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

What I'm Thankful for:

Hello Family!!!
Happy birthday Celeste!

here is a quick report on the work:

This week went really well we had a couple of really jam packed days while we were in our area and were able to get 3 new investigators, definitely a blessing from the Lord Also a past investigator we had dropped 2 weeks ago finally came to church with her excommunicated boy friend her name is Jacqui and she has some great potential to progress I am very excited. Also we started teaching a young couple name Adrian and Lexy. Adrian believes the Book of Mormon to be true because a preacher from another faith told him to read it and he did and loved it, which is very interesting. Then Lexy is still having a hard time believe that God exists so its fun trying to teach them at two different levels.

Things are going so great!
mom and dad, danica and dave you guys are the best thanks so much for being great member missionaries i wish and pray more members would have the courage like you to invite others to hear the good news! i bet the missionaries there just love you. one cool thing that has happened i finished reading Jesus the Christ for the first time, and i loved it. i set a goal for myself to make
that book along with preach my gospel a life long study. i got your letter mom about things i am thankful for so here are a few on my list:
God being our loving father in heaven hearing and answering our
prayers giving his peace to our hearts when we need it.
Jesus Christ preforming and completing the atonement, through which we
can receive a remission of our sins.
Joseph Smith his humble prayer that opened the windows of heaven once again.
My family i love you all so much! who can ask for a better more
amazing group of people.
The scriptures to teach us how we can come unto Christ.
The companionship of the Holy Ghost, what peace is brought into my
heart when living worthy of that great gift.
there are many more but i am our of time

love elder barrand

Authority, Shannon, never been more obedient, enthused and urgent

Dad and mom, Oh how i love your letters i just got your 4th of july letter yesterday thank you so much for the $40 that means alot but i dont know what i will spend it on. and it sounds like you are doing some amazing work helping people over come their addictions, i love it!
mom and dad if i had enough time to tell you everything that is going on that would be amazing. but i want you to know mom and dad that i have never being more obedient, more enthused, more urgent about the work, and i can only feel myself going onward and upward, i love the
lord and his work, i love the atonement and the power of recieving a remission of our sins, i love the principle of repentance and always being able to improve our lives, i love my companion and the missionaries i serve. i love the story about coaching the swim team dad it brought tears to my eyes. thank you so much mom and dad for supporting me while i share the gospel i love it. these last 6 months will be the best i know for sure



here is a quick report on the work Things are going very well we are getting the area jump started again last transfer we dropped most of our investigators. So some people we are teaching is Shannon she is a 23 year old lady that studied world religions as her major is college, so she knows a lot about each religion but doesn't really believe them. when we were teaching her she
had so many questions but we said we would answer them in the next lesson so she is very excited to meet with us again. We are also teaching the guy named Pat he is about 20 and has a brain tumor and will die in about 5-10 years he is a tattoo artist and has alot of word of wisdom problems but he wants to change his life and understood authority when we taught him and asked so the preacher that baptized me didn't have the authority? and we were so happy he
understood. Other then that the Zone is doing very well. elder Ruckman and i get along very well and we are learning a lot from each other in our long driving trips.

Love Elder Barrand

Transfers

were this week things are a little crazy i am leaving elder tagg and my new companion is elder ruckman he is a stud. other then that things are great i love you guys and hope everything is going well

love elder barrand
Dad and Mom,
First off happy birth day Dad!!!
i hope you guys do some thing fun for 4th of july, we saw some cool fireworks last night for canada day but it didnt even compare to anything in the states. i remeber Ken alot he actually made a huge impression on me when i served with him in teachers quorm. he was just then a recent convert and was magnifying his calling very well, then later when i was in elders quorum he was always the first one to sign up for any service opportunities, he is an amazing man. Thanks for the reminder, that everyone has the potential to become amazing, for we
are all Gods children. This week went by really fast. the longest day was we drove 4 hours to
go do a baptismal interview in the Soo for Bob davidson's son its was amazing, then drove 4 hours back to sudbury and contacted a few people and that was our day. the feeling i felt while bob was telling me how thankful he is for his son, Rob being baptized, fill my heart with the
unexplainable joy i loved it.

Love elder barrand