52nd Letter: "1 year anniversary!!"

Dear Family. 

So I just finished writing my big long letter to you and it deleted.... So I will try my best with the time that I have to write you. Well from the famous words of a primary song "I am one year older and wiser to", and I definitely feel allot wiser. This year of my life has been amazing!! I am in awe of what has taken place!! I just thank my Heavenly Father for this blessed opportunity that I have been given and I hope to repay him through diligent and consecrated service this upcoming year!! Well Family it sounded like Dad, Mom and Amanda had a wonderful time in Savannah! That is awesome! I am super jealous!! :) 

So this last week was simply amazing things have been going awesome. And this area is only improving. Elder Black and I have been working our tails off. The ward has not changed a lick and has only gotten worse and so we went and met with our awesome stake President Rounsville from Blackfoot. And he assured us that there are going to be some exciting changes that we are looking forward to. We have been fasting and praying for success despite the ward situation and things are on the up. We had a miracle this last week as Emery received permission from his Dad to get baptized!! So he now is looking really solid to get baptized on February 15th. And anther miracle that has taken place is we recently had an solid investigator move into our area named Kat, I think I told you about her, but her lesbian mom is letting her get baptized on her 16th birthday! Yay! We have been finding new investigators allot more often as well which I definitely attribute to our faith in looking forward and not back! 

Family! I miss you!! But I love what I am doing! This is the greatest work in the world. This is an eternal work, and we all need to be apart of it. Lift were you stand and be an instrument in the Lords hand. I am grateful for the missionary moments that you shared with me. They really strengthen me. Keep sharing them I would love to hear where your focus is!! Thanks my dear family for your love and support! I feel it!! By the way the greatest happiness you can feel as a missionary I just felt. I just found out that Fredrick Mckay got put in the Elders quorum presidency in the Academy Heights ward!! :)

Love
Elder Barrus 

51st Letter: "Hey Hey Family!"

Dear Family, 

A miracle truly has been performed in the Barrus Family! Congrats Zac and Chelsea on having a GIRL!! I am still not sure if maybe you are all pulling a fast one on me or not, but hey I will believe it when I see it (or her) in a year!! No but that is super awesome she is going to be a rocking softball player!! And Sister Missionary, the Barrus family needs some of those!! 2014 Is going to be such an awesome year for y'all and it sounds like Dad, Mom and Amanda are starting it off right with going on a vacation!! I hope you will have some fun in the sun!! :) Well I have been doing great! It was a great week last week and I am starting to get a better feel of which direction this zone is heading in. There were some awesome moves within the zone and we got some stellar hard working missionaries that know how to get things done, so that is what I like to see!!  

I personally have devoted myself to make 2014 the year of miracles! I have said this over and over again, but it really does make me sick to think that my mission is half over. I look back over 2013 and am humbled by how many blessings that I was given, how many miracles that I was able to be apart of. I dont know what I have done to make myself worthy to receive such blessings. The last couple of weeks I came to a conclusion that the reason that I havent been blessed with success so far in Rio Rancho is because I hadnt have been grateful for the blessings that I have been given to this point of my mission. I truly was humbled at that moment I realized it. And I have seen a distinct change in my missionary work. The Lord has kind of poked me in the side and said most missionaries arent able to have this much success and why arent you grateful for what you have. 

So since that kind of realization that I went through we have been experiencing success! We have been finding people to teach and we have just felt more fulfilling after each day. We found a man named Frank and a different man named Steve just this last week and taught them super powerful Restoration lessons. I am excited to see where that goes. Emery the 10yr old was suppose to get baptized on Saturday but his anti dad put a hold on it. Emery is going to call his dad today and tell him how much he wants to get baptized. So we are pretty confident that he will be baptized in the coming weeks! He is awesome! Also we had a huge miracle were an investigator from the Bernalillo ward moved into our ward, she is 15 and has a super strong testimony! She is going to be baptized next month when her lesbian mom allows her too! Wonderful things are happening!! I am super excited for this upcoming transfer!!

Love you my dear family a ton!! I hope you all have a great week!! I leave you with a challenge this week though! Have a missionary moment, live your life uncensored! When you are on the airplane flying to Georgia tell the person sitting next to you that you went to church on Sunday and heard a powerful message or that you really enjoy Family History. You dont have to have a big missionary experience, just open your mouth!! The Lord works through the willing....so be WILLING!! :) 

Love you much
Elder Barrus

50th Letter: "First letter of 2014!!"

Dear Family,
I feel that the quality of my letters are drastically decreasing over my mission. My brain has becomed fried and so every time I sit down to write I cant think of anything to tell you! I am so sorry!! 

Anyways I am doing really great!! I found out that I will be staying in Rio Rancho for another transfer with Elder Black, I am excited and feel that it is going to be a great transfer!! There is so much to do!! And I am looking forward to the challenge! Which it definitely will be.

 We are experiencing a gradual change within the zone, we had 3 baptism this last week which equals the 3 previous months combined!! So we definitely are on the right track!! I am super excited to see a change in the whole zone moving forward this next transfer. Zone Training was this last Friday and we taked about burrying our weapons of rebellion and becoming fully consecrated missionaries! It went really well and I am hoping that the zone took it seriously. We really are trying our best!! 

