No Subject line (How Lame) -- October 20, 2014

Well I'm loosing track of time so no pictures today!  Here's my response to your e-mail

Any pictures of Morgan?  I can't believe she's already baptized! That's the last of my cousins to get baptized which makes me feel ancient.  Also, you said you made Chile Relleno.  That means you made one. Its Chiles Rellenos. Got to know your spanish grammar ;).  Also did you know that really means a refilled chile?  A member showed us their daughter's marching video.  I don't drive a ton yet, because I'm just getting used to the directions in this area, but I'll be driving more.  I'll probably let Elder Mehew drive more.

This week since Wednesday- 

Thursday we went to a baptist church!!!  That was awesome fun!  We have a potential daughter of a family where she's the only one that still has potential so we went.  It was fun.  Very flashy, good service, the discourse was doctrinally correct, but ya know, the spirit just isn't there.  It was just fun.  La Iglesia Emmanuel Bautista.

Friday, oh yeah, Friday we lost our cool investigator.  She said that at church she didn't feel the spirit like she wanted to (she goes to a pentecostal church) and thought her answer was to go back to her old church. Not what we wanted, but she's still golden and now just isn't her time to really go.  But she gave us tamales! Those were delicious.

Saturday was another crazy day.  We were going to pass Jeremy off to the English elders but they couldn't come so we were at his house a bit, he gave us pizza, we prayed with their family (his girlfriend just got home from a crazy surgery)  Sunday we passed him off basically

Sunday was church, and it was a pretty good day.  The high council apparently has something messed up so me, a sister, and presidente Clark spoke.  I was just short, like a testimony short, and same with the hermana Ojeda.  It was good, and I guess I have good enough Spanish.  I've noticed (even just from what people tell me) when I'm in a position of like giving a talk, teaching a class, in a position where I'm not being conversational that my Spanish is much better.  I've always been better at speaking when its not a quick conversation.  I like listening and explaining too much.  But yeah, We get fed a lot, and its weird when the english family feeds us every Sunday.  It is just foreign to me.  Also learn to make horchata!

Well, that's all folks, more next week, its that darn time thing.

Elder David Austin Barlow

Going down the Bayou (or the Brazos river per chance?)‏ -- October 15, 2014

Well, how are y'all doing? I bet you're all wondering where I am.  Maybe I'll just not tell you.  I'll leave it until next Monday.  You'll find out someday.  I'm even further out from Houston now.  At this rate I'll be in the ocean by next May.  Me and my companion are in the Brazoria branch.  Its in Brazoria county.  Its a branch with us and the spanish sisters.  Its a pretty nice area down in cities such as Freeport, Clute, etc.  We work a lot in Freeport which is almost the coast.   As for tourist attractions here, I think the only thing would be the Clute Texas mosquito festival.  There are mosquitos here needless to say.  My address is as follows:

200 Timbercreek Drive Apt #901

Richwood, Texas 77531

My comp is Elder Mehew from Richfield Utah.  I feel like we're going to do some awesome work here.  The branch just barely became mostly independent.  The youth activities are now run by the branch.  Elder Mehew and I are, as it always seems to be, different from me, but I think that is going to be awesome here.  We make up for what the other lacks.  He's the district leader so I don't know what to do in the evenings any more.  I can only write in my journal so much.  But its an awesome area (with investigators!).  We have some cool people.

The people do make this area pretty awesome.  Wednesday when I got here we asked an investigator when he wanted to be baptized and he said, Christmas is a cool time.  How about the day after Christmas?  So we're waiting to fix that.  Saturday he came to the branch activity.  A multicultural activity (Basically a fiestas patrias, I just had one in Brazos).  We have a white president to the branch that spoke Portuguese until he was called as the president here.  We have a cool investigator named Maribel that came to church on Sunday. Just sacrament because of her son, but we're hoping to see her soon since we haven't been able to since Sunday.  It was good.  Church was good.  They feed us a lot here.  Our calendar had something on it for everyday this week.  I love being fed by hispanics.  Mom, when I come home from my mission we're not having any of that tex-mex cafe rio stuff.  I ask that you learn how to cook either mole, pisole, or sopes.  Preferably all three for that day that is never supposed to come called "homecoming." Hopefully it never does.  Google them!

