Email from 1/27/14

Hey Dad,

This week has been a little bit more difficult but it ended on a better note i think. Elder Parker and I honestly checked out a little in the beginning of the week mostly because he had to pack all of Tuesday since he slept on p-day. Then Wednesday we were walking out the door to go to transfers but then we got a text saying a lot of main roads are closed due to snow so transfers got pushed toThursday. He had everything he owned packed so we both weren't too productive. On Monday we did get to talk to Mario however, he took us out to dinner and we immediately felt bad because he told us the reason he has money was because he recently got a loan... I hope he wises up with his money soon.

Thursday I met my new companion his name is Elder Hansen from west of Provo. Friday we met with Brother Nunemacher and Brother Hyland and introduced them to Elder Hansen. Brother Nunemacher is in Alma right now in the middle of the war stories of the Book of Mormon. With Brother Hyland we talked about the Priesthood and the duties thereof. We also went to the local Salvation Army and the community arts center to volunteer and we are going to the salvation army again today to talk with their colonel. Saturday we saw John Boyle and talked about the Restoration and Joseph Smith. The Spirit was there and it was really cool when we went over the First Vision. We also saw Brother Heffelfinger (1st counselor) he hasn't been to church in a few months and is technically less active so we wanted to see how he is doing. We shared a spiritual thought on Church Pray Read (CPR) and how it can bless his life. Sunday Elder Hansen and Elder Cowley (Elder Newbold's new comp) spoke and they both found out on Thursday that they were haha. They both did a good job and the spirit in that room was really strong. possibly my favorite though was Bryan Tejeda's. He is 13 years old and i think he was the first youth speaker in the time that i have been here. He was incredibly nervous and didn't look up once, and even though his talk may have been less than 2 minutes the Spirit and faith that that young man had was amazing and it really touched me. That night we got to go tract for some time so much fun not really but it wasn't bad, we ran into some really nice people. BUT DAD! 

We started talking to this man who is in the Air Force and has been for some time and continues to be. I asked him if he knew Boeing and he said of course. I told him that you help with the C-17s and he said, "I was about to say we need more C-17s out there. Best cargo plane there is" I thought you would really like that, people really appreciate the work you and your colleagues do and it is saving lives!

That's too bad about Nate's team but he seems to be doing awesome! 18 and 10? what is he averaging because those are star power forward numbers and he is 2,3 i assume.  Thank you for your thoughts on the mission. I am sure Brother Hull will be appreciative of them. I did not do too well on finding a scripture for the week but there was one this morning that stuck out to me about missionary work and patience.. I believe it is Alma 26:27 and it talks about if we bear with patience the Lord will bless us with success. I love you all and I hope you are all doing great! Tell Andrea I say hi.

Love,

Elder Barker

Email from 11/20/14

Hey Dad,

I did not get transferred but Elder Parker will be so we are driving down to Broomall Wednesday for the transfer meetings. I did get the wallet and with the gift cards it is a really nice wallet and tell her I say thank you.  I have facebook but it is for only missionary work so i cannot contact people from home unless given permission from President.

As far as the scripture reading goes... that is the classic reason [I have no time, I get busy, I forget] we hear every time from investigators that we eventually drop. Ask Steve or Mitch haha 

I really miss Daisy and Emmy were there pictures taken at California Adventure?  If so I would like some haha. We will not get any baptisms this month but we have a date for Mario on March 8 but we could make it on March 1 I believe, and hopefully we can have at least one more in March as well. 

This week was interesting haha. Monday we had a Birthday bash for Elder Parker & Newbold (who is staying in Hazleton) and we played basketball on some outside courts, it was a warm 40 so it was nice:) 

Tuesday we had the soul kitchen again in Hazleton and one of the ladies there brought Elder Newbold a Spanish Boyz ll Men CD i wanted to listen to it so bad but of course i did not and neither did he but it is weird going into stores and hearing music like this morning I heard "Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5 and I tried really hard to not listen or watch ESPN which was on in the place as well (a member took us out to lunch).  Thursday we went on exchanges and i went to Pottsville and we visited someone who was getting baptizedon Saturday to interview her. Turns out... that she was the only one home and we did not have an adult male with us -- which is not allowed -- and the elder i was with just kept doing small talk until I initiated the interview.. she did get baptized though so that was good. 

