4/14/14
Hey Dad
So I don't have much time today to email but I will start by saying that I am staying in my area, but Elder Taylor is leaving tomorrow so I'm taking over again, I kinda hope I'm still junior comp again honestly because I still feel brand new. I enjoyed hearing Grandpa and I really miss him. This week was a bit more lesson orientated because I just was tired of not teaching basically.
So Tuesday we went on 2 exchanges; 1 with the zone leaders (Elder Barker & Mansell, I went with the latter) and 2nd with the district leader Elder Mason, who stayed in the area with me.
We were able to have 4 lessons and one of them was reteaching the Law of Chastity to a 17 year old with his 17 year old member friend who goes off topic quite frequently. It was fun and it's easy to make it awkward but it's also very easy to make it not awkward. We talked mostly about the eternal marriage and how important it is to marry in the temple so you can have that bond with your family in the next life as well.
Thursday we helped Michael Dean out in his yard and as we were the neighbors (an older couple and their daughter) were struggling with a washer so we offered to help and got that in a trailer as well as a dryer for them. One of the ladies was very grateful and asked if we could help the next day, and we told her we will help if she would help us on our teaching by listening to our message and give us constructive criticism. Later that day we visited a family elder Taylor had a dream to visit the night before. We had a good talk with them about scripture reading as a family.
Friday we saw a few more people again, Jackie is awesome! She invited her neighbor to sit in our lesson with her! She will be getting baptized on the 26th, it was going to be the 20th but she wants her family to be there and they can only come on the next weekend. After we saw her we met with our ward mission leader and had dinner. His wife just got shipped out for the Air Force and will be gone for about 8 months. That would be really hard to do.
Saturday we visited more people Elder Taylor wanted to say goodbye to with a couple lessons, we used too many miles... Also a new convert, Noelle, got engaged! In front of the DC temple and will get married in September right before Elder Taylor goes home so he might be able to go.
And today we left the home at 6:10 to visit the elders quorum and talked with him and played soccer with his dog. And now the back axel on our car got recalled but we will pick it up today.
I got to go, sorry I'm not able to tell you more about my week but I hope you are all doing well and I love you guys!
Love,
Elder Barker
4/21/14
Hey Dad
I don't have too much time but today has been interesting. So yesterday morning Elder Spackman, my new companion from San Diego (he goes home in November I think), had a rash and a small bump on his wrist and it got a bit bigger throughout the day. He took some Benadryl last night and when we woke up he said, "We gotta go to the hospital" and his arm had swollen pretty big with a rash running down his forearm. He also has a blister that is about pop it seems it keeps getting bigger and bigger though and everyone is telling him to go to ER because it looks pretty nasty. We went to urgent care in the morning and spent some time there but they didn't know what it was either. So we'll see how it goes.
I am pretty tired today we had a pretty busy week. It was hard to takeover a huge area after one transfer and I really wanted to go back to teaching people and that led to some long nightly planning sessions. We also had someone come on a mini mission with us from Thursday night to Sunday so that was interesting. I really hope he decides to go on a mission he has been debating it for awhile but his papers are now fully turned in and he went on a mini mission to see if he wants to go. I think he had a good experience though. We had some really good experiences though and I had some learning experiences with that.
I won't be able to go through each day so I will tell of some things that happened. On Wednesday we were in a lesson with a man named Mike, he has read the Book of Mormon and parts of D&C and PGP and hasn't gotten a "sign." We asked what he is looking for and he said an angel. So Elder Spackman said he would get his answer if he would stop hardening his heart, so we got thrown out. That was my first time with that haha
Jackie continues to progress towards baptism and should be getting baptized on April 26th! I'm excited for her she is so great! She loves the gospel and prays and reads all the time! She's trying to get her daughter to sit with us more in lessons and we actually were able to invite her to be baptized on June 22 and she accepted! She was thinking about moving back to Camden New Jersey, the most dangerous city in America, but we told her to pray about it and she told us that she doesn't feel it is right for her to move there. So that's good.
In total we were able to get 19 lessons this week, my mission high, and we were going to hit 20 but the Benadryl made him sleepy so he couldn't drive.
You'll have to send some pictures of the house and the changes in it so I can see.
I'll send some pictures in a separate email of transfers and what not
I hope you are doing well!
Love,
Elder Barker
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