I hope life is going well for everyone!! It is for me, this last transfer was definitley the most difficult for me of my mission, but I saw myself grow and develop the most, and I have really come to know why I am serving here in Rio Rancho. The Lord loves us all and knows our weaknesses and strengths, and He is willing to work with us if we are willing to work with Him! I am really looking forward to 2014 and what lays ahead for me and for all of us. My prayer is that we will all look forward in faith trying to become better!! Look for missionary opportunities, open your mouth and be an example of the believers!! The Lord loves us and blesses us unconditionally!! Let us share that love!!

Have a great week!! It is going to be a busy one for me getting everyone in there assigned areas and what not. Love you tons! Never forget that!!
Elder Barrus

49th Letter: "2014!! Black-out year for Elder Barrus!!"

Dear Family,
Here I am again, the day before the new year! 2014!! I am so pumped it is going to be such an awesome year!! I will forever love 2013 because I dont think I have ever grown so much in a single year than as I have in this last year. I have truly seen myself be molded into the person that my Heavenly Father wants me to be. And I cant imagine what 2014 will bring, I am guessing allot of fun difficult challenges, thats usually what missionary work brings. I really look forward to seeing what difference I can make as I devote myself to the Lord and give all that I can for the remainder of my mission. I truly do love this work!! I am exhausted as exhausted could be and I have been pretty frustrated lately, but I know that I am where the Lord wants me to be doing what the Lord wants me to be doing. 

It was so great to be able to see you all this last week. What an awesome family that I have!!! :) You all look great!! I hope that you had a wonderful time together, I am sure you did with the boys bouncing off the walls.  

So I am doing pretty great, trying to finish this transfer out strong! Our area has been going great as it looks like we are having 2 baptisms in the month of January! :) We have been working really hard to find people to teach, as our teaching pool is really small currently. We have seen some miracles as we have been striving to talk to and invite everyone that we meet. 

I am going to try to write to a bunch of people that I have neglected to write to on my mission so sorry this is a somewhat shorter email. But there isn't too much going on!

I love you a ton Family!! :) 

Elder Barrus 

ps I will be emailing on Monday next week since it is transfer week. 

48th Letter: "Merry Christmas eve-eve!! :)"

Dear Family, 

This will be a relatively short email, considering that I will be talking to you in less than 72 hours!! :) I am super excited to see you all!! The time that you should be prepared for me to google plus you is between 6:30-7pm on Christmas. If there is any problems I'll give you a call and we can get things squared away. I hope that will work out alright for y'all!! Also make sure that you have plenty of questions to ask me so we can make the most of the time we have!! :) 

Christmas for me should be pretty good, we are having dinner with one of the coolest families in the ward, and we actually have a lesson planned with a part-member family at 6pm that night that we are looking forward to. But Christmas is just like any other day as a missionary!! :) It is just a ton of a lot harder to find people to see!! 

I dont want to explain the class that we did at UNM too much so I can save it for when we talk so make sure you remind me about that. It was super fun! Tons of super hard questions, but the spirit was super strong and 16 people gained a better understanding of the church. 

Well I will see you all in a couple days!! Love you tons!! Have a Merry Christmas and be happy!! :) 

love
Elder Barrus

ps 

thanks for all of the gifts!! :)

47th Letter: "Christmas gift!!!! :o"

Dear Family, 

Hey y'all it is very grand to be here writing you again!! There is peace for the soul every time that I hear from you all. Sounds like everyone is doing pretty good and that you all are looking forward to Christmas!! Which makes sense!! I am looking forward to it myself, because I have a pretty awesome family that I get to skype!! :) So I will probably do Google plus again though, it worked pretty well last time, and President Miller approved it. So it looks like we will most likely be doing it around 6:30pm or 7. Elder Black has some family coming later so that's why. I will let you know more set in stone next P-day.

Well I have doing well, been kind of stressed to be honest. Last week was really tough as far as the work was concerned. There has been allot of drama within the zone and Satan is really attacking us right now, and the fighting back process has been really draining both physically and spiritually!! So this P-day was very needed, I am really looking forward to letting loose and playing some b-ball today. It was weird because throughout all of the stress we had one of the best weeks within our area that we have had in a while. We were able to set a baptism date with an awesome 10 year old named Emery! His mom is a less active member of the church, that has gone through allot. Emery is looking solid to make the date he is just going out of town for Christmas and wont be back for a while so his date isn't until Jan 18th, but his Grandpa is coming from California to do it. We are looking pretty promising to be setting a couple more baptism dates this upcoming week as well so we are excited.