We're in the world of english elders now, our zone only has two pairs of Spanish missionaries, so its kind of strange for me.  My last area was surrounded by just sisters, and no elders nearby.  Now that I'm here, they were all playing basketball, so I just wrote letters after playing scatterball for a little bit.  As y'all know i dislike basketball.  All of the other elders are way different from elders I've been with before. But I love the area, so I really have nothing I need to complain about.  I  do miss Brazos... I don't like leaving places after two transfers.  But its going to be awesome here!

So Andy isn't going to get any riding.  I still really want to go to the city.  Before transfers I was almost convinced I was going to South Houston on a bike, but somehow I ended up here, near Lake Jackson.  My desires to go on a bike will probably catch up to me when they send me to a bike in the worst part of winter.  And this area had a Nissan Frontier just a few weeks ago! But they opened a YSA branch and apparently the truck wasn't used the right way by somebody so we're stuck with a Malibu...

Oh yeah, Sunday we had a guy in his car when we were backing out from an apartment complex break down in front of us and asked us to help him.  So we saw him yesterday and really brought the spirit to him.  Its just an awesome sight to see that spirit help somebody by just our presence.  Our mission tour basically taught us about how we need to be preaching more about Christ!  Not about the church, or all the apendages, everything goes back to Christ.

I love you all, and all you've done for me!  The church is true and the refining power of the atonement is too!!!  Malachi 3:2-3, I just like that scripture cuz it sounds cool.  I'll send pictures as soon as I take some.

Elder David Austin Barlow

Obrigado!‏ -- October 6, 2014

Yes, we taught someone from Brazil yesterday!  I asked her how to say thank you.  It was a good lesson we had a member for, but she says she'll just stay catholic.  So we'll make sure she reads the book of Mormon and there we'll be.

Biggest news this week, I'm leaving Brazos! I feel like I just got here, its only been two transfers, but I've learned a ton here.  So I don't know where I'll be next week, but I'll let you all know of course.  I'll probably be in South Houston, or that is what we've predicted.  There is space there for missionaries right now.  But oh well... I liked Brazos, but it has to happen I guess.  Where ever I go will probably have more investigators than here, since we are now down to like one or two.

Well fun story time.  Remember Cesar Pabon? Well it can now be said he was just looking for a church that went with his beliefs.  He is awesome, but sooo crazy.  I have a picture with him, so you'll get to see who he is.  Tuesday was good.  We taught him and then he came to the bible class.  He wasn't as bad as you'd think.  We (well I was teaching the class) got to teach him more than we ever had been able to at his house.  In my last interview with president he tells me our investigators don't understand what prophets are and why we aren't exactly Prophets.  We're prophets. We're also apostles, but not Apostles.  So yeah.  He'd previously said he believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, but Thursday, he was just saying he was a man led by el espiritu santo.  I then had the weirdest experience I've ever had on my mission.  So we ain't going back there.  Basically he started prophesying what all of us were going to do.  Elder Elggren will have the gift of healing and will raise people from the dead and cure cancer!  I will go out and preach in stadiums.  I will preach my gospel in stadiums to people laughing and being moved by the spirit!  Bruce, will be a good person...

So we go to have a closing prayer, and he asks Elder Elggren, "Can I do something a bit different?"  He proceeds then to have Elder Elggren come up, and basically grabs the sides of his head and pronounces a blessing.  He puts his hands out and puts Elggren's hands on his, then moves, to me, then to Bruce. So we left, laughed it off, and went to eat at Sonic since two hours had passed and we were tired.

And we went to the county fair on Monday!  Hooray!  It wasn't as cool as the Utah state fair, but I still got selfies with cows! And lemonade and fried oreos!  The sisters didn't make it, and they had the idea originally (well we both came up with it, but the sisters wanted to go)

As for conference, I don't remember all the details.  I watched half of it in Spanish, (But none of the native speakers.  I'll go do that in a little bit)  Did you watch the Portuguese one dad?  All the talks blur together, but I took awesome notes.  My favorite talk?  I don't know.  Uchdorf's first talk was pretty cool.

Its funny that Bruce was going to be out on his mission before I finished my first transfer (or so we thought) and he's still here and I'm leaving before he does.  Have I ever told you all who Bruce is?  He's our Blaxican friend in the branch.

