9-11-17

This has been a great week full of wonderful miracles! First of all! I have such a strong testimony of goal setting now! Elder Hatch and I prayed about what number should we do for baptism goals for the month. We got the answer for 2. One name came to our minds which was an investigator who has been meeting with the missionaries for a super long time and keeps every commitment but says he hasn't got an answer that it's true. It felt like we have tried everything with him. And no other name came to our mind but we felt like there was another person that was ready this month in our area so we went with 2. That night Andy, our investigator, told us at our lesson with him that he got his answer and knows for sure it's all true. He will be baptized this coming Saturday! Then just 2 days later at church a man walks up to us and tells us how he just moved into our area with his family who are all recent converts and that he wants to be baptized as well. He said he knows it's true and has finally quite smoking and has taken all the missionary lessons in his former Ward. Our jaws just dropped to the ground! We are meeting with him this week to see where his at and hopefully pick a date. I know that was an answer from Heavenly Father that there are people here who are ready and we just need to have faith to find them. Setting that goal was the act of faith we needed. I am so pumped for this month and the months to come!
I also need to talk about how Andy got his answer that the church is true. So we asked him to fast in the lesson we had with him and he told us he already has his answer. So I guess one day he was cleaning out his gun and accidentally shot it off. The bullet went right past his hand and was so close it burnt his hand. The bullet went through the floor and down to the first floor and missed all of his family who had just seconds ago were standing in that room. He slammed the bullet down on the table and said "baptize me! I know it's true!" I can't even describe the joy I felt in that moment. I am so happy for him! This gospel is so true! He is one of the most ready people I have ever met. There is no reason to wait for him so on Saturday he is getting baptized. Also this week another amazing experience happened when I interviewed a couple for baptism. The husband has a serious past and I mean a crazy one! I knew of his past so as we sat down i asked him to tell me how he has changed. He bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard about the Atonement. This man has done a complete 180. We talked about his past a little bit and how it is now in the past and is to be forgotten. He told me that he can't even describe how happy he is to be baptized and put it all behind him. His wife was the sweetest lady! She is pregnant with their first child and is so excited to be in the church to raise their child in the covenant. I am super excited for Josh and Jaselle! The crazy part was when I was feeling out the paper work I realized that they are only like 2 years older then me. I was so blown away! So anyway the other crazy miracle happened Sunday. So we were out at this little town just north of Kenai called Nikiski. All of our appointments fell through and we were stuck. I just started driving and ended up at the Olson who is a less active family. They were coming back to church for a long time but we hadn't seen them in about a month. After some small talk Sister Olson says you are probably here because we haven't been to church. She explained how she got offended by a leader in the Ward who didn't help her in a time of need. The spirit was so strong when we testified to not let that make them stop coming to church. We shared a Mormon message about forgiveness which was about a man forgiving a drunk driver. After the video they were crying. We found out that brother Olson lost a daughter to a drunk driver. I felt super bad but the spirit told me no, they need this. At that moment they started talking about the pain they felt I felt it too. I literally felt their heart break. It was the most sad I have ever felt but instantly as I asked them to look into my eyes as I testified of the Atonement of Christ I felt joy and determination like never before. I begged with them on the saviors behalf to please forgive those people who wronged them. The spirit was so strong there was not a dry eye in that room. They said they would come to church and try hard to forgive. I know that this gospel is true and the Atonement is real with all my heart. It is sufficient to cover us and to heal us completely. I love you all and hope you all have a great week. I am sorry this was so long but this was one of the most spiritual weeks of my mission! 

Love you guys!

-Elder Barney

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


P.S. The picture of the missionaries is in district meeting when I had the whole district make a Rugby scrum haha!

9-4-17

Hey guys!

