Week 45: June 25, 2018 - Finding

Dear Fam,

Hows it going??? 

This last week sounded so neat!!! Lots of stuff happening!!! Super cool!!!

This week really surprised me at the end! We have been having a hard time finding more people to teach. Not gonna lie, a bit of a struggle, but I've still been loving every bit of the mission!!! Seriously such a huge blessing a privilege to serve the Lord. I've noticed a lot of changes in me recently. 

Usually I'd have a craving for watching a movie or just chilling playing some sort of game, but all I want to do is just read the scriptures. It's become so much more important to me and so much more spiritual. I'll read and just feel the spirit so strong every morning and almost break into tears. The scriptures are so powerful and amazing to me. 

We had a lot of troubles finding people this week. A lot of our investigators stopped progressing, and we've had to even stop teaching some because they weren't following through our invites and chose other things in place of God. Super sad. It was a real trial of our faith. 

Elder Gusmão and I weren't having much success the beginning of this week. We felt we were doing all we could, but something seemed to just impede us from having results, every time!!! I remember one night, Elder Gusmão and I got back from a long day and we just laid on our bellies flat on the floor and had a bro talk. We were both not super happy with the results, but we were still happy. We weren't anxious. It was a different and interesting week. We've had a lot of council from conferences that we cannot be anxious in the work of the Lord. When we are anxious, we doubt; and when we doubt, we loose our faith. Elder Gusmão and I weren't anxious. We just knew things were going to work out. I knew we were being tested. 

We had a super neat thing happen yesterday. We were walking to a person's house we found in the area book, and, out of nowhere, this older lady comes up to us and asks for a blessing. She said how she had already received a blessing from two other tall young men and needed another one for some pains she was having in her chest. We then went inside an apartment building just by the front door and gave her a standing blessing. She felt super good after and said how she was happy to have met us. She gave us her address and then she left. 

Elder Gusmão and I felt super strong that we needed to go back to her. We did. We looked and looked for her asking where her house was and everything. The address she gave us was missing a few things. After a long time looking for her house, we got to a gate in front of a trashy house and yelled out for her. She came out to say hi to us. We had found her. We tried to invite her to the church to teach her more, but she said how she was sick and couldn't. We then left. We will be going back again pretty soon. 

The feeling we had that we had to find her slowly faded into a feeling of accomplishment. It was super neat and could lead to something incredible in the future. The day before that too, Elder Gusmão and I were out looking for some certain people. We were on fire with finding a specific person who was basically the dream investigator!!! We left and didn't even have a map. We had forgotten it. We got to a certain spot, and Elder Gusmão said how he was just going to go just following the spirit. In less than 5 minutes, we arrived at the address. We rang the apartment door bell and waited for someone to open. We waited for what seemed like an eternity. The door then popped open. We got super excited and ran to the door. A man opened and got super excited. He said how he had disappeared because of work, but that he wanted to talk to his "brothers from the church." So cool!!! We had tons more miracles, but it was a super neat week!!!

Love you all soooo much!!! You all mean so much to me!!! Best family ever!!!

Love,

Elder Barton