Humility Bites

This past week was both really good and really frustrating. Luckily, both are learning experiences, so it's all good!

The highlight by far was being able to go and see  Elder Erich W. Kopischke of he 70 when he came to address us. I can send you the notes if you are interested. Anywho, I was able to spend the entire day on Friday in Little Rock listening to him speak to us. As far as I know I was also the only one who was able to get a picture taken with him afterwards. Pretty lucky! I guess the biggest thing I learned was the value and importance of repentance, especially how it ties in with humility. If you are too prideful to repent, then you are too prideful to accept the Lord's help in your day to day life, because very rarely will He help you in exactly the way you think He will. Think about that principle when you read these verses from 1 Nephi chapter 7:

16 And it came to pass that when I, Nephi, had spoken these words unto my brethren, they were angry with me. And it came to pass that they did lay their hands upon me, for behold, they were exceedingly wroth, and they did bind me with cords, for they sought to take away my life, that they might leave me in the wilderness to be devoured by wild beasts.

17 But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound.

18 And it came to pass that when I had said these words, behold, the bands were loosed from off my hands and feet, and I stood before my brethren, and I spake unto them again.

(underlines added)

Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, I was able to relearn the principle of humility in every aspect these past few days. Nobody was able to come to church for a variety of reasons, from downright serious to downright silly. Just when I was getting please with "my" accomplishments, God will step in again and show me that it isn't my accomplishments at all, but His.

We also were able to go and see an inactive member of the church yesterday shortly after church. He called us up and asked us to come by (made our day!), but when we got there he was just wanting to talk about was how he was going to go back to his old church because the Bishop of the ward was 'unchristian'. His argument: bishop forgot to return a phone call. It was one off the most frustrating experiences to listen to a man so completely consumed with pride that he was willing to turn his back on his entire testimony all because of a simply pathetic wrong that had been done to him. All he could talk about was how badly he wanted vengeance upon Bishop, one of the nicest men I have ever met.

Earlier to this I was attacked by a dog, but at least this one made sense; she was just doing her best to protect her newborn (less than a week old) pups. I've got some nice bite marks I my hand and leg, but five minutes, some wipes, several band aids, and a little bit of super glue later I was good as new. That appointment turned out really well though, which made the whole experience worth it.

I'm not on a computer so I can't upload any pics, but I will hopefully get to do that later. Thanks for all your prayers and all you do to share the gospel.

Lots of love!

Elder Barker

Sent from my iPad

The whole mission. Early June, 2015

The entire Arkansas Little Rock Mission, English and Spanish speaking sisters, elders and senior couples, Mission Presidency, and Elder Zwick of the 70.  This was after they had gathered for training before they began to use iPads in the field.

June 8, 2015 "The Joys of Technology"

First off, I wanted to try the voice recognition thing on the iPad
just to see how well it works and see if I could use it to write an
email. Since I'm doing all of this so far just by talking to it, I'm
guessing it's doing pretty darn well. This past week is been really
really good.  We were able to go and see a great many people and have
members of the church with us as well. Our mission presidents can't
emphasize enough how important it is to go and have members and
investigators homes and less actives homes to help and again
progressing in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Thomas and I have
been really taking the stuff for the past week and I've been doing all
that we can to have people with us when we go and visit people
especially nonmembers.  In part, because of our efforts that we've done
this past week we are very blessed to be able to have five people to
church, including a family that the sister missionaries here had found
some weeks ago. J*** and her two daughters were the ones who came in
addition to A***and A***. Just a sidenote, it's a minor miracle in
and of itself that A*** is able to come to church with us as often
as he does. He's working very long hours in the night sometimes not
getting back from work until about 7 o'clock in the morning. At times
it is a little bit discouraging to see him fall asleep during the
priesthood portion of the meeting, but honestly we're just glad that
he's there. AnyWho J*** and her two daughters  were able to come to church with us for the first
time and they thoroughly enjoyed it. We were
able to go over and talk with J*** again yesterday evening and just
ask her about any questions or concerns that she might have about the
church service. She had some concerns that were to be expected from
someone who would never come to church with us before but she did say
that she wanted to come with us again, and both of her daughters are
very eager and excited to go to church with us again. I think they
really enjoyed the primary class. We are going to go and see J***and
her family again this Saturday.

