Peter's Epistle to the Eugenians

Dearest family,

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Well not exactly, but it did snow last Saturday and almost stuck, which is a little too early if you ask me. Like Mom noticed, we've been wearing our coats and scarfs the last few weeks which has been needed because the weather is right about 2-6 degress celsius usually, (I have to really think to figure that in fahrenheit but it's about 45 or I less, I think) and it gets below freezing sometimes. No worries though, I wear my long johns every day because I'm just a wittle guy.

I'm trying to find some spiritual principle to pull out from what I just said to tie into what i'm about to say (Mom is too good at that) but I've got nothing. Maybe the light of the gospel is lighting up our days so it feels like summer everyday! Yeah that's pretty catchy.

But seriously it's a good thing the gospel is true but it somehow makes the”un-enjoyable” tasks of missionary work, much more enjoyable. I'm mostly just talking about knocking which we've done a lot of these last couple of days. The actual knocking on doors and talking to people part is not bad at all, I love talking to people! The down part is that about 75-90% of people talk through the door which makes for short and not ideal conversations. That's one of the main reasons why I like street contacting, because you can show someone that you are sincere and interested in them and then they're much more likely to listen. And then once someone actually listens it's over, or at least they feel something and it's up to them to decide how to act. But the upside to harvesting is that you can immediately come into a home, and the chance of teaching a whole family as opposed to individuals goes way up. So I guess they're both good! These are the mental debates that I have these days. The main thing I've seen though, is that whatever you do, have faith, do it the best you can with a smile, and it'll all work out. I love how that works!

We've also seen good fruits from knocking this week, a few upcoming lessons with nice families and a new investigator named Sandra. She's someone who opens the door and looks at you and without a word lets you in. She said she just has a sense of people and could tell that we had good intentions. Sandra is a sincere middle-aged women who takes care of her mother and deaf uncle, and has 3 grown up kids who live away from home. We first taught her Sunday evening and she was excited to read the book of Mormon and come to church the following week. She didn't know when the next concrete time we could come back would be, but she said we could drop by when we'd be back in the area during the week. Well, we were back Monday evening and thought we'd give it a try! One thing we're trying to do better in the mission is daily contact; it's tough to find the balance of not “bothering” people and giving them the support they need and don't get from anyone else. President Dance mentioned that the prepared will not be disturbed by it and would welcome it. SO, we banked on that theory and knocked. She came to the door (with curlers in her hair, somewhat freaky-looking if you ask me) and was more than happy to let us in to talk. We had a short powerful lesson and came back yesterday as well.

Marek/Giorgi is still making progress. We've had so many good lessons with him, where he understands the doctrine and the only holdback is that he works every sunday. We even had a lesson where we showed him the short first lesson outline in PMG and had him explain each principle. He did a great job, and basically just testified simply about each one, so cool. It kinda felt like what it might feel like watching your child bear their testimony from the pulpit. Only Marek is our age, we don't call him son, and he always carries a gun--only because he's in the army, and likes it, and it used to kind of freak me out, but now I kinda like it too. Oh he's just the man. But he's hoping to serve in Afghanistan, (which I respect a lot, but don't think I could ever do) so he might be taking off to Norway for training in a month or two. So we had a “throw down” lesson where we basically said, you know this is true, now you've got to DO something if you want to see the true blessings. Elder Brown found a cool scripture in D&C 24:7 which was perfect for him. I think he took it to heart, so we'll see! Also he's been slacking on daily reading from the Book of Mormon so we gave him Alma 45-60 to read. He struggled to read earlier too (last year) but this time around he definitely has a bigger testimony, he just doesn't set aside the time to get it done, between work and living with a “communist” guy at his apartment. Long story, but Marek is definitely not communist, he's very much Christian and will hopefully soon be a Saint! Jeah.

Welp I think that's all. I am safe, and warm and so happy. I love you!

Love, Elder Barnes #12

P.S. Sorry if my subject is kind of "blasphemous" according to missionary standards. It just has a nice ring to it.