The Elder Barr Blog

Thanks for the great email. This has been an intense week.

First of all, the Boren’s time is really running out. Their house is packed. The last of the mission conferences happened Monday and Tuesday. They will be out of here before we all know it. The Searle’s get here on the 30 of June, and the Boren’s are gone on the 1st of July. President Searle will have about 1 week to do interview every single missionary, and do transfers before the end of the next cycle.

So, this week has been a lot of ups and downs. As always, we are looking for some good people to teach. We have been doing a lot of street contacting, tracting, and member work, trying to find some quality investigators. We have a few people that we were working with, and one, A____, who we thought was going to be really good, but nothing is working out so far.

Apparently, that is the trend in the mission. So, President Boren challenged each of us to pray with our companions in order to find a “new way” to work the area. I have definately been pondering that for a while, since White Plains/Scarsdale is a very unique area and certainly the techniques of the Bronx and Danbury may not apply. So, I’ll be thinking and praying of a new way to do missionary work here. Any suggestions would definately be appreciated.

Andy, I want to address Running Start vs. Eastlake. I honestly think that Running Start would look better on an application vs. AP classes, since Running Start is actual college class (the teachers don’t know if you are a RS student or not). Also, AP classes are college level, but not college pace, which makes a difference. For example, 12 weeks of Math 124 is equivalent to (1 year of AP Calc 1 + Passing the AP Test), so, in my opinion AP looks better. It will be interesting, you are catching up to me in education. If you can, try to graduate BCC with an Associates degree. That will open a lot of doors for you. That would be my advice anyway.

So, lets see, we worked hard this week and none of our investigators came to church. That was a little bit of a bummer, but it happens. As I said, we are really trying to find high quality investigators - people who will come to church without too much prodding, and who are actively investigating the church.

I am thinking of some way to hold an open religious seminar or forum and how to advertise it here in Scarsdale and White Plains. We could hold it at the church, and even invite people from the local churches and synagoges. That would be fun. I’m not sure how successful it would be.

I went on a split yesterday with Elder Hinds in his area, Mount Vernon. He has been out almost a cycle now, and his companion, Elder Johnson, is going home. So, we did the spilit and I let him direct everything, to see if he had a good handle on the area. He did. Elder Hinds is pretty special, and he is kind of in his own world sometimes, but he has what it takes to be a good missionary, and I have faith that he will develop well.

The weather has been pretty good here lately, hovering around 70 degrees. It rains hard when it rains, but it hasn’t been too bad this week. Just one or two bad days.

On Saturday, we helped the Yonkers missionaries tract in their area. I was with Elder Bostwick, and we found some good people. A young Ukrainian man who was interested in learning more about the church, and learning English. Also, a Jordanian Catholic who had been an investigator several years before. Hopefully the Yonkers Elders can help them to progress.

It was so great to talk to everybody on Mother’s day. It is interesting all the things that are happening in the ward. Our ward is a great ward though. The ward here is really good. It is interesting, because there is a huge amount of economic diversity in the ward. There is a very high upper class - wall street business men, investment bankers, etc, and then there are some poorer people who live in Yonkers. There are a handful you young student families, in some form of higher education (medical, legal, etc). We are trying to focus on finding people like them, young families that are just starting out. So, to do that, it would be best to work with those members and find out who their neighbors and friends are. That has been one of our approches. We have also been working with the Scarsdale members, and the White Plains members that we know. Hopefully a referral will come soon. We just have to work and pray for it.

Alright, I better get going. Dad, thank you so much for the check. I really appreciate it. I will deposit it today. And we have had some good meals in the last few days so that is good. I hope you have a great time in Scotland and England. It must be cool to see all the old buildings and stuff. However, it will be nice to be home.

Alright, I love you so much. I’m off to go look in to some college stuff.
Please take care. Be careful. I love you all with all my heart.

Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

Today was such a busy day.

First of all, it was great to be able to talk to you on Sunday. It was amazing that this was the thrid phone call, and that this upcoming general conference will be my last general conference as a missionary. That is interesting to think about. The time has definately gone so quickly.

