To Portugal With Love: WEEK 38- I Got Chased By A Pig!!! Ahhhh.....!

Beautiful view of Portugal when we went to

this castle today, it is in Silvas.

A little closer view of the Silvas Castle.

IGREJA CATOLICA (We ended up going inside. It cost 1 Euro. It was cool.)

Me and my knight in shining armor.

Wow! Portugal!!!

View from the castle.

We got to visit the Catholic Church.

Inside the Catholic Church.

It is a very different atmosphere.

Sister Olsen and me.

She is a wonderful companion!

We also did some service this week. The Elders are doing some heavy duty yard work, howing up the dirt and what not. Sis. Olsen and I were doing the weeding. To reward us, the family we helped prepared us an American BBQ! That was so sweet and nice. We brought chocolate chip cookies. It was so fun and an awesome success!

Oh my gosh, I realize that I look so sweaty and gross. We worked super hard! But is was fun too.

The BBQ yeah!

Kinda hard to see her, but this is Bruno's pig, Estralinha. She was a cutie, but she totally scared me SO BADDD! Haha! She chased me and it reminded me of our pig back home in Texas named Owen. You are better caged up sista!

This is Sister Olsen and Bruno's dog, Brancinha (Little White in English).

Some pics of my new apartment.

It's very glamorous!

My Letter Home:

Haha how could you resist the headline!

This week was so eventful! I have so much to say!

There is a recent convert in our ward named Bruno (I talked about him a little last week) and he invited all the missionaries this week to come over and do some service which we were SO EXCITED about because we hardly ever get to do service. So we all put on our work clothes, and we hiked out to his little farm area in the middle of nowhere and helped him. Me and Sister Olsen were pulling weeds, and the elders were like hardcore howing the dirt. It was really fun and I got tons of stickers stuck to my pants. But the best part of this all was that BRUNO HAS A PET PIG! Her name is Estrelinha, or “Little Star”. She is definitely not little. She is a HUGE black pig. Bruno plans on eating her next month (haha hopefully I will get a piece of the bacon). Anyways, we were looking at her, marveling at her greatness, when all of a sudden Bruno opens the cage! I was standing right there. When Estrelinha saw the elders she FREAKED OUT and turned around and started running right for me! I totally started screaming like a banshee and running! I thought I was going to die. She totally weighs more than me! But nothing happened, I think she was more scared of me than I was of her. The best part was I was taking a video the whole time and got a shot of my face running in utter fear. Unluckily, the video is too big to send so stay tuned to see it for the next 9 months. We finished off the service project with a lovely American Barbecue (almost...the hotdogs were still a little Portuguese looking) as a surprise for us missionaries. It was really thoughtful of them.

The same day, me and Sister Olsen returned home from a hard days work and the first thing we notice when we walk in is that it smells like smoke. The air is all hazy and we get all nervous. I remembered a story from sisters in our mission that died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and I got really nervous. We run around the house, and we can’t find anything that is on that could be making this smell. And our heads start hurting baddd. Well, we conclude that we are currently dying and take refuge on our balcony in the cold. We called everyone, the elders and the senior couple over our area and the branch president, and no one has ideas. They were all super worried though that the sisters would die during the night. Finally a ward member named Rui volunteers to come over and check out what is going on. He runs over at like 10:30 (bless his heart) to find out that nothing is wrong. We live in an apartment building and we are on the top floor. Apparently someone in a lower level burnt some food on the stove, and the smoke drifted up into our apartment. It was a big scare, but in the end we are totally fine. And now we know why sometimes our apartment randomly smells like cooked fish! Thanks neighbors below!

This Sunday was kinda a crazy Sister Barron show. I played the piano during sacrament meeting. It was so scary. I was just remembering my first time playing piano in public. It was during Sargers, my brothers, baptism. Well, I have become so good at dealing with stress now that even though I was told which hymns I would be playing 10 minutes before sacrament meeting (only two of them were in the hymns made easy book, the other two I just had to play the right hand) I totally didn’t freak out! I just laughed whenever I made a mistake and kept going. The ward was really grateful, and the old lady that was directing the music gave me the biggest glowing smile after every hymn. I am doing my best! Also, I had to give a talk during sacrament meeting too. Yepp, I was all over the place. I talked about prayer and receiving personal revelation. I talked about Joseph Smith and told the story to the members again. I feel like everyone could use a brush up on his story and how his prayer was answered. This is an important principle that all of us should learn to master, faithfully asking questions and waiting for the answer. I told them about my brother, Briggs, and for a long time it was hard to me to accept that he has autism. I love him so much and I don’t want him to have to suffer. But I know that he is the way he is for a reason and I have prayed to know it is true and I KNOW IT IS TRUE. He is a special spirit of the Lord, sent from heaven to gain a body and be a joy in our lives. When I said this for the branch, I saw multiple people tear up. They all came up to me afterwards and gushed over how cute it was. Once again, I am so very grateful for my brother and the inspiration he has given me, in my life and during my mission.

We went to a castle today! it was really beautiful and old.

Also, we marked our friend Sara for baptism on the 22nd! We are so excited! She is a single mother, has two beautiful children called David and Claudia, and she is the ex girlfriend of Bruno. She was a tough cookie to crack, but we finally did it! She has been an investigator for MONTHS. Sisters after sisters have tried with her. So on Sunday she invited all the missionaries over to her house, and we all decided beforehand that we would not leave until she made a decision regarding baptism. I knew that she knew all of this was true, but she denies it to herself, preferring the things of the world (drinking and smoking). We all testified and told her our testimonies. I told her to SHOW HER FAITH and STOP BEING AFRAID. Something in her was touched, and she finally said that she wants to be baptized this month. I am so happy for her! As soon as she said yes, she got all excited and talking about how she wants to be baptized in the ocean. Ahah we will see about that....

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

I love yewwws allsss!

Sister Barron

*(editor Paige) I got a bunch of bonus pictures from Sister Olsen's Mom. =D So fun!

Bruno's awesome BBQer.

Sister Olsen's got hops!

The Elders making hamburgers after our service project at Bruno's farm. SO FUN!

Turned out pretty American! Whoo!

Quote from Sis. Olsen, "Sister Barron is so sweet! One morning I wasn't feeling so good and I walked in and she made me breakfast! SO SWEET! Love her!"