ARIZONA WEEK 6/25/12

Yeah I finally got over my fear of being down here and doing all of this. It has turned out to be really fun! But the biking is brutal in the heat…

I have not used sunscreen at all down here, I thought I might have had too but I haven’t burnt. Well that was until today… For the big activity of the day most of our zone went mountain biking. I was scared at first to do it but I am glad I did. All morning I was thinking ‘you need to put on sunscreen’ but I just got too busy and rushed out the door. Right before we got onto the trail I got some from another elder and got my neck, so ne neck didn’t get burnt. The only part that I know of that got burnt, so far, is the tops of both my arms. They are really red!!! But the mountain biking was fun; I only crashed once and got some cuts on my right hand, elbow, and shoulder blade area. I think I messed up my wrist a little bit because it is a little sore, but it is not bad at all.

MY NEW BIKE!

But other than all that everything else is going great down here. My companion Elder Mckenna is great. I found out he use to be a magician too! And he use to get all his things from Ellusionist, so we have that in common.
One cool thing is he can beat-box pretty good. He is about a head taller then me and has been out here for eight transfers I think. He has helped me a lot in learning how to teach and contact people. I have been lucky with my companions so far, a whole two, I hope I can have all awesome ones in the future.

The landscaping down here is a lot different than Utah. Instead of lawns they have dirt and rocks; and instead of mowing they comb/rake. There is so much cactus down here and some are pretty big. One thing that surprised me was all the palm trees down here. Just in our apartment complex there are a bunch of them. It is really cool to see how different it is. When they say we live in a bubble in Utah they really mean it. I don’t know if it is just
my area I am in or what but a lot of people do not have much, some don’t even have AC! There is a lot of graffiti and the roads are not kept as nice as in Utah. But it is a wonderful place.

The city I am staying in is Tucson, It is actually a very big area. And to send me letters or packages you can just send them to the mission home and they will get to me.

One thing that amazes me is how much people want the gospel. Once the spirit speaks to them it hits them like a bag of bricks and they want in. It was cool we had a referral that we met for the first time and I got her to commit to baptism on my second day! I do not think I know how much of an impact the spirit can have.

Well I got a couple more emails and not a lot of time, so I will leave it at that. If you guys have any questions for me or anything else, just email or write me with anything!

I love you all! Hope all is going well!!
Love,
Elder Barlocker II

Falcon sitting just outside our apartment.