Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Happy New Year 2016!

Hi family,

How's life? Sounds like you had a good New Year. They celebrate New Year here, everyone goes to the chapel and at midnight there are fireworks everywhere and everyone stays up until 4 or later in the morning. They like to party here in Tahiti haha. I went to bed around 10 on new years and slept through all the fireworks at midnight. Apparently it was really loud and you could see fireworks off the island of Moorea from our balcony at our house. We have a ridiculous view. Elder Sorenson woke up and watched the fireworks so he was telling us about them during breakfast on the 1st. Anyways, wow it is 2016!

Anyways, I read that conference talk "What lack I yet?" and I've thought a lot about it. Yesterday I fasted with that question in mind (among a million other things). Last night I thought again, "Heavenly Father, what lack I yet? I want to go work, I would be happy to train someone new, or whatever you need, what lack I yet?" Then I received a one word answer. What lack I yet? Experience. And I thought about it, yeah that's true. I am still pretty darn green, when it comes to greenies. But then as I was getting into bed, I received further light. The scripture came to my mind in DC 122:7: These things will give you experience and be for your good.  As I thought about it, it made sense in my head. Yeah, there are lessons I need to learn. I also liked the conference talk "It's never too early, it's never too late." While reading it, I thought a lot of Dad. Thanks for being the perfect dad, Dad. I want to grow up to be just like you. Haha I feel blessed that we already have such a good father son relationship and I look forward to the future. Eternity, in fact. Maybe one day you'll beat me at speed scrabble ;) 

We taught some good lessons this week. Even though we seem to waste a lot of time, somehow we are leading the zone in lessons and other stats. The Lord seems determined to bless me, perhaps for my time on Ahe. Did I mention that my first week here we found like 15 new investigators? People come up to us and ask to receive the lessons. Haha it's crazy. We got a reference from a member this week. We taught her twice, and she is ready for baptism. Now she just has to talk to her boyfriend about getting married first. Our other baptism for the 9th got bumped back to the 16th for logistical reasons, but it should go through just fine. There are other investigators who are also progressing towards baptism. On Sunday we had 7 investigators at the chapel! Bam! That's a killer stat. Anyways, the truth is the work is the Lord's.  If the Lord wants it to happen, he'll make it happen. Also this week, I re explained something my comp had taught to an investigator who hadn't understood using a game that Elder Gruhn used to explain prophets to people. And the guy totally understood after I explained it! It was so cool to see his eyes light up when he got it. Shout out to Elder Gruhn! After being around other missionaries, I can see that Elder Gruhn was actually a pretty darn good teacher. He knew how to teach for understanding. Good thing I payed attention. I have lots of little ways of explaining things up my sleeve now that I learned from him. 

There was something else I was going to say, but I forgot. Oh, this morning I cleaned our whole house for a few hours. Like I was dripping in sweat by the end. But it was so dusty and gross before. Now it is livable. Oh, and I bought carrots and frozen broccoli today at the store. I am pumped to eat healthy!  Can you convert Francs to dollars for me? I want to have a sense of how much stuff here really costs. For example, what is 1 dollar in Francs, what is 100 francs in dollars, what is 1000 francs in dollars, what is 10,000 francs in dollars? My raisin bran costs 500 francs a box. Worth it. Haha  Okay, gotta go now. If you have questions for me about Tahiti or whatever, let me know. Thanks for the prayers and fasts. I feel it a lot. Today was really good, probably thanks to the fasts yesterday. I know God is at the helm.

 Love you all, ça va ça va ici. 

Vous me manquez,

Elder Barlow

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