74th Letter: "Birthday Boy! :)"

Dear Family, 

Well I guess there comes a time in everyones mission where everyone gets tired of emailing you and you get tired of emailing everyone else. Haha I think I have reached that time! Its especially sad when nobody writes me on my birthday week... :( just kidding my dear family! I know you all love me. I have just been teaching faith without works is dead for so long, that I feel love without works is dead as well! ;)

I have been doing awesome!! Things in this part of the Lords vineyard are continuing to hasten! Stephens baptism was absolutely incredible!! As I was sitting there in his baptism there I had a wave of humility just hit me, and I just began to cry with gratitude for such an amazing experience my mission has been. It truly has changed my life, when I think of the individual I was before my mission and my lack of ability to listen to and understand the promptings of the spirit to now I am blown away. Missions are absolutely brilliant! It is exactly how the Lord molds the youth into the individuals he wants them to become and be. So I was blessed with the wonderful experience of baptizing Stephen and giving him the Holy Ghost. Needless to say I was on a spiritual high!! When Stephen and I were changing after the ordinance he just started bawling and saying how he has been baptized and many different churches, but now it finally feels complete! He said that it was exactly what he was looking for! Stephen and I have grown to be great friends, I truly do feel that in the pre-existence we knew each other and knew that I would come to him and share the restored gospel with him. I really love that man!!

So whose next you may ask. Well we are working with tons of incredible people who are just on the brink of being baptized. Two individuals who I absolutely love and are so close to being baptized, but they are struggling to understand that Heavenly Father would have just one true church. We explained that ultimately the only way they will know that this is true is by reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, and last night they agreed to doing that. Please pray for Oscar and Christabel that they will recognize their answer. 

Last I really hope that you do my birthday wish and go to the temple this weekend!! I really know that it will bless you and our family and thats exactly why I want you to go! My other wish is that after you take the picture to send to me, that you post it to facebook and bare your testimony along with it. If you dont want to bare your testimony you can write that:

                "my younger brother or son told me to do this for his birthday because the temple and the restored gospel means more to him than anything, He knows with all of his heart that it is true! That God loves us and he has a plan for each and everyone of His Children that he wants them to live so that they can be happy!!" 

Love you all and appreciate all that you do for me!! :)
Elder Barrus

73rd Letter: "Stephen Talley! :)"

Dear Family and Friends! 

Wanted to share a wonderful my wonderful weekend with y'all. We were blessed to witness the baptism of Brother Stephen Talley. An incredible man who was extremely prepared to receive the restored gospel. Stephen recently married Candice Talley a member of the church, and Candice had made hints that she wanted Stephen to join the church but never pressed it on him. One day Stephen decided that he wanted to go to church and had an incredible time. He expressed his desire to meet with us and we went over and taught him, and he was like a sponge soaking up the gospel. He accepted a baptism date on the first lesson and made the date we set. He is going to be a remarkable member of the church!! :) Truly converted to the Gospel. 

Thanks you all!
love Elder Barrus

ps my comp isnt in the picture because he got a wicked stomach flu and had to go on exchanges... :(

72nd Letter: "Hey! :)"

Dear Family,

This letter wont be too terribly long since we just talked on Sunday, but I wanted to write and let you know of some of the latest happenings in this part. First off it was absolutely incredible to have been able to see you, that was such a great experience. I love you all and appreciate all that you do. Each of you are such great examples to me and mean a ton to me. God truly has blessed me with an incredible family!

So I received a new companion today, his name is Elder Hicken and he is from Salt Lake City. I will be training him how to be a ZL, my second ZL son! haha We came into the mission together and have been pretty tight throughout our mission. He loves to play b-ball and is a huge Utah Jazz fan so I think we will get along just fine! haha :)

We are looking forward to hopefully having Stevens baptism on Saturday if all goes well!

Love you ton!
Elder Nic Barrus"

Cloud Croft= Heaven

​Great pday at the paradise of Cloud Croft! Really felt like we weren't in New Mexico anymore!

71st Letter: ":) Family!"

