Weird to think about coming home, we have another baptism scheduled, we need to fight for religious freedom...

Hi Mommy and dad! 

I am doing fine.  It`s a weird feeling  writing about my plans for after the mission but at the same time it`s really exciting, haha!!! I just joke about things with my comp but I am trying to stay focused on teaching and passing on all the knowledge I think I have gained on the mission to the zone  because they are all relatively new missionaries. 

To answer your question dad, no my comp isn`t taller than me but he is pretty tall. I think the east coast of South America is more European then the west coast because they are a lot taller and a lot whiter in the majority of the cases. Everyone one here went insane but not as crazy as last year when Chile beat Argentina, from what we could here. 

 We had another investigator attend church this week which was awesome and guess what! The guy that turned his gun into the police is going to get married the 7th and my and my comp and I  will be his witnesses!!! They have made some really incredible changes in their lives!  

I want to share an experience I had this morning with one of the district leaders while we were talking on the phone. He talked about an experience he had with a Jehovah`s Witness, the normal attitude that missionaries have when it comes to other religions is that they are misinformed and blind. I used to have that same mentality and its terrible. I read an article about how we should fight for religious freedom and be supporters and strengtheners of the faiths of others. It made me think about the tolerance that Christ had for the gentile woman that asked Christ to heal her son. He had compassion on her, He taught a principals that made it clear that he had come to serve specific people, but he also  blessed her and healed her child. In a sense I have had the thought at the beginning of the mission that by dominating a conversation and using all my knowledge of the gospel to ´´destroy or cut´´ people who want to bible bash was something fun. Contention is from the devil and It weakens our faith just as contention in the family weakens faith. I hope that  I can help my zone learn religious tolerance and peace. We do not want to be sons of thunder like John and James, Christ apostles, we want to be princes and princesses of peace. 

Love,

Elder Barlow

Zone Conference 

Grateful to be a Barlow, life is busy, I'm gassed...

  I am grateful for our ancestors who believed the experience of Joseph Smith. Being a Barlow to me is something special. Barlow's are priesthood holders, missionaries, servants of the Lord. Being a Barlow to me as I look at the Barlow men in my life means honoring my wife, working hard to support my family, loving my children and serving in the community. Barlow's are educated and men full of love and compassion. Barlow's are that way because one Barlow decided to listen to missionaries and follow the example of Jesus Christ. 

  The lady we were teaching named Maritz moved to another city, in another mission, so we are going to pass the referral.  We are going to have a baptism this Saturday.  She is a young woman who is super cool! Her name is Mary Bett and she is 15 and has been coming to church for the past 2 months with a friend who is a member and she has decided that she wan ts to follow the example of Jesus Christ! 

  We have had a lot of training meetings lately and lots of traveling and planning to do during this past several weeks and days. This week we will have a zone meeting with  the president and we have to train the missionaries about how to study in an effective and simple manner that will help them receive revelation for their lives and their investigators. My new comp is pretty awesome not gonna lie. He is from Uruguay, his name is Elder Bermudez he been out for a little less then a year. He is  in super diligent. I feel a little tired not gonna lie. Physically I am fine, I have never been so physically fit in my entire life since I have lost so much weight here and well I work out every morning, but mentally I am pretty gassed. I have been praying to be able to focus and keep my cool and calm with all the things we do ahah. 

I hope I have been able to make changes in my attitude about the world and about who I am. I don´t want to be one of the missionaries that comes back the same. Obviously I am still Chris Barlow, a clown, a joker, and a relatively relaxed fun person but I also have been trying to seek maturity and more then anything spirituality that will help me cope with problems and over come them, so I can be an anchor to my family and the other people around me when the world tries to push them away from Christ. 

Elder Barlow 

Love ya dad

Baptism of Juan Escorza, grateful for the temple..

Hey mom and dad! 

 I am doing really well! We had a baptism on Saturday! His name is Juan Escorza! He is this very sweet and humble , 70 year old man. My companion baptized him and I comfirmed him. The sisters started teaching him and then we had changes in the area and he ended up in our sector!  His baptism was really special because he was so excited that his life had a purpose again. We will have maybe 2 baptisms next week but for sure we are having one! It was a really good week and really cool to see how the lord works to change his children, helping them see the light. Two of the men who we have reactivated bore their testimonies and they were easily some of the most sincere and powerful testimonies I had ever heard in my life and everyone in the branch was dumb struck. 

