Let the Birthday Month BEGIN! ;)

#squadpic

 Hey everyone! So good to say that it is September now :) September has the best weather of the year, in North Idaho at least. It is still in the 100's down here, but life is still pretty good :) I am getting used to the heat a little more, and it should start cooling down a little in the next few weeks. But there was a lot that went down this week, so I am going to have to pick and choose what I share, so we will see how this goes :)

So this week was the hardest I have worked yet on my mission, and Elder Grigsby said the same. We were ballin' hard with finding while we were teaching and teaching while we were finding. We ended up receiving 11 referrals this week, which is a HUGE number, especially for Casa Grande. We upped all of our weekly goals and achieved every single one other than church attendance. Our goal was 10 investigators (double the weekly average) and we ended up with 8, which is still pretty darn good. The most in a few months. We have been really blessed with some of the people we have been teaching as well as some people we have recently met. So this week is going to be fun, we are working pretty darn hard and don't plan on slowing it down anytime soon. My first transfer ends next week, which is cray. As long as I focus on the work, time flies. If I focus on home too much, time goes by SO SLOW. So if you want time to fly, WORK HARD. Don't focus on what comes later, focus on the now. It works. Trust me. But I don't really want it to fly by. I am starting to love this place. It is the weirdest place I have ever been, but I still Love it:)

Elder Grigsby and I really hit our stride this week too. We didn't have problems in the past, but we are finally getting a true feel for each other and how we do things. So it was super cool. Also, we have some KILLER chemistry while balling. Today was sick, we were balling pretty hard.

Cool experience of the week: so on Thursday I got my first experience with exchanges, which I was super nervous about leading up to it. I went with Elder Fowles and got experience leading out the area. It made me feel like I can do this, like I am really starting the transition from the training phase into the rest of my mission. So that was cool. I also gave two blessings that day, which was super cool. I have yet to give a blessing out here without there being some insane distraction going on in the background, but hey, the power of the priesthood overcomes that, haha.
The Casa Grande Zone (Elder Vernon is pretty friendly)
Also funny story of the week: We were looking for a member in the ward by the name of Feather Ivy. Interesting name, right? Well we knock the door and another guy answers, says that Feather is in bed, so we decided to talk to him a bit. We asked for his name and he said people call him "The Giant Slay Killer, you know, from the Bible?". I had to try pretty hard to keep myself from smiling. That is the strangest name ever. So that was pretty legit. Maybe I will name my first child that.

My final thought is this: As most of my friends have started school or will this week, remember who you are. In True To The Faith, it says "You cannot linger in temptation and expect to overcome sin." That is so true. If you want to get away from all the bad stuff going on around you, don't put yourself in a dangerous position. You will be much happier that way, I promise you.

Love you all, keep being awesome! Happy Labor Day, and for all you people heading back to school, crush it this week! :)

Elder Barlow

Helaman 5:12

This pic got me pretty darn pumped for Conference, as well as I really laughed a lot from it!

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