Elder Joseph Barlow - Nevada Reno Mission

  Woah we made it. The big 1.0 mark. I officially hit 1 year as a missionary tomorrow the 6th so I'm pretty hyped about it. It's been the fastest slowest year haha. Its been hard and I've grown and changed a ton and I'm grateful for it all. 1 more to go This week was wild. We picked up our new missionary Elder Hancock and he's a stud. I already have a ton of respect for him hes a great missionary. And he loves soccer and is a Manchester United fan so that's been sweet. Being in a trio has been so fun we always have some good laughs. We had a crazy contact one night where we went to go visit a self referral and it was late at night in a sketchy spot of the area we ended up in this tiny little home apartment with this guy and his homeless friend. His friend pulled out his magazine and I'll just it wasn't the best magazine. Then he pulled out his drum sticks and taught us how to play the drums on a 5 gallon bucket. My comps then proceeded to distract the ho...

  Another solid week on the mission. We had zone conference which was pretty sick. We ran three exchanges this week so it was crazy busy but I got to spend a day with Elder Jason Crandall. We went to middle school and high school together so it was cool to talk about home and high school and stuff with him. One guy I've been teaching and meeting with for the entire 5 months I've been here finally had some crazy experience and he wants to be baptized. We're gonna help him work towards it now, his dad and part of extended family are members so we're pretty hyped about it. Our friend Lisa is getting baptized on Thursday and Joanna is supposed to get baptized on Saturday but she's been crazy sick so if yall coild pray for her that'd be awesome.  On the mission it's cool we always seem to be in the right place in the right time. God shows his love for his kids through other people. Here's a quick quote! "All sin causes suffering, but not all suffering i...

  Another week in the mission baby. We hit 11 months as a missionary this week which is pretty wild to think about. And out of all the weeks I've had this was probably the most unique haha. So yeah I went under the knife and had surgery on Tuesday lolz. Monday night we were out proselytizing and just getting after it. Ya know gathering Israel baptizing nations the whole thing. And we were messing around and I wasn't looking and I stepped off the curb and got hit by a biker. Yeah it was rough. We broke a couple ribs but nothing too bad. Anyway after long deliberation they decided to let me stay on the mission and get surgery here in Reno. It went really well and the recovery is going really fast. We've still been able to get everything done we needed too. I was teaching lessons less than 24 hours after surgery and probably over did it a little bit but that's alright. Anyway we had 4 people at church so that was pretty sick. Our boy Kevin showed up when we didn't thin...

Ayoo here's another week! It's been a solid one but also kinda tough at the same time. The work is probably going better than it ever has on my mission and it's been so nice. Lisa is still on date for Aug 25th and we just put our friend Joanna on date for Aug 27th! They both came to church and then we have a young couple and then a youth kid who are exploring baptism and the church. I've been feeling really blessed to have the work going well and have a good comp. The everyday grind is pretty dang hard but it's always worth it when we get to see someone accept it or just help them.  We've had a ton of fun with it too. Things like riding an investigator's bike that's absolutely crazy. Or we went on exchanges and some Latinos invited us into their party and fed us burgers while they all drank modelos lol. I got to talk soccer with all of them and I haven't been able to talk actual soccer with people in so long, it was a tender mercy for sure. I'm c...

  What's up family!! This week flew by and it was one of the best of the mission! We were covering three wards for the week because of companions going to original assignments and things.  We got to use bikes one day this week and I've never felt more like a missionary than when riding a bike. The looks we get from people is hilarious. Almost only got hit once and after having not ridden a bike in probably 2-3 years I wasn't as terrible as I thought I was gonna be. The phrase "it's like riding a bike" is a true phrase. We got to teach this member family in one of the wards and it's a bunch of cousins ages like 7-17 and we taught them about Noah's Ark and how it relates to today.  The family we baptized in my old area had their youngest son turn 8 and I got to go back and watch the Dad baptize his son. It was super cool to see the family from where I started teaching the Dad last November to now their entire family being baptized. It's the start of ...

Hey Everyone hope you're all thriving back home! The last 3 weeks here in Nevada have been pretty sick.  I just dropped my comp off at the airport this morning to head to Peru so that sucks but we had a good time. We worked hard and had a ton of fun. Our friend Lisa is on baptismal date for July 24th so hopefully that goes well! She's giving up a couple things with the word of wisdom so we decided that we were gonna give up something with her to help so we gave up sugar a while ago. It's been pretty cool she was loving it. We have 2 other people who are praying about baptism as well so we're hyped for it.  The 4th of July was sick we got up early and went to the top of a peak with 2 other elders and watched the sunrise, had a big ol mission BBQ and then watched some fireworks at night. Gotta love America.  For the next week I'm gonna be with Elder Taylor until transfers. He's a crazy good ball player so I'm hyped about it. Mosiah 2:17  Hope you're all do...

  Whats up everybody!! The last couple weeks have been some of the best weeks of my mission. My new comp Elder Thomson is sick and we've been having a ton of fun while working really hard.  We've found a ton of new people and that lady I talked about in my last email named Lisa is the most elect person ever. She can talk forever which is long but it's almost like we don't even teach her. The spirit just teaches her. She asked us how soon she could be baptized lol so she had a few things she told us she wants to do before she sets a date but hopefully soon. We had a cool finding experience that sounds crazy but I want you guys to know that this is like 0.01% of my finding experiences and most of them end with us getting rejected lol. We were driving down a really busy street and we saw a guy in a suit walking and I said something about his suit and then about a quarter mile up the road my comp said, "wait should we go find that homie" so I pulled over and we wa...

This week was so much better than last week haha. We had a nice exchange and we found a lot of people this week. Two who are super promising! One of them said she's wanting to feel the spirit more and just wants to draw closer to God and I was just thinking oh do we have the church for you. The other lady we got a referral for today and we went by and God's been preparing her for her entire life. The spirit has already taught her so much about the gospel from her own studying and learning so when her sister in law gave her a Book of Mormon she was so amazed. She's already read all of 1 Nephi in 2 days. So cool I'm hyped to continue teaching her.  We had our baptism for Johnny! The interview went great and the baptism was so good.  He's been taught by 41 missionaries and we had probably 10-12 of them there for him.  He got super emotional which I've never really seen from him which was super cool. He bought a white karate outfit to be baptized in because he didn...