Barton Family News

Dear Family, Well, another week in the Azores gone by. We had an amazing zone conference this week! We got to fly down to Lisbon and everything! On the flight down, I read a talk that President recommended that I read in his weekly email to me titled "Truth - and More" by Presidente Nelson. It was an amazing talk and made me want to be a more courageous defender of the truth. It also taught me  how truth should be linked very closely with love and mercy. I thought that was super interesting; that talk made truth seem much simpler to me. I really liked it.  Zone conference was incredible! Seriously, the spirit was so strong. There was a part where they talked about having a mission accepted by the Lord. I have stressed a lot about that. I am trying my best, but I still feel like I fail a lot, like I'm not living up to the Lord's expectations. They said how we just need to do what we are asked and trust in God. If we get so focused on ourselves and our perfection,...

Dear Family, It was a super packed growth week! We had some amazing experiences this week with some of the people we are teaching!  We left with a member to go teach some friends we have. It went so well!!! I feel like the spirit made me more capable during those lessons with the member from our branch. His name is Bernardino (I saved a church video of him and his wife, Maria da Paz, on my google drive). We had an extremely powerful lesson with Bernardino and a less active member, Alfredo, and his non-member family. We talked about the atonement and shared Ether 12:27. I love that scripture! We told him how God would show us our weaknesses as we come closer to Him and that He would make us strong. Alfredo was brought to tears; the spirit was so strong. He has such a strong desire to return back to church. We were talking to him yesterday, and he told us how much he loved church that day and how he really wanted to be worthy of the priesthood again. He said how he had heard ou...

Hey there Fam,  We had an awesome week!!! Lots of finding with members and a baptism!!!  Our friend Mario was baptized after much preparation and being married in 2 weeks! Miracles!!!!  This week, I got to give a talk in sacrament meeting about developing a stronger testimony. I decided to read a few scriptures in Alma about King Lamoni and the anti-nephi-lehis. It was pretty neat to be able to study that and think about how much courage those people must have had and how strong their testimonies must have been. I read in the guide for studying about the scriptures and read how a testimony is knowledge and a confirmation that comes form the Holy Ghost. I then talked about how we can get a confirmation from the Holy Ghost from Moroni 10:4 which basically says that we need to first have sought God, have faith, have humility, and ask God. I really liked it. It was a simple reminder of something that I need to do constantly. I then talked about those examples foun...

Dear Fam, Hey guys!!! We had an awesome week this week! We have been working a ton with less active members. We are talking to this one guy named Alfreido. He used to be a super strong member in the church. He had a few life-changing events that happened in his life that forced him to start smoking, and because of that, he got ashamed of going to church and didn't go for a while.  We have been passing by what seems like every day to talk to him and his non-member family. He really wanted to be married in the temple and stop smoking. He has such a sincere heart and is a super good man. He has been working so hard with quitting smoking! He was smoking 15 cigarettes every day and has brought it down to 5!!!! He is doing such an amazing job! The only thing that is holding him back is support from his family and friends.  We are praying and working to help out his family too.  We had no luck finding new people to teach this week. We passed by a lot of less actives and inv...