To Obey is Better Than to Sacrifice

To answer your questions...Mom: girl in tagalog is babae (pronounced bah bah eh) and boy is lalake (prounounced la la key). Well Im doing really good. I liked the pictures Lou, so we have a baptism on the 16th. Which is really exciting. The dad was baptized in the eighties. We found him and he came back to church with his family, so all the rest now will be baptized. President Monahan did something that shocked me the other day. He repealed a rule after adding a whole bunch. We can now email to any girl outside of mission boundaries legally. President has been hard on obedience, but one scripture that he shared to us was great. I think you'll find it in  1 samuel 15:8? To obey is better than to sacrifice. A lot of sins have been committed with good intentions, so we need to be careful and ask ourselves who we're serving. The human mind is an interesting thing. A man can justify even murder and reject the sign of the holy ghost if he fights against it. Dad if your up for some reading then read "day of defense" haha. or maybe you already have. I have been working with the ward to start being more reverent in sacrament. I wish we were allowed to film sacrament in our ward and watch it, or who knows maybe the people in zion are just as equally irreverent and apathetic to the sacrament and their home and visiting teaching. Bishop Andrews emailed me again. He understands that once you have been called to be a bishop youre always a bishop. He's awesome. Well we had apartment checks the other day. That's always fun haha. Mom I'm glad youre safe. I have moments like that too where i feel the spirit guide me away from people who want to harm me or from dangerous situations. Always be worthy of the spirit. Like the leper that returned to jesus ..give thanks! I sure will. The one thing i do every night is prayer for everyone of you. I love you all. Read your scriptures :)

Love elder barney

Had a Great Week!

Well i have had a great week. They just called the new baguio mission president. He is from cebu. He is a filipino so who knows where i will be assigned. So yeah were really working with the parayaoan family their a family of eight. They are the poorest people i have ever met, but they are very very happy. President Monahan has a new focus for the missionaries and we have had some fun experiences this week. He wants us to preach by the way (mga may kotse) to the people that have cars. We need leaders and people who arent afraid to speak. It's sad but poverty among the members is hurting growth. So we try to teach to people that have cars and rich but their hard to find because only few people can afford a car. We found out the vice mayor was baptized a while back. His brother is the mayor and his dad was the ex mayor who was gunned down in the san carlos plaze several years ago. His name is "bogs". We found his house it looked like a drug cartel compound in a james bond movie. The fence was so high. Luckily a guy came out with one of the workers and let us in. No big deal through the garage. We knocked on a big door and a man came open it up and let us in to a courtyard thing with a bunch of guys watching some movie. They were all his bodyguards and there was a big desk. They just let us in. I guess they figured the mormon missionaries are the last people to be carrying a gun with them. They said he was taking a shower and he would be with us shortly. Then we just sat there smiling at all the body guards and then they brought out soda and food. It was funny. Then he came out. He was the biggest filipino i have ever seen and by biggest i mean fattest. He was way nice and said he still believes but i could tell he is worried about coming back to church because of his political career. But he said after the election he might come or maybe just one time before the election. We gave him a book of mormon and he gave us his number. I also met the legendary Bishop Zafra here in the area. He is like the pioneer here in pangasinan. ex u.s. air force. He was sick and saw us walking and wanted us to give him a blessing. He usually isnt there because he is always away on different assignments from the church. He is like best friends with Elder Oaks. Lexi's letter was great haha. I felt really out of touch with understanding the lingo of valley girls. My companion has a cavity so we're going to the dentist later i dont think I'm going to open my mouth for her but she is a member who knows. I'm sorry i dont have any pictures for today but i'll get around to it haha. ~Elder Barney