On Friday we went to Sandy's house to give her and her now husband a blessing because they were getting married the next day and both were feeling a little under the weather. Saturday was awesome it the wedding of Sandy and Zane (who got baptized in October). It was held in the Lehighton building and because they are both converts, there was not too many members there. They asked me to say the opening prayer, Elder Leavitt to read a couple scriptures, and for Elder Parker & Newbold to sing "Love Is Spoken Here" and it went really well. We went to the reception after and talked to people there, since that was why they invited us haha, once again it was really weird hearing music but it was fun I had some Ziti pasta and salad it was good. It is a lot easier to eat new things when you are a missionary haha of course I am in the US though so that helps as well.  Sunday at church Mario came again:) and Brother Nunemacher came for the first time in years! It was awesome seeing him there. I taught the English Gospel Principles class and i feel it went really well. 

This week we also set up the "Tamaqua Tyranical Titan Wall of Tirade" which totally makes sense grammatically haha. Basically we put up pictures of memories and awesome Star Wars stuff that we did. 

I am going to try and start a scripture/hymn/quote of the week and this week is "I Need Thee Every Hour."  I love this song it hit me pretty hard in church when singing it, especially the 2nd verse which I believe goes like: "I need thee every hour, stand thou nearby.  Temptations lose their power when thou art nigh..." We need to surround ourselves with good things for Satan to not have power over us. I have seen this so much, ever since leaving on my mission Satan has tried so much harder on me, especially mentally but if i sing a hymn or pray it is so much easier to stay away from situations or thoughts that come up.

I love you all and hope you are doing well:)

Love,

Elder Barker

Email from 1/13/14

Hey Dad,

sorry about last week I don't know what happened.

I don't really have a whole lot of time to fill you in on last week but nothing too exciting happened that I can remember other than tracting in a snowstorm.

This week the Hazleton Elders had a baptism and Elder Parker performed it, it took us all by surprise. 

Monday: Elder Parker and I went to go see a man that I tracted into with our DL, named Bill McCoy aka the Real McCoy (I have no idea what that is a reference to). This man may be the most interesting man in the world. He once was a multi millionaire and now lives very modestly and honestly i would take up my whole pday if i told you about him. He won the international salesman award in Europe a couple of times and I could tell that he was looking at which way I looked and examining our speech patterns and everything, he even told us he was and that he liked what he sees haha. Awesome guy. He wants to set up a seminar type thing for us to speak to the youth here about faith and Christ and how it has helped us stay away from trouble. He is going to introduce us to a lot of local leaders here from different organizations to discuss how we can help out in the community. He basically told us that he prayed us here when Elder Clark and I met him the first time. 

Tuesday: We met with Brother McFarland to talk about the priesthood because he is advancing to Priest and it went very well. He actually advanced yesterday and Elder Parker and I were in the circle.

Wednesday we met with Dezyrai and talked about baptism and the Holy Ghost. She loves coming to church and Sister Mousseau -- who Dezyrai has really taken to -- would like to see her be baptized soon so hopefully by February 15?  

Thursday we saw Brother Nunemacher and had another awesome lesson. We asked him what we can do to help him get to church. He told us that you've done a lot and it is all up to him to come. I don't know if we can do anything new but just visit with him from time to time. After we saw Brother Hyland and he was so happy for food that was delivered to him from the Bishop's storehouse, it filled their fridge perfectly. He seems to be doing a lot better and has been consistently coming to church for about a month and a half. He was unable to go yesterday because he had to go to the hospital. We went there last night and gave him a blessing .

Friday: we painted over where the hole used to be in the wall.

Saturday  was Fabio's baptism and Mario and Brother Nunemacher came! it was awesome to see them both there. Later that day we went to go see Kenny & Lissette and just testified of this gospel and the book of mormon. It was really spiritual and i told them of some of the trials i went through before leaving on my mission and how this gospel helped me and is helping me. We both had them in tears and they invited us over next sunday for dinner and that we would see them at Church.

Sunday: Mario showed up to church and sat with Zane and Sandy as well as Elder Parker since i was blessing.  Kenny and Lissette did not show up again... It was really disappointing; if i were to compare it to sports it was like you being tied and you get fouled at the buzzer and all you have to do is make 1 out of 2 free throws and you win... then your teammate misses them both so you have to go to overtime. Mario loved church though and we were able to get a date for him to be baptized on March 8! I'm super excited for him:)

We get transfer calls friday night so we find out who is leaving. I will probably be staying honestly but who knows.  

Nathan starts league in 2 days! That's crazy. Elder Parker and I miss high school ball so much. we might get to play today because the YMCA is free this week:)

Hope you are all doing well. I love you!

