Quick and challenging week

This one is from the hike today. The view of the ocean and of Moorea was absolutely stunning. Magnificent.

Hello family!

Wow it has been a quick week. In fact, this week was one of the more challenging weeks for me, but it seemed to go really fast! Challenging, why? A lot of lessons fell through this week and we just didn't have anything planned to do. So we did door to door contacting in an apartment complex for the first time ever on my mission. Haha. Yes, I am now a missionary who knows how to knock doors. We found some good potential that we will go see this week. Also, fun story. We went to visit an old investigator when a lesson fell through, but she wasn't home. Her family member was home though. Apparently she has talked with the missionaries before, a long time ago. She wanted to be baptized but couldn't quit smoking. I felt prompted to ask her when was the last time she tried to quit smoking? She said "I fasted yesterday and didn't smoke for 6 hours." What? So we told her obviously God had sent us to answer her prayers for help! We will work with her for the next few weeks. She is really potential for baptism. It's amazing, God knows each one of his children and uses the smallest, most random situations to answer prayers. On a mission I have the chance to see little miracles like that more often than the average person. I'm grateful for that.
What else is new... oh, yesterday we were fasting for an investigator, so basically we were entitled to the spirit. The weekly report is due each Sunday at 2pm. Yesterday after church (around noon) we realized we needed one more new investigator for the week to fulfill the "standards of excellence" (weekly goals for each companionship). So we prayed that God would lead us, then we went to see some potential. We went to see a lady who we have talked to before, but she has never let us fix another time to come back. To count someone as a new investigator, you have to do at least one lesson with them and fix another date for another lesson. So we stopped by and she was home. She actually lives with her parents, who are members. We were talking and she told us she wasn't ready for the lessons. She comes to church often and knows all the doctrine anyways, etc. She kept telling us no when we asked if we could come back another day. Then I had the thought to ask if they do family home evening as a family. Inspired thought by the Holy Ghost, glory to God, and long story short we are teaching the lesson tonight at their family home evening! Cool! When we work hard and rely on God, he helps us meet our goals.
What else is new... the hike last P Day was cool, but our zone is wimpy! Everyone got tired quick, we only hiked for about 2 hours. And up high it got foggy, so there wasn't much of a view. It was cool though, it was actually kind of cold! I miss being cold sometimes.
This P Day we did another short hike above Punaauia. It had a killer view! I'll try to send pictures, sorry if it doesn't work though.
Other news.. oh yeah! I'm a district leader now! So I have to lead weekly meetings and give formations/trainings and stuff. I also take the weekly report for my district each Sunday, etc. Fun stuff. That's about all the news I can think of this week. Thanks for all of your emails, I loved seeing all the pictures too! When I opened my email today, the inbox was full of emails from family. Those are my favorite emails to read. So thanks.
 Love you tons, have a good week!

Elder Barlow

Today we go... HIKING!!!

Hello family!

Yes, we're going hiking soon so I don't have a ton of time. This morning we went and did our shopping for the week, now our email, and in about 20 minutes (around 11am) we're going hiking as a zone up above Faaa somewhere. I can't wait to get up in the mountains! It's been a long time. Apparently the hike takes about 4 hours, my goal is to do it in 2 or 3. One of my zone leaders said he's down to run the trail with me; we'll see if he can keep up.

This past week was good. We had one baptism of K, a little 9 year old boy we've been teaching. Elder Langomazino baptized him, and I gave him the Holy Ghost (in French this time ;) ). That was good. Our other baptism that was on plan didn't go through.

Other cool stories. The 4th of June is the marriage and baptism of a couple who is actually from Ahe. Small world, huh? The husband agreed to be baptized this week on the same day as the marriage with his wife. He asked me to baptize him. They were telling us during a lesson this week that before their life was "normal." But now they realize that their life before was filled with "darkness." They told us that since we showed up the first day, their whole life has been filled with light. It is amazing. I have never seen someone so prepared to accept the gospel. They really were waiting only because they knew not where to find the truth.

Another couple we're teaching is an inactive member and his girlfriend. She told us she had been searching for the truth and prayed to God to send her some help to find the truth. The same day we showed up on her doorstep. I remember that day, we were in the quartier, it was raining pretty hard, and we had no planned lessons. So we went exploring up high where we had never been before. We were kind of down and didn't stop to knock any doors (or shout over the gates, as we don't really "knock doors" here in Tahiti). But for some reason I felt like I should just keep walking up this steep hill in the rain, I kind of had the thought that it would be fun to explore. At the top of the hill, the path happened to be blocked by a big piece of metal, and as it was raining it was getting muddy. So we turned around. We decided to stop by one house that was next to the path, and they let us in. And now 3 or 4 weeks later, the girlfriend wants to get married so she can get baptized. Now we just have to convince the boyfriend to come back to the church. He told us last night after watching our missionary concert that he had a dream of two angels or something like that; and talking to us, he thinks that we are the fulfillment of his dream. So that was cool. Just some cool examples of how the Lord knows all his children and brings about miracles by small and simple means.

