40th Letter: "Hey Y'all!! :)"

Dear Family, 

RED SOXS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) The Lord truly is blessing me in all aspects as I have been serving a mission!! haha I LOVE IT!! I found out yesterday as we were eating at a members house, it was the greatest news ever!! Anyways haha glad to hear that y'all are doing well! I have been doing pretty great myself! Things have been pretty crazy as the Stake totally changed up all of the boundaries, which is caused a lot of work for Elder Weber and I. Our area actually got changed quite a bit and we lost a lot of investigators and less actives which is kind of a bummer, but you adjust to whats been given you and go forward. It definitely is an exciting time here in ABQ stake though as another ward has been created!! This church is really booming in this area!! We have had 35% growth in the last 5 years which is incredible!! I love being apart of such a wonderful movement. So I have been amazed with myself since Elder Schneider left, I had confidence that I could run the area pretty well after 6 weeks, but things have been going really well. We taught more lessons last week in this area than it has since it got split, It was a great week!! The Lord is really blessing us with success throughout all of our busy ZL responsibilities.

One such exciting thing that has happened is our investigator with a baptism date for the 2nd of Nov.quit smoking this last week. On Tuesday we went over planning to teach about Faith or something and I had a huge prompting to read Matt. 19 with her about the young rich man. We invited her to do what the young rich man did not, and give up her cigs and follow the Lord. Needless to say we were pretty bold with her. And she wouldn't throw them away on the spot.... So we left kind of discouraged, but the spirit was still really strong and I knew that they could feel the promptings. Anyways so we go back on Thursday and we could tell that there was something different about them right when we walked in. Both of them were happy they were radiating the spirit. So I proceeded to ask him how things had been going, and they said that after we had left they threw away there cigs and have been off since!! They both came to church yesterday and are doing great!! :)

We have a couple other investigators that are really close to baptism and we are super excited for the way that things are going. Definitely a lot of potential!! Hoping to set 4 more bap dates this week!!

Well Elder Weber has been great I have really enjoyed being his companion so far, we have a lot of things in common, and teach super well together. I am pretty sure that he is going to be called to be the next assistant, but I wouldn't mind if we are comps for a while.

I am trying to think of some other exciting things that have been going on, but cant really. This next Sunday is SMCM (Meeting we have with the Stake Pres.) so we will be in the library a lot putting those reports together for our Zone..... It is a lot of work along with figuring out the new boundaries for the missionaries. I am so looking forward to playing some basketball today!! It is such a stress reliever!! :)

I wish you all to have a great week!! Know that I love letters and packages in the mail too!! :) So don't be shy!! haha I am so grateful for such a wonderful family who has set an amazing example for me. Keep doing what you do!! :) I LOVE YOU ALL
Love,
Elder Barrus

My Scripture this week is to WATCH Elder Hollands talk: "Safety for the Soul" It is a life changing talk to me.