The Love of the Work


Hello everyone!! I hope you all had an awesome week! Mine was indeed pretty fantastic, I won't share it all with you, I will focus more on the main experiences that were great. But there were a lot of them. Here it goes!

So this week, Elder Youngblood got me sick. Good thing missionary work brings blessings, because I decided to push through it and keep working even though I wasn't feeling great. This lasted for about three days, but it was amazing that the times I felt the worst were when I stopped to rest, or back at the apartment at night after the day was done. During the day as I focused on Christ and on the people we are teaching, I pretty much forgot I was feeling terrible. That is possible for all of us. Jesus Christ is there for all of you! All we need to go is remember Him and do what he asks us, and we will see so much strength and joy come into our lives. It is magical. But it is true. Try it, and your life will change.

This week I was able to do two exchanges, one with Elder Hedelund and one with Elder Christensen, one of the Assistants to the President. Elder Hedelund trained Elder Grigsby, so we had a good time sharing funny stories from being with him, as well as he is a fantastic missionary and taught me a lot. We focused a lot on planning throughout the day. We focused on our investigators and the work more and we were able to see some great miracles come from it. We were able to contact a recent convert to the Church who we had been trying to talk to for a month, and set up a lesson with him. It was awesome. With Elder Christensen, we went to the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center with two Chinese investigators who they will be sending to our area, so it was a really great experience. The presentations we watched were in Mandarin, so for me the cool thing was seeing their eyes light up as they were able to learn more about God and Christ, since they were raised without that knowledge. It was really cool. We sometimes are so oblivious to the knowledge that we have, which is so powerful and so life-changing. We shouldn't take it for granted.

On Saturday we were able to attend the baptism of William, who was an investigator in another ward in the stake. Our mission president baptized him, and William shared his testimony afterwards. I have had the privilege of getting to know William recently, and he is the funniest and most genuine guy ever. As he shared his testimony, he began to break down into tears, which no one was expecting. He shared how feeling God's love is something that he had sought after for so long, and as soon as he read the Book of Mormon and prayed to feel that love, he was able to find peace for the first time in his life. it was amazing seeing how much all this meant to him. It helped me reflect on what the gospel means to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that without all of the blessings of the gospel, my life would not have a purpose. I would not know what to do with myself. The gospel of Jesus Christ is everything to me. I know that the gospel has been restored to the earth, and that we have a modern prophet on the earth who leads us and gives us guidance on how we can follow Christ more, as well as we can have our own personal relationship with Heavenly Father, and by doing so, we can have peace in our lives, and we will never be alone. I know that is true.
The Evans' and the Bushnell's at the Mesa Institute last night!

I love you all! This week was awesome, and we are now coming up on the last full week of the transfer. Weird, it still feels like we got here last week. I love being a missionary, I love seeing lives change. Sister Evans and Will spoke at a devotional last night that brought me to tears. It was amazing to see how they have both grown. We can all experience that growth and find happiness. Have an awesome week everyone!


Elder Barlow

#BecauseofHim




Our district hiking ASU Mountain this morning (minus the assistants to the President).

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