Week 39: May 14, 2018 - Have Fun Or Go Home + Mother's Day Call

Well, it was fantabulous to see all your good lookin faces on the video call yesterday!!! Seriously, you all looked and sounded soooo good!!!! You all are just the best family ever!!! I couldn't ask for anything better!!!!! 

This week, we had some super power lessons and some cool little things happen. We got to go on a split with the APs which was super awesome!!! They are such incredible missionaries and such amazing influences. I'm really hoping I can be like that someday. We split off and I went with Elder Hermann. He was super chill and super fun to work with!!! He taught me a few super awesome things that I want to make a part of serving a mission. He said how one of the things he always tries to do on his mission is make it fun. Not by being disobedient, but by being creative and finding ways to enjoy working. He said how his father told him how if he wasn't having fun on his mission, he needed to go home. I thought that was pretty cool. He and I did a bunch of fun stuff together!!! One example is something called, in English, "Book from Heaven." basically what happens is as we are knocking doors, one of leans up against the door on the side and holds a Book of Mormon up above the door frame so the person opening the door from the inside cant see it. The other would then stand in from with his hands held out in front of him. Basically what happens is the person standing in front starts of talking with a catch phrase that goes a little like, "Hi, we're the missionaries and our message starts off with a book that comes from heaven..." and then the person standing off to the side with the book in his hand drops it and it falls into the others hands and the person at the door is amusingly shocked!!! We had a good one with this one older guy. We set it all up, executed perfectly, and when the book fell, we both acted super shocked and amazed! He just looked at us with a straight face, smirked, and closed the door. It was pretty funny actually. We got a few other people's attention with the act, but there weren't as many people in the apartment that we were knocking. It was super fun though!!! 

We also had this super neat miracle with this guy named Paulo. He is seriously such an inspiration to me. He's had to fend for his life all throughout his life. He was left by his mom in a hospital at the age of 2 and has since then been left on his own. He went to church with us and was so humble and so accepting. As we were going there, we were running late and pretty long from the church so we had to pay a taxi to get there. As we were in the taxi, we got to talking to the lady that was driving us and basically got to teach her and Paulo the restoration on the ride over. It was super neat and they both thought it made so much sense!!! Super cool!!! Paulo was super awesome at church and was getting involved with everything. We got to introduce him to the members and they all were super welcoming. At the last hour of church, he had to leave a little early, so before he left, we pulled him aside and taught him the word of wisdom. He was an elect investigator!!!! He said how he had no problem with everything except smoking and that he had wanted to stop completely. He had smoked 2 packs a day in the past and is now only smoking 1 a day!!! Seriously so amazing!!! He is all in to quit completely too!!!! He said how he had gone to other churches before, but that our church, the Book of Mormon, and the Bible all together just made the most sense to him!!! I thought that was so cool!!!!! I told him at the end how he was just such a huge inspiration to me and gave him a huge hug!!!! It was just such a neat experience!!!

Anyway, the week went super well and we are hoping to have another, hopefully even more productive week, next week.

You all are number one in my heart!!! Love you all so much!!! It was seriously so fun to talk to you guys yesterday!!!! Hope you all have a great week and know that I am always praying for you!!!! I can always feel the love and power of the prayers you all do for me!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Barton