I was thinking about the creation and the fall of Adam and our need for the atonement. We would have forever been lost without the atonement and nothing we could do would have saved us. I think that by learning this is over and over and over again in the temple, where the spirit is the strongest and it makes the fall more and more real in our minds and hearts.  I believe the lord has decided to teach us in his sacred house our complete and unending need for him. It will be so different going through the temple with this knowledge after the mission. This will make my repentance that much more sincere and the need to pray and ask for help even greater. 

I brought some questions  my patriarchal blessing to conference and received  a lot of counsel and instruction to my questions.  Some of the instruction was simple things I must do daily and when the time comes in the sight of the lord he will fulfill his promises

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

 

 

Working hard and strengthening my faith...

Mom Today I realized a spiritual truth about who I am. I was studying in the Book of Mormon today and was thinking about how I could strengthen my testimony of  Christ through it. I was pretty bummed. I have read it more then a few times now. 5 times in English and 5 in Spanish, I'm finishing my fifth time in Spanish right now. I always pray to know if it´s true and well nothing big happens. Nothing small either. I was wondering why heavenly father hadn´t confirmed to me the words of the Book. I went and prayed in our bedroom and I sat there thinking about the book when the words to the hymn The Iron Rod came to mind. The iron rod is the word of god and will safely guide you through. God had confirmed my prayers but through different things. He is teaching me how much faith I actually possess and have always possessed. I am like those who Alma spoke of in Alma 32:16. The spirit confirmed to me that although I have never had big confirmations I have always known. I thought about the parable of the prodigal son but thought of the older son, obedient and always with his father. I am like him with the anger or resentment. The lord hasn´t had to kill the fatted calf for me and hasn't had huge parties for me because I have never left his side or at least haven't gone far, nor will I ever leave his side. 

It's super cool that dad is going to get sworn in before the supreme court!!!!!!! You are going to send me photos right?  

I get to see Paolo almost everyday and he said that he is going to come to Santiago to say good bye to me but I still haven´t been able to see the rest of the family. We are going to baptize a mountain of people in my zone this next month!!!!!!!!!!! In the district that I'm in we've talked to about 15 people who are all super ready to be baptized and more than a couple of them already have baptismal dates and more than a couple attended  church. My comp and I are going to baptize 6 people in this next month! It´s gonna be awesome! 

 I am so freaking brown now!!! Tons of people have asked if i am Brazilian, Argentinian or Chilean.

President and Sister Diaz

Wow mom, every one in our family is so old now!! Britt is a woman and Hannah isn`t a little thing anymore... That's crazy!!! ha ha Hey I had a great week this week. Guess what happened in the transfer meeting? There is an Elder Barlow who all his mission has been in all his sectors for 6 months and he was in an area with a companion who had six months in the sector already. Both of these Elders thought, well Elder Barlow will stay and elder Arpires will be going but a miracle occurred! Our Heavenly father decided to call Elder Barlow as one of the new zone leaders of the mission and sent him back to the zone where he started his mission! I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It´s seriously one of the greatest blessings I have received during my mission! I love Ovalle and I have received one of the greatest blessing a missionary can receive. I get to see converts and members who I knew and loved and be with them again! Seriously super awesome! My new comp is from Utah as well and he is going to go to BYU. Super Cool!!! We have 2 investigators with baptismal dates and had a couple of training meetings with our president. I also had the great privileges of seeing one of the smallest branches of the church in the mission because it´s part of my sector. There are about 20 members who attend and like 3 men. I had the privilege of addressing them and know what?! Never in my life have I felt so much appreciation for the members of the church. These men and woman are living saints who have decided to be valiant in the name of our father in heaven! What a week of blessings and miracles.  Here in this area, me and my comp have 3 branches.  In our main branch lives one of my favorite families from the mission. I don´t know if you remember the family from my first area with the blind uncle and is full of girls.  I love that family with all my heart. Well they attend my branch. Mom I seriously felt just over joyed at the news that I was going to be able to see them again!!

This coming week me and comp, Elder Crofts from Ogden are going to give a replica of the training meeting we received from the president and we will be working hard to find lots of new investigators. We get along pretty well and he is just a really chill guy, really obedient and works hard. He got here on the plane with me and we actually met in the airport in Utah.

Ovalle

Hey mom and dad!! What crazy news! Everything is changing! I have changes this week and you guys had changes last week! I will probably have a new comp! We had a really hectic week with all the teaching and lessons, which was awesome! 

