The Undercover Cop and the Bible Scholar

Here is a quick report on the work:
We started teaching this man named Jeff he is a cop and lives with his girl friend and she is pregnant, he remembers attending the Brampton Temple open house which was like 15 years ago and he is only 30. He is Anglican and very nice and receptive he says he wants to start coming to church but is very busy with work, he is an undercover cop and goes to high school parties and tries to buy guns and drugs which is pretty cool. He looks like we he will progress very well. The next two people we are working with are both YSA, they are James and Andrew, Andrew is born again christen and is basically a bible scholar he knows it pretty well, but he has been reading the Book of Mormon. James is a more of a party boy who is looking for direction in his life and invited us to teach a bunch of his friends. Which went over very well.
Family
Things are going great we are working hard having fun and loving the cold weather. Nothing new to report. I hope you all enjoy Halloween. Mom and Dad you guys are awesome keep up the reat member missionary work, more important then the missionaries is the love they receive
from the members and your own testimony of the Book of Mormon and Restored Gospel.
Love Elder Barrand
ps thanks for your emails i love them

Joan, Glen and Mona in our teaching pool

Hey family here is a quick report in the work:
Things are Progressing we finally have some good people in our teaching pool First is Mona she is doing very well she has been sick the past couple of weeks but is now feeling good enough for us to teach her. When we taught her we read Alma 40 about the spirit world and the resurrection, to tell her after death you can be resurrected and you ever be sick again it was a very good lesson. Another person we are teaching is named Glen he is a very humble man from the Philippines his wife just had a baby, he is pretty hard core catholic but we have a really good member that was catholic was even going to become a nun in the Philippines but a month before she became one meet the missionaries and converted. It's a pretty cool conversion so she
will be able to relate to them well. Elder Ford and I are getting along great we are working very hard and having lots of fun doing it.

Family
Another Great week has gone by the temperatures have reached 0 degrees winter came really fast this year. Hurray for my third winter in Canada! I hope you enjoy our jumping pictures we took them at district meeting. It's crazy I signed up our district to do a musical presentation at Zone Conference, but we couldn't come up with a hymn that we all sound good singing together so I am singing a solo of "come thou fount" it's going to be great pray that the spirit helps me
out. A Lady that I contacted on the street a couple of weeks ago got baptized last Sunday she is so funny her name is Joan Gratoo she is about 70. When I was talking to her the first time I inquired about where was going and she answered "I am going to get my birth control pills" it was so funny she is a great lady and has a good sense of humour.
I love you family!

Love elder Barrand

Turkey Bowl

Here is a quick report on the work:
Things are going very well, we started teaching this women name Monique with her boy friend Audin she is a less active member and he is now an investigator, Audin is super humble and very nice Monique has been offended because of some of the members at church, Monique has not been to church in a long time so we committed them to start reading the scriptures together and praying on a regular basis then hopefully they will come to church she said it herself. As for anyone else in our teaching pool we have handed them over to the YSA sisters.

Dear Family Thanksgiving in Canada was a blast and it took place on Monday this week we got feed by this awesome family named the Crawfords I felt at home it was great I upheld the Barrand family tradition and went around and asked them all what they were thankful for it was really fun, we also had a turkey bowl we played one hand touch football, ultimate Frisbee and soccer for 2 hours. That was on Monday, Yesterday and today I am not able to walk straight because I am so sore, same with my companion it's really funny to see us walking down the street. When it was my turn to say what I was thankful for I said my family you guys are the best I love you so much
Love Elder Barrand

My daily schedule

Here is a quick report on the work:
Things are going amazing we have been working so hard only taking 30 min. for break each lunch and dinner, we have contacted tons and tons of people all of them being YSA because we live right next to the college tracting seems like the only way we have been able to find families so we still don't have any investigators we can call ours to report on and progress but I know the lord will help us find some. Elder Ford is amazing he is so humble and has not complained once
about how much walking and working we have been doing it's great I love him.