Overall, a normal week. We worked really hard to see our investigator with the baptism every day, as recommended in Preach my Gospel. Also, Friday for our zone conference I gave the training and I think it went really well. While preparing for the training during the week, I realized I have taught 18 people this year who are now baptized members of the church this year (between Tavararo and Papeete). That's a lot for this mission, so I felt pretty qualified to give the training on "how to avoid losing planned baptisms." On reflecting on all the amis who went through with their baptisms, I realized the key is really to get the amis to read the book of mormon and come to church. If they do that, they get baptized. I think the formation went really well, I definitely learned a lot by giving it.

Other than that, a normal week. The missionary concert last night was here in Papeete. Next week it's down in Punaauia, the other side of Faaa. I'm excited for the concert in a few weeks in Papeari, the other side of the island. I've never been over there. Apparently it's pretty and a little more wild, weather, terrain, etc. Cool. I want to serve there one day.

Voilà, things are going well for me! Love and miss you all, have a good week!

Elder Barlow

Another week is gone... and it is May.

Hello family!

Another week is gone and it is May! I have been in Papeete now for over 14 weeks. Time is flying. There is a transfer next week, but I hope I stay here. Normally I should stay here at least one more transfer.

This week went well. We worked really hard. We went and visited our family with the fixed baptism every day this week. Their baptism is this coming Saturday. It's cool to see them changing. Apparently they used to live on the streets here and beg for their food. Now they have a pension that pays for a tiny apartment, but they are still extremely poor. But they are really starting to open up. I hope everything goes well this week, we fasted for them yesterday.

Another cool story: we went to a lesson with a member but our investigator wasn't there. Lame! That makes us feel panicky as missionaries, especially because a member gave up their time to come with us and then our investigator wasn't even there. So we prayed a little and thought of who we could go see instead. We both felt like calling a lady we had contacted 2 weeks before. She said we could come over and do a lesson, so we went over to her house. We taught the first lesson, the restoration, and it was awesome. At the end she started crying and said that when we had called she heard a voice that said "Ouvre ta porte," which means open your door, aka let the missionaries come over. She said she has been searching for something in her life. It was cool! Afterwards, we were reflecting and we realized we were totally led by the spirit to call her. Follow up with her... she came to a baptism this Saturday and loved it! And then Saturday night we did a presentation at the center across from the temple and she loved it again! But then she didn't show up for church yesterday.... the struggle. We just have to commit her to get married to her "basically husband but they're not married yet after 20 plus years," and then she can get baptized. Cool!

I have been sick since about a week before Elder Porter got transferred, over one month now straight with something or other. But luckily I am still feeling better overall. I have energy now to keep doing normal stuff. I restarted my workouts in the morning too and that feels great. I can't wait for after the mission to go on adventures with the family.

Yesterday was fast Sunday. It's the first time I've fasted in 2 months or so because I was sick. So I am excited to see what blessings come. Last night we were at the center waiting for some other missionaries doing a presentation to finish and then drop us off at our house. But what ended up happening is all the missionaries who were there had their faatamaaraa's dropped off (meals the members make for us). All in all, there were 6 Elders and 2 Sisters from our zone who were there. So after the presentation ended, we all said a prayer and then ate together! It was super fun. Our zone is awesome. To make things better, it was like 7:30 at night and I hadn't broken my fast yet so I was starving and the food tasted pretty good! And after being on a mission for a while now, I can support the saying that missions make you appreciate your mother's cooking. I miss the food back home!

That's about it for my week. Today is another super packed P Day. I just want a p day where I can actually prepare for the week and rest. Today we're doing mail from 8 to 10am, then from 10 to noon we have our missionary choir practice. Then at 1pm we have to go pick up some of our investigators because they have to go do a special baptismal interview at the mission office with a member of the mission presidency. Then afterwards, around 2 or 3pm we have to go do our shopping for the week, and that leaves about 2 hours from 4 to 6pm to clean the house and "prepare" for the week. At 6pm P day ends and we'll hopefully do a lesson/family night with some investigators. At 7pm we're going to eat at a member's house. P Day is too busy! Voilà. We actually say "voilà" all the time. French haha.

