Week 37

My area is kind of annoying and I'm having a hard time with my companion. That's basically been my life the last 9 weeks! haha Things here are way different than any other ward I've served in. This last week my bishop told me that he wont support a family with baptism. He told me that he is tired of seeing missionaries baptize every week but after baptism never see the investigators again. Soooooo yeah...He gave us a list of 13 pages of less active we need to reactivate. hahah My week's gunna be super fun!! But I'm really excited for conference this weekend!! I now have more than 5 friends serving missions around the world!!!! It's awesome to see that after years and years of everyone talking about serving everyone is actually here!!

Week 33

Here in Brazil things really started to cool down. Like really cool down. Last night I was so cold trying to sleep! I've kinda got to admit that I like it more than trying to sleep sweating. This last week we tried closing a few baptisms of people we are working with but unfortunetly nothing went through. This week has been very hard for me and we only had 5 people at church. My companion and I are making new plans and working on creating a few teaching group. My area is the biggest area in my zone and we know that there are people waiting for us to talk to. We've realized that there are a few things that we aren't doing like PMG teaches us to do and so we are making these changes to get better. (There are things that every single missionary in my mission are doing wrong) and so after studying PMG, the scriptures, and talking to other return missionaries that had a lot of success on their missions, we have made a new plan that will literally change my mission. Our goals this week are quite lower than normal because we are going to do things the right way. My district lead is very very mad that I'm doing this...idk why. We have to send our goal to president weekly and this morning before p-day started he called me telling me to put in numbers that I had not planned for. I
gently told him no, that I know what I'm doing, that as senior of my area I received inspiration to make changes. After I said those things I hung up the phone. I am currently sitting next to him and I've never seen someone so mad at me. In my letter to president I explained what my plan is and I pray that he will understand what im doing! 

Lets all pray that things will work out for me this week!

Love you all and hope that you all have a great week cheia de milagres!

Week 29

Well, I got transferred. Just when the ward was starting to get warmed up.

I got transferred to the nieghbor ward, Gurapiranga. I'm a little frustrated to be completly honest but it looks like the Lord needs me in this ward now. It's going to be difficult, this area hasn't baptised very much at all this whole year! I'm gonna hit the ground running tomorrow morning.  My goal is to baptize weekly this transfer!!!! Yesterday my companion and I had 15 people at church! It was an awesome week and I can't wait to see what blessings and miracles will come this week!

Week 28

Well, I was transferred. I am now in a city called Guarapiranga. It's more ghetto than I thought ghetto could be! hahaha! But everything is great here. My companion is elder Oliviero from Fortaleza Ceará. He and I have the exact same time in the mission as each other and so it's cool to relate with him on a few things! My testimony here has been tried but the outcome was that it's only stronger now! We made a lot of plans to really make a difference here as missionaries and so he and I are going to focus a lot on re-activating people. We are convinced that with this we will have just as much success as we've been having but even more. With 2x the blessings!! We're super excited to be here together as companions. He always tells me that he hates companions that are lazy and he always asked president to give him a companion that isn't lazy and so he's super happy that I think the same way! We're going to make miracles here people!! Here's the dude we baptized this past week! Ermerson.

sorry I've sucked at sending email home lately, but I'll try better to keep you guys updated!

Week 27

Feeling the love this week with 4 in the inbox. 3 from the mission home secretary and one from the church talking about how much money I have on my mission card. But here's a picture from the mission tour I had this last week with a 70!

Week 23

So now with just over 5 months in the mission, my 4th transfer as a missionary in the feild is going to a start tomorrow. But this transfer will be a little bit different for a major reason...the Lord and President Dalton have put their trust in me to be a trainer!!!!!! wahoooooooo! In mission language, being a trainer means that I'm going to be a dad!!! Haha, I'm so excited for the opportunity I'll have to help someone else better themselves as a missionary! But with that being said, it also means that my son will be my 5th companion in just 5 months! Kinda crazy!! Last sunday we had 11 people at church! It's been something I've been praying for for a long time! It seems like the people here are just getting lined up to enter the baptismal font and become members of this great church.

I'm so happy for the opportunity have to serve a mission. To serve a mission in Brazil, be speaking portuguese and to be helping people come close to Christ! I love our savior and am so proud to be a representative of him!  

My baptism last week! My last baptism with Elder Moos!!! 

Week 21

 Here's a picture of me and my new companion elder moos!!! He's american! We teach english tp a school every Tuesday and so we are the only area in the mission that has 2 americans. It's really hard to keep learning Portuguese because we only ever speak English to each other!!!

Here's a picture of our baptism from this week! It took us forever to finally help this guy get baptised but after more than 10 weeks working with missionaries he asked me to baptise him!

Missionary work is very hard but it is soo rewarding. at times. I'll be walking in the street and realize how much pain my body is feeling and it makes me want to stop. But one thing that I always remember is the fact that Christ felt 1084375693249599 times worse than I'll ever feel and it helps me keep going. I always tell myself that the only unfair thing in life is the fact that Christ had to suffer for US. That always helps me keep going. There is a talk from Jeffrey R. Holland that I found that talks about missionary work. He says that missinary work is not easy. We are proud to call ourselves representatives of Jesus Christ, but because of that we need to feel a little bit of what he felt and that's why missionary work is hard! Why would we think that it would be easy for us if it was never, ever easy for him. That's what keeps me going. That's what makes me talk to people and that's why the spirit is with me when I teach and that is why I'm baptised weekly. The atonement changes people but most importantly it changes us as members of the church. It carries us through our trials.

I love my call and I love this work. The work of Christ is the best work to do.

I love and pray for you all everyday. Remember God in all things!!

Love,

Elder Barnard

jacob 6:12