8-21-17

Hey......yikes....

This week has gone by super fast! To start off last Monday we drove the beautiful 3 hour long drive to Anchorage with our Zone Leaders. It was so much fun and really amazing views the whole time. We drove up for a Zone Conference which was a blast. I really love seeing everyone and also listening to the trainings. I learned a ton! Our new mission President had a lot to go over on the agenda so it took a long time. We learned of the new push from the Brethren about who we should be spending time with and how long we spend there. It honestly sounded like some big changes to missionary work is coming but not any time before I'm done so it will be interesting to see what is coming. We talked a lot about finding through part member families and prospective Elders and children of record over 9. It was a lot of stuff to take in but I really loved it. One of my favorite things President Toone said was "a number will never get into the Celestial Kingdom only a child of God." That really hit me! We were talking so much on all the different people in our area and contacting as many as we could but that statement made me remember that these are people and not numbers. Oh and President Toone was wearing a tie that will soon be mine because he said he would arm wrestle me for it so it's sooo on! Anyway after Zone Conference we drove on back and really started our week. We taught a lot of people this week which was a huge blessing. Having a new missionary can be kinda hard when you don't have a lot of people to teach but after diligently doing all we can to find people the Lord really blessed us with some amazing investigators. One new one is a 16 year old kid who is friends with some members. He is a lot of fun to teach because he has very little religious back ground so we have to start from the ground up on everything. I actually really love teaching people like that because you need to focus so much on faith in Jesus Christ before everything which is nice. The kid's nickname we call him is slick because always wears these shades and dresses slick hence the name slick. Slick came to church yesterday so that was exciting! We had a good amount of investigators and less actives there this week so it was a party. Well ya that was my week. The transfer is going great and I really a, loving my companion and area. I hope and pray I get to end my mission here but who knows. If I do that would mean I only have 4 areas but I think it would be awesome. Well hope you all have a great week! Love ya!


-Elder Barney


2 Timothy2:3
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Long hike to the beach 

8-14-17

Hey guys!
                                                                                                                                                                  Sooo this week has been insane! First off our trip to Homer was super awesome!

Homer is the halibut fishing capital of the world and also one of the most beautiful! It has one  of the very few spits (a peace of land that sticks out in the middle of the ocean) in the world. We saw some really amazing sights and had a ton of fun with the members that drove us down. The Owen family is one of the coolest people I have ever met! They lived in Homer for a little bit so we got to see all of the cool views that the tourists don't see, so that was a huge bonus.  One of the views you can see is the spit and 3 ice glaciers.  I also got some cool pictures of some fire-weed when it's blossomed. It is really cool and  is all over the place here! So we went and checked out the spit and it was really surprising all the cool stuff they have there. They have a ton of shops and even some

places to eat. They even have this place where you take a charter to go catch halibut then you watch them cut it up then you go across the street and give them the fish and they cook it up for you so we can it your fresh catch! I sooo want to do that one day!!! It's crazy how much fish people eat here! Down in the lower 48 we pay lots of money for that type of food but up here you get sick of eating it so much! Being up here has ruined me for fish. I love fish but it won't be the same when I get home. So anyway the Homer trip was super dope! It was a great start to the week! The rest of the week was a ton of service all of the place! After this week I have a different out look of service. I use to not get to excited for it which I know is bad, but after seeing all the good we did it really softened my heart. On top of the service we had some great lessons. One of which was with Andy. We brought a recent convert with us this time and it was perfect! They grew up together and literally have like the same story and questions. It was super awesome lesson! One thing I learned from it was that Satan is so good at deceiving. He try's to make himself sound like you. If we listen enough to negative thoughts then eventually we will start to believe it. So cool insight there. Then to top the week off we had a crazy cool experience! We were doing a district tract in the Zone Leaders area and we knocked on this guys door who told us he has his own beliefs and closed the door so we moved on. As we were knocking on doors on the other side he came running across the street with his wife and asked if we could come over for dinner on Tuesday. We were speechless. Just shook our heads yes but then quickly remembered we have Zone Conference that day and we will be in Anchorage. We scheduled it for the following week. They didn't say why but just said they wanted us over. In my mind I am thinking this is going to be crazy awesome or crazy bad. I hope it turns out great and I am really excited to see what happens. Never had this happen before! It's like the feeling you get when someone you knocked on their door says come on in and your like "oh my goodness! I never got this far before! Is this what it's like!" It felt just like that! Anyway that was the cool story for the week. Today we do the beautiful 3 hour drive to Anchorage and spend the night then go to Zone Conference then drive back. Long few days but I'm super pumped! Well hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Barney

2 Timothy2:3   Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

8-7-17

Hey guys!

