of my siblings, please read the Book of Mormon. You're not too young to understand it and you'll learn so much from the stories and teachings in it. I had a pretty neat experience the other day with one of my 'investigators'. We were teaching the first lesson and we started talking about Joseph Smith and  the first vision. I wasn't very confident in my memorization of it, and was a little bit nervous to say it to him, but it was amazing. Once I started talking I just felt the spirit very strongly and all of the words flowed out so easy. It was crazy, it actually sounded like I spoke Portuguese a little bit. The rest of the lesson went great after that point and all the words seemed to be coming easy. After the lesson I reflected back on what had just happened and couldn't help but cry. I know it sounds dumb with mock investigators in the MTC, but I just feel so blessed to be serving a mission and cannot wait to bring the gospel to people in the world. I love you all, write me some letters. I'll talk to you soon.

 

Elder, Barker