This is me with my last three companions.
I trained all three.
My new companion is Sister Bravender!
I love them all so much!
Sneaking a few pics during our companionship study. Haha
The amazing view from our chapel patio.
Our cool chapel looks like a house! Because it was an old house that they fixed up to be a church building. I think it is my favorite chapel that I have served in yet.
This is our house. Today we stayed in from 10:30 to 3:00 cleaning and organizing. It was bad.
This is the view from our window in our house.
Letter Home:
Picking up my new companion from the office was fun and CRAZY! We
were on our own to get her 3 bags to our apartment on the trains of Portugal.
Basically my arms are still sore when I think about all the stairs we went up
and down. It was crazy. But in the end we got home safe. I was literally
exhausted. But we gave people the opportunity to serve and help two pitiful
girls get the bags up the stairs!
Sister Bravender is awesome! She likes to write books and loves horses.
We have those things in common. She almost passed out from joy when I told her
I had Enya on my pindrive. I am enjoying training her and letting her talk in
every contact and every lesson. I want us to get talking on a 50/50 basis as
soon as possible!
So today for prep day we stayed in our house from 10:30 to 3
CLEANING. When we got to our new house it was pretty bad. All you return
missionaries know what I am talking about. Grime everywhere, even on the walls!
We threw away tons of stuff. The only
good thing about being in such an old house is that we have about 100 coats
from past Sisters. We can pick and choose each day and wear a new coat. That is
kinda fun.
The members here are incredible! Our new branch mission leader
is named João and he is the coolest. He served his mission in Portugal and he
is so eager to help us. The fact that we are both new in this area only makes
him want to help us more. I love it so much! Tonight we have a Family Home Evening
in his house with a woman named Luisa that was baptized last week. João and his
family are awesome member missionaries!
I also love the members because they loveee feeding us! I think
this is my area with the most member meals so far, almost everyday! That is
like unheard of in Portugal. They even give us food to keep in our house. We
basically don’t have to buy groceries. This branch is short on Youth and
Priesthood and Families, so that is our focus.
One day we were sitting with an Irmã of our ward, getting to
know her, when someone knocked on her door. She answered and it was the man
asking about her light bill. When he saw us he stopped and asked us " Are
you elders?" We explained that we were Sisters from the same church and he
said that he had a coworker and friend that was going to be an Elder soon. I
asked what was the name of his friend and he said Ismael. I stopped and asked
him if he was from Mem Martins and he said yes! Later that day we met up with
my friend Ismael! It was such a crazy coincidence that we were there when he
knocked! We ended up getting his number and passing it to the elders of Belém.
I hope he is baptized, it would be such a cool story!
I got to give a talk on Sunday. I talked about how we can
identify people in our lives that would be ready to hear the gospel. I shared
the story of Alma 32 when the poor people weren’t allowed to enter into the synagogue
because they were too poor. But when Alma saw them, he got super happy because
he knew they were humbled and ready to hear the message of the gospel. We are
surrounded by people like that in our lives. People that experienced a death in
the family, had a baby, lost their job, moved recently, or are sick. These
people many times are brought to their knees in supplication to our heavenly
father, and we can be the answer to their prayers!
We don’t have any huge progressing investigators but we have
some promising contacts that we will be teaching this week!
Love
you all! Sister Barron
