A morning on Instant message

This morning I was able to instant message with Mom and Dad for 20 minutes.
Here's some things I said to them that I didn't write in my letter.
I have been eating more healthy. I bought a steamer and have been steaming vegetables. I like broccoli and other veggies. My companion inspired me to keep the morning rules which include exercise. So, I need to have my suit taken in. If I don't have a tread mill I've been jumping rope. I'm going to keep my weight a secret until I get home....but I was up to 215, now I'm down to ?????
We had about 12 investigators and that's dropped back to 6. I love my companion, the scriptures and the atonement. I took the color personality test and guess what colors I am? 60% yellow and 40% red.
The town we are working in is a commuter town for Toronto. There are about 180K people and about 180 people in the ward. The immigrants are nicer to us than the white people, one strong member in the ward is a RC (recent convert) and he's from India.

Here is a quick report on the work:
Things are going very well, our most progressing investigator is this young girl named Sara she is 15 but her parents are ok with us talking to her we gave her the Book of Mormon two of three weeks ago and she has read all the way to 2 Nephi 26, so she just got past Isaiah which
is pretty exciting. Her big stumbling block is she works at Tim Horton's on Sundays we told her church is more important and she agreed and said she would try and get her schedule changed.
Also we are still working with Caleb he is doing good we taught him the word of wisdom and he has been very consistent with church we are still panning on him getting baptized on the 28th of September. His parents are progressing well they need some work though. pease if you can keep them in your prayers

Famly things are going so well, i wish i had some fun and crazy stories to tell you, i will make an extra effort next week to have a good story. You guys are the best i love you so much
Love elder Barrand

Gelph is just exploding!

Hey Family,
So i fractured my pinkie knuckle bone. there is a picture of me and the president and i have the splint on for it.
The other pictures and at zone conference where i didn't know i had fractured my hand yet but it was really swollen. Elder Storer is the tall one with blond hair. the other pictures is with elder wells and elder summers they are my two favorite elders. they came out with me and i lived with elder wells for 7 1/2 months and elder summers is the assistant, and a really good friend.

Life is doing amazing Guelph is just exploding with people to teach and find and love i am having a blast. Doug came out to church and the ward did such an amazing job fellow shipping him i didn't even have to do anything. they even invited him to lunch this week i am so thankful
for good wards who like missionary work. this week we had three district meetings together and they asked my to talk and give instruction on getting people to church and i got alot of compliments from other elders it made me feel really good. thanks for your emails and prayers!!!
love elder barrand

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