WEEK 51-Feeling Blessed!

We visited some incredible places on our preparation day this week.

Sintra is so beautiful. 

This palace is called Quinta Da Regaleira.

 We had fun playing with the billions of cats everywhere.

This amazing well is located on the property.

Our District

 We went to the place in the woods where the country of Portugal was dedicated to the Lord.

My Letter Home:

This week was so fun! Life is great with Sister Aiono. Together while working hard being missionaries we write raps, dance, preach, and get lost. But every moment is amazing!

Last district meeting we were practicing being bold and therefore I had to eat a skunk-spray flavored jelly bean? DISGUSTING. At least it was a creative object lesson. =/ =)

There was one day this week where it rained BUCKETS. It was insanity. We were soaking wet. It was completely obsolete to use the umbrella because the rain was flying at an angle. I have never been so soaked in my mission. There was a river in the street. We didn’t go home, the work of the Lord never stops!

We had a division with some Sisters from Mafra. I went with Sister Tilton. She is a really good missionary and I have a lot of respect for her. They came to our area and she helped in a lesson to Henrique, our most progressing investigator right now. He is progressing really well. He is still having trouble believing in God, but he really has the desire to believe. And like it says in Alma 32, that is enough. Him and his daughter Catarina came to church with us this Sunday. I really had a lot of respect for him because he works all night Saturday night and then he came straight to church with us. Catarina loved Primary they had treats that day and as she was stuffing her face full of cake, she was saying "We have to come here every Sunday!" Haha! I really hope they continue. We need to talk with them about how they can start getting on track to get married. It’s pretty complicated, but I have heard of a lot of missionaries doing it. Let’s have a wedding! *squeeeeel*

Also, I wanted to write a shout-out to my cousin Madi Sarager! She has been meeting with the Sister missionaries in Arizona and this weekend got baptized! I love her so much and am so happy for this life changing decision she has made! You are amazing! Never forget these precious days when your testimony has begun growing! You will remember your baptism your whole life! What a blessing! 

I love you all and hope you have a wonderfulllll week

Sister Barron

Week 50!!! I'm Still Alive!!!

Saturday selfies while we were calling people and inviting them to church the next day.

We had an activity with the Young Women of the Ward that night. It was so much fun! 

This is me trying to be ghetto.

I took this picture while standing outside waiting for the library to open so that we could email our families.

 Mission Council 

We found these glasses. 

We like to put them on and feel smarwtur.

Letter Home:

My comp is definitely a fan of Portuguese bread. We will just leave it at that. =) She told me she dreams of chocolate croissants. haha Love her so much:) So this week we have eaten a Chocolate Croissant basically everyday. We spend half our time dancing and making up raps about Portugal. She has a wonderful attitude and I love it. 

So this Sunday it happened. I hit rock bottom. =0 It was a strange combination of events, but basically I was feeling verryyyy stressed. There is a lot of pressure. I want to be able to do everything, but I physically cannot do it all. It stresses me out when I feel like I am doing mediocre missionary work. I want to do EXCELLENT missionary work. I started crying and like literally couldn’t stop. I needed to cry it out. Anyways, I ended up learning a lot about the Atonement. I honestly think it felt like it was the lowest point of my life. But even when I was at rock bottom, there was someone that went farther and suffered more. Our Savior knows exactly what we are going through and how He can succor His people. Some members noticed and came to our house and offered to give me a blessing. Afterwards I felt a lot better and was able to finish off the day with some hard work.

We had a pretty awesome lesson with a man named Henrique this week. He is Portuguese but is living with his Russian girlfriend. We knocked on his door and he was really nice and open. He met the Elders 30 years ago and even came to church and saw a baptism in a pool. He is atheist, but he keeps wanting to meet with us. I KNOW that he believes there is more out there. Sister Aiono asked him some really inspired questions. At one moment in one of our lessons he looked right into my eyes and said "Do you actually believe this?" and I felt the power right from God when I stared him right back in the eyes and said "YES."  Afterwards Sister Aiono said I was glowing. We invited him to be baptized and he said "If God responds to my prayer, then yes. But I think it will be really difficult." We will be working on his faith this week, helping him to actively strengthen it. He is really nice and has a 10 year old daughter. Also, he has curly Michael Jackson hair. =)

I love you all! I know that my Heavenly Father loves me, as He loves the rest of His children. 

Sister Barron

WEEK 49- My Baby is Samoan!!

My new baby! This is Sister Aiono! She is from California and a brand new missionary! Isn't she so cute! She's tiny.

The day I picked her up.

 WHAT have I gotten myself into...! =D

We have fun.

 We got a weird reference and it led us to this door in a wall. Haha...surprise! No one answered. 

Sintra is too beautiful to explain. I will be bringing my family here in the future.

 In her onesie.

 GUYS! This is Lilli!

 I saw this while helping Lilli with her English homework Haha! Ya, we're basically hicks.

This is Irmao Celso. He is like the COOLEST guy of the ward. He was baptized as an

 80 year old and used to be a clown. =D

My letter Home:

Hello everyone! 

On Tuesday we packed up Sister Bakkers stuff and headed up to the mission office. There, we had a little training on how to train  ( It was way shorter than I thought it would be...they must have confidence that we all automatically know how to train!) and we waited for the newbies to arrive! When I first saw my new comp, I thought WOW she is tiny! And oh so cute! 