Love,

Elder Barker

Email from 12/30/13

 Hey everyone,

 I want to start by thanking everyone for all of their gifts.  Thank you for the bag and the electric razor.  Shaving is no longer a pain and this is going to sound weird, but it's fun haha. It was great to see you guys and I wish I could have been able to Skype with Amber and Steve but it was nice being able to see them. Emmy and Daisy are still so cute! I'm sorry I didn't talk much it was just a bit weird seeing the house haha. How did Nathan do in his contest? the place i'm at right now doesn't support the player so i can't watch it. are there other videos as well? or can nathan send me the link to the contest? how did the whole tournament go?  and I know it was Grandma Urie's bday a couple days ago so someone please tell her that I say happy birthday!

 Our week went well. a lady named April moved into the apartment right above us and Elder Parker  and I helped her and her dad move in. Her dad, John, has studied with a lot of different religions but never this LDS church and he is interested in learning more.  He offered to buy us a drink to thank us but of course we didn't haha so he offered to buy us a rotisary (or however you spell it) chicken.  It was really cool because the night before our zone leader asked how we were doing on finding new investigators, and we had not had any new ones that week so he told us to pray for a family and it will happen.  Well I had already prayed but when we got off the phone we both got on our knees and prayed for a family to come across our path. And now April, her son, and her dad John moved in! It was awesome to see how prayers are answered. Sunday I went with the Spanish Gospel Principles class... I need to learn Spanish. Sunday was a good day though. There is a baptism coming up on the 11th for a young man named Fabio. He is so cool. and in the upcoming weeks Dezyrai McFarland will be baptized by her dad so that will be really awesome to see:)

The Molano's invited us over on Tuesday and they gave us some gifts and that was really nice of them and the best present they gave us were left overs because they were divine!  Sorry I don't have much time to talk today we are going up to Hazleton and spending the day up there with the other elders.  How was everyone's Christmas? tell nathan to write or send me an email about his. I still remember him freaking out when he got an xbox haha still funny. I hope you are all doing well and have a Happy New Year!

Love,
Elder Barker
p.s. i now get to use facebook!

 

Email from 12/23/2013

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to let you know that we will be able to Skype.  After taking most of our Sunday after church-___- we were able to finally get Skype to work on our Senior couple's tablet, which they were nice enough to leave for us since they will be in Connecticut. We got permission to go to their home and use it. So I will call yous guys at around 12:30? so just get on when you wake up and I will call you and mom, i don't know if i will be able to call Amber seperately so have her on and I'll just play it by ear.  That's awesome that Amanda and Mitch will be there I am excited to see them.  Don't worry about presents Dad, being out here seeing how people struggle so much and barely even have a family has made me realize even more how blessed I am.  I will be very grateful for whatever it is, me and nathan always just got you Twix and Kitkats anyway haha.

How is Nate feeling? That's really too bad. Has he asked for a blessing? I have become such a believer in blessings. Even though it may not exactly heal him he will be able to be strengthened from it; whether it be physically or spiritually.

 

This last week had its hard times but it was one of my favorites for sure and may be for the rest of my mission.  Well to be honest, now that I am trying to remember what happened exactly each day, I can't remember anything before Saturday haha other than Thursday. So i guess I will start with Thursday haha.Thursday we had zone conferance where President gathers together a lot of zones. We watched Ephraim's Rescue which i highly recommend as well as 17 Miracles (Ask Amber she'll probably know) then we had a talent show haha. My zone leader wanted me to do a dance thing but i didn't think it'd be okay so i didn't but he - Elder Lozano - wrote a rap about Christmas and performed it. Which reminds me, look up the "Rapstoration" on facebook or maybe youtube. It's awesome!! After the talent show there was some elders beatboxing and playing the guitar and Elder Newbold called me over and told me to freestyle (I'm getting decent actually haha) and then i did a quick popping thing and Elders were asked why I didn't do that in the talent show because there were too many musical acts (they were all musical acts, except for Elder Parker who wrote a Christmas poem which was really good).  After that though we got our presents and letters which was exciting. 

Friday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and Elder Mower came with us. Unfortunately all of our appointments fell through -___- happens may too much. We had Elder Mower try out the chocolate heart attack and told us to patent that (which honestly i would love to do haha) we had him sign a "waiver" because he has a heart condition and it could have possibly given him a heart attack haha. He's okay last time i checked though.