Today, we went to the Manhattan Temple. It was great. I loved it, and I hadn’t been there in a long time. As a missionary, it takes a long time to get there since we aren’t allowed to drive to Manhattan. We ended up getting a ride from a senior sister, Sister Browne, to the Bronx. From there we to the subway down to 66th St. I loved the Temple, but I am not a big fan of the city. It is so dirty and congested. There is a lot of degeneracy there. To live there, or raise a family there, would be very difficult. I know I have made a commitment to myself to never live there. It is so weird to think that so much money and influence and thought rotate around that island. It is too much for me.

Mom, thanks for the advice on the food. I will talk to President about it when I get a chance. I will have to do canned beans, since they are faster than other beans. So, that will have to do for a while. At least, until I figure out how to cook faster. We only are allowed to have a 1 hour lunch break, so whatever has to happen has to happen in that amount of time.

The last few days have been pretty good. We have this new investigator, A____, from Brazil. He came to church for the first time on Sunday, and he really liked it. His friend, I_____, got baptized on Sunday, and now A____ wants to be taught and baptized too. We took him to the B_______’s house last night, and it was really a good meeting. We talked about a lot of good things. He had a lot of great questions about the Book of Mormon, and we were able to help him resolve some of those questions. He really wants to know how to change his life to be more like the life of the Savior. That has been his quest, and now that he has the Book of Mormon, he can know more of the Savior’s teachings and be able to follow them.

Before I forget, I didn’t get any picture or article from Dad. Hopefully I will soon. I got a great package from the YW of the ward. I haven’t get a chance to look through it too much but I read some of the cards and they were really nice. Dad, it sounds great about your trip. I am looking forward to some postcards. I have a good picture I took of me in Manhattan, and it is from the Temple, and you can see Times Square in the distance. You’ll like it. I’ll send it soon.

So, things are going great. With less responsibility, there is definately less stress, which will allow me to concentrate on other things, like teaching, baptizing, and day-to-day life things like maintaining a clean apartment.

Well, I am running late, so I better go. I am going to ask a member to do my laundry, since there are only 2 machines in our apt. building, and they were in use and we are just flat out of time.

Alright. I love you all so much. I know that this work is true. Please be careful. I will be too.

Love,

Elder Stephen J. Barr

Things are going much better this week, in terms of stress. Actually President Boren wrote me a letter thanking me for all the work I have been doing, and apologized for putting too much pressure on me.

There is still a lot to do, but I am learning better on how to manage it. I definately am not the extremist where going without food is some kind of sacrifice. Fasting once a month is more than enough for me. It is sad, because some missionaries like to be “extreme", and it is really just prideful showmanship combined with ignorance if you ask me. For example, you aren’t supposed to fast every other day, and yet some missionaries ask for permission to fast often. The 12 Apostles said you CANNOT fast more than once as a missionary. Only if there is some special circumstance you can do an occasional extra fast, but that is it. Anyway, I think people just make extreme statements to be heard. Sometimes it is just misguided genuine dedication, but there isn’t.

Anyway, we got some good meals this week. Elder Holland was in town for the Westchester Stake conference, and it was really good. The Saturday evening session was down in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, and it was great. We brough this lady and her 3 kids. The youngest was 5, and said “I’m a Mormon princess” as her introduction. It was good.

On Sunday morning, we drove up to Yorktown, and had the other session of Stake conference with Elder Holland. Again, the remarks were good. Afterwards, we went to the Dargers, and active member family, for lunch. They are really cool, and all of the kids are really sharp and fast-paced. The whole family is fast paced. It was a good visit. We shared a Mother’s Day message.

We also went to the B______’s, our WML, for dinner. It was good. The hardest part of getting a good diet is fruits and veggies. It just takes so long to prepare veggies. I got a bag of frozen vegs from Costco so I am going to try to eat 1 bowl of them every day. About the budget, it is honestly hard to get good QUALITY food, so it is a tradeoff between time, quality, and quantity. I’ll try to do the best I can. We are going to go buy some fresh fruit today.

Another cool thing that happened yesterday. I went on a split with Elder Hind’s, a new missionary from Jamaica. He is cool. He dosen’t have a good grasp of the doctrine yet…at least it is not organized in his mind in a teachable way, but he is making a lot of progress. He is good at talking to people in a way that gets their attention but is very non-threatening, which is a hard balance to achieve. I know I’m still working on talking to people on the street. Anyway, I did street contact this one young lady, and introduced her to the church and gave her a pamphlet. I got her name and #, and I called her that night when we got home. She said that she had read it twice and really liked it. We had a conversation on the phone for a while, and she asked a bunch of questions, and told me some stuff about her life, that she was from a family that was half Jewish and half Catholic, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do, but that she wanted to be Christian but wasn’t sure what type. She asked if becoming Mormon would be the best thing to do, and I said that I know that it was right. We have an appointment coming up with her soon.

So, I’m glad to hear that things are going so well at home. Andy, congrats on driving alone. And also congrats on your internship. I think that you can learn a lot. Just don’t stay in Seattle too late. The more time you spend on the street, the more you realized how many WEIRD things and WEIRD people are out there. A lot more than I ever realized before. Of course there are a lot of good, decent people, but there are a lot of weird ones as well.

Bianca, that food menu is making me drool. That sounds sooooo good. Grace, that waterbrook house sounds cool, but expensive. Is it big? That is a lot of money. You could build a pretty cool house for the cost of that one. Say hi to Tina also. I’ll try to send some letters and pictures today.

Alright, well I better get going. Today should be a good day. I had a good sandwich from my favorite deli. The Calabrese, from Giovanni’s. It is provolone, sopresatta, and an egg on an everything bagel, although today I had it on a hero. It was good. I sure will miss Italian deli’s when I leave NY. There is no where else you can get a good sandwich and some good cannoli so good and so fast and so cheap.

Alright, I need to be going. I love you all so much. The work here is going great. We have been finding a lot of new people who look like they will progress. We have an appointment with a Peruvian family in a few days. I will let you know how that goes. We are also working with a great part-member family, and I know good things will come of that as well.

Alright, gotta go. Take care. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

Thanks for the great email. It was good to be able to hear about all the things that are going on at home.

So this week was really interesting. There is so much to tell.

You may of heard, there was a missionary who got hit by a car in Argentina and died. His name is Matt Turley. He is from the Newtown, CT, ward. Many of the Danbury ward people (where I was a few months ago) were part of the Newtown ward before the split. Anyway, I personally knew the Turley’s, and it was a really hard thing for them. The funeral was on Saturday, and about 50 missionaries from all over the mission gathered togeter to sing “Called to Serve” as one of the final musical numbers in the funeral. Afterwards, the missionaries escorted the casket to the car. It was quite an emotional even. I know I shed more than a few tears. I had been to the Turley’s house on a split, and they are great people. The chalpel was completely full, and the overflow as well. They got a lot of support form all the people in the area, which was good.

A general authority, Elder Staheli from the Seventy, spoke at the funeral. He made some really good remarks. Bishop Oaks and President Crittenden also spoke. President Crittenden made the comment, “I cannot remember a sadder week of my life than this has been.” It really was a sad event.

So, that was most of Saturday. It was nice to see some people up in Danbury. I really love the wards there. They are such great people.

Also, another big event. You may have heard of the immigration issue, and the strike that has been going on. The Hispanic and Brazilian immigrants decided to stike, to show how needed they are in the community. It is to display anger at the new law which makes it easier for police officers to initiate a deportation process. It was interesting. The strike was on Monday. On that day, I was on a split with Elder Johnson, my district leader, who just got released as AP a few weeks ago. I had some questions to ask him regarding how to lead my jr. companion, and some other things. Anyway, we were planning to go to this GREAT Brazilian restaurant called Patamina’s. They have these AWESOME sandwiches there. Anyway, we get there. CLOSED. The sign said, in Portuguese, “Closed for a noble and just cause. You, IMMIGRANTS!” It was disappointing. We tried to find something to eat, and discovered that all the Brazilian places were closed. We went to Subway instead, and it was good, but nothing like a Patafranga at Patamina’s. So, on Monday, we definately needed them. It would be hard to get some decent food in New York without involving an immigrant. Not to get too political, but that is what we concluded as we ate our Subway sandwiches.

Monday was also interesting in that my heart started acting up. Every 5 or 6 beats it would do this giant BEAT. I called Sister Boren, and she referred me to Dr. Gray. Dr. Gray told me that it sometimes your internal pacemaker gets messed up, and your heart skips a beat every couple beats, and then does a big one to catch up. It isn’t unhealthy to be in that condition, but it sure was annoying. It went away yesterday, which was nice. He said that sometimes big meals or stress brings it on. I have had a lot of stress lately, and the subway was a big meal. So, I took a good break, went to Trader Joe’s and bought a good meal, and had the first good lunch I had had in a while.

Speaking of dinners. It is a mission rule that we can’t eat with a member unless it is before 5:00pm or we have an investigator present at the meal. So, we usually only get fed on Sunday’s, if at all. We have 1 solid investigator, Robert, but he is working more and more (which is good), but since he is busy, we really can’t arrange meals anymore. It is a hard rule. The idea is that we have prime tracting time (from 5-7) open, and not fill it with time with active members. Again, it is a hard rule. You really have to make an effort to get a good meal in. That is what the mission is like. You have to live a balanced life, and yet do things that are nearly impossible and make it look easy. It is hard.

Anyway, today we went shopping at Costco. It was good but the apartment is a disaster. I will spend the rest of the p-day cleaning it. Again, it is hard to find time to do anything. I think what I will do is get a cheap tape recorder, and record my letters, and send a tape every week. Also, about the pictures. I will try to burn a CD to send them. I wasn’t sure if you sent me an extra memory card or not. I’ll have to double check the box.

Andy, that job with Medronic Physic-Control sounds really interesting. That is a field that I think that we could be involved in together. Some kind of biomedical engineering. At BYU, they have a computer science with bioinformatics emphasis, which is using the computer to analyze DNA, and other applications. I think that that would be interesting. I want to see if I can do that at the UW, or maybe BYU. I would rather the UW. Dad, can you see what the process would be like for re-admission to the UW, and what programs they have under computer science/bioinformatics. That would be really cool.

Tina, thanks for writing back about that neighborhood. I think that that would be another great idea for a job that we as a family could do. It would be pretty easy. Design the neighborhood. Buy the land. Build the houses. Put the up for sale. It would be fun. If you would like to research that more, that would be cool. That walk with Maggie sounds cool. I do miss the nice fresh air of Seattle.

Bianca, congrats on winning the 400. I know it was hard competition, and that there were runners on your tail the whole time, but good job. I’m sure you would have beat anyone that raced you. I’m sure they heard that you signed up, and just gave up, because they knew you would have won. Hey, don’t go telling people I liked Sister Holst. I thought she was cool. But, I really don’t know her that well anyway.

Grace, I like your screen name. Sounds like you. That Chinese food sounds good. So, in your sims, have you built a whole mansion or a couple of them. I drew a cool house the other day, and then we found a house that looked just like it. It was weird.

Alright, I better go. I love you all so much. Mom, thank you so much for the money. There have been a lot of expenses lately.

I love you all so much. I’ll call betwen 6:00-6:30pm on Mother’s day.

Love,
Elder Stephen J. Barr

Its 3:00, and everything is done. That means I can get some real letters out today. I promise they will be postmarked today. Also, I spent a lot of time taking a lot of pictures this week and I want to include them in the letter today. I love my companion. We are trying to speak only Spanish in the apartment.

So, I have a perfect story for the mission report. I’m not sure if you would want to publish it though, since it would be easy for the families to figure out who they are. Sunday was really an interesting day for Elder Cornelio (my new Mexican companion) and I.

[Personal Stories Deleted]

The rest of the week has been pretty good. It was really rainy over the last few days, but now it is pretty nice. It is mid-60’s. Which reminds me. I need a few things. Basically, $$. I went to the doc to look at my hands. He said it was mild exema, and gave me a perscription cream for when they get bad, and told me to use lotion after every wash. That cost me $225. Also, I need some white shirts and ties, and socks as well. I could by them here. That would be easier than shipping. I think I will buy some today as there is a nearby store. So, if you could send some $$, to replenish my funds, that would be very much appreciated. I am down to just a few wearable ties (stains, wear, etc).

Alright, thanks for the great email. I’m glad to here that things are going so well at home. I bet the weather is great. Here it is good too, but the humidity is coming soon. The gas prices have gone up. Oh yeah, Mom, don’t put in Arco. That is horrible gas. You’ll get better milage on BP or some other brand. But not Arco. I would consider that emergency only gas.

Alright, my companion has to do his email, and then I am going to go write some letters and get them in the mail TODAY, along with all the pictures that are on the card at this very moment.

I love you all so much.

And Grace, my letter won’t get there in time, but HAPPPPPPY BIRTHDAY. And remember, I’ll be back before you are 12. Actually, the Sisters that I came out with are going home in mid-July. Crazy huh?

Time files when you are having fun.

I love you all!
Love,
Elder Barr