Tale of Two Cities



The CG District!

Well it happened! I denied that it would but I indeed left Casa Grande this week. It was a crazy, crazy week. Buckle up everyone, this is going to be good.

Monday - zone sports, transfers calls, lots of stress, you name it, it happened. I found out that I was being called as a district leader and leaving the area. We had a lesson before that happened with the Beebe's and I got whip cream all over my face. A picture later will explain. (He didn't send the picture)

Farewell pic with the Beebe's
Tuesday - A pretty somber day. Had zone meeting, taught a final lesson to Jesus, and then went by all the recent converts to say goodbye. The Evans, Bushnells, the Beebe's, man that was very very difficult. Stayed up pretty late packing and wondering where I was going and who my new companion would be.

Wednesday - Transfers! So, my new area is the McClintock YSA Ward in Tempe! It is an Arizona State University campus ward, so that means we are teaching mostly students and it is a lot of fun! There is so much that is new as well. Actually, everything is new. Except my companion. My new companion is Elder Pope, one of my MTC companions!! He is so much fun. The hard thing is that we are both brand new to this area, so we knew absolutely nothing about anything other than our area book, which wasn't the best, but we made it work. Met with our Ward Mission Leader, Jarod, who is a baller!! Found out that our district consists of the Assistants to the President, the Tempe YSA zone leaders, and the Sister Training Leaders. Needless to say we have some pretty awesome missionaries in this district. I am pretty intimidated to give a training to them tomorrow so we will see how that goes...

Thursday - Taught our first lesson to a member named April and her fellow-shipper Kylee, who are both super cool. They are both recently getting back into church, but we had a really spiritual lesson and they committed to be at church on Sunday. We also met the ward Relief Society President, Emily, who is really cool! There are some amazing members in this ward.

Friday - Had lunch with bishop, and a long weekly planning session considering we knew none of our investigators. Met with Stephanie who has recently committed to baptism and met her and her friend Jake, who is awesome. He lives in a tent. Enough said. But yet he is one of the coolest people I have ever met. Met our assistant ward mission leader, TJ, who fed us pizza and let us contact investigators in his apartment since it was pouring rain for about 5 hours straight.

Saturday - Went to a regional conference on religion featuring who? Elder Dallin H. Oaks! He came to the institute building at ASU and Kylee saved us seats right next to the door he came in. It was a really great conference! Really informative! It is always awesome to see an apostle of the Lord! Met Aken, our investigator from Sudan, who is working towards baptism in February. He is awesome.

Sunday - First Sunday in a YSA ward! It is so much different, but it was lots of fun. They have free food there like every week. I can't complain. Aken and Stephanie came and both really enjoyed it. Other than that the day was slow.

Trying to stay energized this morning!
So yeah! Totally crazy week but change is great! I am really excited to work in this ward and to have some new experiences. Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Barlow


#LIGHTtheWORLD

He's experimenting with his meal...interesting.

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