Barton Family News

It was such a great Christmas week!!! It was so awesome talking to you guys on the video chat!!!! You guys all look so good!!!! You guys always have such a warm, positive energy!!! I love you guys sooo much!!!! The whole time we were talking, I kept thinking it was a dream!! I couldnt believe I was actually talking to you!!! hahahaha You guys are seriously the best family ever!!!! Right after the video chat, Elder Freeman and I had a huge dinner with a member on the other side of the island. We ate soooo much food!!!!! I was painfully full after!!! I titled that day in my journal, FULL Christmas! We had an awesome lesson the next day with some people that love right next to our house. There names are Pedro and Lecia. They are super humble and super nice!!! They set up a table with treats and drinks for us when we got there! We got to talking and they completely opened up to us and told us some amazing experiences they had. Lecia told about her experience when she was in a coma. S...

Merry Merry Christmas Eve!!!! Caroling at a members home with a Presépio in the background. Only the people here in the Azores apparently make this type of Christmas decoration There was a lot of going back and forth this week!!! I spent the first few days this week in Ponta Delgada with the other elders over there. We were in a threesome. It was tons of fun!!! It was neat to see all of the good work they were doing in Ponta Delgada. Elder Freeman, my new companion, came here this week. He is such a great elder and has such a huge enthusiasm for missionary work!!! Im already learning so much form him! He works with a lot of faith and believes that tons of miracles will happen. There was one morning we were walking around and he said how he really wanted to teach someone that morning. He walked straight to a door as if impressed to do so and knocked. Sure enough, someone answered and said that we could teach right there at the door!!! So cool!!! We then taught an awes...

Well, we had Christmas conference this week. I learned so much! We talked about growing and making ourselves more capable. We talked about how the promise in Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 only happens if we do our part and study the word of God so that the Spirit can bring back those things to our remembrance. The Spirit cannot bring back something that wasn't there. The zone leaders did something pretty cool too. They had one elder play the piano while we stated questions that people have asked us during our service here in Portugal. He played the same note over and over again only after the question was asked. Then another missionary came and when we asked the questions, that missionary played a super amazing piece on the piano the whole time without stopping. They talked about how we need to constantly practice and learn new things and adapt to the needs of the people. Our efforts also have to be constant. We can't just practice once or not prepare. I thought it was a ...

We visited a family we found that other missionaries had already passed by. A lady named Sonia answered the door. She said that they were eating dinner, but that she had a daughter who had a super serious problem with her leg. We offered to give her a blessing. She said she would ask. She came back and said that her daughter was too shy. They were eating dinner and we wanted to respect them and get a good start with them so we said we could pass by another day that worked better for them. She said, "no, you can come in for a bit." We accepted right away! She had us sit down and her husband, Antonio, came in and joined us. We got to talking, and they told us more about themselves and their situation with their daughter. they said they let us in because they were passing through a very difficult time. The last time the missionaries came by was another difficult time for them. they said if we had shown up and sooner or any later, we would have missed them!! It was a miracle that...

Dear Family, Elder Ray is feeling a ton better!!! He's been on a special diet called a BRAT diet. He seems to have more energy which is good. We got to go to the other side of the island to be with the other elders for a while. It was actually tons of fun! I got to go out with both elders, Elder Zamora and Elder Harper. I learned lots of stuff from both of them. After that division, I felt like I needed to be more auto sufficient and learn to be able to solve my own problems rather than bucking them up to the top. I really want to be capable and dependable.  We also got to spend time with the branch mission leader in Ponta Delgada. He was so awesome and took us out to get sushi!!!! He's a returned missionary and I asked him what he thought of his mission life compared to where he was now. He said he would totally go back to his mission life if he could and how much better it was just worrying about the work of the Lord and not paying bills and other life stuff. After tal...