I am tired, I'm tired all the time. These last couple days I have felt a little better but physically I am pretty gassed.  I feel like I'm getting to the metaphorical wall that you guys hit when you run marathons. I keep getting skinnier but I think I have a tape worm.......... jk  Spiritually I am good and with all the crazy stuff going on here in the mission and at home I am pretty excited but Waking up early is getting harder and harder. Waking up on time has even become something that I have to force me self to do. I have been praying a lot to have self control.

This week we taught 17 lessons which was awesome and we found some really interested people. It's really a miracle that the church exists in the way that it does. In 3 weeks we have found  people who have been catholic or other religions and  just decided that what they had learned their entire life was completed by the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The power of faith and the power of the truth. It divides all barriers and cuts through all darkness like the sun piercing a cloudy day. Isn´t the gospel great! I think of all the things I have learned from my mission and the greatest thing I have been able to learn is about the nature of the trinity. Something you guys did, which I love was that you taught me the principles of the gospel and made sure that the puzzle of my life and identity had at least the boarders put together. The mission has helped me put all the other pieces that form the picture into place. I know I learned all the things that I have been teaching here at one point  or another but it was just kind of a mixed up wad of truth and information but I didn`t really know how to apply it in my life. Being here and teaching it has brought me the clarity of who I am and how the gospel works and flows and where its going to carry me. I would invite you and the family to study preach my gospel. Read chapter 3 which talks about the principles of the gospel at night with the girls and I promise that they will be able to see a little more clearly of how everything has a connection.  

I had a thought the other day about the priesthood ordination. When we are ordained to the priesthood, they don´t give us the priesthood but they confer it upon us. I was thinking about that and the association this has with keys. I don´t know if this is doctrine but I had a thought that every man in the world already has the priesthood but it can only be unlocked by those with keys or by those who have been authorized by key holders. Its really interesting because it relates in that many are called but few are chosen. Why are they not chosen because they have decided that they don`t wish to have their inheritance. They trade it for a metaphorical bowl of gruel. I was studying in the book of Alma and was reading about the war chapters. Its interesting that the Book of Mormon has so many chapters about war and almost always it talks about the consequences that it has upon men. We have so much responsibility and god has trusted us with so much power. Just like the men of the Book of Mormon, we see that in the wards and stakes of the worlds when they decided to be righteous and follow good everything works out and they are blessed, but when one leader decides to be prideful and usurp the authority which god has granted him, all suffer and there are consequences for generations. They Book of Mormon is the saints guide to being a righteous priesthood holder.  

Elder Barlow!!

Christopher Astudillo was baptized, can't believe how chubby I was, humbled for the trust the lord has given me....

What??????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Emma Finished her mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? O my fetch........ Moooooom! I am so old................................... today I transferred all the photos from the beginning of my mission from one flash drive to another and I was so fat when I got here oh my goodness! I was like a chubby sausage! Its disgusting... Wacala (gross). I just realized that all the missionaries who I got here with me have already finished their mission and that basically there is no one here now that has more time then my group. 

Christopher Astudillo got baptized yesterday and it went super well. He was pretty pumped when he left the water and just started to smile really big. He got up to bear his testimony after the service. It was really simple but I could tell that he had been cleansed of his sins and that he could feel a cleanliness and a spirit he had never felt before. His mom was really happy and this Sunday he will be confirmed a member of the church of Jesus Christ and he will be ordained to the office of a deacon. I hope I can stay here for a while because I would like to see his progress.I was going through all the teaching registers of this area and the lord has placed some of the best missionaries that I have met on my mission here, in this area. It gives me pride and humbles me to know that the lord has placed his trust upon me and that he has trusted this area to me and my comp. All my mission I have tried my hardest to work hard and to be a good obedient servant of the lord and I honestly believe that I have been an excellent missionary. I don`t say this to toot my own horn, I say this to give thanks to the amazing parents that I have had. You and dad taught me what it means to work hard and to be self-sufficient. To love the Lord and serve him the best that I can and I would say that if you guys had an interview with the lord about how hard you worked in raising me he would say, Well done, thou good and faithful sservant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 

Love Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Hey dad,

Everything has gone by so ridiculously fast. I told mom about this but I wanted to tell you too. I am in a area that is pretty complicated to work in. I have been going through the area book and looking at the missionaries that have been here and It´s very humbling to see who has been here. All the elders who have been here are some of the best missionaries that I have met in my mission. I want to thank you for having taught me to trust in the lord and for teaching me how to work hard. I love you for the great example you have given me and I know its because you were a good missionary as well. 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Christopher Astudillo's baptism!!!