So this feels like a fast week but feels super long because of all that has happened. The week started out super awesome! Hara and Jena and the rest of their family drove up to Anchorage to go do baptism together at the temple for the first time as a family and it went great! It was quite the ordeal getting things set up but after all was said and done it was a great experience for them because of some amazing saints. We had to get special permission to have the temple open at a special time and also had to provide 2 Priesthood holders to help out. It sure seemed like a lot to ask someone to drive 3 hours to just help out for a quick thing at the temple but man oh man the people here are so amazing they didn't even flinch when asked! Hara and Jena were super grateful for everything everyone did and they were super surprised as well. We knew how important this would be for them so we didn't exactly tell them how much was really going into all this but nonetheless it was an awesome experience! So that started the week great! On Tuesday I went on another exchange which was fun! Went with Elder Hymas. He is a really a great Elder and we had good times.   

Later in the week we had a super rad service where we roasted marshmallows at the senior center in Kenai. It was super fun to kick it with the old timers of Kenai and just have some good conversation with them. Lot of life advice from that group so it was a party. Oh! And another sweet thing was at Hara's we got to take pictures with her reindeer after a lesson. Ya real Alaskan reindeer. I think one of them was giving me the stink eye though. So that was all really great but probably one of the biggest highlights is how awesome one of our investigators is doing. Missionaries have been working with Andy for a super long time but he is finally has kept all the commitments and living the word of wisdom like a champ! And he also came to church for the 3rd time in a row and came to Priesthood! It was super great to see him progress! One thing that really helped us out was to really get to know Andy. We really couldn't figure out what he needed or what his big hold up was but honestly we just decided we needed to just talk with him and get to know him. So we played a card game with him and his wife and it really helped to just show that we care for him and actually like spending time with him and don't see him as a number or something. It opened him up more and we stared to get answers on what we need to teach. I have really come to learn how being a missionary isn't a job where you try to be the hardest worker but where you just do Christ Ministry to the best of your ability. I love these people so much and happy to have another six weeks here oh ya by the way we got transfer calls and I'm staying and continue training Elder Hatch. I'm super sad though because our district is loosing some great missionaries. I love this district! Excited for this coming 6 weeks and hope they don't go as fast as the last ones. 

The Stink Eye

Well love you all and hope you have a great week!

-Elder Barney

2 Timothy2:3
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

7-31-17


Hey everybody! Hope all is well! This has been a crazy week up here! This is the busiest week for dip netting (where you put a big net with a long pole in the ocean off the beach to catch salmon) so it's been a crowded week in the Kenai.  Also we have done a lot of service and I mean a lot! 

But before I get into how crazy that all was I need to tell you about the awesome pday fishing we all had! We went out on the Kenai river with the Tanner family who have a cabin right by the river. The Tanners are from Bountiful and come up every summer so it was a blessing we ran into them at the store because it led to a super fun pday! We fished for a long time and caught a few! Sorry I don't have the pictures because took them with their camera and sent them to my parents. I'm sure they will post them on Facebook or something. Anyway it was one of the funnest pdays I have had! So the week started great with that! On Tuesday we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders again. I went with another one of my favorite Elders! Elder Lewis is super awesome and we had a lot of fun together! We had a cool experience as well together. We were trying to contact a family when we saw this lady hanging out on a couch out side so we went and talked to her. I don't really know how it all happened but she first started off not interested in talking with us to ending with giving her a Book of Mormon and showing her a video from our iPad. It was a cool to see how the spirit really calmed a situation and testified that we were friendly. She also said we can come back so that's exciting. So exchanges were a party with a lot of good hard work! The next morning we started with all the service we did but digging out a basement for a member in the sisters area. It was some serious hard work! Right after we did that we aet something and showered and took of to another service. The second one was actually pretty sweet because we got to paint and I got to do something my dad taught me to do which was how to cut between ceiling and walls. See Dad, something you taught me stuck! Anyway that was fun. Then after that the rest of the week was just a lot of people calling us to help them all over the place. One of the funnest service was splitting some wood!                                

We sure split of wood up in Alaska! It was fun for Elder Hatch to try it for his first time haha. So ya lot of service but the highlight was the Ward BBQ!  It was a lot of fun and good food!  They had a dessert auction for all the members to raise money for girls camp and we  ended up walking out with 3 or 4 plate fulls of dessert! Man, this loose weight before I go home thing is not going good haha! Well that was the big stuff this week! Crazy how fast time flys! We get transfer calls next week. Since I'm training we kinda already know ours but still this went by fast! Well love you guys!

-Elder Barney


2 Timothy2:3
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

  

P.S. The pictures are the beach during dip netting and the fish heads are what the beach looks like and why Kenai always smells like fish,