More disaplined focused and mature

i feel so important! thanks so much for your letters and updates on the family. thats amazing about sean i wish i could have seen him dive. dive i cant wait to try diving again being so much more disciplined and focused and mature i have gained a lot of upper body strengthened and i would say i am more conditioned i just need to get more flexibility oh well i really don't worry about that stuff. there was a really cool scripture that president middleton read to the zone leaders yesterday.

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my friends Sidney and Joseph, your families are well; they are in mine hands, and I will do with them as seemeth me good; for in me there is all power.
2 Therefore, follow me, and listen to the counsel which I shall give unto you.
3 Behold, and lo, I have much people in this place, in the regions round about; and an effectual door shall be opened in the regions round about in this eastern land.
4 Therefore, I, the Lord, have suffered you to come unto this place; for thus it was expedient in me for the salvation of souls.
5 Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;
6 For it shall be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.
7 But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.
8 And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.

what is so amazing about this section is that the area that is mentioned is the area i am in right now. the coolest part when he read this to us is i received a very strong conformation from the holy ghost. that don and the rest of the family was and is kept safe. it was so powerful. i am so thankful for the gospel. i love it. it is so weird in this new area being white washed in starting over God has blessed us with some amazing investigators. the thing i like most about this area is the members are so strong and stalwart it reminds me a lot of home. dad i love you and thank you for the amazing example you have always been in magnifying you priesthood and fulfilling your callings.

love elder barrand

Don and my talk

hey mom and dad things are going so amazing i love it!

thanks so much for all that you do! please tell don that i love him.
the highlight of this week is i spoke in sacrament meeting on easter and i told the story about Don and his adoption and sealing into our family then bore testimony that if he died when he was in Iraq that i would know we could be together as a family forever because of the Atonement. i loved it! a family came up to me afterwards and told me my talk was an answer to their prayers if they should foster children, i told them that the spirit whispered to me that i should talk about it this morning while lying in dead.

Love Elder Barrand

Rita came to church!

Family!! This Transfer is so much fun here are some crazy pictures of
our awesome district. The city is down town Hamilton, Elder Romine and
I with our brand new 2008 Malibu it's sooo nice, and I am wearing my
new suit.




Dear Family here is a report one the work:
This week went by really well, Rita finally came to church it was
awesome, I hope and pray her mom lets her get baptized. Jethro is
progressing slowly but surly we have to invent something fun and new
each time we go over to teach him, last time we brought a bunch of
pictures and played a fun guessing game.
This week we traveled Elder Orr and Elder Penner, I loved traveling
elder Penner he is so smart and loves the studying and learning the
gospel he had this great excitement to talk to people and contact
them. And he was an amazing teaching bearing strong testimony of the
savior and expounding scriptures in the most amazing way.



Love Elder Barrand

Twenty year olds......

Here is a quick report on the Work:
Things are going amazing Elder Romine and I are having so much fun working so hard. Zone Leader council was amazing spiritual experience with tons a great in sites to help become a better leader.
Rita is progressing very well we taught her all the commandments and gave her a strength of youth pamphlet. The only thing that is holding her back is her mom thinks our church is a cult and doesn’t want her to come to church. So we told her to bare her testimony of the Book of Mormon to her mom and also read some of the strength of youth pamphlet with her. I pray that her heart is will softened

Family!!
Things are doing so great I cant express in words the spirit I have felt in the passed few days as I have received instruction from President Middleton and from other Zone Leaders. To explain what happens and how the mission is run, all the Zone leaders gather together with the President and his assistants and we talk and give instruction to each other in the spirit, discussing the needs of the missionaries and what goals we have set to improve each of our individual Zones. To open the meeting we sang hymn #27 “Praise to the Man” while singing the spirit of the Lord touched my heart I realized who I was and who I was with. I am just a kid the only things I would care about in this world would be girls and video games and maybe school if I wasn’t LDS. How does missionary work progress when 20 years olds are running it??? It is the work of the Lord and I know it! If it was not the work of the Lord missionaries would have screwed it up a long time ago. I am so thankful for the chance and opportunity to be a part of the great work of the Lord. I know it.

Love Elder Barrand

Rita, My district

Here is a quick report on the work:
Things are going very well. We taught Rita our investigator a plan of salvation it was amazing she loved every second of it then we taught her how to recognize and listen to the spirit and she is doing amazing she is reading the Book of Mormon and understanding it. She is placing the puzzle pieces together of if the Book of Mormon is true then Joseph Smith was a prophet and there is Jesus Christ’s Church again on the earth. I am so very excited for her. That is so far our only progressing investigator.


Hello Family!!
Things are going to great I love the work and I love bearing testimony of the Atonement and of Joseph Smith being a prophet. Dad are so lucky to talk to Don I miss him alot
Happy birth day this Sunday mom
Love Elder Barrand

I eat sleep and drink the gospel.....

Here is a quick report on the work:
Things are going great we have taught a ton of first lessons to a lot of different people looking for the elect. Most the people we talk to are just polite, or just friendly there is one that really is asking and wondering what the purpose of life is and her name is Rita. She is 17 and her family is from the Congo. I pray that she wants to find the answers.
The Zone is doing very well. Missionaries are working hard. And I am thankful


Family!!
I love you all so much. I wish I could write you all individually but time does not allow me. Mom you are an amazing member missionary I wish every ward had people like you in it. Dad thank you for being such a great example in turning to the Lord when you need help. It is hard to explain some thing new and exciting every week because I eat sleep and drink the gospel of Jesus Christ. Spiritual experiences become the norm. I recognize them and love so much, and wouldn’t trade them for anything, but there are too many to tell you every one. And I have been recording mostly all of them in my journal every night.

-25C Working Hard!

Family!!
I love being a missionary! I have never worked so hard in my life. I am also very excited because i have lost weight because i have been working so hard i am at the lowest i have been all my mission 193. we are teaching this Ti family of 6 only one of them can speak English it is so much fun teaching principles as simple as you can so that it can be translated easily. It has snowed so much here it is crazy and it was so cold with the wind chill the temperature reached -25C thankful we have a car and have not gotten into any accidents. I love you all very much and am so thankful for all your support. The family picture was crazy and interesting. But it is family so i love it! It is so good to hear from Don i know the Lord is watching over him.

Love Elder Barrand