Two baptisms!!! Grateful for my young men leaders...

  Hey dad and mom what up! I have exciting news. I had a baptism yesterday!!!!! It was a miracle baptism.  This kid literally came out of nowhere! The sisters in our area were teaching these kids and he was always listening to the lessons and was like "I want to get baptized".   The sisters were like "you live in the boundary of the Elder", so we had a baptism yesterday and I preformed 2 baptisms.   It was awesome!  The other baptism I preformed was of this 16 year old girl.  Her family is so very awesome. They are my family here in Chile. I was so happy!  Their names are Francisco and Madeline.
    I will be able to skype you guys and I will call around 4 o'clock4your  time.  I will call you guys. We are going to be skyping from a home of a member, so there won`t be any distractions. We can talk for like 30 to 40 minutes on Christmas day which will be super nice!
  That is so awesome to hear about Logan. I always thought he was a good guy and a stud. I am glad that Bridger  finally has some back up in his family. He really needs it. I am going to guess that his dad will be baptized pretty soon if I guess correctly. 
  I have lots of photos for you from this past week some are from the baptism, some are from my zone conference and some are from a district activity 

  I would invite you dad to look up the church message He is the Gift on the church website or on Christmas.Mormon.org. It is a great video about what Christmas really means.   It is a huge deal down here. All the missionaries have to give out thousands of these little cards and report how many times we watch the video with people. It is like dropping a spiritual bomb during a lesson, it is awesome! We had a inter-zone conference this past week with the president which was awesome. I think I am finally starting to understand what the Lord expects of me not only right now in the mission but in the future and I have to say that I am really excited and scared at the same time.  I know I can do it but I know my life after the mission will not be easy but that is the life of a disciple of Christ. I can`t really expect my salvation to be easy.   If it was never easy for Him then I'm going to have to suffer through some of His same trails. That is the only true way we can walk His path. 
  Thank you for preparing me to be a messenger of righteousness and please thank the bishop, Rob, Regan, Josh and my other leaders for preparing me. I now realize how much they had to go through. Especially thank the bishop and let him know that I will be praying for him because I don`t want him to suffer the same things that the branch president is suffering here. 

Love 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Grateful for being prepared when young...

Hey first off your gillie suit and your knives are dope! I am super jealous! I feel like that might be one of the first things I will have to buy when I get back after my motorcycle. Canihuente is becoming more and more interesting everyday! So las Hermanas in our ward have been teaching a kid that lives in our sector and he wants to be baptized this Sunday. So we are going to have a baptism this Sunday. He lives in our sector but he spends all of his time in the house of his cousins and they have been receiving the lessons from the sisters in their sector. We hadn't talked to him or seen him until the sisters were like "oh here is a kid that wants to be baptized by you guys!" It`s a Christmas miracle! Elisia had her interview but didn't pass because she likes to talk to an evangelist preacher, whenever she talks about anything having to do with church and she is lacking a little bit in the lessons, so we are going to teach prophets and repentance to her again and basically guide her with memorized answers to help her pass the baptismal interview. She is really great, super kind and friendly. And wants to be a member of the church. She just has tons of stuff from every other religions of the world in her mind, so at times she is very confusing to listen to. We also don`t have permission from her husband to baptize her. I am a little worried about that because he is a huge horrible, terrible person. Like he would have been the man that stoned the prophets in the bible. We are doing good and right now we are trying to unite this ward but it is going to be really hard. This branch has suffered a lot. I am going to ask to president if I can be here one more transfer but I am going to be getting a new comp because Arriaza has been 6 months. I have lost 20 pounds and I am pretty sure when I get back you won`t be able to recognize me, which is fun. I can feel and see the changes of the mission in my life very clearly and I am so grateful you and mom taught me that I should prepare to service the Lord when I was young. I am seeing young men who don`t have a mission in mind here. It is really sad because when they aren't focusing on preparing for the future they are just living to do what is fun right now. Thank you so much! The photos are of Paolo our best friend here in Ovalle and his niece and sister cataldo the president of the Sociedad de Socorro(Relief Society). The other is of our mamita sister and brother Erises they are awesome!!
  I love you momma and dad!!!!!

Love 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

I love being a missionary...

A little bit of Christmas from home.