My baby is named Sister Aiono! She is so much fun! She is from California, but she has Samoan roots. Everyone here is fascinated to know where she is from. They think she is Asian or something. I have literally never met a Polynesian on my mission, so she will probably be getting that her whole mission. Haha I have been singing songs from Lilo and Stitch all week. I am so cliché. She knows how to legit hula dance and I want her to teach me! Our new ward loves her and thought she was so courageous and cute on Sunday when she bore her testimony. I felt like a happy mother and afterwards a member made the comment to me that my face was "glowing" while she was bearing her testimony! I love training so much and I just want her to have the most awesome and successful mission! The hardest thing is that she sometimes gets really down on herself for not knowing the language and she really wants to participate more in lessons. I try my best to lead so that she can have the chance to talk, but either the investigator talks a ton or she gets nervous. I will try my best to just pump up her confidence a ton so that she can speak like a pro by the end of her training! She is actually an amazingly confident missionary, she will talk to anyone! I love her new excitement because it reminds me of what I felt like when I was new and the fire that I had for the work. It is contagious!

One thing I have realized now that I am training someone that doesn’t know the language yet is that I am definitely fluent in Portuguese! I understand 99%!

As the trainer of a new missionary, I have heard a bunch of what is going on in the world today. As missionaries, we don’t watch any TV or get on the internet at all so we are definitely away from “the world” and all of it affairs. My awesome new greenie taught me some abomination called the "Whip and NayNay." Haha what has the world come to? ; ) We ended up whipping with a little African boy named Tiago in the stairwell of his apartment building. He was cracking up that the sisters could whip! In an angelic way, of course:) Hey, who knew that was useful for missionary work?!?!

We have been caught in the pouring rain a few times. It gives me flashbacks to when I was a greenie and it rained everyday. She is so funny and loves to just run through the rain saying "if we are doing the Lords work, we can’t get sick!" Haha wellllll we are protected, but lets try and remember our umbrellas haha. 

We contacted a referral from a member and she ended up being really elect! We marked her two daughters to be baptized in two weeks! The mother, Tamara, will be able to be baptized once she is legally married to her boyfriend. But things are going great! I am feeling kind of a lot of pressure to have a "model" area as the STL of our zone. But I have faith that if we just keep working hard and doing our best that the miracles will come! We are going to baptize this month!

Love you all! Don’t forget to always be yourself!:)

Sister Barron

11 MONTH MARK! Big Things Goin On!!!

 Roberto and his family! They fed us a few times. Really cute family that loves the missionaries.

TIAGO!!!! We LOVE to teach this kid in his apartment staircase and read the Book of Mormon with him. He is 10 and desperately wants to get baptized but his Mom wants him to wait. He is sooo funny!!! (Look at that face! Lol!) He is one of my favorite people in all of Portugal! He taught me a cool handshake. =)

 This is our train station that we use almost everyday.

 This is Mariano, he is a recent convert to the church. He wanted to teach us how to make sweet rice. He is a great guy and funny person. He will be getting the Priesthood soon!

 Some of the sweet planners that I made for this transfer. I ended up making a whopping 6 planners this transfer. These were for us and the Financial Elders. Haha we are all friends.

This is the planner I made for Elder Nogeira. I had fun with it this transfer. Hey, gotta keep myself entertained!!

This is the Bread Man!!!

My Letter Home:

BREAKING NEWS: I am staying in Mem Martins (which I am soooo psyched for, this area is awesome! We are close to the post office, train station, church, and the grocery store! Score!) And I AM TRAINING! I will be training Sister Aiono (Falefusi). I am soooo excited to show her around Portugal. She is brand new with the language, straight out of the Missionary Training Center, so it will be my job to help her learn fast and not be overwhelmed. I am totally up for the challenge! I love to help people. She is Polynesian, I think, (I meet her later today) which is super cool. I hope she is ready to work and get hopping! We will baptize people together, I just know it! I am also staying a Sister Training Leader. Basically it feels like I have a lot of responsibilities and pressure. But hey, that’s cool!

So this Sunday we went to go pick up our investigator Lilí for church. She is so awesome! We had a really powerful lesson this week and she got totally pumped to ask her Mom if she can be baptized. She is only 15, so she needs the permission of her mother to be baptized. We talked about it  and she said "TODAY is the day!". Man she is so elect. It’s just hard because her Mom is Jehovah’s Witness and in their church they are not baptized until after like a year or two of studies. Since we have only been meeting with Lilí for a few months, her Mom still thinks it is way too fast. It is so hard because she is so ready for baptism. We have taught her all the lessons really thoroughly and she has been coming to church for a few months. She is even doing Personal Progress (a program for the Young Women) and participating in the youth activities. But this Sunday when we went to pick her up and walk with her, her Mom was there! We had invited her to church and she said she would! And she did! It was a total miracle! I hope the fact that she came to church softens her heart and then she lets Lilí get baptized. It’s gonna happen soon! I can feel it! We have fasted and prayed so much for her. We have faith!

Well one funny thing that happened this week is that we realized we didn’t have our phone charger. We hadn’t charged our phone since Christmas (it went strong for like more than a week! Props to ghetto phones!) and it was about to die. Well, seeing how it was the weekend of transfers we reallyyyyy needed our phone. So we called the Sisters that had stayed in our house at Christmas and they had accidently taken it with them. Well, they live really far away and it is a long bus ride. But we really needed it. Well, we didn’t want to be those annoying sisters that always call the elders for help and we just went and got it!  It was pouring rain, but we rode on the bus for like an hour to go get our phone charger. Hey, it was a good decision! Hopefully....haha

On New Years day we ate dinner at the Stake President's house. It was really fun:)

I love you all!

Sister Barron

( From Mom: Got this picture from the Mission President! Quincey with her new companion!)