Interesting Week, & Interesting FOOD!!! 8/13/2012

August 13, 2012
This week has been an interesting week. We had a great time and had some interesting meals. But the work is going good.

First off I have to tell you guys about a meal I had this week. So we go over to this members home for dinner, we have some interesting meals with her. But this time she made some meatloaf. Whenever I go over there to eat, I pray that I can eat the food and keep it down. But this time was a lot better then other times. But I did notice Elder Mckenna slowed down a bit. When she left to go and get the ice cream, he pointed to something on his plate; it was a pile of maggots! They were everywhere in the food, but luckily there were dead. Still, that made me almost die! So on the way home we got a 44oz. of coke each and drank it to kill off anything that could be alive in us! It was pretty gross, and she has signed up a couple more times for the month. Let’s just say we are going to have a lot of meetings during those days. We didn’t get sick or anything from it but it was a good scare.

Speaking about food  I can tell I am being fed well. I can actually gain weight! I forgot to say that within the first month of being away from home I gained 10 pounds and am now up to 150 pounds! That is only a 15 pound gain, but it is a big change from being 135 for a year or two.

Other than that and doing close to 1000 push-ups this week, it has been pretty normal. We had an investigator walk out on church yesterday. He got offended somehow in a class. But hopefully we can get him back on track and straighten everything out. But all of our other investigators have been pretty solid. And we have been having a great time doing the work of the Lord. But I see more and more every day how satan can influence the lives of the people we try to bring into Gods church.

I am trying my hardest and having fun at the same time, so don’t worry about me too much!

Thanks for always being there! I LOVE you all!!!!

Love,
Elder Barlocker II

CALMER WEEK? NO! 8/6/2012

Beetle that we see flying all around

MY FIRST DISTRICT IN AZ

8/6/2012   Yeah!!! I did get the little package but it was delayed because of transfers but it arrived! Thanks!

This week has been fun. Yesterday was a great Sunday, but it rained a ton so after church we didn’t do much. It rained for a couple hours on and off throughout the night. There was one strike of lightning that hit pretty close and was extremely loud! I love the rain and I love not being caught in it.

We have been getting a lot of flat tires lately. Elder Mckenna found a screw in his tire the other day. So we have been making a couple of trips to the bike store to get new tires and such. I have so many patches on my back tire it is crazy. I did get an extra tube just to be safe. One thing that I cannot find for a good price is a little bike repair/tool kit. They have some at the bike store we go to but they are way expensive. So if you guys find a cheap one that would be awesome if you could send me one!

This Sunday we only had one investigator out to church, well two but that is a whole different story. But the investigators we have are really solid. It is amazing to see how the gospel affects others. It really makes me realize how much I take for granted. We have so many blessings we don’t even know!
But I am happy the Lord has blessed me with all he has.

It is going to be weird coming home in two years because our house is a mansion compared to a lot of peoples down here. Our ghettos in Utah are their normal, at least in my area.

So, nothing too exiting this week, but a lot of good and spiritual times. I will try to take more pics and have more to tell you next time. But I want you to know that I am trying my hardest and doing my best.
I LOVE you all and appreciate all that you do for me!

With all the love in the world
Elder Barlocker II

July 31, 2012 Not much going on…

Sorry you didn’t get an email yesterday, it is transfer time and they move pday to Tuesday. But me and Elder Mckenna are staying together for this transfer. He was just called to be District Leader, so he gets a lot of work while I do nothing pretty much. It should be a good experience.

Nothing real interesting happend this week. We had a lot of good lessons with our investigators and all that good stuff. But one investigator, who is an old biker, found out someone was after his bike. He just keeps it around to keep is spirits up and such. But when we went to go give him a lesson that night he found out, he was armed with knifes. And to confuse the other bikers that wanted his bike, he covered a bbq grill with a tarp to make it look like a bike and hid his real one. But he was ready to hurt anybody that tried to get it. But he is an awesome guy.

Yeah like I said this week is transfers and my district leader is going home and everybody is changing up. But for the most part there are only two new people in my district. But I figure I will stay here for a while.

Sorry I do not have a lot to say in this email. My mind is blank right now. If I think of anything else I will have to send a letter. And I forgot my cord again so no pics this time…

And I did get the package with the shirts and stuff, I got them the Monday after they were sent. And if you sent anything lately I have not got it because they stop mail a bit before transfers but I will get everything within the next couple days!

Well that is all I have for this week. Some elders want to get some things off of ebay right now because they lost some things so I am going to help them with that!

Hope you all are doing well! Love you!!!

Love
Elder Barlocker II

July 23, 2012…Onward and upwards in the RAIN!

MONSOON!!!!

MONSOON

 SEASON!
RAIN, RAIN, & MORE RAIN!!!

Leaks in the apartment...

