My First Baptism‏

 Our lessons this week consisted of the Martinez Family.  Yep, they were the only investigators we got to teach this week.  We do have tons of potentials we are building up.  I'm just praying the fruits of our labors are shown sooner rather than later.  But the whole mission only had five baptisms this week.  We had three of them  :-)

The baptism and all the stuff leading up to it was really quite fun and amazing though.  It turns out you can't perform a wedding on the same day you get the liscence so we had to go back to the courthouse to get another copy.  That was fun.  Marriage stuff was worked out pretty well though.   For baptismal interviews, we went on exchanges and I went up to the other elder's bike area.  I was with Elder McDonald from Idaho Falls who knows two of the Hermanas from my district.  They all three passed their interviews while I ate pizza at the house of a member who is having tons of troubles with the Book of Mormon.  I ate four whole pieces of pizza.  Elder Tate has been eating super healthy and loosing weight ever since his recent converts called him fat.  I on the other hand, decided that I can be somewhat healthy, but some days, you just need to eat pizza.

Friday we had zone meeting, it was Elder Tate's first time leading zone meeting and stuff.  They grow up so fast.  I taught him how to use knockers on doors.  I'm training him pretty well.

Saturday was basically spent working on getting the baptism all ready.  We made the program and stuff, because the ward isn't organized enough to do it for us.  We set up and filled the font and all, and people showed up and it was a super great baptism.  I baptized Samantha, and I just read over my comps shoulder that he was super nervous about my first baptism.  Years of acting classes really have made something as short as a baptismal prayer super easy.  The primary kids sang I like to Look for Rainbows in Spanish.  I played piano, and all was well. Bishop Martin baptized Jaime, and then Elder Tate baptized Adela.  They loved it, and they were crying afterwards and stuff.  They'll be awesome members to take out teaching with us.

Sunday they got confirmed as members and got the holy ghost!  Hooray!!!  Also I played the organ again.  There's a girl that usually plays the piano (horribly) for sacrament and bishop and wife were having her do it so as not to offend anybody.  Spanish wards are soooo easily offended by tiny little things, so we have to watch our step.  However, at the baptism, President Portillo, the stake president simply told bishop to have me play the organ.  I feel so honored :-)  All is really going great.

Oh yeah, this week was transfers, but our entire district (which is basically our ward)  stayed the exact same.  The only changes were that Elder McKinley left the zone and other minor unimportant details.  But seriously though, I don't really ever want to be a zone leader for my whole mission.  I like prosylting.  I didn't come on a mission to preach to white 18- 21 year olds, but that is basically what AP's and Zone Leaders have to do.  I think I'll aspire to district leader, although me and my comp have made it a goal to get Elder Tate to be Assistant to the President (and I'm not sure if it was a joke or not).  I've noticed my Patriarchial Blessing doesn't really talk about leadership, especially during my mission, and I am perfectly fine with that.

But I should end now, I have to send out a giant e-mail about my first baptism to everybody from everywhere and I only have like twenty minutes to do it, so I love you all, I love the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I love this work.  Amen

Elder David Austin Barlow

Bishop, Martinez Family, Elder Barlow, Elder Tate

A wedding, a wedding, hooray! A wedding, a wedding, today!‏

Well first off, I really want to just go and hear more and more about Thomas Barlow and stuff.  I actually remember reading something about how Lancashire became a big hatting area for a while when I was looking stuff up at college.  That makes sense then, because it was during this Thomas's life that the area became quite hatty.  While we're thinking about family history, we've been asked to have a name that we can take throughout our mission temple trips to do everything for.  Do we have any names I can use? Because I ain't got time to find anyone new in our line, although I did help a Recent Convert find out more about her grandpa this week (that was a cool experience).  So basically let me get this straight, Thomas 2, father of Henry, was born in greater London, Surrey.  They family moved to Lancashire when the hat factory moved.  Thomas was a hatter his whole life then.

That's all super cool.  I just want to sit down and family history all day long, but seriously though.  If you can find a name for me, that would be wonderful!  I don't even want to talk about my week now!

But I will, we had a pretty long normal week.  Wednesday was super great.  I forgot my camera so I can't send pictures this week, but next week you'll get pictures of the Martinez family.  They went to the courthouse and then got married! That was super great, and they are just so amazing that it makes up for not having a super good week.  We just want new investigators, that's all.

Thursday was pretty cool.  We taught five lessons even though we had weekly planning take up time.  We taught this one investigator whose children were baptized a few months ago, and she has basically been avoiding us for lots of reasons.  She's frustrating, but what can you do.  Her children came to church, a family that hasn't been to church for years finally came to church, the Martinez family was at church, so our church attendence was pretty nifty this week.

Friday, because Tate (I mean Zone Leader Elder Tate, the handbook says we need to call them that, and we just laugh at that) is becoming a zone leader, he had to go to mission leaders conference which means I was just with some other elders all day, and it wasn't a very exciting day.  We had like no prosyliting time.

Saturday and Sunday were both pretty slow days.

And I really can't think of anything else to say.  I love you all, and the Lord always shows us grace when things are tiring.  We were biking so much this week because it was the end of the month and were out of miles.  Man I'm sore, and Tate's being all healthy because his converts told him he was fat at a baptism in his old area.  I will probably lose a bit of weight.  And if you ever feel like it, I could use another pair of pants or two.  Just so I have extra for the week.  Church pants, not jeans, I have enough of those.

But I love you all and hope you have a great week!  Gospel is true, and I really have nothing else to say.

Elder David Austin Barlow