Time is Like a Box of Chocolates...Wait...

Squad singing a hymn at our ward talent show.
Hey everyone!! I hope you all had an awesome week. This week has been great for this fella right here. I love being a missionary, if I do say so myself. It's quite the experience. The good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between, you definitely get a little bit of everything out here, and it's the greatest, because every single experience teaches you something different. I had a few of those this week I wanted to share.
When your mom has a conference in
Scottsdale and drops off a little snack.
On Friday we went on exchanges with the Assistants to the President, and I went into the Northwest Mesa area for the day and it was awesome. I went with Elder Bonilha, who is actually from Sau Paulo, Brazil. He is the funniest man on the planet. We had a blast, we found a few new people to teach and were so busy we nearly didn't have time to eat at all! It was cool. Don't worry, we didn't starve.  We had this cool lesson with a lady named Angela from Columbia, and she was the sweetest, nicest person in the world. Funny part of the story, I guess the culture over in Columbia is to hug people and kiss their cheeks, so she came in for a hug and leaned in, expecting me to kiss her cheek. I panicked. Don't worry, I didn't kiss her. Luckily her friend who was with her realized the chaos and explained that we shake hands, and it was all good. It was actually really hilarious.
When Brother Downs wants to match ties.
Anyways, we had a really spiritual discussion with her. She likes to talk, and also speaks Portuguese, like Elder Bonilha, so they had a conversation in that language while I just sat there, then all of a sudden it switched to English and she was talking about how she got
kidnapped once, how she saved a man from being run over by a car, all these crazy stories. It was awesome. I didn't quite know what to say because I had no idea how it had gotten to that point, but we related it to the Book of Mormon and she wants to meet consistently with us to
learn more! It was super cool.

 Also, recently we have had lots of success with people deciding that they want to progress towards baptism. This month, out of the 6 people who have accepted a date for baptism, 4 of them have moved out of our area, so that had a big impact on the work in our area. However, we stayed faithful and knew that God would provide, and he did! Last night we had a party with a member family, shared a really spiritual message, and one of the kids in the room isn't a member of the church. Her name is Lita, and she told us she wants to take the lessons and get baptized!! So cool. She will be baptized in October.

 With all of these awesome things happening, there are hard things too. I'm not lying when I say this is the hardest thing I have done in my life, and it teaches me so much about how to be a better person. I have learned so much, and continue to learn every single day. I love God, I love Christ, I love all of you. Have an awesome week everyone!

 Love,
Elder Barlow

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