Hey Pop and momma!! 
 I am pumped to hear that you had an awesome birthday and that you aren´t feeling to old.  Here in chile every man has a chain. just like a plain silver chain and every time I see them it reminds me of josh and how thug he is! I want to buy one and send it to him because I know he will actually wear it but they are super lame. I don´t really understand why they wear them but oh well. 
  We have 3 progressing investigators right now and they are super good! Barbara, Maria, Elisia. Barbara is 19 and has a baby. She is really good and listens and participating in the lesson but has a fear of attending church so her progress is shortening. Maria is great and says that if she receives an answer about the Book of Mormon she will do whatever we ask and be active forever, which is just great! Elisia is good too. She attended a branch conference with us and liked it a lot but her husband is, in the words of Jesus and Moroni "a child of hell" and doesn't ´t want us to come by anymore.  I don't know what we are going to do about her and her baptism this sunday. Here in Ovalle there is a really big lack of religiousness with the men and the men who are religious are not really willing to listen which is really hard. If we could baptize the head of the family the rest will follow and the branches here really need elders who pay tithing. I really liked the presents I got and I gave half of all my food to Elder Arriaza, don´t worry. I have two nicknames here El rey de Helado (the king of ice cream)with some of the families in the branch and with the missionaries I am the king of candy because I always have candy for the kids we are teaching. I have lost 20 pounds since I left the MTC. At one point in the MTC I was almost 200lbs and now I am about 172. Christmas is about the same here but a little smaller and we have a lot more Jehovah's Witnesses but nothing really different. 

  My favorite treat is probably the mentos but I am sorry to say that I didn't ´t follow the instructions because they were at the bottom of the package. I didn't ´t open my stocking or my letters yet so that is good! The kids here loved the ctr rings and if you could send me like 100 more that would be the most marvelous thing in the world! The tree and the nativity scene are in our study room and yes I did decorate them! Dads cookies were awesome and I haven't tried the mix yet. I am waiting till Christmas to eat it with some of the families we are going to be with. 

  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!! IT IS THE BEST THING EVER! I also have realized something, that is really sad as well. A lot of people are going to die and have to learn all the things about the gospel in the spirit world but I know the plan of our Heavenly Father is perfect and I am so grateful I decided to be valiant in the pre-earth life to be able to have the fullness of the gospel in my life now, with all the joy and blessings that come with it. I love you guys so much for preparing me to serve a mission and I know that the people I teach, if they choose to accept the gospel will wet your feet with their tears when we are in heaven again because of their gratitude. 

Love 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

	Dec 1 (3 days ago)

Hi momma!

1. I don´t have a new comp not till new years when we are transferred.

2. It all got deleted but I am not sure how and with the mission rules about music are only things that can be played in sacrament meeting and classical music so I can listen to all types of hymns but nothing else which kind of blows! 

3. I am always hungry but I eat a lot but I am down to about 170 I think.

4. I have plenty of money for food and the members feed us a ton.

5. We can go out to eat at restaurants but we use the mission money for it.  So we don´t usually,  we just buy what we want to eat in the grocery store and cook it at home on Mondays.

6. We can talk for about 45 minutes on Christmas day. We are going to call about 5 O´clock your time because it will be 7 here. I don´t know if we can skype or video chat but if we can I will try,  so send me your skype address.

De tu hijo 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Hey Dad!! What up Viejo! Estoy muy bien aquí en paraíso! Esta semana era muy interesante porque tenía dos intercambios. Una vez con un Elder de Colombia y una con me líder de zona. Ambos eran muy buen y tienen muchos cosas que yo necesito desarrollar a ser un mejor misionero. Ponemos 2 fechas esta semana, ambos con mujeres. La primera es llamado Barbara y ella tiene 19 anos y ella tiene un hija de 5 meses. She is great! She likes to read the Book of Mormon and to pray, likes to listen and wants these things for her daughter as well which is awesome. She needs to attend church for the next 3 weeks to be baptized on the 21 but I think that if we can find some friends for her in the branch it will go a lot smoother and easier. The other is Elisia she is about 48, I think. She is very very religious and attended church for the first time with us yesterday and wants to be baptized on the 14. She reads the Book of Mormon a lot and has very strong feelings about the importance of family and how man and woman must work together for the betterment of the family. Which is kind of sad because her husband is a jerk and that is about the nicest word I could think of to describe him. We are also going to set another date with this woman named Maria Castillo. She is about the same age as Elisia and wants to be a member of the church and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. She is one of the best investigators I have found on my mission so far. I am still with Elder Arriaza and we will be together till new years eve because that is the day of transfers but I am pretty pumped to be with him because we are teaching well. I feel like I am lacking a lot in my part of the lessons but all the other elders say that will come with more time and experience. I love you dad! I got the Christmas package. Elder Arriaza was pretty annoyed with me because he brought it on Saturday and had to carry it around all day on Friday because he was in Viña for a training. The package weighs like 100 lbs. He said to say thank you for including double of just about everything and loves the cliff bars. 

De tu hijo

Elder Chirstopher Ryan Barlow

Translation of Chris's letter:

What's up old man! I doing great here in paradise! this week was very interesting because I had 2 exchanges with an elder form Colombia and a zone leader. Both were great and I have a lot of things I need to develop in order to be a better missionary. We have set 2 dates this week both are for 2 women. The first one's name is Barbara and she is 19 years old and she has a 5 month old little daughter...

Elder Azarria loading Chris's Christmas package. Poor guy!!!