To celebrate our year mark, Sister Steagall and I (We were in the MTC together) burned an old dress during our devision to celebrate the milestone!
Being together was the perfect one year celebration. It was great to talk about MTC fun and how much we have changed since we came out here. I love her so much and have so much respect for her. PLUS, we now both speak Portuguese! Weeeeee........
One year as missionaries. Hard to believe.
It's been amazing.
Today we went with a huge group of missionaries to see the site where the country of Portugal was dedicated by Thomas S. Monson. It was very special and they picked me to offer a prayer. Haha I felt a little pressure to offer a prayer on such holy ground but it was really cool. =)
I was happy to do it.
ME AND SISTER BAKKER REUNITED!!!
I didn't get the memo to be gangster in this pic...
Sister Aiono threw her bread at the ducks.
She truly is my daughter. :)
We like adventures for P-day. We also had a picnic and played soccer. It was cool and fun.
A few more pics of us last P-day at Devils Mouth.
My Letter Home:
This week I have been thinking a lot about some of the things my
parents did for me that I never really realized how awesome they were. For
example, when I was a little girl my dad signed us up to be in a community play
together so we could spend time together. It was Annie Warbucks or something. (Annie
Part 2) I ended up getting the part of orphan number 234 and he got the part as
the main villain!!! ( Haha he had to wear a mustache and pull a gun out on us
at the end. How funny!) But we had to go to practices almost everyday and only
now do I realize what a huge sacrifice that was for my father to give up so
much time to be with me. I will forever be grateful for the sacrifices they
made for me, especially in my youth. I am who I am today because of them
and their willingness to love me.
This Sunday we had soooo many investigators in church. With our combined
efforts, ours and the Elders, we seriously had like 10 investigators in church!
Tania, Henriques wife, and Catarina came. The gospel principles teacher was
freaking out. She was giddy with joy. The Elders have a bunch of people planned
to be baptized next Sunday and we hope to add one, too. A man named Paulo came
to church and he is so cool! He said that he usually goes to the church across
the street and that he just felt that Sunday that he should go to our church.
He lives in our area and is so cool. He has "THUG" tattooed on his
knuckles. Hehe..He said that he is ready to change his life and he is veryyyy
curious about how our church works. I saw him looking at the wall with all the
baptism pictures and I took the moment to explain to him that when he learns
more and if he truly feels that this church is true he could be baptized. He
looked very interested and tonight we have an appointment with him with a
member! I hope everything goes well and he accepts our invitation to be baptized!
This week we invited at least 3 people a day to be baptized.
We had a wonderful experience. We accidently ran into a member
at the bus stop. She is from another ward and she stopped us. She told us that
she was there to visit her sick husband that was currently in the hospital.
They are a very old couple, ancient members of the church here in Portugal. So
we asked her for the address of the hospital and we went there to visit him. As
soon as we came in the room he saw us and said "Sisters!" and started
crying. He said that the Sisters had never come to visit him before and that we
truly were angels from the Lord sent to him in this time of difficulty. We said
a prayer and I opened my mouth, not knowing what I would say. I truly tried to
say what the Spirit was telling me in that moment and I said "We were sent
to you at this hard time to tell you that you need to use the Atonement."
The man just lost it. It was so cute and sad. We promised him we would come
back to visit again. I’m not sure why I said that to him, but I truly do
believe that that was what Heavenly Father wanted to say to him that day in
that moment.
I love you all so much and I love my mission!
Sister
Barron
