Grateful for good examples…

Hey momma!! Good morning to you as well! I am glad that you have started to hang out with the other families in the ward they´re awesome! Try not to have to much fun without me with them. I don´t want to miss out on all the fun while I´m baptizing Chile! They were all very good examples to me and I am very greatful for them in my life, especially Jeff, Michelle, Tracy and Scott. Jeff is the man and was always an exceptional example of what a good priesthood holder should be and the evidence is his 2 sons.  Michelle is the best white mom I could have ever asked for! Tracy was a wonderful leader for me in the stake youth council and I loved to be at the Lesaeurs house! Tell loser kate to write be my the way. I am doing really good! I haven´t gotten sick or anything like that and my companion and I are getting along really well.  The language barrier is a little annoying at times but slowly were smashing that to pieces. No we don´t have to pay the families who feed us.  The point of the visit is to help strength the family and help them in their problems, which is good.   And yes we do pay the family that does our laundry but not a lot and only once a month which is really nice! Thank you for the boots and for the other things that I asked for it will be nice to have them! This week was really really interesting! Its so funny to me that when we talk to people for 5 minutes about the church, complete strangers will totally open up their whole lives to you and want your help if you ask the right question.  The whole misery loves company thing is real and actually helps us a lot because we have answers for any problem. People just need to take the time to listen for 10 to 15 minutes. This week was really good mostly because of one of our investigators named Juan. He is about 25 or 26 same age as Stu and lives with his girlfriend and their family who are less active in the church. When we first got here they didn´t like the missionaries and he didn´t want anything to do with the church but now he has agreed to get baptized. Him and his girlfriend are working towards marriage because they have a kid and they need to be married before he can be baptized.  She is a little scared and unsure about it all which makes things difficult but she is progressing as well. The whole family attended church this week and it was just really great to see him ask tons of questions during principles of the gospel class! He really wants to learn and understand and is trying very hard to do the things we ask him. He can feel the spirit during our lessons and is just an awesome guy, kinda reminds me of stu. We are progressing with about 5 other investigators right now and I can feel the branch really starting the come together and I feel like they are starting to get closer together spiritually as they realize they actually all belong to the same religion. Transfers are usually next week but I probably wont be leaving for possibly a month or 2 after my training is done which is at week 12. Im at week 6 but time is going by really fast! Y es mas mas fácil a hablar en español ahora y yo puedo contestar fácil preguntas y explicar todo de la lecciones in español la difícil parte es cuando la personas aquí hablan muy muy rápido y el otro misioneros no pueden entender to de la idioma porque ellos usan mucha slang y hablen mas rápido que cada otro pies que hablar en español. Estoy muy animado por conferencias de zona y el presidente es aquí para esta conferencia. Y esta semana es conferencia general!!!!!!!!!!!! wooohooo!!! It is going to be so sweet! 

I love you so much mommy and I am learing so much about how tough I actually am and how tough I am going to need to be for the future.

Para su HIjo Amado

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

My first baptism!!!

Hey dad its your son! I have some really big News! I had my first baptism this week which was freaking awesome!!! A good way to end my fourth week in Chile I think! Her name was Kammy Johnson and she is 19 and just the perfect investigator! she attended church for a month before we started teaching her which was awesome! For a person to be baptized now they have to attend church 3 times in a row and receive all the lessons. At least it is here in this mission. We taught her all the lessons in 2 days and then had her interview the day after and then the baptism was yesterday! Her confirmation is next week and I think she is going to be an awesome member! And now because of her we are going to start teaching her dad and 13 year old sister who are both very smart and the dad loves to read the bible but has some problems with the responsibility parts of the gospel. I have about 9 investigators right now and about half right now I am guessing will eventually be baptized idk by who, possibly me but I believe at some point they will accept and be baptized!

Thank you for sending me that news article! It was awesome to read! This gospel is so true and I am so glad to be apart of this church and the things that you and Mom taught me are true! I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that through the power of God he translated the Book Of Mormon! I love the Book of Mormon and I have been reading it a lot and sharing so much that I am receiving revelation about it every time I open the pages, it's amazing! Thank you for sending me that Ipod! I probably won´t get it till my training is over along with most of the other stuff you sent me but I really appreciate how fast you and mom reacted to my emails!

I have started to work a lot more with the members here because there are a lot of less active and inactive members here. yesterday we met with the branch president and talked about somethings to help strengthen the branch and I had 2 ideas that we are going use. One is a day of cleaning the whole church where we meet at because it is dirty and the members need to work together better. so we are hoping this will help bring the branch closer together and then the other was a night when me and my companion and the sisters who are with us teach the members how to approach someone or a family member or friend and talk about the gospel with them. We´re calling it preach my Gospel night and I am really excited for it because these people want to share the gospel but don´t know how. I have a challenge for the family as well. try and have the missionaries over more often and help them as much as possible because I promise if you have missionaries in the house the spirit will be even stronger and if you make the house a place where missionaries can bring or teach lessons to investigators it will be the happiest place on earth. 