Saturday an investigator from the Dominican Rebuplic that the Hazleton (Spanish speaking) Elders were teaching got baptized! That was really cool. Almost the entire meeting was in Spanish but it did not matter because the Spirit was there.  I loved that day because I just have been able to feel, or notice, the Spirit very easy and that day was super powerful. when Carlos got baptized I just remember having a feeling so powerful and the wider I smiled the stronger it got. I loved it. Saturday (happy birthday Amanda) we went to Mahanoy City as well.  We had an appointment with Kenny & Lissette but they i guess forgot despite talking to us the night before about it. They promised we would we see them at church the next day though.  We then tried a less active member named Richard at around 7. He is a really cool kid (he's 21). He loves us and we talked to him and his friend Dillon aka Grubby about... well the Restoration as well as the Plan of Happiness. Dillon was asking a lot of questions and seemed to listen intentively. They invited us over again so we'll see:)

Sunday was good and bad haha.  It was bad because none of our investigators were able to come except for Dezyrai so that was good to see. But the other Elders had some there and they were great to have there. The primary had a program (all 8 of them!) and Sister Merrit had to control her kid who loves to run around and another child who is autistic. It went well though and helped bring the spirit of christmas in. Sister Molano's lesson on Christmas though was amazing! She is so spiritual and it was great to have the continuation of the spirit from the day before.  After church we went over to the Wilsons for dinner and then tried to figure out skype/google hangeout.  their computer webcam was terrible. So after their son who is a computer programer couldn't get it fixed we switched to the tablet and it worked instantly. so we will be using that to call.

our skype address is hazleton.elders. so add us on skype and i will accept and call you. the time i will call at will be 12:30. i may call mom first at that time actually and then i will call you guys.

I am excited to see you all and remember to have a merry christmas. there is no place for sadness on this great day for it is the day that grief and pain were conquered!

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Barker

Email from 12/16/13

Dad,

to start off no I am still with Elder Parker. in fact no one in our branch got transferred which is really rare, especially myself and Elder Newbold were being trained. We will all be together for 3 transfers and normally a companionship is only together for 2! Elder Flake was from Idaho actually near Boise. 

That's awesome about Nathan! What did he speak on from the strength of youth? I have found that i am a good public speaker buuut i still have a lot to improve on in actual lessons, but i am getting better. and i did the package from Andrea tell her i say thank you and the vile she sent is really cool:) 

This week we got multiple things of bad news. First, on Thursday, we found out that we will not be receiving iPads or iPhones until January. I don't know how they expect us to be good missionaries without all those things!! (I would put effort in telling you it was sarcasm but our family speaks that more than English) But with that said, I don't know how we will be able to Skype home. There is only one family in our town and it would be impeding on their family time if we were to go there for 2 hours. We may use the Senior couple's but they are going to be in Connecticut and i do not know if we are allowed in their house while they are not there. We have zone conference this Thursday where i believe we get all our presents and hopefully find out more info on the whole skype home thing i will know by next Monday (hopefully, if not how does Mother's Day sound). Also, apparently they are having a talent show and one of our zone leaders asked Elder Parker and me what some of our hobbies were and we both said sports and he said singing and i said "hip hop dancing but i don't think that's allowed on a mission; especially with the Mission President present" but he was like no do it it would be something different from a bunch of people singing hymns. He has a point but i would feel so uncomfortable doing that so i doubt i will haha.  Also, we had a snow storm this weekend and had about 9 inches of snow. it didn't snow hard but it never stopped. So church was cancelled yesterday:( so as missionaries, we had no reason to live... haha.  

Last P-Day, i have no idea whether i made one of the best decisions of my life, or one of the worst. We all went to a diner called Friendlies and we had a hamburger... but this was no ordinary hamburger this was a burger with grilled cheese sandwiches as buns!! it was glorious! until later when I laid down in bed and literally (yes literally) listened to my blood slow down! i can't wait to go back haha. enough about food because i have now lost a total of 16 lbs:) 

Tuesday we went to the soul kitchen for the Christmas dinner. It was a lot better than last month's. so much more organized and less people complaining about their free food. it was good though Elder Parker and Newbold were singing Christmas songs and i was doing interpretive dance. haha kidding i just served and cleaned up. It was a lot of fun. 

Thursday we were able to help out Michelle and Jerry. She was happy to know that we were both staying so she doesn't have to learn to trust another white man haha. We helped sand some walls and doors to help paint stick to it and we did that for a few hours. I had to sand all the tiny grooves by hand so it took a long time but he was able to paint both sides of the door i got by the time we left. 

Sorry we only had one planner for this new transfer and Elder Parker took it so i have no planner (it wasn't a big deal because we were going to be getting iPads this week) so i am trying to remember everything that happened.

Friday we went to go see Brother Nunemacher and we were able to talk to him about the role of the Book of Mormon. and he brought up how he is nervous about going to church and i told him about how continuing to go to church with everything that has happened to us and me has been able to strengthen our family so much and the Spirit was in that room as we both bore our testimonies i hope he comes this next week. 

