Elder Kaden Barlow

 

 

Elder Barlow's MTC District

Elder Barlow with President and Sister Freestone

 

 

 

Kaden left last Wednesday morning and flew to the Dominican Republic where he is attending the MTC there.  Here are some excerpts from his letter this week.

 

The food here is great! We have fruit juice to drink here at every meal and the Mangos and Pina are great. Sometimes I have no idea what we are eating but I just go with it and hope that I don’t get sick. The only thing that I haven't liked are the plantains and we only eat those like everyday so it’s whatever :)

The weather here is well... HOT all the time!! I have yet to see it rain. We have an hour outside everyday and I’m finally adjusting and I don't sweat as much. It’s really fun to play bball and soccer here even though pretty much everyone can kick my butt (at soccer anyway, basketball a little less) We actually go outside a lot more than I thought. Just to walk around the temple and stuff. I had a cockroach land on my head and that was pretty fun!

There are about 30 American missionaries that came down with us but there are two districts of Haitian elders here and we are getting a bunch of Latinos this next week so basically everything is translated in to three languages.

Every lesson from day one has been in Spanish and I’m definitely improving. I can understand almost all of what people are saying as long as they speak reallly really slow.... so actually I’m not that great but hey better than most. ;)

 

My companion is Elder Foote from Kaysville and I have met him before so that was really great. He doesn't talk much but we get along. There are 8 People in our district... actually now there are seven. We had a companionship of sisters in our district but one of them kept passing out randomly and having seizures in the middle of class so they obviously sent her home for medical reasons just yesterday actually. So the other Hermana in our district is companions with us and the other sisters in another district. Which is pretty nice because she speaks good Spanish and when she cries all the teachers (who are our fake investigators) suddenly are a lot more interested in what we have to say ;)

 

We taught our first lesson three days in and so that was really crazy. I did most of the talking and it went ok... actually it didn't. The older district pretending to be our investigator totally shut us down and it was really frustrating. My companion started crying a little and they stopped and gave us a great pep talk. I love those Elders. They taught me that when Joseph Smith had the first vision he only had his testimony to rely on and likewise sometimes that’s all we have too. When a lesson goes bad, just bear your testimony. The spirit was so strong and I have really grown to lookup to these elders!

 

Sundays are the best! We get Pizza and Ice cream for dinner and it really is the most relaxing day. I played a solo in sacrament meeting on Sunday. I played "If you could Hie to Kolob." The damper pedal on the piano doesn't work so I made do but it really brought in the spirit. There are actually a lot of guys here that can play. There is a church history library room here with a baby grand so sometimes me and my companion sneak in and play... I’m not sure if we are allowed in there but we go in there anyway ;)

 

Talk to you next week!! :)

Kaden