But that is all, I must go now. The church is awesome, I love having living prophets.  Fifteen of them actually, and fifteen apostles.  But we only have one president.  I gained that knowledge from La Luz del Mundo.  Obrigado mae e pai!

Elder David Austin Barlow

A bunny at the fair

Baby Chicks

Baby Ducks

David and a Cow

Elder Elggren

Hermano Cesar Pabon and Elder Barlow

The Fair!

The Prize Turkey

Siguiendando el camino por toda su vida, respira.-- September 29, 2014

So this week hasn't been the most exciting week ever, but hey! We have some pretty good potentials we've had cool experiences with, so its really been a good week!

Well lets go through talking about people then.  The white handbook says I can't ask you guys to fast for things here, but I can ask you to pray for people!

Cesar Pabón- From the sisters. I've talked about him, but he hasn't been to church.  He keeps saying he'll come but we haven't seen him yet.  He's so cool! And we're afraid he's looking for a church that fits exactly what he believes.  So we're hoping that we can bring him to church and have him see all of it.

Familia Císneros- So they're not investigators yet, but we've prayed in their house two times.  First we prayed for her brother who is detained in El Paso, then we prayed for her son who had appendicitis.

Familia Bobadilla- Her mom who is a member is coming in November!  Potential is there! We gave her the church address so she could give it to her mom.  

Patricia García- We have an appoinment with her for Wednesday!

Well that's all I want to mention there for now.  We're trying to work in the Northern part of our area, because that is where houses are and people who will progress.  We know it!  That is where those three families are and we are tired of everything being slow in this area, so we're just trying to find those people that are ready.  The problem is finding them.

We're going to the Fort Bend County Fair today, so I'll end soon so we can be off and finish all that we need to.  I love y'all and know this gospel is true.  We just have to have patience here, because we had interviews this week, and as president said, there haven't exactly been the most obedient missionaries in this area before, and well, the branch notices.  It gets annoying when we're trying to gain the trust of the members and branch president's wife just says the missionaries can't speak Spanish.  Nobody has confidence in us, so we're starting a class to study the scriptures and we're going to teach it until we get a teacher from the ward.  That will show them we speak Spanish and know the gospel!  Well being on a mission has to make me pretty assertive sometimes, but hey, sometimes that is what we need.

Prayer is amazing and keeps us going.  And I've been bad at taking pictures, so I'll make sure to take some today! Love y'all!

Elder David Austin Barlow

And I will be like Mother Mary‏ -- September 22, 2014

Okay, lets see how well I can write a letter this week.  Lets go with the form of a five paragraph essay! That sounds good.  And lets write it all in Spanish!

Siepre los milagros estan obrando en este mundo.  La tierra esta preperandose para la segunda venida de Cristo, y por causa de esto, el Señor esta presurando su obra en Su tiempo.  Hoy, por mi reporto, quiero hablar de los milagros.

Primeramente, milagros no siempre estan cosas grandes, y muchas veces son pequeñas.  Esta semana yo he aprendido que algunas veces, si hablamos con solamente una persona y fijamos una cita, esta es una milagro, aunque los hispanos nunca guradan sus citas.  Esta semana hubo algunas días en que hablamos con casí nadie.  Tratamos todo el día pero logramos nada.  Por ejemplo, el sabado, enseñamos a nadie.  Pero para terminar el día, nuestro amigo Bruce nos dio una referencia de alguien que el enseñó durante el día.  Solamente necesitaban ser paciente, y recibimos las bendiciones.

 

a rough translation

(Always miracles are at work in this world. The land is prepared for the second coming of Christ, and because of this, the Lord is moving his work forward in His time. Today, for my report, I want to talk about miracles.

First, miracles are not always big things, and often are small. This week I learned that sometimes, if you speak to only one person and set an appointment, this is a miracle, while Hispanics never keep appointments. This week there were some days when we talked to almost no one. We tried all day but got nowhere. For example, on Saturday, we taught no one. But to end the day, our friend Bruce gave us a referral from someone he taught during the day. Just need to be patient, and receive blessings.)

Okay, that´s enough for yáll. I just really like Spanish because nobody understands me and I can say whatever I want.  But miracles are real!  The work is still slow here, but we´ve had a good week.  We got a new investigator named Alejandra.  We talked to her while she was waiting for kids at a bus stop and we stopped and talked to her and we finally got to talk to her!  We had an awesome first lesson with her and she´s going to read and pray.  We just hope she doesn´t pray to the virgin Mary.  She had a pretty big virgin image in her house. (It was bigger than Christ!) and she talked for a while about her.  We´ll work on that next time about how we can´t do that.

