The Barrow Tribe Burger Blitz

Hey everyone, greetings from the land of Barrow. Just a warning, I am crazy tired and my brain didnt get the memo to wake up yet, so sorry if this letter is a bit lame and/or short. I seriously wish I could just hibernate for a week. But anyways, I'm pretty happy. It's pretty easy to be happy when you don't take everything in life so seriously. Come what may and love.

So, here's this weeks deets:

 

On tuesday, we officially started the legendary Barrow Tribe tradition of......BBQ Blitz!!!!! The Kendal elders came down and we started off our blitz with an all out, homemade burger fest. We had all the essestials: beef, cheese, avacodo, bacon strips, coca cola,knives, crips, buns, bacon strips, spices, music, more beef, more cheese, and bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips (epic meal time voice). The only thing missing was Jack Daniels. Following pics will contain awesomeness.

 

After the BBQ, Elder Diederich and Werner split off, and my fellow Arizonan and I teamed up and hit the streets. We ended up finding a super solid man named Mark, and we had a crazy good lesson on the spot with him. He invited us to sit next to him on his little park bench, and we opened up and expounded the Book of Mormon to him. Mark was incredibly prepared to hear the gospel, so we hope that that desire of his will keep on growing. Let's go Mark.

 

Hardly anyone here are even slightly interested in religion whatsoever...so finding that one person who will actually talk about it is incredibly refreshing.

 

Elder Hamblin and I were able to sneak ourselves to Transfer meeting with our companions, and it was a proper good time. It made me realize how old I was in the mission, especially seeing many of my older missionary friends bear their farewell testimonies. It was good though, I got to meet up and chill the whole time with Elder Caleira. He is still by far my best friend in the mission. Definitely a life-long friend.

 

There are so many new baby-faced missionaries.

 

At the meeting, I met up with my new companion Elder Jenks. Haha oh man...this will be an interesting transfer. He is nice, but such a goober. Just think, socially awkward homeschooled kid from small mormon town Idaho who is a hardcore gamer and writes fantasy books. 6 more weeks here....I can do this.

 

I tested him out though on Saturday by working and walking nearly the entire day on Walney Island. No success whatsoever, but he is willing to work hard, so I can work with that.

 

The Kents are pretty much family. Mum, I hear you and Abi are pretty tight? Cool beans. Convince them to move to Arizona.

 

Tomorrow I finally get to go the Temple!!!!!!! The last time I went was last May, and it's been killing me. I love the temple, and I'm super stoked to finally see the new video. I am looking forward to pondering inside of the celestial room and getting that spiritual boost that I am craving. I have a very strong testimony of the temple, and its truly the house of the Lord.

 

Well everyone, I love you all. Till next time, peace out

 

Elder Goodman

BA HotTuna

 ** Love the "no sideparts" symbol.

Another tenure in Barrow.

 11 months of walking......

Hello everyone! Je t'aime.
Well as you already know, I'm stickin it out in Barrow for another 6 weeks. After the transfer call, I was a bit despondent, but that feeling was quickly replaced with an "alright, lets do this". Lately, I have been praying really hard that I could have more love for the people here. It's taken a bit of time, but the days leading up to the transfer call, I have literally felt more love for the people here...which only added to my thoughts of "yeah, I'm staying another transfer". Haha I was right. Luckily though, I'm happy to keep on living with the good people here. I am getting to understand and love a lot more people here, especially the Kents. The Kents are by far my favorite family in the entire mission, and I just feel at home when we chill there on a Sunday night. They are crazy, and I love them.

I also got some support from President Preston, who personally called me after the transfer calls. Basically, he told me that he needs me in Barrow. This area needs a lot of hard work and a lot of love. I also have the responsibility of helping the senior missionary couple when they get here at the end of February. They need help in getting to know the area and getting to know all the relationships within the ward. With this new insight, and especially in an area where I know I am needed, I am just happy to serve. We will see what new adventures are waiting for me next transfer. My adventure spirit is getting itchy.

Well thats the juicy news, but other than that my week has actually been pretty good. Here's the deets:

We had a good meeting down in Preston, and basically spent all day traveling. Trains are where you find the most interesting people. I think I met a pirate.

