WEEK 60! Mem Martins Round 4!!!

 This is Ingrid. We went to her going away party for her mission. She was called to the Manchester, England Mission. It was fun to celebrate with her and get her pumped up!

 Joelma and I. She has a son on a mission in Brazil so she just lovessss the missionaries.

 Henrique and Catarina. We are teaching them right now. They love to receive our messages.

 Our studying table. Guess which side is Sister Aionos, haha literally like this every day.

 Surprises on my camera. lol!

 Friends 4 Ever! 

 This elevator smashed her while she was looking in the mirror, so she had to punish it. 

 She made this cute little ghetto sign telling people to come to church. 

I was so proud I had to take a picture. =D

 Move over Lindsay Sterling!

 Practicing for my musical number.

 Elder Hart threw himself a funeral because he is going home tomorrow! 

2 YEARS he has been gone!

 Saying goodbye to Mariano! He is leaving to work at the Circus (true story).

 Training break!

 #Memmartinsswag- this was Aiono's idea...lol!

 Our district

 Hello....

Maybe I should join the circus as well...

Letter Home: Mem Martins Round 4!

TRANSFERS! I am staying in Mem Martins again! This will be the area that I have stayed in the longest of my whole mission! Yeah, I’m totally psyched! The members all joke that I need to just send my church membership records here to Mem Martins because I have been here so long. Sister Aiono will be leaving (which is really sad...we don’t want to separate!) and she will be going to Barreiro! That is really far away from me, on the other side of a huge river. She will have to use a boat to get to her new area. She will be the SENIOR COMPANION in her third month here in Portugal! Little to say, I am proud! I know she will rock it. They will baptize and have tons of fun and learn so much! She is a really awesome missionary, fun and happy and makes friends really easily. I know that these skills will help her during her whole mission. 

Once we were knocking doors and Sister Aiono pushed the doorbell and it got stuck in place! The really obnoxious, loud bell was just blaring in one unbroken note. She started panicking and I was like... "Run!" but she just looked at the thing and punched the doorbell! Immediately it stopped. It was so funny, and we have determined that I react with flight and she reacts with fight. 

This morning as we were waiting for the train we heard some men speaking in English. I said "Let’s go talk to them!" and we went over to ask them where they were from. They ended up being from South Africa, and they had huge English accents. They saw we were the "Mah-muhns" and started cracking jokes about not smoking and drinking etc... We were very nice and tried to teach them a little about us. Soon we were all just cracking up and having a grand old time. Then one of them tried to set me up with his son in South Africa, and then he laughed and said "You could convert anyone with those eyes!" Hahahah then we chastised him for flirting with a missionary and luckily our train stop was right there. It was literally the funniest thing. Made my day!

Diogo recieved the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. We are going to start teaching a friend of his named Rodrigo. He has HUGE potential! He already said that he wants to be baptized! We have high hopes!

Easter was fun. We had lunch AND dinner with members! We ate soooo much food! It was all so good and the members were sad to say goodbye to Sister Aiono. I’m so happy not to part from them just yet. My work here still isn’t done! Church was delivered by the Stake Presidency and it was so fun. 

I am so grateful for the amazing experiences that I am having here in Portugal! I am loving it with all my heart! Bring on the next challenge, Heavenly Father! I am ready for anything! Haha I literally can’t think of anything else I want to do, I am TSTL and I AM TRAINING A NEW SISTER AGAIN!!!! She is from Brazil. I pick her up on Wednesday.

Love you all!

Sister Barron

Week 59: Diogo's Baptism!!!

 The BAPTISM!

 Diogo and his darling Mom.

 Baby brother.

                  Diogo's family and friends.

I played the violin for the baptism. Everyone freaked out and said that I should play for Stake Conference.

Haha these people are so funny, but I WOULD do anything for them. =)

 This is us EXHAUSTED after the baptism. At moments it was stressful to put it all together but in the end it was wonderful and so spiritual! Totally a success!

This is Alexandra, a little girl from the ward. 

She is so cute and totally sassy.

 Happy Easter!!!

 Our chocolate friend. He's dead...

 From prep-day today. 

We went to Quinta de Regeleira.

 Sintra is BEAUTIFUL! This is our area!

