Tie burning and a Facebook consult

Hey y'all 

This was my last week with G and it was good. Imma miss him but he's getting transferred to a cool area and I'm getting a new comp who I like so all is well. 

This week we hit G's 6 month mark on the mission so as tradition, we burnt a tie of his, but for some reason we could not get it to stay lit. I eventually found some roach killer in the custodians closet and that worked pretty well. We're all gonna get cancer from inhaling stuff meant to kill a bug that can survive a nuclear fallout, but we got his tie on fire so it was worth it. 

We've also started doing a lot of service at this horse ranch which is super awesome. One of my chores is walking the horse around the block and I always take the long way and look like a freaking royal prince riding my steed through the neighborhood. It really is a cool place to give service and I also get to learn a lot about horses.

I've really been blessed to be able to teach the Gold family and to see the excitement they have for the gospel. Friday we were able to eat breakfast with our soon-to-be convert Andrew Gold at Facebook. That place is like Disneyland. The food is all free and it's super bomb and has definitely been one of the better breakfasts I've had on my mission. He is planning on being baptized at the end of this month with his family, so most the talk at the table was him telling us how we should be using this modern technology to help with missionary work and how he wants to help us really badly, so it was a pretty nice convo.

Sunday we had Easter dinner at the Budges house (the one with the freaking slide in it) and they invited the Golds and it was a super fun night and a great way to celebrate Easter.

We did have a wild goose chase incident this week. A homeless man stole Elder Finau's ipad in Mountain View. We were able to track it down and found it way on the other side of Freemont.   And - check out the missing dog sign picture - don't see $3,500 rewards for missing anything in High Point!

Hope you all had a great Easter - I loved my Easter basket - thanks mom.

Love ya,

Elder Barker

Elder Gartside burning his tie at 6 months out

A bike crash, eating horse and a whole family is getting baptized!

Hey,

This week was kinda wild. I thought it was a good idea to try and only
use our bikes this week, not use the car at all. This way we would see
a lot more people and in turn we would talk to a lot more people. Well,
we started Tuesday and it was going super well. Then right before
dinner, I was just cruising down a side walk, without a care in the
world, not paying attention, and the handlebar clipped a pole. My front
wheel did a 180 and I did a front flip over the front of the bike. I
don't know if you've ever seen someone my size do a front flip, but
it's pretty impressive. Apparently behind me G thought it was
impressive too, cause he was watching me air borne and forgot how to
use his brakes and ran over my bike, making him wreck too. If it
wasn't bad enough, my favorite pair of slacks had holes in them. We
had to be at our dinner in 30 minutes and it was way out in Los Altos
hills. You may have never been there before, but from the name I think
you can tell it wasn't a fun bike ride after I just wrecked and my
back wheel was super bent and my rear brakes didn't work 😅.

Other than that the week was pretty chill. We had interviews with the Mellas
and that was good. They challenged every single area in the mission
to get at least one baptism in April or May. This won't be an
issue for us because we set a baptismal date with the Gold family for
the end of this month. 3 of them are being baptized and their youngest
daughter Meredith will be baptized when she turns 8. This family is awesome
and we are really stoked for them. To top it off, it's literally
the first convert baptism the Eagle Park Ward has ever had so it's
pretty cool...maybe some of the members will be cooler after that too. 

We did do some service at Camp Lehi - not the greatest weather conditions and
it involved a lot of clearing trees and brush. Most everyone stopped before we were
done, but mom, you'd be proud of me, I kept working even after they stopped.

Oh and I ate a horse this week....well, at least part of a horse.

That's all

Love ya,

Elder Barker

mmmmmm - Chick - fillet!

Eating horse

General Conference and a Taco Bell run

Hi

This week was super exciting because that cyst I had right before I left came back! It's not as big so no surgery is needed now. I got a blessing so I'm confident I'll be ok. This week we helped someone move and fa missionary in our apartment got an electric guitar as a gift from the move. Needless to say I have gotten little sleep since then. 

General conference was this weekend and that's always a super good weekend for missionaries. We not only get spiritually fed, but we get temporally fed well too. I ate in the biggest house I've ever been to in my life. It was in Los Altos Hills and was ridiculous. The pictures just don't do it justice.  The people who fed us were as nice as their house.

Mom, I know you always ask us what our favorite conference talk was and why, so...my favorite session of conference was the priesthood session but I think my favorite talk was Elder Nelson's and his discussion of the Atonement and the importance of recognizing that it was the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that it was more than an event, it was truly a sacrifice by Jesus Christ. Maybe I'll give you more information about other talks I like after I re-read them this week in my study time.

One night this week we got super hungry right before curfew so we biked to Taco Bell as a district and went through the drive through on our bikes. The window guy thought we were all high cause we were wearing sunglasses and it was dark outside. They actually tried to deny us service. We ended up convincing him
that we really had money and were really hungry and in a hurry so he finally did his job and took our order. 


Also the weather is back to being perfect everyday so I plan on taking a nap outside today which I'm really stoked for. Also it will be nice and warm when people ignore us on the streets now.

Hope you have a good week,
Elder Barker

House where we watched a session of Conference and had a great meal

Watching General Conference

The Gold Family

Taco Bell run