Transfer has been difficult, not very much success, went to the zoo...

MOM! 

Mate is delicious! Its not just hot dirt water. When you cook it you need to put in the liquid sweetener that makes it super good but only a couple drops. I am going to bringing home bags and bags of mate if I can`t buy it in the states because I love it! 

Today we had a district activity because my district had 6 baptisms this month. The mission president gave us permission to have an activity. We went to the La Serena Zoo. It was pretty cool not gonna lie and then we cooked there. I started the fire with help from one of the sisters and we had grilled choripan and tin foil dinners. There are some pretty cool animals here including a white tiger and an ocelot. I also got to touch a monkey. It was a good time to relax for the district because we are all pretty stressed out. 

When you pray for opportunities to strengthen your testimony, the lord will answer your prays. I have been praying for that these last couple weeks. This has been one of the hardest changes of my mission. We haven`t had a lot of success or a lot of progress so it has been kind of hard. I have had to trust that the Lord will continue to help me in every moment and I have had to learn to work in very creative ways here. 

I haven't gotten my package yet and probably wont till September but I will let you know when I do! I will be praying for you and for the girls! Tell Dad I love him. 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Going to help investigator read Book of Mormon, love mate....

Hey dad,

I am really glad that your trial settled and I love your quote as well.  We had the same lesson in Elders quorum yesterday on helping the elderly. It brought to mind when we would go give the sacrament to the sister who lived in the apartments who couldn't come to church. Here there are tons of old people and a lot of them have suffered a lot in their lives. because it's not the same as in the states here. There are many who can`t come to church because they can`t leave their beds and a lot more are inactive because they simply don`t have any one who visits them and haven't been visited by anyone for years and they feel abandoned and alone.  I am going to try and spend more time with them now and work hard so they will come back to church because they have been faithful for most of their lives.  We should help them so in the end they don`t lose their eternal families because they feel abandoned by the people that our heavenly father has placed in their lives to help them.

Tell Parker I said hi and to not get married to soon! 

Tell him to write me too!

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Hello mom!

  My investigator didn`t get baptized yet... He wants to feel the desire to be baptised which is good and bad. He has a testimony of the gospel and wants to be baptised. What he doesn`t want to do is pick a day to do it. These situations are the bane of my being. You know how patient I am! I have gotten a lot better. Me and Elder Gut are just going to start reading the Book of Mormon with him because he has been struggling in that. He hasn`t read very much but of what he has read he believes its true. We are struggling with finding new investigators but I am not worried! I know I will find them and help them to receive the gospel. 

  My new mission president is completely different from my old one. He is a lot more relaxed then president Kahnlien, but his testimony is just as strong. He was in charge of all the seminary and institute programs in Santiago, so he has a huge knowledge of the scriptures and he really helps us to learn to love the scriptures! Its awesome! He hasn't changed the rules very much apart from allowing us to  drink mate now and its awesome! I love it! I drink it every morning ha ha. 

  I was thinking about this a lot and something that I have learned here is that I need to be obedient to my leaders. Here in the mission my first loyalty is to the Lord, then the Mission president and then my comp. Everything comes after while I am here. 

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Elder Gutierrez is awesome, not many investigators....

Hello Mom!

I had a wonderful birthday! It was kind of a rough week because we don`t have many investigators.  We are struggling with that as well as getting the members to go to the lessons with us. I'm hoping that now that we have identified a sister who was just recently baptized, who is more then willing to come out with us to teach and hopefully  we can start to getting the investigators that we have to make progress. 
  We have one investigator who is progressing super well. His name is Bastion. He is 16 years old and has been attending for awhile.   He's had his baptismal interview and passed, his only issue is that he won`t accept a baptismal date. I think he will accept a date this week. We took him to a baptism that the zone leaders had yesterday. He doesn`t like to talk all that much but I know the baptism really helped him.
  I am doing really well!  Elder Gutierrez is awesome! I hope I have a couple more transfers with him because he is a super cool guy. I think we will have one more transfer together which will be cool. I'm still a district leader, there are  zone leaders in my district and 2 companionship's of sisters, so I won`t be having a lot of splits but I will be doing a lot of baptismal interviews.
   I did 5 this last week. One was with a family of 4 and the other one of a man I will never forget. He is homeless and lives in a  place called Christ's home. He makes money by collecting bottle caps  and selling them. The zone leaders began teaching him and he has changed completely in 3 weeks. He cut his hair, he shaved, he started bathing daily and he is now looking for work just so he can pay his tithing. He is one of the most humble person I have ever met!  Not because of  his living situation but because of his nature. He's  just very loving and kind and I am very excited to see how he will keep progressing during my time here. 