IT SNOWED IN BARROW! This week has been freezing, and while we were teaching Connie, it started beating down hail, then barfed down a layer of snow. It was pretty cool.
Oh yeah, Connie is in the hospital. Pray for her.

Since we have only a couple investigators in our teaching pool, we have been having to do some hardcore finding. Finding in the pouring rain all day makes it even more hardcore. People look at us wierd as are dripping wet and standing in their doorways, telling them we have a message about Jesus. No typical success whatsoever, unless you count success as making people laugh. My mentality= Even if people want nothing to do with religion...If I clearly preach the gospel, bear my testimony and leave them with a smile, I feel successful.

We have the best landlord in the entire mission. His name is Ray, and he is crazy and crazy funny. He is the most energetic 67 year old man I have ever met, and always blurts out "Crikey!" or "blimey!". And he also thinks Arizona is a place where everyone has two revolvers strapped to their hips and shoot everyone. Dang right.

I got to explore the coasts near Askam in Furness. Mountains+ocean= my moonrise kingdom.

Well everyone, I love you all. If there is one thing I have learned on my mission, its how to love people. People are what get us through the rough times, and people are what make the happy times even happier. Keep on having adventuers and staying tight with one another, and you cant go wrong.
Till next time, peace out!

Elder Goodman
BA
HotTuna

 Furness Abbey

askam-in-furness

Jedi Warrior B.A.

Guten Tag!! Wie geht's?? (I had a very german week). First off, I love you all. "The sun is shining, the weather is sweet, makes me want to move, my dancing feet". Good old Bob Marley. But anyways, that's pretty much how I feel right now. The sun is brilliant outside, I just read all your lovely words, and I'm happy. Thank you mum for the valentines day delivery. Nutella and bacon. You know me too well. My man-soul is happy.

Randi....BYU Hawaii....seriously??? What the flip. I am so jealous and so stoked for you! You bet your bottom dollar that I am coming to visit you. Take notes from the surfing classes, I am going to be mega rusty and pasty.

 

Well I am still exiled here in Barrow. "Missionary" work has been really slow. Sometimes I just want to karate chop people in the head. Nothing drives me more crazy than close-minded people. We pretty much dropped all of our "investigators" simply because no one was progressing whatsoever....so we are pretty much rebooting the area. Starting from scratch will be hard, but its what this area needs. A lot, a lot of finding. We are getting a senior missionary couple here towards the end of february, so hopefully they will be able to help us and the ward out a bit. We just need somethingnew here, because I am seriously getting burnt out.

 

However, we are still having a good time.

 

First off, Elder Diederich bought companionship knives. Watch out

 

After district meeting last week in Kendal, we got some of the members in Kendal and we played mud football for 2 straight hours. It was so much fun, and by the end of it, everyone was head-to-toe covered in mud and beat up. I dont think I have ever been this sore in my entire mission. So that was super rad, and we went straight into an exchange. My good german friend Elder Werner and I cleaned up and made our journey back to Barrow (2 hour bus ride. Since most of my clothes were muddy, I had to borrow some of his. I basically looked like an elegant chav. Sweatpants and dress shoes. Classy).

 

Together, we taught our german investigator Rita. She is going back to Germany on wednesday, so we taught her as much as possible over our exchange. She had so many crazy questions still, but we could totally see some good progress. We just hope that she hooks up with the missionaries over there. As of now, she still wants to get baptized when she come back to England later this year. Our hopes are high.

 

We did some much needed service for Connie. She had on old house with a ton of junk inside, so we ordered a skip and basically got rid of everything so that she could sell the house. It was fun destroying cabinets and mirrors and such. And, we also found some treasures that she said we could keep, aka lightsabers. Pics included.

 

On Saturday, I got to go down to Lancaster for a District Leader's Council meeting. Basically what I learned from it...most of the leaders in the mission right now are going home in the summer...the same time the new mission president is coming. Which means, a lot of these leaders are going to be released so that younger missionaries will have an earlier start and be more experienced leaders for the new mission president. So...I will either be released, or become Zone Leader...which I want no part of whatsoever. I like being the district leader/foot-soldier. I have avoided mission drama most of my mission so far...and being Zone Leader would put me in the dead heat of it all, especially in this mission. Please pray for me...that I can stay below the radar. Thank you

 

In a ward with only 25-35 regular people, including children, you earn the priviledge of speaking nearly every other Sunday. It's weird, because I actually enjoy it. It helps my focus of "It is true intelligence for a man to take a subject that is grand and mysterious in itself, and unfold and simplify it so that a child can understand it". Especially with a ward that has the intelliengce level of a squirrel, it is really good practice.