As to the questions, I got a new tire put on my bike because it popped and I got a light kit with a speedometer. I might be buying a new lock this week because someone tried to steal my bike and got about half way through my lock. It was in a place that you don’t trust to have your bike locked up, but luckily I still have it.


This week I did something that I would have never thought I would have done in Arizona, I mowed a lawn! We were helping this family, the Cannatas, do some yard work and I got the job of mowing the lawn. I would have never guessed I would have been doing that here… But the Cannatas are an awesome family, if you guys decide in two years to come pick me up you will have to meet them!

But things down here are as crazy as ever! Too many things going on and so little time to do them. We only have one baptismal date that is solid, all the others have either disappeared or are always busy. It is sad to see how satan can effect someone’s life and get them when you least expect it. But the spirit always finds a way. But our guy with the baptismal date is an old biker who got in a car accident, not on his bike, and has some bad back problems, but he is very accepting to just about everything, comes to church, and enjoys us coming over and teaching him. It is too bad that not everyone is like that; but we don’t want to make it too easy.

This week we got caught in a huge rain storm! Even with my raincoat on I still got soaked! We even got splashed by a car while on the sidewalk. It gets to a point where you don’t worry about avoiding the big puddles you just trudge right on through because you can’t get any wetter then you already are. But there have been a couple big storms this week.

I don’t have any crazy stories this week but I do have a lot of pics to upload so I will get to that and if anything else comes to mind I will send another email!

LOVE you guys so much! I hope everyone is doing well and having fun!

With every bit of love in the world,

Elder Barlocker II

Just another fabulous week! 7/16/2012

The only package I got was the first one with all the goodies. I don’t remember when I got it but I will tell you when the next one comes. But thanks for the package, it was much needed.

And sorry again, I didn’t bring my cord to my camera so I cannot upload any pics this week. If you guys could, maybe find a cord & send it to me so I can always have it on me that would be awesome.

To kick things off this week I thought I might share how my companion and I almost died a week or two ago (I just kept forgetting to tell you). We were out one day going to some less active families. We stopped on the corner of an intersection/4 way stop to check the address. The house was only two home down from the intersection. We go down there, knock on the door, then we hear a huge explosion. We looked at each other then I walked out to the street and looked down at the intersection. It looked like someone hit a garbage can, because there was so much debris everywhere. But then I saw some people running across the intersection. So we ran down there and saw what the debris came from. About 100ft from the intersection was a minivan rolled over on its side, the engine hanging out, completely totaled. And about 150ft beyond that was a little one-seater BMW, with its front smashed in and looked like he had spun out. There was a mom and baby in the van, the mom was in shock and apart from cuts and bruises looked fine. The baby was 100% fine. The guy in the BMW looked out of it. What happened was the minivan was taking its turn crossing the intersection, going straight and the BMW was coming from the left of the van. There was another car stopped at the intersection, the BMW went around that car at about 60+ mph and full on hit the vans front driver side of the door; throwing the van 100ft past the intersection and spinning out the BMW. What was scary about that is not one min. before that, we were standing on the corner. If we had been one min. behind we would have got hit by oil and debris, or ever worse a car. Just goes to show you how much the Lord is really looking out for us. I didn’t get any pics because it would have felt weird taking them at that point in time.

But other than that nothing too exciting has happened. It is just as busy as ever down here. But we did get a decent storm yesterday. Loud thunder, lots of lightning, and a bunch of rain! It is funny how it can be so dry down here and yet rain so much. The roads become rivers and everything floods. And the other day we biked to a referrals home. It was 5.5 miles uphill! And on top of that the wind was blowing against us. But on the way down the hill the rain started. And again the wind was against us so we didn’t get going very fast. The rain hurt though, imagine going 20+mph and huge raindrops hitting you. It was not fun, but it was an experience.

It is funny to hear you guys complain about the high 90′s in the letter, because down here when it get that temp. if feels nice!

Everything down here is going great, although I do envy you for going camping. I hope everything is going great up in the cool weather.  I will try to send some letters this week but I am not going to promise anything. Things just get too crazy!!

Hoping all is well,

Elder Barlocker II

P.S. Tell Kevin I said HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Oh and I forgot to tell you one more crazy thing that happened this week. We got a call at about 3:30am saying that one of the Elders was missing. They thought that he was sleep walking and got away. So we got out of bed, didn’t change, got our tags on and went out and got a ride with our district leader to the other elders apartment. The story we were told was one of the missionaries couldn’t sleep so he decided to do his laundry. When he came back after about ten min, his companion was gone. And this was at about 1:00am, he waited two hours to call anybody because he thought that he would come back. Well everyone in the zone was called in and we started looking for him. Me and one of the zone leaders stayed at the apartment to see if he would come back. To make a long story short the search ended at 5:30am. The ‘lost’ elder showed up at his district leader apartment. When the one elder went to do laundry the other one woke up, saw his companion was gone with the keys and phone. So he did what seemed logical at 1:00 in the morning, walk to his district leader’s home. Let’s just say the missionary that was ‘doing his laundry’ got transferred. The rest of that day was long and everybody was tired. That incident made me want to follow the rules even more closely. Things can happen way too fast and it can turn out bad.