Sunday we went to Mahanoy City with Zane and Sandy to go see Kenny and Lissette. It was an awesome lesson and we talked about the Plan of Salvation with a lot of emphasis on the Atonement because he wanted to know what the sacrament was meant for because he was new last week. He told us about how he felt at church and how he was close to tears during one of the talks and how he wants to feel that more and more and he said he is sure he only felt 75% of how he could and he wants to know how to feel it stronger. we told him about the Holy Ghost and then i extended a baptismal invitation to him. He accepted but they have to talk to President Molano about their situation, since they are unmarried, before we can have a date for him. Unfortunately, Elder Parker, or myself will not be able to attend it:(  It was awesome having Zane and Sandy there because they are the young couple and are both converts and Sandy has a 3 year old daughter named Leanna, who reminds me so much of Daisy, and Sandy and Lissette exchanged numbers so i am excited for them they are both just amazing people and Kenny, he grew up in the Bronx, is such a down to earth guy who wants the best for his family.

I will send pictures of some things that we did in another email:)

I hope you are doing well,

Elder Barker

Me and Elder Dillon Flake

 Our District doing the Grape White Shark stance. It's how Elder Flake always stood. 

The grape white shark is a whole other story

 And the (in)famous grilled cheese sandwich burger. They didn't add my onion rings:/

 Our ghetto Christmas tree made out of duct tape and Star Wars pens from cereal boxes

Email from 12/9/13

(Note from Amber: I'm posting this on my phone and the spacing is all whacky. Just know that Josh does, indeed, know how to use paragraphs...) 

Dad,

I am not getting transferred I am staying in Tamaqua for at least 6 more weeks.  I don't know what is going to happen for Christmas every mission president is different, the last one said take what time you need to not be distracted, so like a use your best judgement type of thing. so depending on what happens i might be able to skype amber and steve separately? That's really cool about the Nativity thing i am sure the missionaries are able to meet a lot people with that. Do the Lakers have any draft picks this draft? if so i am totally okay with them doing terrible haha. Time seems to go slow and fast depending on what i look back at. sometimes things seem like they happened weeks ago but in reality it happened just a couple days ago haha and vice versa.  

This last monday we took pictures to make a christmas card thing but we don't have any good paper to print it on and the color came out terrible but it was really fun. 

Tuesday we went to Michelle's house (the lady we helped paint her rooms) and helped move some more stuff around and talked about the Plan of Happiness a bit.  We also set a time for this thursday to come back and help her boyfriend Jerry do some more work around the house and we will be able to talk more about God with him so that will be cool.  After that we went to Brother Bhola's house (a less active) and helped give service as well and then talked to him about the Melchizedek Priesthood it was a really good lesson and hopefully he will be able to come to church soon -- he just had surgery -- and be able to take part in his Aaronic Priesthood duties to progress.  Oh and Michelle's huskie, Nanook, is the reason why i want a huskie when i get older!  Then we went to Brother Hylands again and talked to him about the Melchizedek Priesthood as well and invited him to come to church.

Wednesday was a lot of fun. we helped out at the new building to do some heavy lifting and we were there for a lot longer than we had originally planned and our night was almost up so we drove back and changed then went to Hometown and checked out the Farmers market for a bit and i bought a Star Wars mug it's awesome haha.  Then we went to Angelos and i got a 1 pound philly cheesesteak called the Hazleton it was so good haha. we went to Pottsville and stayed the night with our DL Elder Flake since we had zone training in Reading in the morning. Saturday we went to Mahanoy City and went to see a man named Ray and we had an awesome lesson about the Restoration with him! Ray and his fiance Charlene felt the Spirit so strongly and both committed to be baptized on January 11! it was super cool! and then right after we went to go see a less active named Lissette and her boyfriend Kenny. Kenny is so cool he has such a strong testimony in Christ and is so grateful for what he has. We committed them to come to church and they came! at the end of sacrament KEnny said, "i really like it here you'll be seeing me next week" he's the man haha. They have twin 9 month year old girls and they are adorable and they make me miss the girls:( Coming home we just felt like getting some McDonald's and we go in there and a guy says, "Those are some nice coats. you work for Jesus?" and we started talking to him and were able to exchange numbers and invited him to Church he was a cool guy.  Sunday was our first week in the new building and we were going to have our Area Authority speak but he couldn't make it due to weather. But it was great it's so much better despite being a bit small. we had 60 people there! That's the most in a lonnngggg time. Before any of the elders here were here.  Last night we went on splits with the Spanish Elders so i had to try to understand Spanish for a bit it wasn't too bad i definitely forgot everything haha.

The are is getting better and is growing. It has definitely been hard however but i am working.

hope you are all doing well,

Love,

Elder Barker