Have a good week,

Elder Barlow

8 months

Hi family,

So it turns out I was actually pretty sick this week. On Tuesday we had our interviews with President Bize. That was really good. I can understand and reply now, so that is cool, in  French. I asked what do the best missionaries do differently than others? He said it's a combination of two things: obedience and innovation. I'm obedient, so I spent a lot of time this week just trying to think of ways to be innovative as a missionary. Any ideas? Creativity... those two things probably apply in the business world too. Cool, huh?

Tuesday afternoon I did a split with our zone leaders. I went with Elder Millerberg in their zone so that I could stay with the car (they have a car) because I was sick. When I was still sick Wednesday they just extended the split another day! Haha. Wednesday we went to the doctor. Weird to do that in French. It's scary enough in English, right? The doctor said I have either Bronchitis or the dengue, lovely tropical malady. Regardless, I had a 39.5 C fever, which is actually 103 F! Hot! No wonder I was so wiped out. Thursday I got some antibiotics and a bunch of other pills and stuff I had to take. I'll be on those until Wednesday this week. Also I got my blood drawn. Remember how scared I am of needles? Yikes! But it was a different funny French guy who started speaking broken English to me. And he was really really good at it, I didn't feel a thing. The medicine seems to be working, I was able to go work hard Friday Saturday and Sunday. Today I am a little wiped out, I didn't sleep too good last night because I am still coughing. They should have the blood test results by now, but I haven't heard the results. It's probably important to know what I have... hmmm. I'll follow up on that because I know Mom is probably worried. Thanks for the prayers.

Our sector is doing good. We had a lot of lessons this week, we had the "standards of excellence" for the mission. I have mixed feelings about the numbers. I know they are there to motivate missionaries to work hard, but I don't like thinking of lessons as just filling up a quota. Each person has a very individual path that can lead to Christ and their redemption.

So Sundays on missions are actually a day of "unrest" in my opinion... haha. Yesterday we were waiting for our amis to come to the chapel. They told us Saturday they would come on their bikes. When they didn't show up we called them and they said "change of plans there are now 4 of us so we need a car to pick us up." I was stressing a little because it's not that easy to just find someone who has a big car here to go pick people up. Even more, we were already like 20 minutes into the sacrament meeting. But regardless, we found a car and they came to church and that was a miracle. It's a family we are working with who wants to be baptized the 7th of May. We do lessons with them almost every day. Right now we are working on the word of wisdom. Yesterday we confiscated a bottle of alcohol. Haha imagine us walking down the street with that! We threw it in a dumpster the next neighborhood over. The adventures of missionaries.

This morning for P Day our zone and 1 or 2 other zones were invited to eat crepes for breakfast at the mission home. We had succeeded a zone challenge the past several week to get lots of references from members. So that was fun to see everyone. After the crepes with everyone, we walked down to the chapel right here next to the temple and had a missionary practice for our missionary concerts, coming up in May. Then we did our shopping, cleaned the house, and now our mail! And already P Day is basically over and the week starts again. I am always a little sad for P Day to end. I think I need two days a week of a break. Haha.

Oh yeah, and by they way, it has been 8 months on my mission! I am 1/3 of the way done. I don't know how I feel about it. It has been fast, but at the same time extremely slow. Everyone here says from 6-12 months is the long part of your mission, and after the year mark it speeds up really fast. We'll see; if that's the case then I have 4 long months ahead of me. But it will be good. Right now I am doing really well, I like my sector and my companion. What more can you really ask for on a mission?  thanks to Elder Langomazino I am starting to learn some Tahitian. I can now teach a little in Tahitian. It's crazy. The gift of tongues is real.

I caught a lizard this week and put it on my nametag for a photo shoot, that was fun. Then I kept the lizard with me and used it to scare a sister missionary ;) I am evil hahahaha. Okay love you and miss you tons, have a good week!

Bisous (kisses),

Elder Barlow

I am a crazy person

Hello family!