My time on the computer is up now, so I will write/email you guys later!

Love,

Elder Barlocker II

DUH! JULY 9, 2012

Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 5:37 PM
Mid 90′s actually feels good believe it or not. We love it when it is 95, that is perfect. But now the monsoon season is starting so we are going to get a lot of rain. I already saw a little storm, it was like the one we saw in NY but it lasted a couple of hours. Luckily we had just got back from a district mtg. and we walked into our apartment right as it started raining. In fact that was on the 4th. The street behind our apartment was a river pretty much. Everybody said it was just a little storm, I cannot wait for a real monsoon!

Everything is crazy down here especially on p-days, so it is hard to get a lot done. So I might not be able to get to those letters and thing as soon as I thought. And I forgot my camera today because we have been rushing all day and left my cord in the apartment. So next week I will try to pack it into my bag. So sorry about that.

Just the other day I went on a split with my district leader, Elder Bean. I went over into his area and worked with him. It was a fun time. I guess him and his companion caught a lizard in a senior companions apartment. They left it in a Quaker oatmeal jar at the building, so we went and picked it up. Then Elder Bean called someone in his ward and said we had a pet for her grandchildren. She accepted the pet but wasn’t home, so we had to take care of it for the day. So we went and got it some crickets down at an exotic pet store and fed him. Elder Bean named him Godzilla. One time Elder Bean went to touch him and the lizard hissed at him. So I decided to try… It didn’t hiss at me so I went all the way and touched its back. The thing did a whole 180 and tried to bite my finger!

Taking care of GODZILLA!

It scared the crap out of both of us. Then when we were going to go and put him in another room, the front door started opening. Some random lady started walking in… We both starred at here, she saw us and said “Oh…sorry…” and tried to shut the door; but it took her like three times to shut it. We were both in shock and  kinda laughing… It was weird. But we had fun on the split.

I remember dad asking what my daily schedule was like:
6:30 Wake up and shower
7:00 – 8:00 Get ready and eat breakfast
8:00- 10:00 Studies
10:00 – 11:00 More study or appointments
12:00 – Lunch
1:00 – 4:00 – Go tracting or go to appointment
5:00 – Dinner
6:45 – Go to appointments with a member
9:00 – return home and get all calls made for the next day and maybe have some fun…
10:30 – go to bed
Maybe I will give a more indepth schedule in a letter or something. But that is the basic day for me.

 I hope you guys are having fun the cool weather up there. It has been hot the past couple of day here, but we hear the rain is coming soon! I will have to send pics of the rain next week, it is crazy!
Hope everyone is doing fine and being nice I LOVE you all!!!

Love Elder Barlocker II

P.S. Thanks for the picture Nate! If you guys could send some pics of you guys once in a while that would be awesome!

ARIZONA…! July??? What happened to June?

July 2, 2012
Yeah...95+ is not bad at all, one day this week was at least 110! But I am getting a good tan so I cannot complain. =)

I have some new scars from the mountain biking but other than that and a couple of scabs I am just fine. And I did get a lock but I had to take back the pieces after the first day. So after I got the lock we went to go tracking and locked our bikes to a pole. When we were finished my keys would not work for it. And I had tested it out before we left. But we had to get home because a member was coming to drop off dinner. So we prayed to get the lock undone, but nothing (that was like the 3rd prayer I said).

As we were walking back I noticed that we would not be home in time so I prayed that somehow we could get back on time. I had no idea how that would even happen. But as we were walking some guy pulls up in a ’67 Mustang and asks if we need a ride.

We kinda debated about it for a second and took him up on the offer. It turned out that is was the guy who owned the apartments we are staying in and he is a member. Anyways we got back home right on time to get dinner. I know that having that guy driving down the road at that point in time had to be something other than a coincidence; it was an answer to my prayer.

A little later in the day we went back with a member and tried out my other key, but no luck. We went over to another members house, the Bingham’s (yes their family is from Utah), and got a pole cutter and got my bike off. Now I have a new lock that works perfectly, so far…

My companion is from Farmington Utah, and I think I told you in the last email that he is into magic too! He even uses Ellusionist! But he also can beat-box pretty good too. He has almost been out one year.

But everything here is going smoothly now. We are getting a couple more baptismal dates and all that, so the work is going good! Plus I am starting to get the hang of things down here!

I finally brought my camera so I will try to send some pictures.

I hope you guys are all doing great, I am! I LOVE you all!!!

This is what happens when you leave paper in your back pocket!

A bit SHARP!!!

Elder Barlocker II