I love you so much and I am glad that you are staying busy and having such a good time at home

From your loving son

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Feeling your Hugs....

Hey Momma! I promise I can feel the prayers and hugs that you are trying to send me! Missionary work is so hard! It’s way harder then I ever thought it would be because I thought possibly every 1 in 30 people would listen but its more like every 1 in 150 listen and then usually they don’t even try to keep the commitments that you make with them! I’m not angry or disappointed I just have an understanding of what Stu and dad when through when they were on their missions and have so much respect for them because it’s not easy at all! I love teaching though and when people do accept and keep the commitments I have never felt so happy in my life! I can feel the spirit so very strongly and I actually have 3 people with baptismal dates but they didn’t attend church this week so we have to push the date back another week and I now understand why prophets in the Book of Mormon are always asking why Heavenly Father lets his children live such wicked lives! I will leave some lessons and just want to cry because this work is so important and if they just try just a little to follow our guidance they will receive peace and happiness but they are either to stubborn or lazy to try! My companion show me a talk by president Holland that really helped me a lot it’s an address to the mission presidents and it’s the reason why missionary work is so hard and I understood after. I am learning a lot and the language is coming along good, I’m excited for the day in my mission when I’m training a new Elder and I need his help to know how to say things in English ha ha! I love you such much and I hope you know that you and Dad did an excellent job of teaching me the gospel. 

Your Questions

1. My companion is from Costa Rica and I call him little tico because apparently that is the South American nickname for them its like Yankee.

2. Raised in the church

3.speaks a little English but basically knows as much English as I do Spanish

4.send stuff to the mission home address not to my address 

5. The big meal here is almuerzo so every day we have a scheduled lunch with one of the families in the branch with are super good and I really like the Members here but they have a huge problem with inactivity because members are always offending each other and everyone works on Sunday.

I love you so much Momma!

Para Su Hijo

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Elder Barlow's Neighborhood

Elder Azaria and Elder Barlow

Elder Barlow's Kitchen

Bedroom

Ovalle

Learning patience...

Hey Momma! I have been using my card a lot because I have a lot of things that I need to buy that I didn’t bring with me, I should be good now, for the most part. I do need a couple more things from you guys because here I am a giant and they don’t have shoes in my size and they would have to be specially made. I was wondering if you could send me some waterproof boots that are sort of like church shoes and some thick socks and a couple scarves. You don’t need to worry about sending them immediately but once I am in Vina or Valpo I will have to use them a lot because it rains a lot. Here in Ovalle they have been having a drought for the past 8 years but it rained a little this week and I realized when I am out working in the rain that I need better shoes. I also need a different bolsa because mine is super big and it kills my shoulders. If you could find one that has a waist belt and a shoulder strap that would be perfect.  A couple huge packages of jerky would be very much appreciated. Thank you for buying all those other things that I need here. It means a lot that you and dad respond so fast to the things I need. I love you. So I’m going to tell you about the Investigators I have. So the first family is very interesting and we have been working with them for about 2 weeks the dad works a lot and drinks a lot and so does the uncle. The dad is very respectful of us but doesn’t really want to listen and the uncle wants to listen but doesn’t want to change, which is hard. There are 3 boys and a girl, the boys really listen well and try to complete most of our commitments and especially the middle one he is extremely smart and reads the Book of Mormon at school and wants to attend church and be baptized but the problem is that their dad has some serious control issues and won’t let them do anything with out him but he won’t agree to attend church or read. The daughter is about Hannah’s age I think but I can’t tell here because everyone is so short and they all look either very old or very young. She hasn’t really been part of the lessons that much and they aren’t really lessons you would expect they are more like use talking through a gate with the family. We have about 12 investigators right now and my 2 favorites are Kimmy and Estella. Kimmy is 19 and she has been attending church for the last month and yesterday we taught her the first lesson and she accepted to be baptized but no date yet. She said she will pray about our lessons and if she receives an answer on Wednesday during our lesson we will pick a date. I love teaching lessons so much! I can feel the spirit so strongly and I know the things I am teaching are true and when I teach I receive revelation too, which is so nice. I have so much more knowledge about the gospel then I ever thought I would and I love how everything about the gospel fits perfectly together. Estella is an older woman who lives alone far away from her kids and really needs the gospel. She is a very genuine example of how the gospel brings peace and happiness but we haven’t seen her for a week and a half because this week is the independence day of Chile.  It’s a huge deal so basically tomorrow everything shuts down and everyone starts to party all this week. She is with her family and doesn’t get back till next week but I am hoping next week she will attend church with us and agree to be baptized. So I ate one of the nastiest things I have ever seen in my life on Friday.  It was a cup filled with this really good juice called huellso but then they put peaches and corn and it was disgusting to say the least, this other thing they really like is like this egg browny thing that is totally eggs and then they put caramel on it, that’s disgusting too but other then that all the other food is delicious! The Bread and Meat here is amazing! We have a couple in our area that does all our laundry once a week so that is nice. I love you Mom and I hope that you and Dad and the girls are safe and Happy! 

