Week 34: April 9, 2018

Hey there Bartons!!!!

We had a pretty sweet week! We've been working super hard to find more people!!! Elder Davis and I have been setting personal records with contacts!!!! We actually were shown a super cool area by Elder Vigne on pday. He took us on a little walk to this one area that is probably one of the coolest, best areas ever! Its basically a mini Africa!!! I didn't take any pics, didn't know if it was a good idea to be flashing my camera around, but I really wanted to show you guys what I saw! I was a pretty sketch neighborhood that was enclosed by a bunch of houses. These houses were pretty small and there was a ton of them! There were a ton of africans and a few Portugueses. The houses were just all sort of smashed together and it was like a big little maze. We literally walked through little pathways with walls of the houses 2 feet apart and little streams of dirty water running under our shoes. It was so cool! It was a super great area because the people there are so humble and so willing to listen. I went on a split with Elder Vigne, he is from Brazil, and we basically knocked door Brazilian style! We would stand outside the door knock on the door and clap our hands outside calling the people out and then talk to them from there. It was so awesome! It was also super cool because the people there were so willing to help with the simplest of things. We knocked on this one guys door and asked where this one person lived. He said he didn't know and then asked another guy passing by if he knew. That guy then had us follow him and then he asked a bunch of other guys where that person was. We ended up not finding who we were looking for, haha, but it was so cool to see all of them trying to help us! One of my favorite things about the area is when we are there at night. Something that could be so ugly to others is so beautiful to me. At night, you look around and you can see all the windows of the little crammed houses lit up a gloomy yellow and you can hear soft fades of music and people laughing and the constant night time cricket noises in the background. It is seriously soooooo neat looking. It sort of reminds me of that first part in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney Land, haha! Its awesome! 

We've already had a few neat experiences there. One started when we found this one guy named Inacio. He is super chill and very up beat. We actually found him as we were walking around in the neighborhood and we told him and some of his family about our message and asked if they would like to hear. His aunt started telling everyone that they should all sit down and listen to the word of God. I thought that was super cool. 

She then started saying how it was pretty cold outside and invited us to teach them in her house. we walked with her and Inacio. This lady was actually a pretty cool story too, but I'll talk about her another time. Inacio left the house before we started teaching and didn't come back. One of the family members said he had to grab something from his house. He ended up not showing up. At the end of our lesson, we asked where Inacio lived. The family told us the number of his house. This big little African neighborhood doesn't have streets, it just has dirt walkways and numbers for houses. We ended up passing by another day Inacio's house this time. He opened the door and let us in. We began to teach him and he was super receptive and seemed to have deep sincerity the whole time we taught and invited him. He told us how he had seen other missionaries from other churches pass by but never talk to him. He said that we were sent by God to talk to him and that it was amazing that we had even found his house. We "forgot" to mention that his family told us where he lived, haha. we then invited him to be baptized. 

After we told him the date that we would hold the baptismal service, he said, "wait, that's my birthday!" We then asked, "do you want to be baptized on your birthday?" He then exclaimed, "Yes!" and we all started laughing. It was so cool! We then invited him to church. He was super fired up to go to church. The next day, we went to his house to bring him to church with us. We knocked, no one. We called over and over, no one. We went to his other families house and looked for other people, no one was there. We then had the impression to try his house one more time. We got to his house, and just as we knocked on his door, we looked back and saw him walking behind us returning to his house. We both had big sighs of relief. We all went to church together and everything went perfect. He told us what had happened before we got to his house. He told us that the night after we invited him to church, the day before, he heard a voice inside his head that said that he shouldn't go to church. After he heard that, he started having doubts and didn't think he needed to go to church after that. Then, the next day, we found him and he went to church with us. We explained to him again what we had basically already said about the law of opposition. He understood and said how much he loved church and that he would go again the next time. It was awesome! 

Elder Davis and I were both so happy and so excited for him the way that he was staying strong. It was truly a miracle the way that everything worked out. The cool thing too is that I'm sure there was a lot more behind the scenes that God and his angels were doing to make everything work out the way it did.

I love you all soooo much and am so happy you all had fun in Hawaii! You are such a good looking family!!!! hahaha!!! I'm glad you all kept up the traditions and even ate some Portuguese sweet bread! That's so much fun! Love you all tons!!!!

Love,

Elder Barton