Later today we need to drive down to Conway to go and pick up Elder
Thomas'  bike. He was able to get it delivered to him by the Parks
family when they were just passing through his hometown, but it was
still a little bit messed up from a previous incident back home. We
dropped it off at a bike shop in Conway last week to begin the repairs
and we're hoping that it will be finished when we go down to pick it
up later today. At the very least we're going to see if we can beat
those in the zone leaders down in Conway in a game of basketball. One
of the zone leaders, Elder Wahl, actually came out with me from the
MTC to Arkansas. I also think it's interesting that one of the APs,
Elder Johnston, also came out with me.

For the remainder the day will be going shopping, probably finishing
up emailing if we don't get done right now, and maybe spending a
little bit of time over at A***'s. I'm just not quite sure yet. Elder
Thomas also wants to go and hit up the thrift stores here in Arkansas,
and I think that be interesting to do at the very least. I have not
yet been able to go and try shopping at thrift stores so far on my
mission, and if it's anything like the DI back in Utah I'm sure it's
going to be interesting.

This Friday, the 12th, we will have the opportunity to go down to
North Little Rock and hear Elder Kopischke speak to us as an entire
mission. I think it's cool that we will have been able to get together
as a mission multiple times in the space of less than a month. I've
been out now for for almost 3/4 of my mission, but these are the first
times we've been able to do this. It certainly helps out and being
able to go and see old companions that you haven't been able to see
you for a while, and also be able to see some on the other side of the
Mississippi River that I would otherwise not be able to see before
they go home.

It's rather bizarre being able to use an iPad for general proselyting
purposes now. I've got to admit though, there's a lot of uses to an
iPad, even if it is ridiculously locked down. even Google is blocked
on this iPad. But that's okay; we have still have access to all the
most important things.like Mormon messages. Or LDS.org. Or all of the
church hymns. Or even email. Really, any thing that is able to be used
to help another progress in the Gospel of Jesus Christ we are not only
able to use but are encouraged to use as frequently as possible. Just
the other day we were able to talk with a recent convert and her
nonmember children about what it means to have faith and to build a
foundation on the Savior Jesus Christ. Toward the end of this lesson
Elder Thomas was inspired to share a Mormon message with them titled
The Refiners Fire. I would share here if I could, but unfortunately
email won't let me allow me to be able to send videos the long through
email. You can go and find it on LDS.org though, and I would really
encourage you to do so.

Just to wrap up this email, Elder Thomas and I have been reading the
Savior's qualifications for baptism every morning as part of our
studies. His qualifications are found in D&C section 20 verse 37.
Doing so every single morning is helping us be able to keep our
 mind set on inviting others to come unto Christ specifically through building
faith and being baptized as a part of his church. I sincerely doubt we
would be as focused on helping or on inviting others to be baptized
had we not been doing so, and I also doubt that we would've had so
many people to church had we not done so. The missionaries in Conway
have had extraordinary success in doing the same things, as have had
the other members of the Morrilton district. I personally know that it
is through building a foundation on the true principles of Jesus
Christ's teachings that we can help others and help ourselves received
the most blessings that come from belief in his gospel. Without that
foundation of faith, repentance, baptism by immersion for the
remission of sins, receiving a gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on
of hands, and then enduring to the end, we would not be able to truly
partake of Christ salvation. It simply would not be possible.

I wish I could send home a great many pictures to everybody, but I
forgot the camera cable back home so all I can send you was the couple
things I've taken with this iPad. I hope everyone back home or
wherever else you may be right now is having an absolutely wonderful
day, and I look forward to hearing from you again next week!

– Elder Jayden Barker

This is a panoramic picture taken with the Ipad of an exceptionally long roll of paper the ward used for an activity.  When asked, what it was for, he replied, "I honestly don't know.  She just told us that she
needed paper and told us where it was and to go and get it. We said
"yes ma'am" and that was that. Haha"

Built Upon the Rock

I would like to start off with a thought first: the saying that if men build upon a "Firm foundation" then they will not fall away from the Gospel. Here in Arkansas we are seeing quite a few homes that simply were not built on a firm foundation, and now they have been destroyed, and even some of those that were firmly anchored simply didn't hold up because the hold those homes had on the foundation wasn't strong enough to withstand the tides of the world. With this in mind, where is our foundation, and how strong is our tie to it? Let us not be carried away and have our spiritual journey blocked much like our physical one was just yesterday:

This past week was good. Slow, but good. We have been able to go and see a bunch of the Sister's (missionaries) old people, and that's fun! The family we were going to go and see yesterday when we had to make an unexpected detour was one such family. Funny story: The Sisters had originally met them when the mother went online to request a free copy of the book of Mormon. The Sisters showed up and began sharing with them the message of the Restoration. Well.... it had been about 2 weeks between their last visit (this family lives way out there) and when they got pulled out. Two days ago we received a text on the phone from Church HQ saying this family wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon taken to them. After looking at the text message I recognized the name as someone the Sisters had been teaching. I guess this family got fed up with waiting for the Sisters to come back and took matters into their own hands! We are excited to start getting to know them for ourselves. Their son, T***, is really a cool guy. He and Elder Thomas hit it off talking about sports.

A*** IS OFF OF THE PATCHES!!!!! *Que fireworks* I really had not idea how to lead into that, so I just threw it out there. Yeah, We are stoked!

Also, President Wakolo just announced that we will be getting iPads Tomorrow! Yeah, this is getting cool. We had a training on it last week with Elder Zwick of the 70 (see pic below) but I didn't realize that we would actually be getting the devices within a week! Usually it takes a little while, but this time we get to have nice things rather quickly. =D

(I'm not sure who the other missionary is. Never met him before. HaHa!)

I'll leave it at that, so my comp has more time to email. Catch y'all later!

~Elder Barker

 A missionary's typical study desk

May 25, 2015 Want to stop smoking? Here's how.

So, true or false, is running out of money a good thing? In this case, yes it is! It is a wonderful, glorious, fantasticularistic thing! You see, cigarettes are expensive little buggers, and when you have no money, you can't buy them. A*** has been trying to stop smoking now for some time, and at right around the same time they were running a little bit low on funds and cigarettes, a bunch of nicotine patches came in to further help her stop smoking. So as of right now, she is done forever! *Dance of excitement*

The really frustrating part is that us missionaries have a program that can help a sincere person stop smoking entirely in 7 days. It doesn't take anything fancy, a little prayer (make that "a lot" of prayer), a few shots of grapefruit juice throughout the day, a swig of cinnamon mouthwash, and lots of vitamin C. All you've got to do is follow 15 steps exactly for 7 days, and that's it, you're free! No more cravings, no withdrawals, just the satisfaction that you no longer are tormented by an addiction that is only serving to kill you faster. Want to know more? Go to this website http://www.mormon.org/missionaries, fill out your info, and when the missionaries get into contact with you let them know you are interested in the 15-step Stop Smoking Program. They should be contacting you within 24 hours.

Anywho, back to A***. The whole reason she didn't want to do the Stop Smoking Program was because grapefruit juice is one of the ways it works. You see, she doesn't like the taste. (Well, yeah, that's kinda the point!) *sigh* It was slightly frustrating at times, because she is so incredibly ready to be baptized, but this is one of God's commandments that must be being followed before baptism. I am so incredibly happy though with this turn of good fortune.

Speeding right along, some of the people we've been seeing and the things we have been doing are: T***, A*** and G*** (her son), A*** W*** supper with A***, Eagle Scout project with J*** H***s Jr., cataloging carved bricks, Z*** D***, the N*** Family, escaping a really nasty storm by hiding out with a less-active family under their carport, and (later today) a Memorial Day luncheon with the P***/H***s family.

This past sunday was pretty sparesely populated, but over the pulpit President Hopkins, the 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency, chastised all of the members for not feeding and working with the missionaries more. He indirectly told all of them that if they had been doing more we still would have two sets of missionaries in Morrilton, instead of now just the one. I was squirming in my chair when he announced that because at one point or another everyone turned around and looked at us while he was speaking. It needed to be said though.

This upcoming Wednesday (day after tomorrow) we are having the first every Mission Conference in North Little Rock. All 184 missionaries will be in attendance to receive both a visit from a General Authority, in addition to training on using iPads for proselyting purposes. I am seriously stoked for it!

Anywho, that's all for now!

~Elder Barker

Glorious Surprises

​So, this past week was a very interesting one, and incredibly productive as well. But, surprise #1, I found this ​at speedtest.net, when I got curious about the internet connection here (it was pretty good):

Awesome, right? 

Anywho, the absolute highlight of the past week was this past Thursday. We had the fantastic opportunity to go and visit with S*** and S***, the aunt of another investigator we are seeing. We had first met them two weeks ago on Saturday, were able to go back later and go over how Christ called a prophet to restore His church, and then on Thursday we were able to return and speak with them about the Plan of Salvation. The best part is they loved all of it, and said how much it all made sense to them. S*** in particular said something that was very surprising to me, simply because I nearly never hear it very often. He said that as we were speaking or sharing the scriptures with him he instinctively knew about what it was we were about to say. We were able to testify that this is one of the ways that the Holy Spirit testifies to people of truth. When we lived with God, long before we were born, we knew about this earth and what it was we were getting ourselves into. We forgot all of this when we were born, however. The Prophet Isaiah calls this passing through "the veil". When we hear spiritual truth though, the Holy Spirit can and will speak to us in a noticeable way that what we are hearing is true and of God, and this is what S*** and S*** felt that night. Michael Cockrum, a return missionary living in the same town as them, bore powerful testimony about God's plan for us. It was one of the neatest experiences I have experienced in quite some time.

Surprise Number 3: We were able to go everywhere we wanted to! Somehow or another, we had enough miles to be able to visit all sorts of outlying towns and slightly-more-populated-than-others areas without worrying about going over. This included driving about 80 miles round-trip to go and have dinner with the K*** family yesterday evening. It felt really good to be able to visit places that probably haven't seen missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in many years, if at all.

Surprise Number 4: We are losing the Morrilton Sisters. Sister Tu'ifua is going home to her island paradise of Tonga tomorrow, and Sister Jones is being transferred. No Sister Missionaries are coming in to replace them. What makes this even more strange is they are STL's, or missionaries set apart to help train and uplift all of the Sisters in the surrounding area. Them leaving is a big deal. To make things even more strange, the Zone Leaders are changing locations as well. I've not seen things this shaken up, well, ever! On a seriously cool side, one of our current ZL's, Elder Johnston, is becoming an AP. Elder Johnston came out with me from the MTC. We didn't know eachother even slightly before we met on the airplane, but the rule still applies that if you come out with someone you instinctively have to be chummy with them. It's in the rule book (I wrote it there myself ;)!

One more fun thing that happened: I got to help vaccinate goats and sheep on the Foster Farm. Never thought I would be doing that!

~Elder Barker

The Moon. I thought it looked cool so I took a picture.

My new favorite kick! Unfortunately for my tastebuds and luckily for my health the nearest one is about a 25 minute drive away in Conway, so it doesn't happen very often. Haha! (Yes, Mom. I know I need a haircut.......)

The Sisters and Us. Things were interesting here.

Scriptural thought for the day: Alma 11:20 - The only difference between a hard-core jerk and a powerful missionary is the Spirit of the Lord.

May 11, 2015- "Refocusing Sights"

First and foremost, it was good to be able to talk to all of the loved ones back home. Glad to know everything is going great. I honestly don't know what to say about this past week other than it went really well. We've been getting a bunch of referals from a bunch of different people, and we have had a bunch of success in talking to them.

We have also been able to go and visit a bunch of people in the nursing home lately. There are a bunch of very good and kind people there who really need human interaction from someone who is not wearing scrubs.

Again, this past week went really well, but I'm not so sure what else to say. So I will end it with this: thus far on mission I have been focusing on helping out missionaries in the long term, trying to help others with their work. I learned by the Spirit that it is time for me to start trying to help people join the church myself, not necessarily help others help others join the church. I have been able refocus on my purpose, and I am excited to start going again.

To those who are still serving full-time missions, keep up the work. We only have a limited time to do what the Lord has called us to do, and I know that He wants us to shine. Don't get discouraged, and keep pressing forward!

Elder Barker