7/25/19 - 3 weeks, 10 zones, 40 trainings and Chimarrão!

E aí gente, beleza? 

- I went on splits with Sister Mello as her first SLT making me her mission dad so that was fun. She has such a strong desire to work hard and talk to evvveeerrryone. It's the best! This also means I got to go to my old area Santana! We visted my recent convert Maria who is passing through some hard times and it was awesome to get to see her and help her out. She's in great hands with Mello and Belnap.

- We finished training the capital on this more efficent way of teaching and now the whole mission is ready to baptize the whole world! I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to learn so much during this proccess. With every group I taught I felt the spirit and learned something new about the Book of Mormon. I got to hear 180 testimonies of the Book of Mormon and each one of them stregnthened mine. When I asked how they recieved their answer that it's true they all had wonderful stories to tell. We have many missionaries who have been members for just 2 years. 2 missionaries in different zones said that when they read the Book of Mormon for the first time they began to laugh out loud alone in their room because it filled them with so much joy. I thoughy it was kind of funny to imagine a 23 year old guy laughing alone over the scriptures, but truly that's what the gospel does. It fills us with joy! I often wonder if we're really accepting that joy into our lives, or considering every church responsibility, scripture study etc as a burder or another thing on our to do list. Remember, "Men are that they mighy have joy." After I had given the last training I found a quiet place and said a prayer offering up all the effort we put into these trainings. I felt an overwhelming amount of love for every missionary and I know Father in Heaven is pleased with the work we've done these past 3 weeks to help stregnthen the mission.

- Beyond the trainings it was so fun to literally tour the mission geographically and get to know some other parts of São Paulo. The steep hills full of thick, dense, jungle. The favellas like orange legos built into the hillside one on top of the other, on top of the other, facing out at every angle possible. The sea of concrete that is São Paulo with all the sky scrapers steching out for so long you can't see the end.  This country has my heart forever.

- Spending so much time with Presidente Ribeiro and the assistants has been so much fun. The assiatants have become like brothers and Sister Almeida and I work really well with them.

- The members here love us so much they made us tacos. A rare delicacy in Brazil.

- I got sick this week with gripe but thankfully I caught it light. Kkkk 

- We're teaching Thauany. She stopped us on the street and asked us about the church. We were carrying a big box of copies of The Book of Mormon at the time and she asked if we were selling them. I asked her how much she thought one of these books costs. "I don't know" she said, "50 reais." I told her that it actually is worth a lot more than that and that's why we give it to people for free. If we live bu the principles in this book we can gain eternal life. We took her to the temple visitor's center and she's on date for baptism. She comes from a Jewish background so it's been so cool to teach her the basics of the basics about Christ. She's so spunky and fun and I love her. Notice our matching headbands in the pics.

- I don't think I've ever talked about Chimarrão. It's this herb that you put in a special cup with a special straw and drink it with hot water. You drink it then fill it and pass it on to a friend. It's like a social thing. I saw the bishop in my first area drinking it with everyone in the family and I thought to myself, "The church is false in Brazil, everyone drinks marijuana tea!" Because that's what it looks like and because I didn't understand portuguese I didn't clue when they explained it to me. All I understood was "erva" and that for me meant weed... anyway... Everyone on the mission staff drinks it all day. At most of the zone meetings someone had chimarrão amd was passing it around. At first I didn't like it. It's pretty bitter. After a while I grew to like so much that Elder Severo has now supplied Sister Almeida and I with a thermic bottle and enough erva to last a year. I'll send pics to explain better. 

Have a top da galáxia week!

Sister Barlow

1-2) Visitor's center with Thauany

3) Tacos

4-5) Chimarrão