 

Well everyone, I love you. Keep on having adventures, everyday if you can. This life is not meant to be boring.

Till next time, peace out.

 

Elder Bryant Goodman

BA

HotTuna

 

p.s. wisdom from President Preston from our recent health training

 

Chocolate comes from cocoa

Which comes out of tree

That makes it a plant

Therefore, chocolate counts as salad

 

Jedi Warriors:

Companionship knives: A blanket from Heather, Tie and Beanie from Mom

 

The Elements were having a hormone disorder.

Hello all my lovely people. Greetings from the Furness peninsula. I love you all. This week, I think the elements were having a hormone disorder. Seriously, the wind, rain, hail and psuedo-snow never stopped. It makes missionary life interesting. I could go on and on about the weather, but I don't want to fall into the typical Englishman stereotype. So anyways, even though I want to get out and move on from this flippin area, I am happy. Sometimes we have to choose to be happy. That's ok though, it builds character.

 

This week's deets:

 

Monday was a pretty good birthday. We traveled out to Cartmel and got the famous sticky toffee pudding....and its easily in my top 3 favorite desserts ever. It was way good. The little cottage/restaurant that it was in was pretty rad too. The second story floor was totally lop-sided and slanted, and the walls were far from straight, and the natural wood beams were showing, so it had this really cool vintage, harry potter vibe to it. I will definitely be going back there again in the future.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. I finally got ke-baptized. Kebabs are proper nice, at least for the first 30 minutes. The rest of the day we relaxed and I played ukulele and picked up my sketch pad again. It felt good to get the creative juices flowing.

 

We had a Zone Leader Blitz in Barrow! Our good friends Elders Wirtala and Peterson came up and we spent the whole day destroying Barrow. Ultimately, Barrow and the frigid wind ended up destroying us, and most of our appointments fell through. Lame. However we did end up finding a couple potentials to start teaching. Elder Peterson and I spent the entire day working on Walney island, tracking down all the less-actives, tracting street after street and talking to nearly everything living on the street. The happiest moment of our day: This super old man on this scooter thing (it looked like a Harley Davidson motorcycle and an old man scooter had a baby. It was pretty rad) gave us a big ol' toothless smile and pulled over and started talking to us. It was probably the best religious converstion that we had all day, and in mid sentence, he bowed his head and started saying a very humble and thankful and heartfelt prayer. It was incredibly on the spot, but a very gentle spirit could be felt from this man as he thanked God for us and what we do. It totally brightened up my day. Even though his wife wants nothing to do with us, I hope that we can see that man again.

 

In the evening after our Taco feast  (thank you mum for the ingredients), we all packed up and headed to Lancaster and stayed in the Zone Leaders flat because of early interviews the next morning. It was fun, even though I ended having to sleep on the hard ground with only my love blanket (thank you heather) and a stuffed penguin as a pillow. It was a rough night, but the following interviews with president in the morning were good. I love President Preston, and it will be sad to see him go. After interviews, we had a specialized zone training, so it was good to see some of my other brochachos again. Oh yeah, there are some flippin weird new missionaries now. I am beginning to feel old. There is also this new Russian elder who freaks the crap out of me. I dont know if its his supreme unibrow, or him doing tricep dips on the chairs off in the corner by himself. I hope we can become friends.

 

I just typed something here about the working and weather conditions here in Barrow, but I just deleted because it sounded like I was a sour-patch. Its my goal to be more positive and to just love what comes. I hope I get the flip out of here soon, but I will continue to work and fulfil my purpose here in Barrow, whatever that may be. I have no idea at the minute. But I want you all to know, I love you. I pray for you all every night, and I am incredibly grateful for all that you have done for me. Keep on being cool. Till next time, peace out!

 

Elder Bryant Goodman

aka BA

HotTuna

 

p.s. thank you for the birthday package!!!! I dig the beanie. My ears are warm and happy

 

 

my medieval mug

windermere

Barrow blitz at sunset

 

Sticky Toffee Pudding:

Who's throwing rocks at our window? Oh, it's hail.