Well...that didn't work.

  So this past week was the last time we did any major house-painting service. Yeah, it's all good. Thus far in my mission I have noticed a trend about people coming to church, and other missionaries have echoed it: As soon as someone commits to coming to church, something bad will happen. Every time. Usually we joke around that a car will blow up or someone will die or a tornado will show up or something major, largely because they never happen, right? Well... not any more.

  Several of the women we had been doing service with had expressed their interest in attending a service with us and finding out a bit more about the religion that would have two men in their twenties show up almost every day for 6 days to help paint buildings, and actually have them enjoy doing it. Needless to say we were ecstatic. It has been a real struggle getting people to church for some reason, and the idea that we would have several come in one day was just awesome. We gave them directions to the building, told them about the pot-luck afterward, and then left feeling incredibly happy. The next day was the last day we worked on the building, and also when that picture of me on a ladder was taken. While we were there one of the women got a phone call and, after hanging up, went to go talk with all the other women. Apparently someone died that all of them knew and the viewing for the funeral was going to be that upcoming Sunday, exactly when our services would start. Naturally, all of them expressed their apologies and said they would not be attending church with us that day.

  So yeah, that was a bit of a let down.

  On a huge upside though the sister missionaries in this area were going through their area book (the place missionaries keep records of people they've taught or had dinner with or anything; it's a way for us to stay organized) and they saw a record for a guy named L***. He had been taught by missionaries several years previously but nothing had every really come from it. Also owing to the fact that he lives way out there in one of the many small towns surrounding Pocahontas and Walnut Ridge/Hoxie eventually the missionaries stopped coming over. However Sister Neff saw the old record and felt that he was someone that they needed to go and see. She wrote down the name and address as a last-resort backup in case all of the plans fell through and off the Sisters went doing their missionary awesomeness. According to Sister Neff absolutely every appointment and backup plan fell through within a couple of hours. Having nothing else to do they just went for it, driving out to this satellite town to try and meet L***.

   Ever since the missionaries stopped coming by 6 years ago L*** hadn't been happy attending other churches. They would teach something and claim it was from the Bible, but when he went and did his own studies he found that they were completely wrong. He also ran into a great many athiests who tried to convince him that Jesus Christ was just another pagan version of the Egyptian god, Horus. This led him to study extensively indo-euoropean mythology and Egyptian mythology so he would know the truth for himself. He then decided he didn't like the fact that there were about fifty bajillion different Bibles, so he learned how to read and speak Greek and Hebrew so he could go back to the oldest versions of the Bible currently available and read them directly. Long story short, the guy's awesome.

  I'm not all that sure how exactly the conversation went when the Sisters knocked on his door again, but they did tell me that the discussion went on for roughly four hours and they talked about basically everything gospel-related. Which I guess means it went really well. Anywho, I first met L*** two days later when he showed up for church on Sunday. He showed up super early, like 2 hours early, because his clock was off and he didn't want to be late for the meeting. After finding out that I went to school briefly and was considering becoming and aeronautical engineer after the conclusion of my mission ("You mean I know a rocket scientist now? Sweet!", "Well, not quite...", "Nope. Totally a rocket scientist!") We hit it right off and started talking about our beliefs and how it related with what he already believed to be true. We talked for almost the entire meeting and also for the pot-luck afterward.

   The really awesome part was right before priesthood meeting started. We had already had the Sacrament and one hour of sunday school (we were teaching this week - Honesty) and he was loving every second of it. He started by asking if he could say something, and he didn't know if then was the appropriate time to say anything. After very little encouragement from the Branch President and others at the meeting he stood up and told everyone how he loved how he felt, how he know the teaching were true, and how he wanted to join the Church and be baptized as quickly as possible.

   My jaw about hit the floor! This never happens. As in, ever.

   We quickly told him that the Sisters (those lucky girls!) would be overjoyed to help him make that a reality as they were the ones who started teaching him again. He was just so happy and everything awesome after that. I was also very grateful that so many members attending took the time to go and welcome him even before the meetings started. This is what Christ-Like love is all about, fellowship. We left after the pot-luck with assurances that we would talk again next Sunday.

   I also feel it would be good to mention here that the first thing Elder Raiford and I did upon going home was to go back over our area book as well.

   After this was done we left for an appointment with B***. This meeting was a bit longer than the rest, only 2.5 hours, but what we talked about was very similar to the last couple of times. He believes everything but will not commit to anything, not even coming to church. After praying about it a great deal both Elder Raiford and I know that as soon as he commits to something it will come to pass. We just need to help him see that. He really could use your prayers.

