Heating It Up in Tempe

Hello to my friends and family!!! This week at the MTC was pretty darn awesome. Remember the gangster Bubba? He got sick so we didn't get to teach him anymore :( but we got our other investigator Aaron to commit to baptism! WOOO!!! That was exciting. Elder Day was struggling in the early part of the week. He didn't seem to have much desire to be awake or to teach at all. So yesterday, Elder Pope and I basically forced him to lead the lesson with our new investigator, Shannon. He was not very happy about it but he did it and he did well. We are going to do that more or else he won't be ready for Tempe. Shannon is super nice and is from Florida, and our other Investigator's name is Rodrigo and he is from Chile, which is super duper cool!! He is a stud and has a huge desire to increase his faith.  Our district has become very very close to one another. While there are some who do a gret job at teaching me patience, they all are very strong spiritually and It's going to...

Hellooooo everyone!! :) This week has had everything packed into a 6-day period, and it has been crazy but super awesome. I have felt joy, stress, exhaustion, skeptical, and everything in between. But I can see the growth both in me and the elders that I have around me and that on it's own is a miracle! :) So my companions' names are Elder Day and Elder Pope (yes, I have two right now, Elder Hopkins had to head home this morning due to health issues), and they are both super awesome. Elder Day is one of the most chill, laid back men I have ever known. Elder Pope is even weirder than I am sometimes (crazy, huh?) and has an awesome spirit about him. Today is my first day as a tri-panionship so that'll be a little different, but I am pretty excited to see where that goes. We are currently teaching two investigators, Bubba and Aaron. Bubba is a literal gangster who moved to Utah to get away from that, and Aaron is just going to school at the U. They are both super awesome...

Early this morning, Elder Barlow said goodbye to his family and caught a flight to Utah... It's not easy to say goodbye to your family and commit yourself to the service of the Lord for 24 months, and almost just as hard for the family! We KNOW that he is in the Lord's hands and we know he will be watched over and protected! He's been ready to embark on this new adventure for several weeks, and he was excited to get going! Fortunately, through God's tender mercy, he was able to sit by members of our church, who knew what it meant to be "going on a mission!" They we able to send this pic via Facebook almost as soon as the plane landed! Then Camille and McKay picked him up at the airport, took him to breakfast, and then delivered him to the Missionary Training Center where he will spend the next 3 weeks before he leaves for the Arizona Tempe Mission. He sent this email not long after arriving at the MTC: Hello everyone!! I am at the Missionary Training Center sa...