The Elder Barr Blog

How are you doing today? It was great to hear from you. Cabos sounds great as always. I can’t quite picture the water coming up to the retaining wall. That must have been an impressive sight. It was probably nice to spend a day exclusively related to relaxation.

This week has been really good. We hit “the standard” last week for lessons - 13 investigator lessons, 5 lessons to investigators w/ a member present, and 7 lessons to members - either active or less active, + 3 investigators at church. So, that was really nice. President Boren called to congratulate us. We are going to try to hit the standard every week.

S*****, a Peruvian investigator we have, is getting baptized on Saturday. Her husband, J***, wants to get baptized, but he works too much and can’t devote time to go to church. Hopefully we can get S***** to get him to change his schedule. That would be good. S***** is from Iquitos, which sounds like a really interesting place. Didn’t David and Uncle Raul go there a few years ago.

We have another Peruvian couple, R*** and R*****, and they will get baptized as soon as they can get married. The problem is, R*** was married in Peru to a different man and she for some reason can’t arrange or afford the divorce. Also, she is 8 months pregnant so she really can’t go out and do things.

As for English investigators, we have B** and L***. B** is a Jewish man, and he is fully converted to the gospel. He is a young attorney. His wife, L***, is also an attorney, and she is trying to gain a testimony of President Hinckley, and some of the church doctrines regarding the gender roles of men and women. She said she came from a very liberal background, and the idea of a fundamental difference between men and women was hard for her to stomach. She is trying. I am going to write L**** N****** today and see if she would give L*** a call. I told L*** about her and she is excited to hear from her. L**** wants to believe, and she just needs to hear the gospel from a woman’s point of view. Mom, maybe you could write her a letter as well.

So, we have been doing a lot of finding lately - mostly tracting. It is hard to balance the English and the Spanish work, because Latinos are so much more receptive, on average, than white people. However, we are confident that we can “crack open” Danbury. There is so much potential here, as there are a lot of young married couples with 1 or 2 kids, which is exactly what we are looking for.

Spanish work is going well here, but the major issue is that many of them are here illegally. Although we are allowed to baptized illegal immigrants if they feel they are worthy, it is just hard to see how they have to live their lives. It would be sad to be living in US, yet be afraid to call 911 if there is a medical emergency, or crime, or something. Also, a lot of them work A LOT and it is hard for them to find time for things, since they work “cash only” jobs and they really don’t have the same workers rights that legal workers enjoy.

The ward here is great. The weather is good. The work is going well. No real problems or anything to report. T** sent me a 5.1 megapixel hp digital camera that takes SD cards. He sent me a handful of cards as well. I am going to write him a thank you note today. Also, R** sent me a letter but I can’t read it. So, please let him know. I know it is hard to explain, but those are the rules.

Alright, I better go. Thank you so much for everything. I’ll write you more by hand.
See you later. I love you all so much.
Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

All is well in CN. Sorry for the lack of communication over the last few weeks. I’ll make this a good letter.

First, thank you so much for the Costco card and $$. I really appreciate it. We are going to go there today to do our shopping. By the way, the computer you are building sounds really nice. I am at the apple store in the danbury mall, on a mac mini with a 20 inch apple cinema display. It is pretty nice. I’m not converted to apple yet, but they are pretty nice.

So, Danbury is nice. It is a mix of white, hispanic, and Brazilian. Elder Hedelius and I are a zebra companionship, so we work in both English and Spanish. So, I have been reading the book of Mormon in Spanish and also listening to the Book of Mormon audicassettes that my comp. has. My understanding is pretty good, and I need to work on speaking spanish more.

The Danbury ward is really good, with both English and Spanish members. Most of the meetings are translated using the church translation equiptment (microphones, headphones, radios, etc). Elder Hedelius and I got to sit in on relief society because he was translating the lesson for a spanish member. The lesson was “experiencing happiness in marriage". I took notes, since I probably won’t be a witness to that particular lesson in that particular class ever again.

There are a lot of nice trees in Danbury. We live in part of a house, owned by a member. We have a deck, a lake behind the house, and a track nearby for jogging. There is also the potential for hikes behind the lake. The stars are out at night, and it is nice. We have a silver Mazda 3 (2004) that I drive, although sometimes we take the bikes and then walk around town.

So, things have been great. We had dinner yesterday, with 2 member families as part of a family home evening. Both families were exclusively Spanish speaking. One was Ecuadorian and one was Mexican. It was great. There are also a handful of Hasidic Jews in the area. I saw 2 this morning at the post office when I picked up the package. Hopefully we’ll figure out a way to get some good discussions with them.

Our investigators are great. We have a Peruvian man and woman (from Iquitos) that are getting baptized. Mom, maybe you could write them a congrats letter. We also have B** and L***, a Jewish man and his wife, who are getting baptized in October. We have been doing a lot of tracting and street contacting to build up our investigator pool. In 2 weeks, W.S.C.U. starts their fall sessions, and we are going to prepare a display table and see if we can attract some attention over there. W.S.C.U. stands for Western Conn. State University, and the campus is nice, and located in the middle of Danbury.

Mom, to answer your question about Greenwich, it is not in my area, but it is in my zone. Greenwich is a really rich area. Greenwich and New Canaan are among the most wealthy cities of the US. One guy there, Dave N., owns JetBlue airlines. The stake pres. is the CFO of MasterCard.

So, all is going well. I’ll write some more letters today. I hope you have a great time in Mexico. Take care and have a great time. Thank you so much for the great letters and the package!!!
I love you all very much!!!!
Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

It was great to hear from you Dad. I am currently in a Mac store on an iMac G5 in a mall in Danbury, CT. It is a really cool place. It is nice, quiet, clean. Elder Hedilius is my companion. He is really cool. He is from UT, and speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese. We are a “zebra” companionship, so we will be working in both English and Spanish. Anyway, I am really looking forward to work here. By the way, we are in a co-seniorship, meaning we are both “senior companions", which is cool.

Oh, before I forget, could you have mom send me a costco card. We have a costco in our area in it would be great to take advantage of it. Also, I for some reason had a lot of expenses this month, and I would really appreciate some $$, or I will have to use my personal funds for groceries. So, if you could send some extra money, that would be wonderful.

I got some pictures developed from a disposable camera, and I’ll send you some soon.

This week was good. Full of interesting experiences. A few days ago, Elder Hansen and I were walking home at night (we were on a split), and this car with 3 20-22 y.o. Italian girls came up to us and starting flirting with us. We directed the conversation to the gospel, explained who we were and gave them pass-along-cards, and that was that. It was funny, and somewhat awkward.

I feel good about how I left the Bronx. Plus, it is in the hands of great members and missionaries. We held a potluck to honor the recent converts and that went really well.

Well, I better get going. I’ll try to write more next week, once I get settled. There are only 2 hours of p-day time left and I need to get unpacked and ready to go by 6. It will be a lot of fun. Plus, I need to go buy a new pillow. I didn’t like the old one and left it in the Bronx.

So, if you could send a COSTCO card, that would be wonderful to have by next p-day. And also some extra cash would be great. There have been a lot of expenses this month, as I said. And let me know what is up with the camera situation.

Thank you so much for everything. Please say hi to everybody for me.
Take care!

Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

Sorry for the extreme shortage of email on my part. I got a lot of mail from you all today and I really appreciate it. We went to the temple today, most of the zone, and it was really awesome. We got to go through a session and then act as stand ins for a several sealing sessions (stand ins for children). It was really awesome and we had a good time. On the way there, we took a bus through central park, which was pretty nice.

…

Sorry, there won’t be any snail mail this week. I’m outta time.

I love you all very much.
Love,
Elder Barr