  I love you mommy and I am very grateful for the efforts that you made to guide me onto the mission. The threats and blessings that you used helped me get here and I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am!

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

Happy birthday!!!! Transferred to La Serena, new companion Elder Gutierrez...

 For my birthday Heavenly father sent me to the best zone in the mission and I'm still a district leader. so I am getting lots of great birthday presents. I got transferred to a place called La Serena which is beautiful!  Its in the most northern part of the mission and its a region that's super pretty and really really clean. 

I am with another gringo, he is from Connecticut and  his name is elder Gutierrez. he is super chill and I am super excited to work with him. his parents are Peruanos so we are two false Latins walking around here!  We seriously have to visit this place after the mission.

 I'm in my first ward and its super big! About 125 members attend  regularly and its super nice! I am really excited! The bishop is super cool and obedient.  I really like it a lot!

 Today I will be able to buy my new suit and I am pretty excited about that. I am really pleased with how my second year on the mission has started! Not a lot happened apart from me traveling a lot. I got to my new sector at 2 in the morning from Viña. 

Also Even though you have a 20 year old son and a granddaughter you and mom aren´t old yet.

Love Elder Barlow 

Rough week, hard time staying focused, need a change...

Thank you mom for the stories!  Its nice to know I was a way better child then you and dad... jk but I really do enjoy reading them. I don't know why is started wondering about it. Either we had a lesson about family history or I was talking about it or reading about it during my  study time but I just realized I know nothing about my family apart from some stories and how dad worked at orange Julius! And well I knew you were born in California and that's about it. You grew up speaking Spanish and you lived in Guatemala for a year right?

It was kind of a rough week trying to stay focused on the work  because in my district all the Elders are finishing their missions and they were talking about crap they are going to do after the mission and girls mostly and well that made me a little trunky. It also doesn't help that I have been in this sector for such a long time and I have memorized every street in this city! I have transfers this Wednesday and I am almost positive I am leaving, if not this could be the longest change of my fetching life because I'm ready to go to be honest. I am very grateful for the chance I had to work here and I love this branch but I'm sick of the terrain more then anything. I have been thinking about it and do you know if at the end of the mission you guys will be allowed to come get me? I would really love for you guys to get to know some of the people that I have met and for you to meet the converts that I've taught and go through the temple with some of them. The brown pants I have are thrashed and the 2 other pairs of pants that I brought I gave to another elder because they didn't fit me because I am skinny and sexy now! 

I honestly can write and read really well in Spanish. My grammar is bad with writing but its the same way in English. My pronunciación is really good. I need to work on expanding my vocabulary but I am going to study Spanish with french so If you could send me Spanish to french books it would be better because when I study it and I don't know a word in french and Spanish I look it up in English in the dictionary I have. I have thought about it a lot. I am confident that I will be able to do both. 

I love you mommy!

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

I think I just realized how the truth cuts the "wicked"!  I think your right with focusing on Spanish. You can tell mom that too and tell her  to ignore the whole think about french in my letter. 

I had kind of a rough week this week with trying to stay focused and working. I am pretty excited for  a new area. 

I am going to start studying the attributes of Christ so that I can start to get refocused on the work. This was a really good change but it was hard in that most of the guys that are in my district are finishing their missions and won't shut up about home. I can't blame them and they still work hard but I made it more difficult as a district to focus. All the training meetings that we had in the district were about being obedient and focusing on the work. I think at this time in the mission it has been difficult because we got a new mission president and such. This next transfer will be much better in that I at least will be more focused and working a lot better. 

I have been studying a lot about charity and came to the realization that receiving the gift of charity is one of the most important things we can ever achieve in our time on the earth. Of faith, hope and charity, charity is the greatest. I could have prophesies, miracles, appearances of angels, speak in all manner of tongues and have all knowledge but if I don't have charity I am nothing. I have now started to realize that my teaching of the people is not to make them members of the church but to make them representatives of Christ. That comes with baptism, being confirmed and obeying all the commandments are just things that help us be more like Christ. If we obey the commandments but we do it in a way that doesn't help us remember Christ or help us become more like him then it doesn't really help us in the end because we won't have changes that are lasting for the eternity.

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow

New Mission Pres, new baby niece, 2 baptisms, and teaching by the spirit...