Hey Dad! This past week has been super interesting! So I participated in my first zone conference and found out that my first sector is basically the worst part of the entire mission. The other Elders call Canihuente, Caniflete. Here in Chile a person who is a thug or does tons of drugs is called a flete. which is super interesting too because I remember asking for a hard mission and well now I have it. I’m going to emphasize this by the experience I had yesterday with this Family we have been trying to teach. So Every day we talk with this family that consists of a dad and uncle 3 boys and a girl, the dad and Uncle are serious drinkers and yesterday we went to talk with them and possibly teach a lesson but the dad was totally drunk but invited us in.  Then went on a rant for about 20 minutes about how English is the universal language and how it shouldn’t be because way more people speak Spanish, or at least that is what I think he was saying. I honestly didn’t feel very safe and wanted to leave but my companion said we need to have patience with him. So when he said to teach him we tried to teach him the restoration and then 2 minutes in he went off on another rant. We had a lesson appointment with a member at that point and needed to leave and I tried to but my companion kept talking with him and trying to discuss something with him. I don’t know what but it was just kind of a bad experience to say the least. My companion then proceeded to chew me out about having patience and he is right. I do need more patience with people but it’s hard to have patience’s and try to help a person who won’t let you talk or won’t remember what you said. But the Lord saw fit to give me another chance to teach someone who really wants to feel love and happiness in their life! Her name is Kimmy, she is 19 and has grandparents that are members and has been coming to church for the past month. We taught her for the first time yesterday and she was just a golden investigator.  She wants more peace and happiness and wants to be near God and believes that through the gospel it’s possible, which is true. She accepted baptism but don’t have a date yet.   We’re going to teach her on Wednesday and pick a date then.  I love teaching this gospel! It fills me with so much joy and happiness that I feel like I am going to get emotional every time I am going to bear my testimony or teach. I control it but I know this gospel is true and the gifts of the gospel are families, knowledge and service and I am so glad you and mom raised and prepared me for my service here. I love you so much dad!

Para su Hijo

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

First letter from Chile

Hey Momma! It’s your baby Boy! I hope you and Jessica had super good birthdays and I hope you enjoyed your time up at Bear Lake! I have so much to tell you its ridiculous! So to start we left the airport in Mexico at like 1150, which sucked, but I’m fine with it because I gave out my first Book of Mormon on the plane! One of the flight attendants recognized the big Jesucristo on the front of the tag and was like are you like a minister? I told her yes and she started to talk about how her husband gave her papers of divorce that morning and she didn’t know what to do and I told her that she needs to pray and to ask Heavenly Father for help and to read the Bible with the Book of Mormon and she was super excited and accepted and it was great! But because of course all things have opposition not 5 minutes later I got totally rejected by the old lady sitting next to me! She was like your bible is false and your baptism is false and I could really responded because of a little shock and I could barely understand so I barely slept for that 8 and 1/2 hour flight because I was thinking about it all night but I’m good now because I have been rejected so many times already that I’m just used to it now! My first area is called Ovalle and I’m in the sector called calhiejente I’m pretty sure that is how it is spelled my Comps name is Elder Ariaza and he is from Costa Rica I will try and send a picture but it will take time because I don’t know how to work the computers here! So far we have taught about 8 lessons but only 3 of our like 17 investigators are progressing but con tiempo! Con tiempo has basically become my theme song! Yo entiendo mas Espanol ahora pero la personas aquì hablan muy muy rapido y es muy dificil a entender porque ellos no tienen annunciation ha ha perro I tengo esperanza por me trecer semana Yo entiendo casi todo la idioma! los miembros es muy bieno pero estas muy menos activos aquì en Chile y ellos no quieren la Iglesia es muy diho! Tell me about the family and I hope Brittany gets sent to where she wants to go on her service trip tell me about how your lunches go and how your cooping ;) Tell me about how Hannah is doing in school and how Jessica’s teaching is going! how are dad and Stu doing with training and work and how is Stu with the MCAT? 

1. I will send you pictures of the house and my address and my comp next week when I have taken some!

2. They apparently have Wal-Mart here so I should be just fine ha-ha

3. I will have plenty of money and if I need more I will tell you! :)

I love you so much Momma!

Your obviously favorite child

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow