5/28/2013 New Comp...

Family,
“…Be not afraid, only believe.” Mark 5:36
Things have been okay around here. …new comp…Luckily I have E-Seare w/in walking distance... plus E-Call…from my MTC District is here too. I love all the elders around here…The Lord must trust me with all the stuff I get thrown at me… but I am getting through it.
On to more uplifting things…;)
I kinda had a baptism last weekend. I was an older couple I taught when we had the four wards. I had seen people like them before and it ended up they were more talk then action. Like when he said he would go to church every Sunday, I thought in my head- not in my foot…”Oh boy, not another one of these…” But it turns out they were sincere. I don’t think I will ever forget that baptism. I felt the spirit in a different way; I just felt really, really happy and glad, like never before. There is just something about knowing that you helped someone make such a big step. That is indescribable! :) I wish I could feel that way every day!
So that was a record for me, two baptisms one weekend after another. I will have to send the pics next week.

As of today, I have 365 days till I go home! In two days I will hit my year out mark…that is just crazy. Back home a year took forever, but now it flys right by. There are some moments I wish it would just slow down and others I wish it would go faster…but it is what it is and I am doing my best to make the most of it!
We just got back from doing a little exchange with the 5th ward bishopric. My comp went with the bishop and I went with one of his counselors and we went to visit some part-member families. We got some potentials out of it! … but 5th ward is really trying to get the missionary work going. It is nice not being the only ones doing missionary work in a ward. The first thing I told my comp when he got here is that I am gunna try to have the wards do more with the work.
I hope you guys are doing your best to help the work. It is probably a little different back in Utah, but you guys can always do something.
Here is a challenge for ya: have a referral for the missionaries by the next time you guys feed them. and if that is too much time, at least refer the person through mormon.org and always have a BOM around. In the car, purse, or hand. If each of you haven’t handed at least one BOM out w/in this next year, your gunna be in trouble>:) and please pray for those opportunities, even if you think your faith is enough – at that point it’s not. Faith= works, and I believe that prayer is the beginning of those works. W/out talking things with your Heavenly Father. How do you expect him to help us out? For some of you it is going to be scary as heck, it still is for me, but if you just do it, the Lord will help you out; I have seen Him help me in ways I never knew he could.
Well, I hope all is going well back home! I am doing okay down here! Thanks for all you do for me! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!
Love,
E-BarlockerII

A New Companion 5/20/2013

-So... who is your new comp?
E' Romanick

-Where is he from?
M. U.

-Do you two get along so far?
Yeah so far so good...

-Who so far has been your fave comp?
It is a toss up between ……  ;)

-What is your apartment like? Still keeping it clean?
Well it has rooms, a kitchen and even a bathroom! It's just a little two bedroom apt. and I have tried to keep it as clean as I could, but with a lot of missionaries coming over for pizza every Friday it destroys the place.

-How is it with only 2 wards to cover? Will it make things easier or harder for investigators?
It is so nice! Now people can stop complaining that we don't attend their ward, even though we did... But I am kinda “mad” about the split because E' Seare took the only investigators we had and they are getting baptized this weekend...

-Are you finally sleeping better?
I am getting better sleep with my iPod now, I just put on some piano music or even the BOM and it puts me right to sleep...;)

-What can we send to you?
Some salsa would be great! :)

But things this week have been a little hectic but a little easier as well. My comp just came from an area with a lot of work to Safford, where there is not so much work. And having just two wards is great! Both the bishops were way excited to have the missionaries more often and are excited to start working!...
One thing I have learned on my mission is that you will NEVER understand peoples logic, whether it be good or bad... But things are going to be picking up here soon!

And it kinda seemed you guys were worried about me doing the fire stuff. Don't worry, I have to make it seem really dangerous to others so they don't try it, because if you don't know what you are doing it can be really dangerous. But the worst that has happened is a few singed eyebrows... I am really careful, so don't worry... ;)

Things are going good though. We are getting thing done and now it will be a bit easier! I hope all keeps going well back home!

Love you all!!!

Love
E' Barlocker II

5/14/2013 TRANSFERS!

May 14, 2013
Yeah my comp hasn't come yet... So nothing there. But I found out that E' Seare is taking over half of my area, so now I cover only two wards and E' Seare and his comp cover the other two. And E' Call from my MTC district came to the zone! This transfer is going to be fun... I will email later with my comp with more info!

Love you guys!!!

5/6/2013 Wonderful Weather!

Things have been going well this week. Saturday we got two new baptismal dates set! And I have seen people like this before where they seem sincere but you know they are not gunna follow through when they say they will be at church tomorrow... Especially when they say they will have to work early in the morning, go to church, then go back to work... But I was surprised to see them at church the next day! And they are way sincere about doing this. I am way excited to see them get baptized!

Other then that nothing too exciting has gone on... Just a lot of people not home and more and more boring times. But we always find a way to have fun. Like lately I have been taking up fire eating... That is interesting... :) I only singed my eyebrows once and they still look normal, so all is good there... ha ha! Lets just say fire is a good stress reliever. ;)

We don't have anything big planned this week or even today. We are just gunna take thing easy today and get all the necessities done. I didn't get any pics from this week because nothing 'pic worthy' happened but I will get some this week! Maybe I will get you guys a video of the fire eating... :)

So I hope all is going well back home still! Don't change the house too much before I come home... ha ha! I Love you all!!!
(we have totally re-vamped the front yard since he has been gone)

Love
E' Barlocker II

4/30/2013 NEW WEEK!!!! :)

Well this week has been good. We didn't have a lot to do but we stayed busy. But sadly we have had two of our baptismal dates drop. We were doing a baptismal interview with one of our investigators and he had to push back his date, but he doesn't know when yet. But he is way solid! He just had some family things come up so he had to chose a new date. And the other one that dropped, we don't know what happened. He is a 14 y/old kid and it seems his mom, a return missionary, doesn't want him to get baptized... It is kinda frustrating! We went over to their home, knew they were there, heard them in the house, but they never answered the door... But we still have one more date that is still going strong... but even then we thought about something that might hold her back... The Lord is helping us out though!

-Are you required to attend PEC meeting on Sunday morning with a ward or the Stake?
I haven't been to a PEC meeting here in Safford yet, but in Willcox and Tucson I would always go to that. The same goes for ward council and all that. But covering four wards here we cannot get to ward council... We only get to go to two sacrament meetings each Sunday, no classes just sacrament. And here in Safford they do a stake missionary correlation meeting for all the missionaries and ward mission leaders.

-How has the food been for you?  Do you do much cooking in your home?
The food is a little overwhelming... We have dinner every night pretty much and everyone cooks a bunch for us to eat, so we get fed pretty well. It makes me want to work out more, which is a good thing :) Plus I am trying to stay under 160 because I made a joke about it and now I have to do it... And we are hardly ever home so we don't cook a lot; if we are it is because we brought pizza over to eat. The Dominoes down here gives each companionship one free pizza a week, so everyone gets one and brings it over to our place to eat and talk. It is okay, I just wish people knew how to clean up after themselves!!! I am glad I have good parents that taught me well ;)

Earlier this week, my comp found out that scorpions glowed under a black light. His mind was blown! I already knew that because Ellusionist had a trick that involved that... But after one of our members told us that and about hunting for them, he had to try it. So the other night we went over to the member’s house to go scorpion hunting. It is amazing how much they glow under a black light. We would be going along the ground and all of a sudden you see a yellow glowing scorpion! I haven't seen a scorpion on my mission until then so that was cool... We had fun finding them and killing them so they wouldn't harm the garden.

Oh and the other day I had something weird happen. I had someone say I looked older then I was... My whole mission people have said I looked way young, the oldest I have been given is 16... But I finally had someone that said I looked about my real age!

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, my comp doesn't really let me have a say on what goes on so we didn't get things done. But yesterday we went on a hike. I think by the time we were done driving we were at 9000 ft. and there were pine trees, no cactus, and even a little snow! I never thought I would see that in Arizona... ha ha But it was a good hike. We got all the way to the top of the mountain and took some awesome pics. Plus I found a little time capsule that was up there that a lot of people had put their names in. I didn't tell anyone else about it though... When I found it I was off away from everyone and they heard me open it; someone asked what I was doing and I said 'doing drugs' they just laughed and kept on talking. It was cool...I guess... :)

Well I am hanging in there. Things are going good, and I am having a good time. I hope all is going well back home!

Love you all!!!

Love,
E' Barlocker

PICS:
1. In Arizona????
2. Me and Johnson on top of the mountain
3. The time capsule, I don't know how I found it...

Another Week Over! 4/22/2013

-What have you been up to this week?
More missionary work... Last Tuesday we had interviews with President Killpack and so I got to talk to him more about things that have been going on.

-Favorite part of this past week...
I would have to say interviews... Normally I would hate them but I got a lot off my chest and I had a good time.

-What can I send you? We are starting a package so ask away (within reason of course! )
More razors, my hard drive, keys to the Scion FR-S you guys bought me... (I saw a consumers report at a store in Willcox so I had to buy it... Now I am all up to date in the car world...)
THIS KID IS SO FUNNY! The only cars we buy our kids are HOTWHEELS! ;)

-Any lessons learned lately?
Not to dwell in the darkness... It really sucks everything good from all around you...

-Are you & E'Jonson getting along well?
Heck yes! We are having a grand old time while doing what we are supposed to do!

-Getting enough to eat & enough sleep?
We get plenty to eat, but I haven't been sleeping well since I was with E' W... A normal bedtime for me is 1:00 am... Even taking melatonin doesn't help...

-How are your shoes holding up?
Great! I think I might just use this one pair my whole mission. And I am glad I was taught how to polish them; a lot of the missionaries here do not know what that means...

-What is the weather in AZ like lately?
Freaking good! If it stayed like this the whole year it would be perfect! The only down part is we have been getting a lot of wind..

-Are your calf muscles getting solid?
Nope... We cover such a big area with no car so we get rides a lot. I have only ridden my bike once since I came here.

And as usual, I cannot remember what went on this week. The lack of sleep has been hard on me so I have a hard time focusing. I did clean the front part of the apartment! My comp. and his previous one didn't clean at all... So when I got here the apt. was filthy!!! There were dishes in the sink that smelled and there was junk all over the ground, it was horrible. I have a before and after pic attached, the before pic doesn't do it justice of how dirty it really was. But I got up one morning and decided I would clean, and ended up rearranging things! And that happened to be the day when the Willcox elders came for their temple trip, so they saw a clean apartment. And having E' Petersen from Willcox come visit made my week! But it made me want to go back there...

Well I really cannot remember what else went on... We got two new baptismal dates this week! And one of the guys set it so we didn't have too! The work is going good down here!

I hope everything is going well back home! Keep up that yard work, it’s looking good! ;)

Love you guys!!!

Love
E' Barlocker II

P.S. Could I get Erik Jensen and G&G Willes' mission addresses please :)

PICS
1&2 Apt cleaning project
3 Me in district mtg. this week... :)

Got your letter...4/15/2013

 Well things have been a little down lately. Although we did get two new investigators last week. There was a day set apart for only finding, so every companionship in the mission did finding activities that day. And being in Safford, we thought that kinda hard, but we looked through some former investigators, went to a lot of empty houses, then ended up with two news! And my buddy down in Willcox said he got four news! That is more impressive then us getting two here in “mormon ville”; I think I got a total of two news in Willcox the 41/2 months I was there. But here in Safford I cover four wards!!! It turns out we are the only companionship w/out a car, the most wards, and we cover 90% of Safford! We get rides a lot needless to say.

But things are going good. And for the life of me I cannot remember a dang thing that happened this week... This is getting annoying! Oh, we had our temple trip this week! It was awesome! I got some direct answers that I had been looking for for a while. And I noticed that I hate how God gives me answers, cuz they are never how I want then answers but now I notice they are always answered. Our session was at 8:00 am and when we got there, it’s about a 15 min drive, I realized I didn't have my recommend. So we drive back, got it and took out time driving back because the next session started at 9:45. But we got there at around 9:00, so the temple workers had us do some other things. We ended up doing a bunch of initiatory and a few baptisms plus a butt load of confirmations, which we did ourselves! It turned out to be awesome. Then the session we did has been one of the most enjoyable for me!

Well other then that I really cannot remember, for the life of me what happened this week... If I remember anything cool or out of the ordinary I will have to write you guys!

Hope all is going well back home! And the front yard pics look great! Seems like I am going to come home to a whole new home! You better leave some work for me to do... haha

Love you guys!!!
Love
E' Barlocker II

P.S. Things I need... I could use some more shoe polish, but I really cannot think of anything else. I need need...

PICS:
Me and E' Johnson on the temple trip
One of our members gardens... this is what I expect ours to look like when dad retires.. :)
A flower in said garden

Correction on the PICS, that is not a flower in his garden as you can tell. That is a flower in front of the temple...

Here are some pics from his garden...

Love you!

Haha, sorry for all the random little emails... I am sure you don't mind. But yesterday we had to give talks in sacrament meeting, and when we got there we found out we were the only two speakers... We didn't prepare very long talks at all, but we ended up filling the whole meeting. But anyways after sacrament meeting was over, a lady came up to me and asked if I knew an Erlyn Barlocker, I was like 'Yeah that is my aunt". Turns out she is her cousin. I cannot remember her last name but I know it started with an 'M'

Well anyways I thought that was cool!