Week 74: January 14, 2019 - Willingness to Serve

We had a super neat week.

When we had district council, Elder Carter gave us a little training. He told us how we could magnify our calling as missionaries and the importance of union. He told us how were were going to make the Azores the Cinderella of the mission. He got me super excited. Later that day, we called someone to confirm a visit we had scheduled with her. Her name is Juciani, she is form Brazil. When I started talking to her, she started sobbing on the phone. I asked her if everything was ok. She said that things weren't ok, made me feel sort of dumb asking that question :/ but that she was going to be ok. I just started telling her how God loved her and that He had a plan for her. She said thank you and we agreed that I'd call later. 

We later were walking by her house another day and the thought came to me to call her. I did and she started crying again on the phone. I offered to say a prayer with her at her house. We got there within minutes. She came to the door. She is having lots of difficulties and stress in her life rn. She told us she actually had a sister who was a member of the church. Super neat! We offered to give her a blessing. She seemed a lot happier after.

We went and did some visits with the Carters one day this week too. We showed them a lot of the families we are teaching. The Lord has blessed us with lots of families to teach. I have been praying a lot recently that we would be able to baptize a family here in the Azores. The lessons went super well! They all promised to do what we invited to do. They all had tons of neat questions too.

There was a super neat thing that happened this Thursday too. It was raining outside. We went out in the morning and I was just so tired. It seemed like everyone was rejecting us. To be honest, my body was really quitting on me that day. It was time for us to leave and head back out after eating lunch and doing studies. When I prayed for us before we left, I told God that we were willing to accept any opposition that came our way and that we were willing to be tested to show our faith and willingness to serve Him. When we got outside, it had stopped raining. When we were walking out, I just felt a huge swell of Gods love inside of me. I continued to not rain the rest of the day and only sprinkled a bit when it was time for us to head home. 

We had a super busy last few days. We had tons of appointments!!! A ton of them fell through, but that just meant we got to look for more people to teach.

I wish I had more time to write, there were so many neat things that happened this week.

Love you all sooo much!!!
Elder Barton