   This upcoming week we plan to do a great deal of finding people to teach. The people we have now aren't progressing, so we are going to try and find people who will make and keep those commitements to come closer to God.

Best of everything, all y'all! The Book is true and God loves you!

Elder Jayden Barker

Me on my bike. #LikeABoss

Someone's awesome car we saw.

I don't always look classy, but when I do, it's because I'm holding a box of donuts.

  So this past week was the last time we did any major house-painting service. Yeah, it's all good. Thus far in my mission I have noticed a trend about people coming to church, and other missionaries have echoed it: As soon as someone commits to coming to church, something bad will happen. Every time. Usually we joke around that a car will blow up or someone will die or a tornado will show up or something major, largely because they never happen, right? Well... not any more.

  Several of the women we had been doing service with had expressed their interest in attending a service with us and finding out a bit more about the religion that would have two men in their twenties show up almost every day for 6 days to help paint buildings, and actually have them enjoy doing it. Needless to say we were ecstatic. It has been a real struggle getting people to church for some reason, and the idea that we would have several come in one day was just awesome. We gave them directions to the building, told them about the pot-luck afterward, and then left feeling incredibly happy. The next day was the last day we worked on the building, and also when that picture of me on a ladder was taken. While we were there one of the women got a phone call and, after hanging up, went to go talk with all the other women. Apparently someone died that all of them knew and the viewing for the funeral was going to be that upcoming Sunday, exactly when our services would start. Naturally, all of them expressed their apologies and said they would not be attending church with us that day.

  So yeah, that was a bit of a let down.

  On a huge upside though the sister missionaries in this area were going through their area book (the place missionaries keep records of people they've taught or had dinner with or anything; it's a way for us to stay organized) and they saw a record for a guy named L***. He had been taught by missionaries several years previously but nothing had every really come from it. Also owing to the fact that he lives way out there in one of the many small towns surrounding Pocahontas and Walnut Ridge/Hoxie eventually the missionaries stopped coming over. However Sister Neff saw the old record and felt that he was someone that they needed to go and see. She wrote down the name and address as a last-resort backup in case all of the plans fell through and off the Sisters went doing their missionary awesomeness. According to Sister Neff absolutely every appointment and backup plan fell through within a couple of hours. Having nothing else to do they just went for it, driving out to this satellite town to try and meet L***.

   Ever since the missionaries stopped coming by 6 years ago L*** hadn't been happy attending other churches. They would teach something and claim it was from the Bible, but when he went and did his own studies he found that they were completely wrong. He also ran into a great many athiests who tried to convince him that Jesus Christ was just another pagan version of the Egyptian god, Horus. This led him to study extensively indo-euoropean mythology and Egyptian mythology so he would know the truth for himself. He then decided he didn't like the fact that there were about fifty bajillion different Bibles, so he learned how to read and speak Greek and Hebrew so he could go back to the oldest versions of the Bible currently available and read them directly. Long story short, the guy's awesome.

  I'm not all that sure how exactly the conversation went when the Sisters knocked on his door again, but they did tell me that the discussion went on for roughly four hours and they talked about basically everything gospel-related. Which I guess means it went really well. Anywho, I first met L*** two days later when he showed up for church on Sunday. He showed up super early, like 2 hours early, because his clock was off and he didn't want to be late for the meeting. After finding out that I went to school briefly and was considering becoming and aeronautical engineer after the conclusion of my mission ("You mean I know a rocket scientist now? Sweet!", "Well, not quite...", "Nope. Totally a rocket scientist!") We hit it right off and started talking about our beliefs and how it related with what he already believed to be true. We talked for almost the entire meeting and also for the pot-luck afterward.

   The really awesome part was right before priesthood meeting started. We had already had the Sacrament and one hour of sunday school (we were teaching this week - Honesty) and he was loving every second of it. He started by asking if he could say something, and he didn't know if then was the appropriate time to say anything. After very little encouragement from the Branch President and others at the meeting he stood up and told everyone how he loved how he felt, how he know the teaching were true, and how he wanted to join the Church and be baptized as quickly as possible.

   My jaw about hit the floor! This never happens. As in, ever.

   We quickly told him that the Sisters (those lucky girls!) would be overjoyed to help him make that a reality as they were the ones who started teaching him again. He was just so happy and everything awesome after that. I was also very grateful that so many members attending took the time to go and welcome him even before the meetings started. This is what Christ-Like love is all about, fellowship. We left after the pot-luck with assurances that we would talk again next Sunday.