July 6,2015
Hey mommy! I love you and I glad to hear that I am an uncle! I had an awesome week this last week. We got a new mission president on the first and I got a new niece, so it was a pretty good day! We found 7 new investigators last week and had the baptism of Karen Andrea Mencia Bruna! She will be confirmed next week. We actually have another baptism planned for that day too! His name is Matias Parkes and is the son of my convert Veronica. He was going to get baptized this week  but he was being kind of shy and wouldn´t tell us why. We then found out he didn´t want to stop drinking tea which is understandable but we talked about it. He is 9 and super smart! I held out my hands and said you can drink tea and held one hand out as tea or you can live with your mom for eternity but you can´t do both. He thought about it for a moment and decided that he loved his mother more then tea. During that lesson we were fasting and I know our words were guided by the spirit because I just knew what I need to do and say to help him understand that the commandments are for our eternal well being. 
Karens baptism was awesome and she was super happy after her baptism. I love teaching the gospel and seeing the peace that I can bring to people. It was hard and it felt like she took forever to get to the font. It took a little bit over a month, which is crazy but these people change their entire lives in a manner of months because they are filled with the spirit and can feel our love and the love of our heavenly father.

July 13, 2015

I know right I don´t feel like I have been gone for a year but apparently that's what has happened. We had another baptism yesterday. The son of one of my converts finally decided he wanted to be baptized, it was awesome!!! His grandmother came to the baptism and  loves the church now. She stayed for the gospel principals class and we talked about the sacrament and she bore her testimony of how good she feels when she is in church and how listening to the class made her feel so warm and close to Christ. It was a very cool experience and well she lives in another city that is in my mission and it is very possible that I could get transferred to where she lives and teach her as well. Another cool experience I had, but first off there are times on your mission when you doubt your ability to teach. The prophets of old did it and well it happens to missionaries now a days too. We had dropped this lady because she couldn't get married. One day I decided we needed to go  by and see her. It turned out she was listening to the Jehovah's witnesses and they had given her a bible and she liked it a lot. I was pretty sure when she let us in she was going to rail on us but she just started to explain some of the things that they had taught her. She waited for our response at first but I didn´t know what I should say. I will be honest I was scared that I would say something she didn´t like but I just started speaking. The spirit directed me in the way that we needed to go, we spoke about lesson 1 and how  all Church's teach of Christ and how they all teach good things but not all have the right authority. She basically ate it out of our hands because I started using the bible that the witnesses had given her and well their scriptures are different then the regular bible and they have changed quite a bit, so when I started reading from both bibles it made it easy to show her that the bible is not the way to receive a sure answer and how important the need of the Book of Mormon is. I love this promise from the Lord that we shall not be confused before the sons of man and that he will give us in the precise moment all things which we must say if we are paying attention to the spirit.

 I really enjoyed reading last weeks letter and getting to know more about you I actually printed it off and have read it a couple times. Tell dad to do the same! 

I love you Mom and I have been very grateful for the chance to teach Veronica and Mathias because I can now understand the love that you have for me. He was very hard to teach, he got bored easily and he has the attention span of a goldfish but when we were talking with Veronica she told me about how much I remind her and resemble Mathias and it gives her so much hope ( which is sad if I am her hope) but thank you for teaching me how to be an example and to love the Lord. Te amo con todo mi corazon.(I love you with all of my heart)

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow Valiente 

New mission president and continuing to learn patience...

Today is officially the last P day with president Kahnlien and I wrote my first letter to President Diaz. It was sorta strange because I had to include details about how much time I have served, where and stuff about the family. It will be really interesting what changes are going to happen, now that we have a new president and to see what rules he is more relaxed on. The changes probably won´t happen for probably 3 months because he will want to see what works for him and what doesn´t.  It was strange to think that I will finish my first year in the mission and that I will be burning a shirt in 3 weeks. I don't feel like I have been gone for a year maybe because I have only had 2 sectors and 4 comps. 
I chose a new study topic for this year next year and its a saying from president Packer.  "If you don´t chose the kingdom of God first in your life, in the end it won´t matter what you chose instead." I am going to start studying about how we can chose the kingdom of God in every action and I am hoping I change a lot. I'm starting to realize really how much people are going to rely on me as a pillar of faith and work. Tonight I was talking with one of the Elders in my district that has been in a rough sector for 6 months now, like me and is really struggling. When we talked I could feel his pain and the kind of hopelessness he felt. I know the lord guided me in giving him counsel to help him keep working hard until at least changes happen. I really like giving counsel to people but something that I have to work on is teaching with more love and patience because some of the members think of me as Elder pesado, which here in Chile is like grumpy. They all love me but I am very stubborn and I don´t take like the word no and I hate excuses and well I'm more then willing to ask questions that are uncomfortable and sometimes hard to answer. I want to be like our savior but its hard because I feel like sometimes our brothers and sisters are stubborn. They know what they should be doing things that will just bring them blessings but they procrastinate. Sometimes I want to shake them and yell and in English just so they can´t respond. Its terribly frustrating, but oh well it wasn´t easy for Christ so why would it be easy for any of us. 

Thank you mommy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow