19 Sept 2011

Family,

This week was our trip to Guam, and it was so good to see my old investigators and all the missionaries. President Stevenson, the Area President came, and he spoke to us about some fundamentals of missionary work: hard work, obedience, and testimony, or HOT. Anyway, it was really good. But as usual, it's good to be back. We found out what would be happening with the transfer on Wednesday night, just before we left, and the news was pretty expected. No changes in Palau this time around. So I'll stay with Elder Rokodakunivosa in Ngaraard.

I have good news! The Branch President finally gave us the go ahead to start having church this next Sunday. Now we don't really have any excuse to not have any investigators at sacrament meeting. I think the majority of the lesson that we'll teach this week will be about keeping the sabbath day holy, just to prepare.

We had a really good experience with one of our investigators this week. His name is Adriano, and he's preparing to be baptized in October. He's a pretty rough guy, but he's slowly making changes. He's been struggling to read from the Book of Mormon, and he doesn't understand that he's not going to be baptized if he's not reading. We showed up to our lesson and he basically told us, before we could even say anything, that we better not ask him to read again, because he doesn't need to, he's just going to prepare himself and be baptized - besides, he's too busy to read. So I was praying to know what we needed to share and as we began, we started with the requirements for baptism in D&C 20:37 and I asked the member that was with us to share thoughts about it. As he did I said a quick prayer to myself and as soon as I looked up, Adriano asked to make a comment. He talked about feelings of guilt for past sins and forgiveness and all these things, which gave us a perfect chance to talk about baptism and the Atonement, and the feelings of peace as we read from the Book of Mormon and how it is a testament of the Savior. He was able to see how important it was for him to read, and he committed to do so. We haven't been back yet, so I don't know if he actually did, but it was a very spiritual lesson for me nonetheless.

I love you guys, I'll let you know how things work with the basic unit.

Love,

Elder Barlow