   I also feel it would be good to mention here that the first thing Elder Raiford and I did upon going home was to go back over our area book as well.

   After this was done we left for an appointment with B***. This meeting was a bit longer than the rest, only 2.5 hours, but what we talked about was very similar to the last couple of times. He believes everything but will not commit to anything, not even coming to church. After praying about it a great deal both Elder Raiford and I know that as soon as he commits to something it will come to pass. We just need to help him see that. He really could use your prayers.

   This upcoming week we plan to do a great deal of finding people to teach. The people we have now aren't progressing, so we are going to try and find people who will make and keep those commitements to come closer to God.

Best of everything, all y'all! The Book is true and God loves you!

Elder Jayden Barker

If all else fails, stop doing all else.

Transfer calls were this morning, and to everyone's tremendous surprise E.Raiford is staying, as are the Pocahontas sisters. Raiford has been here for 6 months now and was feeling like he was going to leave, and Sister Macklite has been in this area for 9 months thus far, half of her mission, and everyone was certain that she was on her way out too! But nope, the good Lord has other ideas for us, which personally I'm OK with. Raiford has been the greatest companion over the past 7 months, and I'm more than OK with trooping it out a while longer with him. The District Leader, Elder Wahl, was in the MTC with me and is now training a new companion. I'm taking great pleasure in giving him grief about how he will be a future Assistant to the President, one of two missionaries who aid in overseeing the entire mission and its missionaries along with the Mission President.

 

The Preach my Gospel classes have drawn to a close, with 5 people there durring the last two meetings. A bit about the meetings, because I don't think I'm talked about them in great detail, is once a week on Wednesday evening.  Elder Raiford and I would teach the members of the Church in this area for about one hour from a book titled Preach my Gospel. It is a manual of sorts that has all the basics about our church, study tips, ways to better recognize and feel the Holy Spirit, and ways to develop better Christlike attributes, and thus become more like the Saviour. Our aim was that by teaching the members both about and from this book they would be able to come closer to God, and then turn around and help others. As I said though, only 5 people showed up, two of them were members who recently returned from inactivity, two were converts, and the last was a missionary several years ago. With about 60 active members in this area we were hoping that more than 5 would show up, but we will take what we can get. We also understand that most of the members here are over 60 and live some distance away from the church, which would mean that they would have to drive home in the dark. However, Brother Ginn, the Elder's Quorum President, has asked us to do miniature versions of these classes once a month in Sunday School, a period of time after the Sacrament where we sit down and talk about God and a specific topic. We are very grateful for the second chance he gave us, and are hoping that the other Quorum leaders will ask us to do something similar for them.

 

Yesterday was by birthday, much to the surprise of basically everyone. This is because I didn't tell them in advance. I know, rude right? They thought so too. Shortly after discovering my deception Sister Macklite sang a rather remarkable birthday song compilation including just about every type of birthday song out there. It went on for a good 3 minutes, and I loved it. I'll have to learn it myself sometime, add it to my other song. Elder Raiford didn't even know I was turning 20 until a few days ago when I got a birthday package from Hermana Maw in New York. I suspect that the branch members and the other missionaries plan to get me back for my deceit; hopefully it will involve food. Also, President Wakolo came to speak in a Fireside (another name for a Revival) down in Paragould. It was really good. He spoke about making the best choices for our time in this life, because compared to the eternities before and after our mortal life it really isn't all that long at all. He also talked about how we are always drawing further away from God with each passing day because of "holes in our spiritual reservoir". By praying, reading the scriptures, doing service, attending church, etc, we can add more "water" to what we already have to help us through hard times, instead of letting our 'reservoir' get empty and dry just when we need it full of the Water of Life (aka Christ).

 

Love you all, keep reading those scriptures, and remember who you are, a divine Son or Daughter of our Heavenly Father!

 

Elder Jayden Barker

 

P.S. The title really has nothing to do with anything. I thought it was funny so I put it up there, because what else are subject lines for? Not spoilers right? ;D

P.S.S  This just in, Sister Macklite is leaving. Just found out, sorry for the faulty info....Anyway, yeah! Stay awesome!

 

September 1, 2014- I'm going to the Circus!

So this week was completely and utterly consumed with the County Fair. Yes, I know I said "Circus" but having a title that says "I'm going to the Fair" just doesn't have the same ring to it! Very little was done apart from that. My studies were mainly about how I can talk to people and share with them a gospel message in a minute or less (about how long we have to get someone's attention and talk with them before we lose it again) We were given the opportunity to talk to a great many people there, some interested, some not. One of the ways we got people to stop and talk, if only for a second, was to do Bible Trivia on a whiteboard. The reward: A high-five from your's truly!