What a week. We have been super busy all week. I don't have a ton of time, so I'll just share some highlights. This week we worked a lot with our ward missionaries. They are mostly new converts, and they are amazing! We went and did some lessons with them all morning on Wednesday. Afterwards, we didn't have any more fixed lessons, but they were so excited that they made us go door to door with them! That's amazing to see. Most of them were baptized in January of this year. As a result, we fixed a bunch of lessons for Saturday, and we went out and worked with them all morning Saturday again. It is much more effective to teach with natives. The investigators feel much more at ease and an invitation to come to church from actual ward members means more than an invitation from a 19 year old white boy.
What else is new... our sector is slowly picking back up. We had more lessons this week, around 22. We also worked with our new converts and will realize some new references from them hopefully this week. We teach maybe 20 percent of the lessons in Tahitian, so that's cool. I still don't really understand anything, but it will come.
Okay, why I am a crazy person: So we worked super hard all week, and by Thursday I was feeling a little tired. Friday morning I felt pretty exhausted, but we had a bunch of scheduled lessons that I didn't want to cancel. When I woke up Saturday I felt very sick, but we had planned to go work with our ward missionaries. So we went anyways. I thought to myself, God will bless me. This will prove how much I am committed to the work. We went and worked all day long. By Saturday night I was so exhausted I could barely walk. I was writing in my journal, and I realized God probably thought I was an idiot haha. It's better to rest when you're not feeling well. Well, as a result, I woke up Sunday morning and there was no way I would go to church, I felt terrible. I got dropped off at the zone leaders house and I slept all day long. At night we went back to our house and I slept until this morning. All in all, that makes about 30 hours straight that I slept. I didn't know that was even possible. I've never slept that long in my whole life. I don't know if I have the dengue (a mosquito carried illness), if I just became overexhausted, or what, but I still feel pretty sick today. A lovely tropical malady. I have a headache and a cough and my muscles are all fatigued. I almost threw up yesterday, but since then I haven't had any nausea. Also, I think I have a fever. I woke up last night completely soaked in sweat, and my entire bed. Everything was completely soaked. I didn't know there was that much water inside of me! Yeah.... yuck. Haha so anyways I have had a fun past few days trying not to die. Pray for my health! We'll see how this week goes, but I imagine it will be much slower because I feel horrible. My plan for p day today is to go home and rest!
On the upside, I have a photo of Elder Langomazino and me! Tuesday night (I think) we were at the mission office waiting for the assistants to go home. They were late, so we were all alone in the office after mission curfew (9pm)! Funny, huh? Then the second photo is of the mountain here. It doesn't really do it justice. Just know that I took the photo from maybe 100ft above sea level, and the mountain is a lot closer than it looks in the photo. You can see the individual trees on the mountain in real life. It is incredibly steep and straight up and down. Cool! I want to hike it one day.

Well that's all for this week! Hope you are all doing well, love and miss you tons! Pray for me!

Love,

Elder Barlow

Mission life continues

Hi family!

Another week is come and gone! This week was a growing week for me. I took over the sector on Wednesday, when Porter left and Elder Langomazino arrived. Langomazino is an Italian name, but he is from here on Tahiti. He's a short, strong little guy who I love a ton! He is amazing! I'll tell you more about him later. (Sorry mom I don't have any photos of us yet!)

Wednesday was stressful. As senior now I have to make all the plans and call everyone and find something useful to do! I have a little more compassion and understanding now for my earlier companions who would sometimes call it good and just sit around because we had nothing planned. However, thanks to Elder Langomazino, we worked super hard this week!

Our sector: So our sector had kind of died the last two weeks. We didn't have really any amis who were progressing. I was pretty stressed about finding things to do. But it turns out, the Lord is in charge and placed people in our path! We got a great member reference of a family. The parents are already married (thank goodness!) and they have all already received the missionary lessons, but somehow a long time ago the missionaries forgot about them or got transferred or something. They all want to be baptized! So we'll work with them a lot in  the coming weeks. We also went and did some OLB (ouvrir la bouche, open your mouth) aka tracting type stuff. We found a bunch of new amis! And we found some old amis too. We didn't know what to do at one point on Saturday, so we just started walking. We were passing the house of an old amis right as he and his girlfriend were leaving the house. I haven't been able to get a hold of them for several weeks, but thanks to seeing them that night, we fixed another lesson for next week. Yay! Super pumped for that. Yesterday also my report for the week didn't look so good (number wise). But then last night Elder Langomazino and I ended up fixing 5 baptisms for the 7th of May. Yes! The work is taking off.

This week has been different. We were really led by the spirit. Elder Langomazino is amazing. He is the most obedient missionary I have met so far in this mission, but not only that, he is cool and normal and fun! He doesn't speak English, so I have really improved my French conversational skills. We are able to "bro" in French. It's cool! He's been out on the mission for 5 months. Elder Requillart is the new assistant in our house, and he is super funny too! We all get along well, but now it's in French at our house. I call Elder Requillart farani-pai, which is Tahitian for spoiled frenchy, more or less haha. It's funny.

