setting Guelph on "fire"

Family!!
i got transferred my new area is Guelph. i am so excited i am not a zone leader anymore and i can focus more of my efforts on my area. i even couldn't sleep last night because i was coming up with great ideas on what i can do in my area to make it catch on fire. nothing
else exciting has happened
love elder barrand

here are some pictures the first 2 are of elder ruckman and i, the second was a hike we went on to a cool water fall i slipped in and got a bunch of small leeches on me it was a blast!

Searching for the true church

Dear Family
Things are going amazing! we finally have a few good people in our teaching pool and i am so excited, the top three are a man named Cory he and his wife have a 6 year old son who has been asking them questions like who is God and they didn't want to answer him wrong so they have been looking for a church to help them understand. while teaching him the spirit is so strong, comparatively to some one who is just being polite and listening to us, to some one who is seeking and looking. i love it! It is the same story for this other lady named Jodi the she is searching too but because of her husband there is lots of opposition. Another guy we just started teaching his name is George. he is a convert to the catholic church and has done tons and ton of study into the catholic faith. he was the first Christian i have meet in the year and half i have been out that actually knew the word "atonement" and what it was referenced to. we haven't had too
much teaching opportunities with him so far but we gave him some chapters to read in the book of Mormon and he said he would do it, when i gave him some chapters it was 2 Nephi 26-33. haha i don't know if i was prompted to give him that or i just wanted him to know that his church was apostate. Anyways i am loving life and the work thanks for your emails and letters and prayers they help so much.

love elder barrand

9 hours of tracting

Hello family!!!

Here is a cool story from this week. We were traveling some elders in a very small town the name is Elliot lake it is a retirement community and lots of old people and there is a church on every street corner and there is and out 13000 people in the town and each church is well attended. most missionaries view going to this area as punishment luckily there are some good missionaries in there now but their faith has been lacking a little because of little or no success,
but i was so excited to server there just for one day so when we got there we planned for the days activities and they had no appointments or anything scheduled, i was so excited to help them find people. we set a goal to tract for 9 hours, that meant ever hour we have to work
would be spent tracking they seemed half enthused to do it but elder Williams the elder i was supposed to travel is going home at the end of this transfer and is counting the days till when he will be home, and i was going to do this with him, he kinda wanted to do it just to be able to say he tracked all day once. So we started and worked our butts off running after people down the street and talking to tons of people, there was alot of persecution and alot of bible bashing because most people know about the Mormons in that town. I loved it! we got 17 great contacts for them and caught their area on fire they got 6 new investigators this week and are happy and excited about the work again. it was for sure a very fun travel.

Love Elder Barrand

zone conference like stake conference

i apologize ahead of time for having a short email if i had more time i would write more but i am traveling too much to do so. things are going amazing elder ruckman and i conducted a zone conference and president middleton complimented that it was just as good or better then any stake conference which is way cool. i am right now in my old area the soo, again i love it here it was such a blast serving here there have been a couple people in each area where i just love so much and they make the whole experience worth it. the people that will be life long friends and you will keep in contact with them. i am so thankful for it. anyways good luck in you missionary work even if they are unwilling to learn or don't like or reject the message you did your put and can stand blameless before God. i hope more opportunities arise for you guys. i love you so much and may the lord bless you.

love elder barrand

ps tomorrow marks 18 months
i was walking past a movie theater and i thought about being home for
a few moments and felt sick to my stomach