Week 44: June 18, 2018

Dear Family,

Hows it goin???

Happy Father´s Day Dad!!!!!!

It looked like you all had a super fun time showing Dad just how much you all love him. Dad's the best!!!!

Soccer has been a little crazy here! The game was on Friday, and we were instructed by our president to do our weekly planning during the game. Ya, I guess you could say its pretty serious. Soccer is literally religion here! It's crazy! As Elder Gusmão and I were planning, we heard people screaming and trumpet sounds going off; it was crazy! 

We had a bunch of powerful moments this week. We have been teaching a lot more with members, and God has blessed us so much to be able to find people to teach and to be able to teach more powerful lessons. I feel like Elder Gusmão and I are getting better at teaching to the needs of the people. Rather than teach a lesson in bullet points, it's a personally customized answer for that person given to them through us from God. It's pretty neat! 

We taught this one family about prayer. They had not been following through with their commitments. They weren't really seeing the importance of prayer. We then had them open up to a chapter in 3 Nephi that talks about when Christ was teaching the people how to pray. We read it with them and discussed verse by verse. The whole family was super engaged! Elder Gusmão and I were on fire with inspired questions! At the end, we had Fernanda, the person that was taking care of the kids, offer the prayer. We asked her to specifically pray for an answer with respect to the Book of Mormon and what we had been teaching them. We then had them all wait in silence to receive an answer from the spirit. We waited for a good while. Then, we asked what they felt. The oldest of the kids then spoke and said how she prayed again by herself during that time of silence and had the idea that she needed to study the Book of Mormon more and that after study, she could pray and receive an answer. All the other kids said they had the same thought. We told them how that was the spirit telling them through their thoughts what they needed to do to get even more of an answer. It was super neat and the spirit was so strong! 

We then went right after with another member to teach another person that had been trying to find another job. She had literally been suffering in work with the long hours and low pay. She had always worked on Sunday too and could never go to church. We both listened carefully and responded the best we could. We also talked about prayer. I had one idea to talk about miracles before, but then the other idea came into my mind to talk about prayer. I was sort of confused in my head, but then my book of mormon fell right open to the scripture I was thinking of for prayer. I knew that was an answer. We talked to her about prayer and how God would never give us anything bad if we asked with faith and were willing to keep the commandments. We all got on our knees and she prayed. She said how she had confirmed her decision to leave work and how she felt alleviated. It was super neat!! That was one of the most powerful lessons where I felt we really helped someone with something in their lives and we really taught to their needs. 

Love you all tons!!! Best family ever!!!! You all give me so much support and love!!! Thanks for everything!!!

Elder Barton