Kaden's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Kaden

hey! well i had a great week. thanks for all the letters i got from everyone. i had a great week this last week. i dont even know where to begin?.. we have been working with a bunch of guys they are in 3 different groups but there are probably like 25 that were teaching and on sunday elder satyadi and i had 17 of them come to church!!! a big change from the 0 we had the week before. the lord truly answered our prayers. we are working with members and have recieved more referals and having more members come on exchange. it really helps a lot when they come and i feel like the investigators have a lot more potential. we set 5 people for baptism this week also so hopefully they can go through within the coming months. so great things are happening in kgf and also in india as a whole.i had a great birthday too. haha i really almost forgot and if it wasnt for some members calling me in the morning i dont know if i would have. its crazy to think im twenty now. haha. im startting to look more and more like my dad every day. and the piles of rice i eat every day are probably why. haha just kiddin dad. but it was just a normal day finding and teaching. on the way to one appointment we had kinda a bad experience. we were just riding along and i heard some skidding and then bang. 2 guys on a motorcycle hit a little kid probably 6 years old and they went flying and the bike almost hit me. so hear i am and theres 3 people out cold on the street so i dropped my bike and ran to the kid and he was breathing so i ran to the driver and he wasnt. he had some cuts on his face. so i was trying to get him to respond and then he finally started breathing by this time some people had gathered around me and i had them help me roll him over and i saw that his head was really bad. ambulences dont really come so we stopped an auto and some people put him inside. but i dont think he made it. the bad thing is is he was drinking too. i just hope the little kid is okay.so that was kinda hard to deal with but then we were planning on teaching Vani. a sister we baptized a month or so back. when i got there they had a suprize party. the 2nd counciler and his family decorated there home and had cake. the popped balloons full of spaghetti all over me. it was pretty funny. its indian culture for whoever party it is they cut the cake so after they sang happy bday indian style. haha i gut the cake. its also custom for the people to feed you i guess it shows there love for you. i felt kinda awkward but oh well. they also rubbed the cake all over my face and they all had a good time. pres zion johns family truly are like my family away from home. they fed us chicken byriani and i think i ate more chicken in 20 min than in 2 months. they dont take no im so full for an answer. but i really had a good day. i dont like all the attention but they definatly made my day special.anyways im so happy these last weeks and have felt the lords help more than ever. hope all is well back home. im doing great and couldnt be more happylove elder barr

Kaden's Doing Great

hey everyone, well its been another good week. a lot of ups and downs. but im learning that thats how missionary work goes. we were so excited because we had set prabu, and a kid named michael for baptism but then they didnt come to church. its hard to see people be so close to the truth but just not quite grab on to it. but it has made me appreciate being born into that covenant because i dont think i could have found it on my own. so we actually didnt have anyone come to sacrament but i feel like some good things that need to happen here in kgf are starting. the branch pres lost his job is really struggling and you can see it affect the branch. so we spant a lot of time focusing on getting close with members this last couple of weeks so hopefully we can start taking them on exchanges and getting more referals. we already have had some good referals so im excited to see what happens. so if any of you know anyone who you think the elders could teach. TELL THEM! haha. and i know both you and the people you share the gospel with will be blessed.anyways so we went to bangalore for zone conf on monday morning at 430. man it sucked waking up that early but we had interviews with president nichols and then got so spend a little bit of time just going around the city. yesterday zone conference was really good we didnt get back to kgf till 11 last night so between waking up at 430 and getting home at 11 were pretty tired. when you first come ont the mission you cant sleep cuz its too early but now i im tired if i go at 11. starting to feel old. haha.but it was a good week and i love india. oh and we stayed at my first companion e singh apartment and as soon as i started talking he was laughing. i was like what and he said your talkin like an indian. haha 4 months with native elders i guess it just happens. but i hope all is well back home. i think conf is this week so enjoy cuz i wont got to see it till the week after and probably not in english. haha. love you.elder barr

Another great week in KGF

hey what up everyone? i hope your all doing well. i had a really good week this week. it was a lot of fun being with e korrayya for a while and now with my new comp elder satyadi. hes a stud. we have had an awesome week together and already become great friends. he is from rajamundry and is 24yrs old. he has a pretty cool story. when he was 13 i decided he wanted to go to church because some elders talked to him on the street. he only spoke tellagu. but he went anyways and felt the spirit. he continued to go every sunday and learned how to read and speak english only from reading the book of mormon. i cant even imagine teaching myself tellagu. so he doesnt speak great english and doesnt always understand the scriptures but it doesnt matter because he is learning and is probably one of the nicest and most humble people i have met. he wouldnt hurt a fly. haha. hes been out for about one year. but we have a great time teaching together and just getting to know one another. having unity is so important in teaching and i already feel like were united so thats good. i think we can teach each other a lot so im excited to have a new compainion who loves to work hard.so i dont know if i have told you about an investigator named prabu but he is the guy who rounds up like 30 people and we teach them. we stopped teaching so many people at once because we were having to translat the whole time. anyways we invited prabu and some of his other english speaking friends to come to church and on sunday he came with 9 other guys and they stayed for all the meetings and loved it. i was so excited to have that many people come. we had an appointment cancel 2 days back and were near his home so we thought we would stop by and say hi. when we got there he was playing volleyball with those same guys who came to church so we went over and they told us to come play. we played for like an hour. i had a great time playing and jumping around. i already dont move like i used to. haha it felt weird playing in church clothes but it was really good and we became much closer to all of them and they were talking about how they enjoyed church and they will definately be coming this week. i hope it works out. but were finding many and teaching many every day. some days we go from house to house jsut teaching and teaching. the people have great understanding and love the message and even sometimes say they already know its true but when you invite them to come to church they say well ill be going to my church at that time and my paster will scold me if i dont come. so its hard to see people like that sometimes. but i know the lord has a plan for each of them and will lead us to those elect people. my testimony grows every day seeing how the pople live here and still are so humble. i met a little dwarf girl like 7 or 8 years old. i called her to come over to me and she came and with a big smile said hi my name is tabita in perfect english. i was so surprised and talked to her and her mother for a min and gave them a picture of Jesus and the little girl hugged and kissed it and was so happy. but it touched me to see how happy she was even though she has a disabillity and i hope some day when the gospel comes in native language they can teach her family. but i love it here in kgf. and feel blessed to serve here.anyways im doing great! i love you all. have a good weekelder barr

Another great week in India

so another great week has went bye. i didnt get transfered so thats good. i love it here in KGF. e william got transfered to a different state. he was excited i think cuz he has been in kgf for a long time. he got transfered a week early so it has just been me and e korrayya this week. it has been so fun. he is a great example to me. he is always happy and loves work hard and give service. we both go to bangalore tomorrow to pick our companions. my new companions name is elder satyadi. hes from rajamundry. i had a good experience last night as we were teaching a family. the father asked a question that both elder korrayya and i dint really know the answer to. we are both young missonaries and didnt really know what to say. then all of the sudden the answers started coming. all us missionaries truly are are jsut instruments for the lord if we let him. when we finished elder korrayya said i dunno how we just answered those questions. haha.the festival is finally over so im excited to be able to procelite at night again. im doing great though. sorry i dont have much time today but im so greatful to know the gospel. and happy i get to share it with everyone.love elder barr

Another great week in KGF

hey everyone,hope your all doing good in the snow. haha. beleive me i dont feel bad for any of you. cuz its full on summer here. but the last couple of days it has been nice. it rained for the first time in like 3 months so it felt nice. kgf has been pretty crazy the last couple weeks because of some hindu festivals. we havent been able to go out side till 1 for the last few days because the festival goes all night even into the next day. there is a lot of drinking and they do this thing where they get this colored powder stuff and just throw it all over eachother and all over shops. they will just pick out random people and totally cover them in this die. there doing it right outside of this internet shop so we had to be sneaky to get in here. haha. the work is still going good. we cant find at night cuz of the festival so that makes it a bit hard. but we found some good investigators this week. like 10 kids about my age and they seem very interested so hopefully we can continue to teach all of them. a couple of them were having family problems and i know they can tell how much the gospel blesses families. one kid named michael is really good. we taught the people in that school again and it was a good experience. its hard though because some are hindu some are from all different denominations so trying to make sense to all of them can be hard.next week are transfers so it will be good to be able to have another elder come so we can split the area again and try to focus on specific investigators more. i guess if i even stay in kgf? hahaanyways im doing great. oh and a new non veg resturant opened here so were pretty excited. suchi ruchi is getting old! haha. well have a good week.elder barr

Another great week in India

hey everyone. whats up? well i had another really good week. we had the baptism for vani and i was so excited to see her finally get baptised. and the font was actually full this time. haha. the branch pres baptised her and it was so good to see her and her family be so happy. oh ya and the bike fund got emptied this week also. haha. so we have been riding cycles more because it feels better on e korrayyas leg and i have been teaching him how to jump and do wheelies. haha. so every speed bump he tries to jump and we have a really good time. but this time i was really gonna try and go big. well you could say i went big i guess for a speed bump but i went high enough that when i landed the axel snapped and my peddle went flying. haha. so i had to take it in to get it fixed it was like 100rs! but when e korrayya rode up to me he said " oh man so big that one!" hahai also had a pretty cool experience on saturday. we were finding and we stopped to talk to this guy playing volley ball and asked if he knew any chrisians around and he was like ya i can get a bunch right now. he went and got like 25 kids and we taught them in this small school type thing. they want us to come every saturday and this week the guy said he would get even more. so hopefully we can get some good investigators from that. if not at least we might have planted a seed with the little kids and they will remember the missionaries in the future. kgf is really struggling to have priesthood. so we have be really trying to find brothers. it hasnt went so well until the other night we were at a small shop near our home and i was waiting for my comps to finish buying stuff and i felt like i should go around the corner. so i did and ther were 8 or 9 kids sitting there about 19 or 20yrs and they are very interested and said they wanted to come to our church befor i even invited them. so my prayers are really being answered. we found 16 new investigators last week too so im really excited.im in bangalore right now because we have district meeting tomorrow and we wanted to come early so we could have some good fun on p day. we went bowling! it was funny cuz it was the first time elder korrayya has ever been in his life. its crazy how different the world is.but im doing great! i love it here. i know that what im doing is the only thing i should be doing. i know that the church is true and im learning so many things about this gospel. i have really started to apreciate what joseph smith did for the church and i love learning about him. i got to watch a video from some talk pres monson gave and i felt the spirit so strong. i feel so lucky to know that there is a living prophet. anyways i hope all is well back home. thanks for everyones support and prayerslove elder barr