Week 100: July 15, 2019 - Book of Mormon

Dear Family,

Hey!!! How's it going? Happy happy Birthday to Chloe!!! Love you tons!!! I hope you get my letter I sent you.

We were kind of all over the place this week. We went on a split with the elders from Montijo. We went over to their area at first to be present in their district council in Barreiro, then we had our zone conference, and then we had a lunch with the district and some members.

Elder Ixtlahuac went with Elder Nichols to Montijo and Elder Valdez and I went to Setubal. Elder Valdez is newer on the mission. He is from Uruguay. He was awesome!!! He has a super strong testimony about the importance of serving a mission. We got back to our area pretty late because of all the traveling, then we had a lunch with a non-member family. It was interesting. The mom, Katia, didn't have the food ready in time, so we waited and talked to the Dad of the family, Marcos. He was pretty fun to talk to. Elder Valdez was really good about getting to know Marcos' religious background. I feel like we got a better connection with him. Katia invited one of her friends too. We got to know her. They asked about what we do as missionaries and why we were here. It was pretty neat. We ended up having to leave right away because there was someone who needed a blessing. Elder Valdez left some scriptures with them from the Book of Mormon.

We met up with a member we planed to go with to give the blessing. It went really well. Elder Valdez got to give his first blessing in Portuguese. I was so proud to be there in that moment . The next day, we just did some proselyting looking for some people we found in our area book. We met back up with the other Elders and said goodbye to Elder Valdez and Elder Nichols. Elder Ixtlahuac and I then taught English classes. It was pretty cool. We created a WhatsApp group for English classes and it exploded! Elder Ixtlahuac didn't stop getting phone calls! We met up with a bunch of people and near the end, they were asking a lot about the church. Super awesome!

That night, we went to Amadora to go on splits with the assistants to the president. We got there pretty late and basically slept right when we got there. The next day, I got to go with Elder Bailey, Elder Ixtlahuac went with Elder Goff. It was neat with Elder Bailey. We did a bunch of contacts and found some people with a bunch of potential from a list they made. Good stuff. We then went to the office to pick up stuff for the new temple being built. Guess who was there... Elder Gusmão!!!! (my companion in Almada that I trained.) He is an executive secretary now. That was his dream since the beginning of the mission. I was so happy for him. I felt so good being there with him. He feels right for the job. President Fillmore was there too. He asked me if I was" still in the game," aka "not getting trunky." Elder Ixtlahuac and I just looked at each other and laughed. We then were dropped off by the assistants at Setubal. It was already the end of the day. They dropped us off at a dinner we had with the Duarte family. They were so awesome!!! Such a great family. Their daughter, Carlota, was baptized last Friday; she had just turned 8. I just felt a really happy, positive energy in their home. Brother Duarte told me to tell their son Vicente in Portuguese, "say English." Then he responded, "English" in Portuguese. It was pretty funny.

The next day, we had a bunch of success finding new people to teach. One guy was a reference from a family that lived in the same apartment building. This guy had a bunch of problems with things that happened in the past at the church. He went off a while talking about it. Elder Ixtlahuac and I just resorted to the Book of Mormon. That is the solution to all doubts. Know that that book is true, and everything else falls into place. We left on a good note. We had a similar experience with a family that we found. We started teaching about the plan of salvation and then they had a doubt about it and showed us scriptures from the Bible that their pastor posted on a social media site. It's really hard to just teach people with the Bible, because it can be interpreted in so many ways and is missing a lot of vital truths. Once again, we bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon. I remember looking them straight in the eyes and saying with full confidence that I knew it was the word of God. Their eyes widened a bit when I said that. I felt a lot of power from the Spirit at that moment. It was really neat.

We visited a less active family and watched a temple video with them. I feel like my testimony of the temple really grew after last Monday when we went to the temple just to look at it from the outside. While we were there, I was so overwhelmed with the spirit. I felt so blessed to be part of the Lord's work here in Portugal. When we shared the video, we bore testimony after and I just felt so much joy testifying of the temple. I know that the temple is a house of God.

We had an amazing dinner with a recent convert family. The dad, Caio, received the priesthood this Sunday. That was really neat to see. The Come Follow Me lesson for this week was amazing! I loved how it talked about Saul and his conversion story. The greatest miracles truly happen within people's hearts. Caio seemed thrilled to have the priesthood. He also received a calling in the ward. I felt so happy for him.

We also did a presentation for the primary. We asked them what they thought a missionary did. We then told them that a missionary always testifies and had them all write their testimony in one phrase on a piece of paper. We put their one phrase testimonies up in the cultural hall. We then gave them printed out missionary name tags. They all loved it. Elder Ixtlahuac and I also got to organize a zone preparation day today. It was a success. I feel like everyone in our zone got to know each other better and feel more united.

I love you guys tons!!! I hope you all have the best week ever!

Love always
Elder Barton

1) Elder Ixtlahuac and I at the Lisbon Temple