One interesting thing I found is the various responses to this question: What is the longest book in the Bible? A- Revelation; B- Acts; C- Psalms; D- Isaiah. Most people chose either 'A', most likely because it and Genesis are the two books in the Bible they actually know the name of, or 'D' because it is one of the least-understood books in the Bible. It just goes to show that people often times will put up a wall around themselves to try and hide something that they don't want others to know. I.e they really don't know the scriptures as well as they claim to know them. This is due to Pride. On the flip side we also saw a great many people who straight up didn't know the answer and asked us, or just simply knew the answer. They knew what they knew and also knew what they didn't know. (Stop and think about that; it will make sense. Promise!) They were humble enough to recognize that they didn't know something and tried to fix it. 

We were also given the opportunity to talk to a great many people about finding your ancestry. They were by and large surprised that they could find these things out for free, Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Ancestry.com. It's great. There was one Catholic woman who was big into finding her roots, but really didn't know where to start. She had a few books and had already compiled some records from her ancestors, but didn't know where else to go. Helping her find out about Ancestry was a really neat experience for me.

We also were able to see B*** today. He still believes that the church is true and everything, but he has a very large problem that he can't seem to get over: he's Baptist. Hopefully he will continue to make this a matter of prayer and ultimently come to the decision to make that promise with God and become baptized. I know that great blessings will come into his life if he decides to make that choice.

On Sunday all of the missionaries spoke. It was a really good experience, and I had the opportunity to speak on Love and what it truly means. I'd say more, but I'm out of time. My focus on the talk was Genesis 29:20 as to how it applies to missionary work and life in general.

Love you all!

Elder Jayden Barker

August 25, 2014- It's all down hill.

  This past week was a hot one, and thus rather difficult in talking to people because everyone was indoors and nobody wanted to answer the door. It was especially fun because we just got done with bike-week, but there were some really good things that happened because of it. First and foremost my comp got heat exhaustion. Now before you start calling me a despicable human being let me explain.

  The day after he got a tad-bit warm he had a very hard time waking up in the morning, either unable or unwilling (both?) to do more than roll slightly to find a cooler spot on his pillow. He got up, being a little bit pale, and straight up told me that there was no way he was going to go outside that day regardless of what I said. Me, I was OK with this after I opened the front door to get the junk mail out of our box and about died as the heat assaulted me. So I got a full day of studying the scriptures and taking a very long nap which completely destroyed my rest for the remainder of the evening (totally worth it). I made us dinner, tuna helper from a care package my awesome grandparents sent me, and we washed everything down with several large glasses of water. That time I wasn't sleeping or studying was spent writing letters (They are on the way Mom. Promise!) and cleaning things.

   The next day we were good to go, and it wasn't nearly as hot. Only about 110 on the heat index. We biked up about 5 miles to go and see if we could find any new people to teach. What should we see as we were biking along but the tow-truck that so kindly helped us get our car out of a rice field. As our goal was to find new people to teach we parked the bikes and knocked on the door. J*** answered the door and almost immediately invited us inside. He introduced us to his wife and his kids. As we walked into the kitchen were they all were I saw on the back wall a very large sign, apparently made out of 2x4's, that said "Do you pray about it as much as you talk about it?" Below it was a scripture in Matthew that I can't remember the exact verse for.

   They asked us a few questions about ourselves, our roles as missionaries, and 'what were we possibly thinking biking around in this heat?' J*** soon told us that he was concerned about his relationship with God and balancing his priorities between Family and Work. He had gotten clean off of drugs some years back and was very knowledgeable about how it feels to be close to God and very far away indeed. With his wife being  pregnant and young children to take care of he wants to make absolutely certain that they will have all the material comforts, but he's also noticed that by extensively working he grows away from God and also his family. This lead to an excellent discussion about the Book of Mormon and how studying it and the Bible can provide those family and spiritual bonds he is looking for. We also talked about the power of prayer, and about attending church services. While we were speaking Jonathan got very quiet and just leaned against the back wall, almost the exact likeness of the statue "David the Thinker". As I was trying to find a conversational way to find out what was on his mind he blurts out "Could y'all say a prayer with us right now?"

   Naturally we were more than happy to oblige them. Before we prayed together I suggested that their kids might like to join us. There was a rather comical eureka! moment as they looked at each other briefly and then split, one moving in the direction of the garage calling for the older one with the other moving in the direction of the rest of the house calling for the younger. There was an awkward moment for us as we were left alone in their kitchen listening to them run around looking for their children, but it soon passed as was replaced with a very stong spirit of love as we asked God together for help. They invited us back again later that week.

   We saw D*** again this week. He is to start work on the river today and won't be back until next month. However he is going to take the Book of Mormon with him as well as all of the pamphlets we gave him. With a 3 days on/4 off schedule he should at least have a spare minute or two to read it. From our conversation with him last it is clear he is reading, so perhaps when he gets back he will have read all of it!

   The past two weeks have been really difficult for us to find new investigators to teach. As in we didn't find anyone at all. Meh. This week, however, changed all of that. Finding (officially) J***and his family, and then two more people last minute Sunday morning was a huge blessing for us. All of this heat was also good for us as it went a long way toward making us unafraid to go up to random people on their lawns and ask them for water. This in turn triggered some interesting discussions, mostly about if we are Christian or not. It just tickles me when other people try to tell me what it is I believe. Anywho, those two people are some old investigators of missionaries down in Texas. They just happened to move up here and be walking on the same street as we were biking on at exactly the right moment. We hope to go back tomorrow evening.

I think this is everything. To conclude, please refer to the picture. We look awesome on our bikes!

 

Elder Jayden Barker

 

August 18, 2014- Taking Flight

Aloha!

First off, I would like to apologize in advance about the long nature of this email. It is long because of, well, you will soon find out. ;D

We were driving along the interstate to get to another city for district meeting when there was a bug flying around in the car. This bug had flown in when I first got in the vehicle and had been bothering is for a few minutes, so we both tried to kill it. I was using my hands and Elder Raiford grabbed a weighted GPS mount from off the top of the dash. This was a mistake, because in doing so we both had our eyes off of the road for a good full second or two. The particular part of the road we were on started to curve to the right; us being hellbent on killing the over sized critter didn't steer the car to follow suit. (Can you guess from the subject line where this is going?)

I looked up first just in time to see the car fly off the interstate at 60 mph, crossing the other lane of traffic, and into a ditch. It was our remarkable good fortune (#God'sBlessings) that there were no cars in the lane at the time. I was in the process of warning my companion to stay on the road, but by that point it was a bit too late. We were already driving through the weeds on the side of the road. All I managed to say was "Holy Crap!" (I guess you can tell I'm a Mormon. lol)

Elder Raiford looked up right around the time we hit the ditch running alongside the road. It was mostly dry, so it was just an impressive spray of earth and fauna that erupted when the car impacted it, striking the far embankment by the driver's side wheel. This, as you can imagine, slowed us down considerably, but we still had enough momentum to continue flying forward and succeeded in getting all four wheels off of the ground.

I don't know about your mission, but in Arkansas we have a couple of terminology for cars. "Baptizing" a car means you take the speedometer needle, bring it all the way forward and then bring it back again. "Confirming it in the Spirit" means you make it temporarily a non-earth bound vehicle. For "An Election Made Sure" you have to roll the vehicle and use it again later. We had no baptism, but we definitely confirmed our vehicle and almost made its election sure! Luckily there was no election because we took of and landed on all four wheels.

Shortly after take-off Elder Raiford gave off an very energetic shout and slammed on the brakes once we had some semblance of control over the vehicle. We slid to a stop after traveling roughly another 50 feet in the same direction as the road, ending up in a rice field 5 feet from the ditch and about 20 from the road. A very concerned woman, who we had scared the daylight out of when we flew off the road, stopped and called 911 after making sure we were OK. Several officers arrived and a tow truck to get us out.

Eventually we got the car out and we had large quantities of rice sticking out of the car in places where there normally isn't rice. The officers gave us back our licenses, wished us the best, and continued on their way. The tow truck guy, who drove the car out of the field, said it seemed to be running fine, and also went on his way. By this time about half an hour has gone by and, for fairly obvious reasons, were late to district meeting. We had just piled back into the vehicle to start the drive to Paragould, mud-caked vehicle and all ("Everyone will find out sooner or later"), when the tow guy showed back up. He expressed some concerns that if we drove off and there was something wrong with the car then the insurance wouldn't cover it because they could claim it was worsened by the driving. Or something like that. Anywho, he lifted the car up with some seriously cool contraption on the back of his truck and started looking around for anything suspicious. He found it, by way of a greenish-blue fluid leaking out almost directly beneath the front-left part of the hood. After calling our vehicle coordinator it was decided that we would get towed to a repair place.

Suffice me to say that we did not make it to District meeting that day.

In a way this was an answer to my prayers, because although we just had a head-on collision with the world, I still wanted some way to turn this into a missionary opportunity. After everyone drove away that first time in rapid succession I was seriously bummed. But the tow truck guy came back, we found something abnormal with the car, and we were given a second chance. We had a very good conversation during our short drive, basically amounting to "what are two Utah boys doing in Arkansas"? We were quite happy to tell him all about it.

At the repair place we had the car examined yet again, and it was determined that the leaking fluid was not coolant like we had feared, but instead it was the highly-crucial Windshield Washer Fluid. So we would have been fine if we really had gone to District Meeting anyway, but Se La Vie. The car was towed once more to a repair place that specializes in tires to check out the alignment (it was fine, we later found out), and we walked home. On the plus side we did talk with several nice people about the gospel, one of whom (tow-truck guy) we hope to be able to find and talk to again sometime later.

That day we were called by the Vehicle Coordinator, Elder Cahoon, that my comp is now red-dotted. AKA, not allowed to drive church vehicles for one year. He has 3.5 months left, so he basically gets to kick it and let someone else worry about driving for the rest of his mission, meaning me. Which I am OK with; I rather missed driving and it was strange not doing much of it for 6 months. We got the car back a few days later with the majority of the mud and such washed off. Sorry folks, I don't have any good pics, and all of the damage was minor cosmetic damage (with the exception of the fluid reservoir). I'll send what I've got, but it's rather unimpressive.

Also, I would like to make it known that nobody was injured in the accident. Unfortunately this includes the bug that started everything. I hope it drowns in the rice. (Is that mean of me? I really hope not)

We were over at a member's home a while ago, and that is were I got the video of the singing dog. If you can't see it, I do appoligize; it is quite hilarious. There are several families over in the city of Corning that we try to visit, but for us to go up there it is a 120 mile round trip. For comparison we are alotted 1200 miles per month, or about 40 per day. So we don't get to go up there much, unless a member takes us. There is a man in the branch by the name of Bro. Hendricks, and he is a trooper. He can afford to take us up there every two weeks, and so that's what he does. We, the missionaries in the Pocahontas branch, have been trying to get the members pumped up about missionary work and we are happy to see that they are taking it to heart.

While we were in Corning we visited another less-active member of the church. He is difficult to get a hold of, and has been away from the church for so long that he has lost a great deal understanding about the Church. He still has a strong desire to learn and be close to God, but is a bit confused. He's ex-military, I think, and because of his service he thinks of everything in terms of combat. Getting to know him is a great learning experience for me because it really drives home the concept that, in any situation, you have to speak in terms that both people will understand. So for this conversation and most other ones we liken the gospel to military combat, about preparing our spiritual 'equipment'  and ourselves for active duty by reading (studying strategy), praying (talking with the Commander and Intelligence Officer), and going to church (in-field training). If we talked with him in a way that wasn't specific to his needs we would have gotten nowhere. However, because we did it the way we did everything worked out.

We also had a baptism in the Pocahontas brach this past Saturday. The Sisters found and taught a man by the name of B***. He's pretty cool and his baptism was a huge uplift for the branch. I was on the piano the entire time and thus got no pictures from it, but it was a super awesome experience. As icing on the cake B*** was there as well. As I've mentioned before (I think) he is a preacher at another local church, but he has a testimony of the BoM, Joseph Smith, and of keeping the commandments. Although he has dropped the invitation to be baptized before, he made a special effort to be at B***'s, leaving a relative's birthday a little early to make it in time. He also will be attending church with us on the 31, which just so happens to be the day that the speakers of the sacrament service are the Branch's missionaries. So we are really looking foward to two weeks from now.

You may have heard about the really bad train wreck. It was happened down the road from us. Granted it was about 6 miles down the road, but still. It was pretty cool to see all of the excitement that it caused. Sad about the fact that it happened, but exciting nonetheless. From what I've heard from locals (we don't get the news in any proper form) citizens were evacuated within about a 2 mile radius. This included a few of our investigators and a few members, but as we have been unable in getting a hold of them we can only assume that they are OK, as all of the other residents are now living back in their homes.

I think that's everything of note. Any questions about the area? About me? If so, please let me know!

Inspirational Quote: "Preach the Gospel at all times and, when nesessary, use words." -Saint Francis of Assisis (1181-1226)

Elder Jayden Barker

We have tree frogs in this area.  'Nuff said.

Apparently I am married, and am a retiring Church of God pastor.  Wait 'til I tell my parents...and wife!!!

August 11, 2014- Even belly bugs can't keep me down (for long)...

Hi Y'all!

 

There isn't much to talk about this week. I got sick twice, once when my stomach hoisted the banner of rebellion and then yesterday when an elephant wearing high-heals decided to stand on my head. I mostly slept, much to the chagrin of my companion, because he became very bored very quickly. Apparently I'm at least good for entertainment value!  An investigator family back in Cabot gave me a turtle that "pooped" tic-tacs on his desk.  I loved it mostly because I could, and the reactions people give when they see him are really quite fun. Hence the picture of a turtle. Also, if you look just at his head he looks remarkably like that one guy on Star Wars who shouts "It's a trap!". I noticed that shortly after I quieted the belly rebellion - we had a good laugh about it.

 

We had another good discussion with D*** again this week. He is very set in his ways, and has a hard time seeing how our Father in Heaven does actually love his children and that keeping the commandments is the way to freedom, and not following some other unknown gods and goddesses. He has read some from the Book of Mormon, and says he can see how it relates to the Bible, but because he won't follow Christ as the Bible directs, he most likely won't because the BoM says to as well. He did commit him to pray about it though, and promised him that if he reads from the Bible and Book of Mormon and prays about it, believing he will get an answer, then he will get his answer. We are still waiting for the day when he will allow us to share with him the message of the Restoration.

 

We are also talking with an older gentleman J***. He is very knowledgeable about the bible and we had a very good discussion about our beliefs and the various beliefs of Christianity at large. He also is one of the few people I've met who has not only taken what we present, but has really tore into it. He took the Restoration pamphlet we left him, highlighted various parts he wanted further explanation of, underlined it, and even wrote his own thoughts off to the side of the pages about what he thought of a particular doctrine. We are only able to visit with him every other week, but we are hoping to see some fruits of this in the future.

 

S*** is in jail. Again. Hopefully she gets out before the decade is over. *sigh*

 

I think that's just about everything, so if y'all have any questions or something you want to know more about, please let me know!

 

Yours in Awesome

Elder Jayden Barker

 

Random fact for the week: Bald Eagles can swim

 

Spiritual thought: In 3 Nephi, chapters 3 and 4, there is a story of the Gadianton Robbers, a particularly nasty group of people who do whatevery they have to in order to get gain for themselves. At that point in time they had grown so numerous and powerful as to outnumber the righteous part of the people and held the opportunity to completely destory them. The leader of the good guys saw the threat and did several things to combat it. First he told the people to repent so that they would have the Lord's help. Second he gathered all of the people together with all of the provisions from everywhere into a single point, the strongeset and greatest city they had. Third, they did not go to battle against the Robbers, but instead waited for the Robbers to come to them.

 

"Now why is this important?" you might ask. Me, I'm realating the Robbers to sin or tempation. Think about the very worst torment the devil can and does throw at you on a regular basis.  Got one? The Robbers are to the good guys as that thing is to you. Now to apply the three steps.

1. Repent -  It's self explanitory so I will mostly skip over it for the sake of time.

2. Gather together - This mean both do all of the good that you can, and all of the good that you can. If there is anything good, uplifting, or spiritual in your life that can help you fight against your tempation, take it with you! Also, don't give anything to your ememy that he can use against you. You can also take this to mean to gather together with others who are going through the same thing as you. Let them use you for support, and do the same back.

3. Wait - The good guys in the story had gathered together enough supplies to last them for at least 7 years of seige. They were well prepared for anything. They held their possition of strength, and relied upon the Lord for aid. Hold onto what will make you strong, and discard the weak. Don't go out to fight sin, but rather fight it where you are strongest, where you are safe behind Christ's protection.

 

In short, stay strong, and stay where you are stong. If you are weak in an area, make that area stong. The best way to do this is through the Savior, because he knows exactly what each of us need. As Christians we need to stick together and help eachother, but we cannot do this if we don't allow Christ to help us first.

 

God Bless

August 4, 2014- Problem Identified... Beginning Reconstruction

Good morning/afternoon/evening/other, Children of Humanity!