Family
I have asked some of the parents that have missionaries out in the field in our ward what makes good letters home and one said testimony and another said what you do day to day, So every day we wake up at 6:25 no matter what or how tired I am. Never will I allow myself to sleep in. Every morning we exercise for 20 mins of cardio we have a cool row machine and jump rope. Then for ten mins I stretch I don't see much improvement but I do it every day. Every morning for breakfast I have oats with peanut butter and honey in it and a fruit smoothie made from frozen berries and orange juice. Then get dress and shower and start studying right at 8, that is
personal study where I read the Book of Mormon for 30 mins then study Preach My Gospel and Jesus the Christ and New Testament on a specific topic for an investigator or a lesson. Then at 9 we have companion study we sing a hymn and pray. Then read 5 pages in the white hand
book, review a lesson covering the principles and a scripture reference with each principle. Then recite My Missionary Commission by Bruce r Mconkie, then recite Remember This from the back page of Preach my Gospel. Then teach each other want we learn in personal study and or review and prepare a lesson for whom ever we are teaching that day I have doing tons of role plays lately with my companions because they are new and need alot of help becoming better teachers. Then we briefly go over our plans and goals we have made from the
night before. Then right at 10 we are out the door. Missionary work is simplified down into 3 activities to find. First is tracting, second is walking down busy streets and contacting people, third is doing drop bys of contacts that you already have of people who said they are interested. We have our day planned out of who we will drop by that day what area we will be in and what streets we will contact people on and tracting. This transfer Elder Ford and have set a goal that we are not allowed back to our apartment when we leave in the morning so we pack sandwiches. That means no naps and no wasting time traveling back and forth to the apartment. Also we only eat for about 30 mins and then call contacts and try to set up apponiments and plan a little
more about what we are doing. Guelph is a College town so we meet tons of students who are really busy with school, but alot of them are willing to listen. In the morning we resort to most of our tracting and in the evening we try to visit members home and do this missionary
presentation that I invented and it is power house, using quotes from Preach My Gospel and a video clip from Special Witnesses of Christ by the end the members really want to invite people and do more things to help the work progress. Then we try and be in by nine 9:30 at the
latest. And plan for the next day and set goals. One thing that has taking me the longest to gain a testimony of is nightly planning after working really hard all day you just want to come in and rest but planning is the most important thing, it takes tons of will power to focus 30mins of you energy and time to focus and map out where you are going who will you visiting and what you will be doing. But without it you are directionless and nothing effective happens. Plus the day goes but way faster when you have thing to do because you have planed it out also you want to achieve more because you have set goals that you want to hit. Then once we are done planning we make our sandwiches for the next day, write in our journals and prepare and go to bed. Then do the same thing the next day I love it!!!
My testimony, I know I am on the Lord's errand, I know I am given strength to make it and last through the day, I know that the Saviour's Atonement is really. There is a young man named aron who we found that was really big into smoking and drinking and his life was going nowhere. The amazing thing about Aarons is he was a sober mind which is interesting to say that after he smokes and drinks but he is sharp we tell him something and he understands and it burns in his
heart. Two days ago Aaron decided to change to repent and to have a better life when we meet with him again yesterday he was glowing and so unbelievably happy he prayed for the lord to help him change, then a job offer fell into his lap and other great things happened for him
and he couldn't be better. I know that The Father and the son appeared to Joseph Smith to restore truth, and the Church of Jesus Christ again upon the earth of which we are apart and the Lord himself declared it to be the "only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" what greater blessing can you ask for then that of the way to salvation!
Love Elder Barrand
ps i talked to Rob Stoddart and we had a good conversation he made it
very clear that we would not join our church but he loves alot of Mormons and was excited to talk to me and catch up on things it was
way cool

the pictures are Caleb's Baptism
Elder Ford and I and also a picture of elder Rollins the other elder i
have trained and elder for too

Transfers!!!

Dear family
I have the wonderful chance of traning agagin!! i am so excited to do this, Guelph is getting split in two. Elder Ford and i will be covering the outskirts of the city with the car and my last compaion elder Storer and other missionary will be in the more downtown area. With the area change we have no progressing investigators, but thats why i am here to find them and the best members are in my area. family tranning again brings me back to when i first came out and the faith and hope of new missionaries its a very humbling experience. i am so excited to train, a goal i have set for myself is to not return to the appartments for breaks. and i have some other great goals like tracting out most of my area or as much as i can. i want to leave the best impression on elder Ford of one who never gives up never stops working and is the most obedent and loves the work so much, along with teaching by the spirit and loving people with all
your heart. i ask for your prayers with this sacred trust the lord has given me to train again. Mom and dad keep up the amazing member missionary work i hope you are enjoying the fruits of the spirit as you help others find christ and his atonement. bryce and tiana i hope
your health problems will get better.

here are some pictures hurray!

i love you guys so much it hurts!

love elder barrand

ps i am not able to check your blogs anymore because i am trying to be
as obedient as i can

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