Friday, August 29, 2014

88th Letter: "BYE August!"

Dear Family,
Well hello there again! Sure sounds like things are going good throughout the Barrus family! Brings great joy for me to hear about those wonderful things, while I am in good ole New Mexico. Still it is amazing me how fast time is flying bye, there have been some great things happening here that have been super fun to be apart of. Devin is looking pretty solid to make his baptism on Saturday which is really exciting, Devin asked if I would baptize him which is a great blessing! First baptism in Nob Hill! :) Also the sisters in the Nob Hill branch are having a baptism as well and her name is Melanie, and she also asked if I would baptize her, so I am going to be getting wet on Saturday. :) Pray that everything goes great preparing for the baptism! Satan definitely does all that he can to prohibit the baptism from happening.  

Well with school back in session, we have been talking to allot of really great people! Seems like The Lord has prepared allot of UNM students to receive the gospel this semester! :) We are going to work our little tail feathers off to give as many of them the opportunity to hear about it too! We were actually able to get in contact with the UNM starting QB Clayton Mitchem, as well and we are going to start teaching him. He is pretty interested in the Book of Mormon. Randy Williams is the DE at UNM and he was baptized about a year ago, so we are going to see if he can help us out teaching him. So all in all the missionary work is going great! We werent able to meet with Eric this last week and he has been slow in returning our text messages so we are praying that he maintains his desire to be baptized! His brother just got home from Afghanistan so that is a pretty good excuse to be busy. 

So our travels has taken us all over the mission lately, we did trainings for all of our zone leaders throughout the mission last week. First on Wednesday we traveled up to Espanola with President Miller and trained the Santa Fe ZL's it was a great experience being able to be in the same vehicle with President for so long. He talked to us about all sorts of things, we asked him allot of gospel questions and deferent policies throughout the church and his views on them. It was a very special experience! For the last hour on our car ride home he just talked to us about dating and what to look for in a wife, and what not to look for! :) Valuable knowledge for sure! 

On Thursday we trained the ZL's in the ABQ area, and then immediately left for El Paso to start exchanges with the Las Cruces, and Mount Franklin west ZL's. We had a wonderful training with all of the southern ZL's Friday afternoon, and then President took us all out to Applebee's for dinner, definitely wasn't cheap, but it was very good!! We did another exchange down south following dinner with the Mount Franklin east and El Paso ZL's, and then headed back to ABQ Saturday morning. Something that was special was on our way back from El Paso we stopped in Las Cruces and gave Esequiel some things he asked me to get for him. He took us to lunch at McDonalds and we had a great talk with him, he is such an incredible man! His knowledge of the gospel is only growing! He knows more about the Book of Mormon than most members do. His desire to do missionary work is crazy too, he has given many people a Book of Mormon, and talks to about everyone about the gospel as he delivers mail each day. A funny experience that kind of lets you know a little bit more of what Esequiel is like: One day he was pondering while he was delivering mail is how he can help the Muslims come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ and importantly the Book of Mormon, he desperately wanted to help them. He said that each day he would watch the news and see all of the horrible things that are happening, and he would immediately feel that they needed the Book of Mormon. So he decided one day he was going to write his testimony in a Book of Mormon and highlight some verses and put it in front of one of their Muslim Mosques. He didnt want to talk to them face to face, but he knew that they had services on Fridays, so he went Thursday night and put it by the door! He is one incredible man, he has been an incredible blessing for me on my mission. (He was baptized while I was serving in Las Cruces) 

Well family I am off to Taos, NM for pday! Have a wonderful week! And know that I love each of you soooo much! I know that the work I am doing changes lives! Lets all be apart of it! Talk to someone on the plane or at the store/ work. You can do it! :)
Love 
Elder Barrus

No comments:

Post a Comment