 

At the request of my Maternal Parental, and also because I'm really not sure what else to talk about, here's the down-low on the Pocahontas (Pokey) branch. There are about 150 members within branch boundaries, and about 50-ish of them are active. Most of them are over the age of 60, and all of them have both an extensive collection of interesting life stories to share. One of my top 50 people in the branch is a woman by the name of P***. She used to be in charge of the largest Elvis Presley Fan Club in the US, possibly the world, and used to work at Graceland as the President. She also knows more about Elvis than anyone else that I know, for obvious reasons. Example: before he died he was taking the missionary discussions, had extensively studied and annotated the Book of Mormon, and had a baptisimal date set in August. The inside of her home is just filled with signed Elvis memorabillia along with signed pictures from other artists who performed with him at one point or another. Random trivia about Elvis: If Michael Jackson was to sell the same number of records as Elvis he would need to release a song as popular as Thriller at least once every year, for 25 years running. The King is the King for a reason!

 

The branch building is a Tier 2 building. To put it into perspective, Ward buildings are tier 3, and tier 1 don't have a basketball court inside the cultural hall. We don't have pews, but it is still a very nice building. We are across the street from a J.W. Kingdom Hall, and not far down the street from the hospital. Due to the location it is very humid, but we have de-humidifiers running nonstop to combat the problem. Sacrament (i.e. Lord's Supper, Commumion, Bread and Water) is first, followed by the various classes. The missionaries are in charge of teaching the Gospel Principles class, a class geared toward helping others understand the basics of the gospel. We cover topics such as faith, repentance, priesthood authority, gifts of the spirit, tithing, fasting, prophets, Christ's mortal life on Earth, what happens after death, and others. Last week (yesterday) it was our turn to teach, so next sunday will be the Sisters' turn.

 

One of the big problems Elder Raiford and I have found has to do with the large number of Less Active members.  So, we are changing the majority of our focus from off of non-members to less-active members to try and strengthen the branch as much as possible. This involves going and visiting as many members as possible. So we did. One of them, R***, heard that I was hoping to get a Confederate flag while I was in Arkansas. He happened to have two, and so gave me one of them. (see the pic) I'll be sending it home when I get transfered.

 

Another family we visited is the S*** family. They are super cool and we talked with them for a good 2 hours. In fact, we will be going over there to eat with them next sunday night. While we were there we discussed why they weren't going to church. Long and short of it is that they didn't think that the branch was strong enough for their youth aged children, so they are going somewhere else. They said that if it gets stronger they may come back in the future. Young families like the S*** are some of the biggest focuses of us missionaries, mainly because most of the strong branch members are more wise than youthful. While we were on our way out from the S*** they gave us a large bag of various peppers. We used the shells in a rice dish we made for dinner last night, but we are going to keep the seeds to see if we can use them to prank the Sister Missionaries somehow. We'll think of something.

 

Not long ago we were on Bike Week. During the midst of it there was a freak storm that showed up. Elder Raiford and I thought that we had more time that we otherwise did, and sat there for about 5 mintues discussing the storm ("Oh, I'm pretty sure it's a good 30 minutes away" -me) and trying to decided if we had time to go and visit someone before it hit ("Meh, it looks more playful and exciting than mean. We'll be OK." -me). The storm started coming on faster than we had anticipated and we booked it for home only 5 minutes after starting our discussion. While we were on the road the storm hit with a great deal of ice-cold wind ("You were so wrong!" -Raiford). With the wind at our backs we started flying down the road, almost litterally. If the cars passing us were any indication we were probably going about 40 Mph. We turned down a couple of side streets to make it home faster, nearly getting blown over when the wind hit us broadside, and got in-doors just seconds before the rain came down. We flipped the lights on, sat on the couch, and began watching the storm dump itself on us in angry torrents ("I'm pretty sure the storm isn't playful, bro." "It was an honest mistake!"). After about 15 minutes the power began to flicker. 30 minutes after that it went off for good. We just sat there in the dark and played card games under the light of a flashlight. ("Is this exciting enough? Haha." "Hush you. It's your turn to draw.") Eventually the power came back on, but by then the day was basically over. I've not seen that much lightning in a long time.

 

Missionary thought for the day: Moroni chapter 7. If something is helping you to believe in Christ, then it is good. If it doesn't, then it's bad and of the Devil. If you are uncertain of something, and whether it is of God or not, ask yourself if it will bring you closer or further away from God. We are to judge righteously, and this is a good way to do it. Stay strong my Brothers and Sisters. The Devil would have us judge that which is good and of God to be of the Devil, and that which is of the Devil to be good and of God. Choose carefully, and pray often.

 

Remember the Savior, for He is your strength.

 

Elder Jayden Barker