So it has been another fast week! So the week started off great with a visit from our Mission President. President Toone joined our district meeting which was lots of fun having him there. He has lots of amazing insights so it was cool to have him with us. He came down to our district for interviews which were very amazing. He is such an inspired man! I know that he is truly called of God! Our interview was great! He is a very personal man. It was a great start to the week. The next day I went on exchanges with a brand new missionary named Elder Parry. He is a fun Elder with lots of energy. We learned a lot from each other. We had a cool experience teaching one of our investigators here in Kenai. We planned on talking about the spirit and how we can feel it and the environment we need to be in, but as soon as I said the opening prayer the spirit instantly said to change the topic. So the first thing out of my mouth was well today we want to talk about repentance. Elder Parry had a priceless look on his face with being only about 3 weeks in the field. He did great though and it was one of the most powerful lessons we had with Andy. He is so close! Please keep him in your prayers! After our exchange we had a long day of contacting people. We contacted over 40 names that day! It was a busy but long day of not a lot of interest. We finished the night with a pretty awkward experience. So we invited a Ward missionary to a lesson with a less active we never met before and just set a appointment with them. On our way over to the lesson we were telling him who we were going to go see and he told us how him and that person have a bad past together. He decided to stick it out and see what happens. Oh man the look on the less actives face was priceless when they saw who we brought with us. Definitely one of the more tense moments of my mission! You could cut the tension with a knife it was so thick! Everything went well and we left on okay terms. Lesson learned to plan farther in the future haha. On Saturday we had a district tract in our area that went great! We got like 3 return appointments! It was crazy but for some reason everyone was interested. As I was praying and thinking about why this one Tracting day was so successful my mind thought of the long day of rejection we went through earlier that week. I learned that blessings come when we endure with faith. It my not be immediate blessings or obvious ones but they will come. Another time I saw that was when we were Tracting with long street no one was interested until almost the very end. We walked up to this guy who was just getting dropped off from work and said hi. He instantly told us he wasn't interested. We asked if anyone in his house was and he said his grandpa was a devote baptist. Long story short we ended up asking about if he was very religious and found out he actually had some soul searching questions. We answered all of them by briefly teaching the Plan of Salvation. We also corrected some rumors he heard about Mormons. He walked away with a Book of Mormon and promised to read and pray about it. I'm excited to check back up with him. It was cool to see how at first he said he wasn't interested and actually told us not to talk about God with him but because of the spirit he walked away with a Book of Mormon and a changed view about Mormons. I sure love watching the spirit do its thing! So ya this week was one full of cool faith building experiences. I love you all and miss you a ton! I want to wish my dad and grandpa a very happy birthday! I love and miss you guys a ton! Hope you both had a great birthday! Thank you so much for all you so for me! Love all of you! Bye!!

-Elder Barney


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

He can still ride a bike

House with lots of licence plates on it

8-28-17

Yo! Hey Guys!

So another crazy fast week just flew by! We had a really great week with lots of fun and hard work. Last Pday was fun playing ping pong and pool. On Tuesday I went on Exchanges with one of my Zone Leaders Elder Ryan. He is such a great guy! Exchanges with him are always such a party! On our exchange we had one of the craziest experiences of my mission. So this is a long story so buckle up. Okay, so about two weeks ago we were doing a district tract in the Zone Leaders area when this random guy and his wife comes running up to Elder Hatch and I and invited us over for dinner. It was a little weird because non members don't usually do that so we said we would love to. We set it up for this last Tuesday and we decided it would be smart to bring one of the ZL's since it's their area. We were a little nervous about what was going to happen but when we arrived it was all normal until they introduced us to their friends. Once we got talking with the friends we quickly realized he was a pastor of the baptist church down the road. We instantly looked at each other and our faces just said, "well this will be fun." The conversation started out great and we just got to know them but it took a hard turn when we started asking each other religious questions. You could just feel the tension in the air. The pastor was obviously prepared for bashing when he tells us that he was just looking through the Book of Mormon the other day. He started ripping into us with some questions and we just answered them boldly and with the spirit. Once we could tell it was starting to turn bad we just said we had another appointment and left with our testimonies and a prayer. I learned a lot from that experience! First of all is that the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God and contains the full gospel of Jesus Christ. Second of all arguing does absolutely nothing for anyone! I learned that along time ago on my mission but it was definitely reconfirmed Tuesday night. After that me and Elder Ryan felt like we deserved a mcflurry so we made a quick McDonald's run. It was a good way to end the night! That was quite the fun exchange! The rest of the week went very well! We seem to just be running all over the place. One of our recent converts had their wedding which was a lot of fun!

This was the 2nd wedding in this area for a recent

convert! Their was a ton of non members and lots of great contacts. On Sunday we went to a baptism in the sisters area. It was really fun to see Dominic get baptized because I was the one who interviewed him. It was a little different experience interviewing someone but really amazing! Also Sunday we had a lesson with Jena who is a recent convert and we helped them rope some reindeer. Quick question, does reindeer poop come out of suit pants? Anyway well that pretty much sums it up for my week. I 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.