Thanks friends and family

Thanks everyone for your calls and concern with Kaden and the recent troubles they have been having in India, he is several hundred miles away from Mumbai and there are no missionaries serving there either, We know that he is being protected and feel peace that he is safe but also feel of all your love and concern it truly does help us to keep a positive outlook.
We hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving and look forward to next year and having all are family at our house, so everybody plan on being there.

Congratulation Alexa on making the Utah Soccer team, that is so awesome we look forward to watching you play good job.

Love, JayDee & Machelle

Happy Thanksgiving from India

Hey, well happy thankgsgiving! well i think it will be thanksgiving for you when you get this? haha i dont know. the office couple is having us over for dinner at 3 so that will be nice. definately nothing like grandmas thanksgiving but ill take what i can get. haha. sorry i didnt get to write yesterday either. i hope you havent worried. i wasnt in jail or anything like that haha. it was cuz we had zone conference. it was really good and i learned alot. they taught a lot about studying and gave us tips on how to better study the scriptures. elder singh said it was good i liked the first one cuz he hated his. oh and a little more about my compainion. he is indian but born and raised in northern california we have more and more fun the better we get to know eachother. he is really good at football, well soccer. haha. he is a bangalore zone leader so its pretty cool cuz im learning a lot from him. we live with the other zone leader elder pulla and his jr comp. e pulla is a native from hydrabad. he is funny i laugh all the time. his accent cracks me up and he is always dancing and singing american songs. his jr comp is elder balthrop from houston. he is a paramedic so thats good. haha. it was another great week though. except for right after i e mailed last week i started to feel sick. and on thursday i felt terrible. the food definately wasnt sitting right. haha i couldnt eat for a couple days but im fine and doing great again. it definately made me miss my mommy. haha. we still went out and taught it was really cool to cuz during the lessons i felt fine. we had some great lessons this week. we got 10 new investigators and set 7 baptisimal dates. it was so good to feel some success. we also met a kid named john, his sister is a member and he took the lessons with her. we met with him and set him for baptism. here in india they have to attend all 3 hours of church for 3 weeks and then they can get baptized. but he has came to church for a while and when we set him for december he was like why not sooner. and we talked to pres and he said we can. so were going to be having a baptism!!! we teach a lot of recent convert lessons too. we need to work with the members so they will give us refferals. and it looks like that well be all well be doing for a while because i dont know if you have heard but today there was a terrorist attack in india. so the whole mission cant procelite now. they didnt give us details on the attacks but i guess its kind of seriouse? you probably know more than us. but im safe and doing great! so dont worry, we are very careful where we go and where we find. it sucks though cuz i was just starting to enjoy knocking doors. but pres just told us to let you know we are all okay.this week was one of the first times i have felt like the spirit guided me on where to go. we had been walking all day and i was starving. it was like 7. there is a noodle vendor on the street that we eat at its a huge plate for only 14rs anyways i told elder singh lets go eat. and he was like we gotta get into one more house i can feel it. and then i got the feeling too. we had no success for a while and knocked a bunch of doors. then we realized we needed to go to some people we have been teaching and they have rejected baptism. but when we went in we set this woman maria and her son mark. they have been coming to church but just not wanting to get baptized. her husband wanted nothing to do with the church but he sat through the lesson and we actually set him too!! the spirit does guide us and i just need to listen. the weather is so nice here. its cool all day. the locals say its freezing but it feels great to me. haha. it has rained off and on this week. it was funny cuz on the way here it was raining and the roads were slick our auto driver was about to rearend the car in front of us and slammed on the breaks we spun all the way around and stoped with hardly any room to spare. elder singh and i were just laughin. there is no such thing as a close call here. every second is a close call. ha halove you all and hope everthing is going great.love, elder barr

Letter from Kaden

Hey everyone! well like i said in my first letter, india is crazy! everything anyone told me about india is usually way off. haha. i whish all you guys could see what e have seen in the few short days i have been here. ill start with the bathroom situation. haha. its just like anywhere its a toilet there is tp almost everywhere. so the left hand is still doing as good as ever.haha. there is what you call a "squatter" in the apt too. but noone uses it. the shower is nice too. you shower and the water goes all over in the bathroom but its warm water. we have to flip the water heater switch right when we wake up so it gets warm. the only problem is that there has only been one morning since i have been here that the power was on. but the watter heats up fast so its all good.
i eat oatmeal for breakfast. just plain with sugar. im actually like it now. haha. we eat out for lunch. usually rice with curry or some other stuff that i dont know what it is. they have torilla things called chapati that you eat with too. i use my right hand to eat im getting pretty good already. my first meal i was pretty helpless.haha. for dinner i usually just make noodles but i got some bread and cheese today so ill start makin grilled cheese. but im hanling the food just fine. its not as spicy as i thought. im still solid. hahahaha. but the food is good. so dont worry about me starving.
the apt is nice, 4 elders stay there. there is 2 bedrooms a nice living room and a pretty nice kitchen. our stove is just propane but it works. the beds are hard but its better than all the people you see on the street sleeping. we have a washer but no dryer. i feel blessed though cuz if you look out the back window there are people living under tarps and whatever they can find. i have definatly been humbled in just one week. i have kids begging for money every night as we walk home. people dont like americans as much as i thought either. i hide while elder singh catches an "auto" the little 3 wheeler thing and then i come around the corner and get in. you should see the drivers faces. haha they try to charge extra. but thats how we get aound a lot.
im in the 2nd branch. there are 3 in bangalore but 2nd branch covers 80% of the city. so its a ton of walking and trying to learn the area. the chapel is really nice for 2nd branch. i actually saw a guy from n logan sunday at church. brother izrelson i think? his brother wnet to school with dad or somethin. but he should be talking to you soon. he left yesterday for home. small world though huh. i have seen monkeys big lizards, cows on the roads, camels, and millions of stray dogs. i bet at any one time a can see 10 dogs. I have only taught a few lessons. we can only knock christian doors cuz there has been a lot more problems here. last week over 20 christian missionarries were arrested, 11 last night. i dont know many details but one of us has to wear colored shirts. we cant wear our ties or nametags. dont worry though ill be fine but we definatly have to be careful. some lessons have gone well and some not good. its verry humbling to not be good at something i wanna do. but just like baseball, you gotta put in the time. im doing great though. i love it here! i miss you all and hope everything is good. thanks for all the support.love elder barr.

A visitor from North Logan

This is Kaden with his companion Elder Singh and Bert Israelsen from North Logan. Bert happened to be in Bangalore on business and went to church and saw Elder Barr there and made the connection with the fam. Small world!! He emailed us this picture when we returned home.

MTC pictures

We are a little slow putting pictures of the MTC but better late than never!!
Kaden with his companion Elder Sorensen (from Texas) in front of the temple.
With the Elders in his district who are all going to India.
Either he has had enough or is trying to soak it all in!! We wont mention that he could just be sleeping.
With all the Elders in his district.