I got to say goodbye to Sister Neves and Sister Olsen. They finish their mission this week! After they leave, Sister Aiono will be my only companion left in the mission! =0

Letter Home:

          Diogo’s baptism was a huge success! We were running around the chapel, getting the programs ready and filling the font and herding the members and getting the primary kids together for the special musical number and I was playing violin AHHHHHH. But in the end it was a huge success! Diego’s mother was so touched!  She thanked us for the wonderful meeting we planned. Diogo was on cloud nine. He loved the baptismal clothing and I said "You only get to wear this once in your life" I am sooo excited that someday Portugal will get their own temple. We are preparing the country for this blessing. Once they have the temple, Diogo will be able to enter the waters of baptism again and be baptized for others.

It was so weird to play the violin again! It all came flooding back! The muscle memory never died! Thank you, Sister Smith, (my violin teacher in high school and member of the church) for teaching me everything I know! These skills have gone to good use and brought the spirit in a chapel in Portugal because of you! I had to give the violin back to the member, and all the members were going on and on about how they need to get me one so I can play for Stake Conference.

This is the beginning of the last week of the transfer. I can’t believe it. It has literally just flown by. I am so happy that I was able to help Sister Aiono taste the joy of baptism during her training. I was really nervous that we would end training and she still wouldn’t have any experience baptizing. But we worked hard, we were smart, and the Lord did his part and blessed us. And BOOM, the waters of baptism!  It all went super well.

We had a division with some Sisters in our mission that have a car. All I have to say is: to all you missionaries that have cars in the mission, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE. That is all I can say. AKA my hair is soaking wet from the rain right now. =)

Loveee

Sister Barron

Week 58- Things are on the up and UP!

 This little lady has been studying so hard. 

I'm so proud of her!

Her knee is almost totally better now! Yay!

 We got to spend our Prep Day today seeing some of Lisboa. It was great! (Looking over Benfica.)

 We saw these little elementary kids at school in their little blue outfits and thought they were 

so cute!

 This big statue is  famous in Portugal. It is a bunch of explorers and discoverers, like Christopher Columbus and others. I was super excited that we got to see it! Totally worth the hour of travel.

 We also got to see Belem! It was so amazing! They are famous for their amazing Pastel De Nata (Awesome pastry!)

Letter Home:

So this week was so amazing! We had a whopping 6 investigators in church! That may be the most I have ever had in my mission....They all totally loved it! Sister Aiono is all better! =D After a week of crutches she was ready to go. We tried really hard to work even though her leg was hurt, asking for rides from the members and proselyting really close to our house. In the end we have been really blessed for this sacrifice, and had a very successful week! The errand of angels is given to women, baby!

So we have these amazinggg investigators named Ana Sousa, José, and their little daughter Daniela. Daniela has epilepsy and sometimes tends to fall down when she has little seizures. This was veryyy scary for her parents so they decided to take her to the hospital. Apparently there is a nurse there that is a member of our church. She isn’t part of our ward, but she lives in Oeiras. Her name is Luisa. She saw these scared parents and she decided to give them the number of the Elders. She said that they could come over to their house and give their daughter a Blessing of Health. I am SOOO GRATEFUL for this courageous member, I have never met her, but what happened?! Ana called the Elders! They went to their house, gave the blessing, and passed the reference on to us. They live in this beautifullll part of our area called Sintra. They are absolutely amazing. They totally want to be baptized, but the challenge at the moment is that José and Ana aren’t legally married. In our church, we believe that marriage between a man and a woman is a sacred thing and that the sacred, intimate feelings between a man a woman that love each other should be reserved just for legal marriage. I completely support this doctrine of our church. Anyways, for them to be baptized they would first have to be married. I broke the news to Ana and we have plans to pass this week and seriously talk to them about marriage.

We also have someone MARKED FOR BAPTISM NEXT SUNDAY! Wheeeee! It is a boy named Diogo that is a son of a less active woman in our ward. He is so amazing and basically already knows so much, so it is all going really smooth. We already have the baptism planned and I plan on trying to get my hands on a violin and play something. I am probably reallyyyyy rusty, so everyone wish me luck! It’s been over a year since I have picked up a violin. Hopefully those 6 years of playing haven’t gone to waste!

I love you all so much and I am having a total BLAST on my mission! If you are debating whether or not to go on a mission, I have a little advice for you....GO! you will never regret it!

Sister Barron
PS. I hope Piper takes really good care of those scriptures that she got for her Birthday! I absolutely loveee my scriptures so much, they are one of my most treasured possessions!

This is our zone conference picture. (From Mom: Notice what Quincey is doing in the picture to the AP....stinker)