Conference was really good. My favorite talk was the first one, President Eyring. He said that whenever we gather together in the name of Christ, he is there among us through the Holy Ghost. I thought a lot about that this week each time we prayed to start a lesson. I felt the spirit a lot more during the lessons. There were several times we were talking and I didn't feel anything, so I would stop talking and change the subject in the middle of the sentence. I would just open my mouth and bam it was filled! And as a result, a man we talked to told us we could come and teach him and his family the first lesson. Super cool! I finally have experiences where the spirit has led me! It's amazing. What a good week. I am happy and excited for the future. Now I understand how the mission can be so fun and hard and enjoyable. I am falling in love with the people. Oh, also, Elder L speaks Tahitian! So we can teach way more people now! And I learn a lot more Tahitian by listening to him teach. We taught a family the first lesson and I recited the first vision of Joseph Smith in Tahitian! Crazy stuff. Ua ite atura vau, i te pou maramarama... I saw a pillar of light... Cool!

I am doing extremely well for the moment! Time is flying this morning, I gotta go. Love you all, congrats to the Wilkinson family for all the good news! Love you guys!

Elder Barlow

P.S. The pictures! Last monday at our missionary practice with Elder Pruett and Elder Thia.
And the last night together with Elder Porter (Tuesday night)! We were at the mission office, and the sisters came to pick something up. They left their car open, so Elder Porter and I got in and took a selfie in their car! We're so sneaky! Haha it was a fun last night together

Good things keep on coming

Before I forget: the photos. The first one... this Wednesday for lunch we went to the Caldwell's house with the assistants for lunch. They made us tacos, which were so amazing and normal and American tasting! I loved it. The second photo was at our zone meeting on Friday. Elder H

picked me up like a baby! I love him haha. And remember that I am 6'4" and probably heavy. Wow!

Okay. Hi family!

Happy Easter! They don't celebrate Easter so much here. Instead they celebrate the Friday before and the Monday after (today). As far as celebrations, mostly it's just a day off work from what I can tell. I actually forgot it was Easter until at church yesterday someone gave us chocolate.

It's been a good week overall. I was sick from Wednesday until yesterday with a pretty bad cold. I slept a lot. We didn't have any lessons anyways so it worked out okay. Our sector has really slowed down. We don't really have any progressing investigators. The good news is R got baptized this week! She actually went to Bora Bora to get baptized in the ward where her family is (she is at Tahiti for school), but the baptism still counted for us, so that was cool. Also the assistants had 3 baptisms in our ward on Saturday, so the work is going good.

Friday we had no lessons planned, so at our zone meeting we were talking to Elder Caldwell and asked him to register me for driving. Since all the cars here are stick shift in the mission, to be a driver you have to be "registered" by Elder Caldwell. That involves going for drives and learning to drive stick. So for about an hour or two Friday afternoon, I learned to drive stick and drove all over Tahiti! I picked it up pretty quick, driving stick is so fun! Elder Caldwell passed me off as good to go for driving after just one drive, which is pretty quick I guess. The cars here are either little Avenza Toyota vans or Toyota hilux trucks. I learned in a little avenza van.

Okay, Friday night we got transfer calls! Elder Porter is getting transferred to Paea, the zone on the other end of the island. He is super pumped, and I am a little sad that he is leaving haha. We got along really well. Also Elder Thia is leaving the house (he's been assistant forever, he's going to go finish his mission training a new missionary in the zone of Paea also!), so I am sad. Our house was so much fun because we all got along really well. The new assistant will be Elder R (from France) and my new companion will be...... drumroll.... Elder L! He's a Tahitian, which means he speaks French and hopefully Tahitian too. He is out on the island of Tahaa right now, so he won't get here until this Wednesday. He is a slightly newer missionary, which means I am the senior companion now. That means I am in charge of what we do everyday, all day. Wow! There is so much time in one day too, I am going to have to pray a lot to know what to do everyday! Apparently I am the district leader, too. But our district is my companionship, the assistants, and a senior couple, so I don't have too much to worry about there. I might have to do an occasional training or something. Also I am in charge of all the paperwork for baptisms, signatures from everyone, etc, and working with the mission office for all that kind of stuff. I will learn a lot! So Elder L and I will probably go tracting a lot a lot a lot a lot this week. We also have a good member reference to follow up on on Wednesday.

That's all the big news! I gotta go, we are starting rehearsals for a missionary choir concert thing with all the missionaries here on Tahiti. Funstuff! Overall this week, I have felt a lot of stress relief. I feel so relaxed! I don't know why, maybe because I was sick. But I realized, even though I'm a little nervous to be the senior, and sad that Elder Porter and Elder T are leaving the house, I realized that good things keep on coming. I think it was in a recent Ensign or conference talk. Good things keep on coming. Even though this good thing is coming to the end, more good things are in the future. I have to carry on until I get to them.

Love you all tons, I gotta go!

Elder Barlow