A somewhat funny thing has happened to me recently. I was reading my patriartical blessing a couple weeks ago and there is a part that says I will have experiences with atheists and unbelievers throughout my life, and that I will have opportunities to boldly declare the gospel. And when I read this I was like "I have never talked or had an experience like that." Since that moment I have talked and been able to teach 3 different atheist. It was kind of a surreal experience to me, It was like Heavenly Father was confirming to me the divinity of my patriartical blessing. :)

So a crazy opportunity that I never thought I would have on my mission is happening this Thursday. Elder Black and I got asked to teach at UNM the world religion class, we talked to the professor and he told us that we will have 3 hours to teach whatever we would like. "He was like I dont know what you can tell about what happens inside the temple but that is pretty interesting..." ha wow not happening. So needless to say we are pretty nervous but excited for the opportunity. We are following a Rabi so the class will be asleep when we come in, the spirit is going to overcome them. It will be just like the Book of Mormon.

Well I will see you all in a week!! :) I love you all a ton and miss you like crazy! Elder Foster of the seventy came to our Zone Conference on Saturday and really instilled something in me and that was that "these are my days", this is the only time in my life that I will be able to fully devote myselft to the Lord as a missionary, and to make the most of my days. So every morning I wake up and look myself in the mirror and say, "These are my days". I am so grateful that they are my days!!

Love 
Elder Barrus

46th Letter: "Merry Christmas!! :)"

Dear Family,

Wow it is cold!! Coming to New Mexico I thought I was going to die in the heat and not have to worry about the cold, but boy was I wrong!! Winters here are pretty brutal, or at least this year!! With how cold it is it definitely can be a hindrance to the work if you let it be. I am handling the weather pretty well, it definitely is a blessing that we have a car to drive, but we still try to walk as much as possible so that we can have opportunities to talk to people. I am just grateful that I had the preparation of growing up in -10 degree weather to prep me for this. :)

Well it sounds like y'all are enjoying the Christmas season!! It is always good to hear that your doing good, it definitely helps me to keep moving forward. I hope you were all able to hear the wonderful Christmas devotional, it was so uplifting and helped me continue to remember the true meaning of Christmas. If you weren't able to watch it I definitely would recommend getting on Lds.org and watching it!! There is such a wonderful spirit during this time of year, I think part of the reason that the Lord sends His spirit in great abundance at this time is to bless the few people who will put aside there selfish desires of the Holiday and remember its true meaning. I am really going to miss fighting with Amanda and Zac on waking up early and saying a family prayer by mom and dads bed before we went in to open presents, I am going to miss the power going out and Dad trying to save the breakfast by cooking it on the bbq, I am going to miss the look on Grandmas face when Grandpa gets her a space heater for his garage ;) But the blessing that I wont miss and that I know will still be with me during this season whether I am at 3818 boulder creek lane or 2909 turf lane is the spirit of our Saviors birth. I pray that, that will be the gift that we will all cherish and love the most this Christmas season!! 

So as far as the missionary efforts here and RIOOOO Rancho have been going... So this last Thursday was MLC and Friday Zone Training of course. And so Elder Black and I have really been praying and pondering on what to present in the meeting to best help our zone get fired up and to increase there faith that success can be found in Rio Rancho as well. So for MLC we have to account for our Zones numbers over the month and it is super hard to stand before the leadership of the mission and report on the only zone in the mission that is not having any success and everyone can see that. As we were standing up there I just kept asking myself what is it going to take for this Zone to be blessed the same as ABQ or Las Cruces or El Paso??? The Lord doesnt love his children more in one area more another. I know he wants us to have success to! It hit me like a brick wall what the problem was.... There is no faith in the Rio Rancho missionaries. Faith precedes miracles and we are definitely asking for a miracle. So meanwhile this is all going through my head during the 5 min we were reporting, the AP's were kind of giving us grief through suggestions, and then the last thing that I said as we were going back to our seats is "Rio Rancho is going to explode!!" I have faith and know that the Lord is going to work wonders here as we just diligently exercise our faith. So after MLC we have about 3 hours to prepare for the 3 hour zone training the next day. And that preparation was an incredible experience, the spirit bore witness to us of what we needed to train of to help this zones faith increase. I could feel the whole time preparing that this was going to be a turning point for this zone if we followed the spirit. Needless to say the Zone Training was incredible, one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Closing the training we invited the zone to bare testimony of our potential, and you could just feel their faith increase as they did just that. We have witnessed and are witnessing amazing changes in our missionaries, and miracles are occurring more often as a result of it. I AM EXCITED!! :) Change is possible, one thing I cant stand and bugged me the most coming into this zone was that nothing has changed increased of decreased in the zone since the stake was opened. Everything in life is about change!!

Family, I love this work!! Everyday I get to wake up and put on the name of Christ, and stand in His place and proclaim His gospel. There is no other place in the whole world that I would rather be than here in the Panorama Heights North area in the Rio Rancho stake, because I know with all of my heart that I have been called by God to be serving here. I know that there are lives to be touched and souls to be saved as I turn to the Lord and be His instrument in helping His children. Know that I love and miss you so much!! This mission is going by so fast, it is unbelievable to me that I am coming up on a year now. It scares me to know that this will one day come to an end. I have never felt so close to my Savior and realized so many truths than on my mission. I give thanks to the Lord for changing me, and molding me to the individual he wants me to be.

Take care!! LOVE ELDER BARRUS!!