6/4/19 - Consecration and conversion: how they go hand in hand

We finally had a normal week.... more or less.

Tuesday we went to the interior to train the rest of the mission on the use of smartphones. We had to leave around 6am and got back at 9pm. It was a full day! I got to see so many friends and on the way back the staff bought Andre's Pizza. Andre's is famous in our mission. It's tradition to order normal pizza, (usually with bacon), with chocolate filled crust. Generally when we call and order this combination they ask, "Is it the missionaries?" Everyone knows only the missionaries are creative, (and genius), enough to order this.

We got to work the rest of the week in our area! We've been teaching Ana Claudia. She was apart of another church for 19 years and when she spent some time in the hospital she felt like God was telling her that if she wanted to truly come to know Him that she'd need to be apart of something else. She's recieved her answer and will be baptized this week.

We've been trying to use technology creatively and so we made a LIVE on Facebook this week teaching the restoration. It was so fun and we got to teach quite a few of Sister Almedia's friends and family through this. Stay tuned for a LIVE in English here in a few weeks. If you have any ideas of how we can use technology creatively please send them my way!

Friday we went on splits with Cantareira and I got to go with Sister Santos and help her with the final preprations for their 2 baptisms the next day. Sister Santos is amazing and it was awesome to work with her. I found that we've had some similar experiences.

Saturday was Almeida's 24th birthday. Birthdays are a big deal for me. I planned so many surprises for her and it was overall an awesome day.

This week I've been pondering a lot about the relationship that exists between conversion and consecration. As I've studied this I've seen that one brings about the other. On the van ride back to the city with the staff I asked them all what consecration meant to them. We had a wonderful, profound discussion and what we found that consecration is something that happens in your heart. It happens when you give everything. You hold nothing back. It's accepting the Lord's will faithfully and adapting well with the trials He gives you.  A consecratdd person works to their max because they want to, not because their obligated to.The Lord will never interfer with our free agency. I believe that He doesn't measure consecration by the results. He cares about the sacrifice. Each one of us will have different results. But that doesn't mean one person is more consecrated than the other. Our sacrifices also differ, but He knows our limits and when He sees that we are sacrificing in an effort to come closer to Him, He'll help us the rest of the way.

Our will is the only thing we have to give Him because He gave us everything else. When we give our desires to Him willingly, that's when we become consecrated which brings about true conversion. In this discussion we concluded that each one of us tends to ask the question, "What lack I yet?" This question is misasked most of the time because deep down we know what we lack, but most of us don't have the courage to give it up and change. Change is not a comfortable proccess but it's an inevitable part of becoming converted. 

President took the staff to the temple today which was a great blessing considering missionaries only get to go every 6 months. It was a great opportunity to "take it to the monte" and recieve awesome revelation for how I can make the most of these last 3 months I have on the mission.

So that's really what I learned. Living a consecrated life brings on true conversion. 

That's my challenge for each of you is to examine where you're at in your path to conversion. Is there something you're doing that you know is holding back the spirit from working fully in your life? Is there something that you're not doing that you know will help you feel the spirit more in your day to day? Whatever it is don't juat sit there and ask "What lack I yet?" Go and make those changes! I promise that as we constantly make an effort to consecrate ourselves we will see the difference these changes make in our lives. We will be able to look back with pride at our lives and be able to tell our Father in Heaven that we did our best.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Barlow 

1) Almeida's surprise birthday breakfast American style

2) Andre's pizza after the multi-zona in the interior

3) A few of my favorite people in the interior

4) O Templo com o staff