To quote Jason Robert Brown "And I will be like Mother Mary, with a blessing in my soul, to believe in all the things I´ve yet to be, and I will be like mother mary, and I'll suffer any pains, for the future of the world inside of me."  I just had that song stuck in my head and decided to get it out.

But also this week we've been teaching Cesar Pabón and he is crazy awesome.  He is super old, never has looked to any religion, has read the bible a ton and has beliefs pretty similar to ours.  But he talks a lot so we have a hard time teaching.  As I'm typing this, my companion is fixing a virus on the branch computer.  So he was going to come to church, but then we taught him Friday about the word of wisdom.  He said he´d stop smoking and taking coffee.  But then, he talked about stoping morphine for his back pain.  We tried to tell him doctor prescribed stuff is okay, but so it goes.  He has the faith to be healed if need be, but we haven't seen him since then.  We hope all is okay.

But we've been seeing members that haven't been taught since before I came, and months before that, so we want to make this branch a ward!  So we've had miracles this week, even though we're still trying to find people.  I've got like no time, so I'll see y'all next week! Same place and maybe same time! I didn't go to choir today because we're low on miles.

Les quiero!

Elder David Austin Barlow

A Person, can develop a Cold‏

So I think I'm a little bit sick now.  My ears are a little clogged, my throat hurts, and we've got dayquil to help us out.  Elder Elggren I think got it worse though.  He got sick two days ago and I'm just barely feeling anything.  Hope and pray that I'm just getting a little sick and not any worse!  It makes morning exercise pretty hard.  But oh well, things are going pretty great here, you know, the same as always.  I gave my first district meeting, that was fun.  Tuesday after that was pretty boring.

Wednesday was pretty cool, we talked to a bunch of people and we felt accomplished, like we were missionaries!  There is one lady we just really want to see, but two appointments have fallen through and she's felt super bad about both, because she just moved from Chicago and doesn't have a church here.  We tried to see her yesterday, but the kids jumping on the trampoline said "they're not here!" but one little boy said "My mom is here!" and ran to a different trailer and said, "mama, los senores!" There she was, and so we hope and pray she follows through this time! But yeah.

Wednesday we also had a cool lesson with a less active that has been confused.  She mentioned she didn't see how Joseph Smith could have seen God if the bible tells us we can't see God.  So we shared Numbers 12.  In Spanish, its pretty clear and says "Cara a cara, y revalar[e mi imagen" So that was fun.

Oh yeah, and then the sisters had to give us an awesome investigator they have named Cesar Pab[on.  He is awesome and we are teaching him because he was kind of a flirt and his wife didn't like it or the book of mormon.  But he knows a ton! He knows more about doctrine than most Mormons do.  He explained about how the trinity (in Spanish, there is no word for "Godhead" you just say trinidad) are three different beings but one and the same!  He listed all the scriptures about Jesus talking to his father.  He loves the idea of Christ in the Americas and as all the sisters say about all their investigators "he's elect."  More on him next week I bet.

And the sisters had two families at church this week!  Its pretty cool I have to say.  I'm jealous, no not really, I'm extremely happy!  They all had awesome experiences.

But in response to your letter-

We've had some pretty rainy days.  Including days where it looks completely sunny but is pouring.  I don't get it.  I thought Utah was weird.  Oh Scotty.  How did he get up there?  Old man.  I'll miss him.  Awesome for BYU beating Houston, but the Texans won their game, so free slushies at Sonic this Tuesday!

And I'm actually super happy about general authorities talking in their native language.  I've thought about that recently, and there's enough people who speak other languages that we can have stuff in their first language.  Spanish too, pretty soon we'll probably outnumber the English speakers if we don't already.  Just imagine that I'm able to understand what he said, even though y'all probably couldn't.  Could dad understand anything from his Portuguese?

I'm out of things to say, so I've got pictures today!  Love y'all, and keep reading those scriptures and praying!  And go to church! And so forth.

Elder David Austin Barlow

Unfortunately the pictures David sent in this email have not been able to be downloaded and so I decided to just publish this as is.  If I figure out what was wrong I will add them later.

David's Dad