Week 92: May 20, 2019 - Some Of The Biggest Challenges Take Time

Dear Family,

Another week flew by here in Portimão. Things are going great here though. I'm loving it here! We have a few people scheduled for baptism, some still need time to prepare. We had a pretty awesome visit with one of our investigators, Rafael. 

A member picked us up and we went over to his house. He and his wife, Aline, made us Brazilian hot dogs! We had an interesting lesson with them. Aline is very catholic and isn't being super supportive of Rafael's decision to be baptized. We taught with a returned missionary named Martins. He is such a beast! He told us before the importance of helping her look at her faith from an outside perspective. He explained how her faith shouldn't come from the catholic church but from her relationship with God. We told them the importance of the family to God and of being united and keeping a gospel centered home. It was something different for me. Usually, I would just go straight for the money and teach the restoration. But this way sort of created a base for us; it's a more patient way. Something felt good about doing it that way for Aline and Rafael. I think it's different for every person, but Elder Clark, an amazing Elder and great friend in our district, told me that some of the greatest changes take time. We will keep working with him. 

We called our other investigator, Xênia, and taught her over a video call this week. She came to us on a silver plate from heaven and is progressing so much! She came to church and asked for a blessing. We had our branch president give her a blessing and tried to give them a good opportunity to meet. It went really well. Xênia has so much faith. Later on Sunday, we got to go to a less actives house and their son's birthday. We got to know 2 whole families of less actives and we invited all of them back to church and to some activities. The third family there was not members. At the end, we invited one of the less actives, who was a returned missionary, to come with us and give the sacrament to some people. It was great! It felt really good to serve with him.

We also got to go on splits with the zone leaders this week. It was awesome. I went with Elder Hernandez. He is great. I love how he presents our message. One funny thing he did was if someone rejected us, he would pause and with a serious face and tone would say, "are you sure?" I thought it was pretty cool and I used it a few times this week. It makes people think a bit more.

Anywho, it was a great week. I hope you all are doing well and know how much I love you! I love getting your letters and all of your support! 

Love always, 

Elder Barton