95th Letter: "Hey Hey! :)"

Hello Family,

Well another week is now behind us, and man did it go fast for me!! With Zone Conferences and things time just seems to keep speeding up. Its super scary how fast it is going!! Things have been going great for me, Zone Conf. has been really powerful all 3 of them so far. We have 2 more left, one tomorrow and one on Thursday and that will be that for my zone conference dues as an AP! :) haha no it has defintely been a blessing, there is just a ton that goes into it. It has been really cool I have now seen "Meet the Mormons" 4 times now, and it is just as powerful each time! If you havent gone and seen it yet, then go see it!! So some updates on what has been going on, and what will be going on in the near future. 

First off, I want to tell you what a miracle we have seen in the life of our RC Devin over the last 2 weeks since he was baptized. It has been absolutely incredible to see him continue to grow and develop in the gospel and his spirituality. The gospel truly has wrought a mighty change in his life, and has been molding him into a wonderful disciple of Jesus Christ. It has been such a testimony building experience for me, I have never seen someone change as much as he has in my life. And I have seen some pretty miraculous things throughout my mission too. 

With everything going on with meetings and what not, it has seemed like time proselyting in our area has been extremly little... Which is kind of depressing because our pool of progressing investigators is very small as well right now, but we have been seeing many blessings with the Lord continuing to prepare the hearts of the people that we are finding and teaching. Kevin our Irish investigator is doing alright, his progression slowed down as late a little bit, but is still looking pretty good to be baptized next Saturday if everything goes perfectly. We will see in our lesson on Friday if he is ready. He has had allot of things come up lately in his life that have caused him to be busy, and put baptism on the back burner a little bit... Pray for him! :) 

Something that has made me super happy this last week is on Sunday I got a call from Reese Dawson and he told me that he is recieving the Melchezidek Priesthood at Stake Conference the first Sunday in November along with Esequiel Flores is you remember him, he is another recent convert I had down in Las Cruces. I am sooo sooo excited for them! It is going to be such a blessing in their lives! It has been super exciting, and kind of depressing because it makes me feel like an old fart missionary, but to see my converts continue to progress throughout my mission. Also on Saturday we went out to Alamo for Alamo Days for our pday since we were busy down south with ZC last Tuesday. It was really cool, all of Alamo was there and so I was able to see everyone that I taught just in a few hours. The church had a booth their, and Anita and Charolette and Billy Joe Guerro were the ones manning it and they were doing tons of missionary work inviting everyone to come over and to fill out a referral sheet for the missionaries to come over, it was awesome to see! Haha I remember when they were non-members! 

Couple other notes is that I will recieve my new companion that I will have for 6 weeks on Saturday that will be exciting to find out who it is! And this weekend is Stake Conference and President Packers son who spoke in General Conference is coming! It should be great! :) 

Well Family I sure do love you! And miss you a ton! :) It excites me that I will see you all again soon! But scares me because I absolutely love my mission and I already know that I will miss it like crazy! 

Love you tons Family! 

Elder Barrus
ps dont be afraid to write me! 

 

I hit the flag on a par 3! From the tee. Best shot of the day

Same shot, it hit the green pretty hard :) haha

With the ABQ-E Zone Leaders

 

94th Letter: "Zone Conference!"

Dear Family!

Sorry to keep having all of these odd times of emailing lately, nothing is ever scheduled as an assistant we just email when we can! Things have been crazy busy we had Zone Conferences in EL Paso on Monday and then in Las Cruces on Tuesday, they went great! Very powerful meetings, that I feel were bennificial for the missionaries in attendance. As part of the zone conference we watched "Meet the Mormons" the new film that was produced by the church that will be in theatres this weekend! It is soooo good! You all should definitely take the time and go to it! 

Wasnt conference great! It was a fantastic weekend for me, I gained allot of personal revelation for myself and the things that I can improve on! I am sure it was a similar experience for you as well. It was pretty cool our recent convert Devin watched all 10 hours of conference. He is such a champ, it has been sooo sooo amazing to see the huge difference in him since his baptism! The gospel truly does change lives. Devin is even going to the Pheonix temple open house with the branch this weekend, we are super excited for him. One of our new investigators named Kevin came to conference this weekend as well and is still doing super good as he is working toward his baptisimal date of the 25th of this month. He is super super cool! 

Well I am way sorry but we are jam packed with things that we need to do. Next week we have 3 zone conferences up north and on Saturday I will recieve my new companion, that I will have 7 weeks to train how to be an AP before I am released. Time definitely is flying bye! Love you tons and know that I am doing great and very much enjoying the work amid the business. :) 

Love

Elder Barrus 

ps I will send Devins bap photo as soon as I can!

 

93rd Letter: "Goodbye September!"

Dear Family,

Another hectic and busy week has come and gone, with an even more hectic and busy week on the horizon! Real quick thanks again fro all of your letters, and all of the time that you take out of your busy lives to update me!! I appreciate it allot, and I definitely feel of your deep love! Well as most of you probably know Devin Tsosie was baptized on Saturday! It sure was a wonderful experience! But it was very crazy as well, and I will tell you why. So Saturday was a busy day leading up to the baptism, we had appointments scattered throughout it, and we had to be at the temple for cleaning at 1pm to 3pm. The baptism was at 5pm and the plan was that the Stake baptisms that were earlier in the day would leave the font filled for us. They confirmed that they would do so and so we had trust that they would. That was a mistake. We show up at 4pm and none of the chairs are set up facing the font....immediately I knew that they forgot and that the font wasn't going to be filled! And it wasn't.... :( We rushed and started the font but it was not filling up fast at all, usually this takes about 3 hours to fill. So we went crazy filling up empty garbage cans in the kitchen, getting a hose from the janitors closet and hooking it up to the faucet there, and dragging it all of the way to the other side of the church to the font. Definitely a miracle took place as we filled the font in 45 min! It was not the cleanest water, but nevertheless it was water! Seriously Satan does all that he can to thwart a baptism from happening! He lost this battle though! :) So Devin was baptized and it was a powerful service, I was blessed to be able to baptize him, and a usual timid and non emotional man came up out of the water with the biggest smile on his face. It was really touching to see! Devin has gone truly seen a transformation in his life, from living in a life full of addictions to now a guilt free conscience and the spirit flowing through him! How wonderful is the gospel and the message of the atonement! It surely is a message of change!

So an update our investigator Josh should be getting baptized in the coming month. He is totally prepared, but just needs to find a house in our stake before he can get baptized. We had a miracle this Sunday as a potential investigator came to church named Kevin Mckenna, he is super solid too! He is from Ireland, he came over here with his mom and dad a few years ago. I was learning all sorts of Irish terms on Sunday. Probably only Zac would understand. "Whats the story horse?" I think that's my favorite! Anyways we expect great things from him, we definitely know that he has been prepared by the Lord to here the message of the Restored gospel!

So Thursday is MLC and Friday is Zone Trainings, so pray for me that all goes well there. Also we start zone conferences this next Monday, starting down in El Paso. I have a big feeling that October is going to fly bye! And then Stephen will be home, that will be weird, and then December will be here, and we don't talk about that! ;) Something that I am looking forward to in November is Elder Lawerence E. Corbridge of the seventy is coming to the mission! He will probably release me as an assistant as soon as he meets me, but I am super excited to meet him and work with him closely for a few days! Well Family I sure do love you. You really are the greatest family an Elder Barrus could ask for! :) I pray for you daily, and I hope you feel of the deep love and care that our Heavenly Father has for each of us!
Love
Elder Nic Barrus