Barker also sent missionaries into Italy to try to contact church members there. In a talk in one of the 1951 General Conferences of the LDS Church Barker expressed a desire for missionaries of the LDS Church to soon share the gospel in Spain, Italy, Greece and other countries of the Mediterranean. After this David O. McKay gave Barker the assignment to work to reestablish the LDS Church in Italy. This effort was delayed by the death of Barker in a car accident in 1958.