Dear Family,

Hey everyone!! It is such a blessing to be able to have such instant communication with you each week through email. And an even bigger blessing that we will be able to see each other on Sunday!! Man I am excited! I miss y'all so much and I cant wait to see how much each of you have grown up! Dad and Mom probably have gotten a few more grey hairs, Tucker probably has hair and Kellan has probably lost some, Amanda is probably still short, and Tiff still tall. Haha whatever it may be I cant wait because I love you all!! Still not 100% sure when I will be google+ you on Sunday but I will probably call Dad Saturday night to give him all of the details. So in order to make the most use of the time that we will have to see each other I am going to ask that each of you have 5 questions to ask me before we talk. :) I will have a list of questions myself so it will be good! :)

Well things are still going incredible here! The miracles we are seeing have been very humbling. Both Ezequiel and Reese got sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood and Ezequiel bore a powerful testimony in church of the Book of Mormon and the truthfulness of the restored gospel. It was awesome!! Another awesome thing that happened was we met a man named Steven at church he just married a member of our ward and he is super interested in learning, we went over and taught him last night after we got back from the temple in ABQ and had a very powerful lesson on the Restoration, and he accepted a baptismal date for next Saturday. He is super solid!! I want to tell you more about him on Sunday.

Love you all and see you soon! :)

Elder Barrus

Las Cruces Pecan Orchard

70th Letter: "Almost May! :o"

Dear Family,

Wowzah!! I can not believe how fast time goes by. This week went so incredibly fast, but man it sure was great as Ezequiel was baptized on Sunday. It was such an incredible baptismal service as the spirit was so strong. Most all of Ezequiels family was there, at one point in the service Ezequiel bore such a powerful testimony of his love of the Book of Mormon and the Restored gospel and his desire for his family to accept it as well. I pray that they will. I know that they were feeling the spirit during the service.

As you can imagine with all of the blessings that I have been given lately, I have been pretty happy!! I am in shock that the Lord has continued to bless me my whole mission with amazing prepared people that desire to enter into the waters of baptism. I don't know what I have done to deserve it. I am just trying my very best, not wanting to waste any of the Lords time. When I was in the MTC my bishop told me in one of our interviews that the average number of baptisms for a missionary in this mission is 4 and I felt kind of discouraged at that fact, and that night in the MTC I knelt down in prayer and set a goal for myself with the Lord of how many baptisms he wanted me to be apart of, and that number will be revealed at the end of my mission I hope, but currently I am about on track to reach our goal (Heavenly Father and mines goal).

One of the biggest blessings I have seen lately is finding out out my recent converts are doing, I talked to the Crofts this last week and they said that Anita is doing allot better she received her patriarchal blessing this last Sunday and is now recommitted to work towards getting her endowment out so hopefully that will be in the near future.

Next Monday is the mission temple trip!! So we will be heading up to ABQ for that! I am super excited, it has been forever since I last went to the temple, I hope it isnt the same for you. Because you guys have easy access to the temple. :) Don't abuse this amazing blessing of having a temple so easily to go to, many others don't have that blessing.

Tomorrow we will be heading up to ABQ for MLC on Thursday! It is such a long drive!! Good thing we have plenty of inspirational music to listen to on the way up haha

 

Well Its hard for me to believe that I am about to enter the 4th quarter of my mission here in the next couple months, I have been feeling overwhelmed with deep gratitude lately for the amazing support that I have felt from each of you over these 17 months. First off I wouldnt be on a mission if it wasn't for amazing converted parents, siblings and grandparents who set such a solid example for me to follow. Secondly I wouldn't be able to endure the trials of the mission if I didnt feel your constant support as I have. Thank you. Love you tons! Have a great week!

Love
Elder Nic Barrus

Jesus Christ said:

Matt. 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."

69th Letter: "Great Weekend in Las Cruces!"

Greetings from Las Cruces!
Just wanted to write a quick note to share the wonderful experience that we had this weekend, on Sunday a very special man named Ezequiel Flores got baptized. Ezequiel had gone through allot in his life with loosing loved ones and have really bad experiences with the different churches that he associated with. One day Ezequiel said that he prayed to seek for more of God's truth. He loves the bible and had read it many times, but every time he read he felt like God still had more scripture in the world and he desired it. Very soon after Ezequiel prayed he found the missionaries as he was delivering mail, and he felt impressed to hear what they had to say. We went over and met with Ezequiel and shared the message of the Restoration and of the Book of Mormon, and Ezequiel felt immediately that God was answering his prayers. He proceeded to listen to the Book of Mormon on tape while he was fulfilling his job as a mailman each day, as he did so he gained such an amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon and that Christ had His church on the earth. God truly did answer his prayers and brought the truth to him. I feel so very blessed to have been a tool in the Lords hands as He touched Ezequiels life. Ezequiel was also our stake Presidents mailman for many years and became familiar with him and actually really good friends. That is who baptized him President Jay Robb. Ezequiel is what missionaries say when they say "Kingdom Builder", he is going to touch many lives with the gospel, starting with his 8 children.
Love you all thanks for your continual support as I serve the Lord.
Elder Nic Barrus