8/13/19 - Living it up for the last 5 weeks!

Their captions:

1- Sunday fun days are a lot more fun when wearing your comp's clothes from Portugal.

2- Dupla de Terror (see letter below)

3- All the SLTs

4- Our last pic together as the three muskateers.

Ok now let me explain this week!

Tuesday: Transfers! Sister De Barros was interviewed by President and was called to be the new TLT with me. She's from Setúbal, Portugal and I love her. She's my first non-brazillian companion. Her accent from Portugal is the coolest thing ever. She speaks fluent English and danced before the mission like I did. When President finished her interview he called me in too. He told us both that here he put together "uma dupla de terror", a duo of terror. We're gonna work super hard this transfer! 

We helped with the training of all the new arivals and had to work out a lot of problems with ubers. I also got to see my mission dad, Sister Bodainhe while she was here visiting the mission.

I started a prank war with the Sisters we live with to celebrate my last 6 weeks. Tp start I put Sister Belnap's nametag in Jello, (the office anyone?) and that was awesome. It's hard to tell in the picture but her nametag is in there. Kkkk

Wednesday: We had a leadership counsel and I got to bear my last testimony. I'll share that testimony with you all when I'm a little closer to coming home. Needless to say I cried a ton and president teared up too. That night we taught Italo and got him hyped up to be baptized on Sunday. It's really hard to teach him because he's always so busy, so that was a miracle for us! 

Thursaday: This was one of the most productive days I've had in a long time. We taught a bunch of lessons and for a  handful of cool people to teach. S. De Barros and I work really well together, it's a blast.

Friday: Do you like hearing about miracles? Let me tell you about one. Tiago suffered a motorcycle accident a few years ago. He should've lost all control of his legs, but thanks to a miracle he is walking today. He discovered the church last year in Minas Gerais. The missionaries there taught him every lesson and read the Book of Mormon with him for 11 months. He loved the church, but never felt like he knew enough to be baptized. He moved back to São Paulo 3 months ago, but before he left Minas, the missionaries in Minas told him that he needed to find missionaries on the street in SP and keep going to church. (Why they didn't just send his refrence idk) Anyway, while on his motorcycle the other day he spotted the sisters from Cantareira walking down the street. He flipped a u turn because he'd never seen sisters before, only elders, but he recognized the name tag. He asked for the address of thr church and that night we recieved his contact info. When we arrived to visit him he came out of his house with the Book of Mormon and all the phamplets in hand. Talk about a missionary dream come true. He knows so much and is so special. He knows what he needs to do to follow Christ, the only things is that he has some difficulty smoking. We promised blessings, gave him a pep talk and made goals with him. In just 4 days he's made amazing progress with his goals. He wants to discover why God let him live through accident and gave him back his ability to walk. We're gonna put him on date this week. He's working on opening up his own pizzaria and we told him about the MSPN missionary tradition of pizza with chocolate filled crust. He said he'll make it as a test for us to try and if it turns out well he'll put it on the menu as the missionary pizza. 

Saturday: This was the day nothing went right. Kkkk We had our Storm Area 51/Facebook activity with the youth. When we announced it everyone was so excited and when it came down to it only 1 youth showed up out of 12. We had the activity anyway and it was fun. We then passed it on to the rest of the youth through Whatsapp. We divided everyone into teams and for the next 15 days there's a daily challenge where they have to post something specific with the link to the site ComeUntoChrist.org to help us recieve more media refrences within our mission boundries. Everyone is so excited. It's going really well! After the activity we ran over to English class at the mission office to confirm everything for Italo's baptism. When we got there we found out that there had been a misunderstanding between him and one of the elders and he got upset and took that as his answer that he should stay in the church he's currently apart of. It was a sticky situation. We're hoping that this week we can smooth things over and get him back on track for baptism. Since S. De Barros hasn't spent much time in the capital, she got sick. New place, new bugs, dirty streets, pollution, it happens. We had to spend the rest of the day at home. D&C 58:54

Sunday: Thawany finally came to church! We were looking at some of the ward's files and discovered that the ward has a 20% frequency rate. 80% are less active. We sat down with the bishop to see how we could better help the ward this transfer and he gave us 5 refrences. We visited them that afternoon and found a family of less actives. Susana and her daughter Mônica are both members. They were baptized in another part of the city and when they moved here they became less active. They're both married legally (insert Kip's fist pump here), and their husbands aren't members, (yet). They were super nice and we got to teach the whole family. It's interesting how many less actives just need an invitation to come back, they just need a friend to let them know they've been missed.

Monday: We spent all day in the mission office with the staff organizing everything for September 1st. THE PROPHET IS COMING TO SÃO PAULO! Us missionaries along with 35,000 members will be there in the stadium to hear him speak. It will be broadcasted to the rest of Brazil. During my mission I have had the opportunity to be taught in mission conferences by 2 members of the Seventy in addition to Elder Ballard, Elder Soares, and now the living prophet, Russell M. Nelson. What a blessing! Brazil really is a special place. The church is strong here and I'm so thankful I was called to São Paulo. I know it's exactly where I'm supposed to serve.

Missions are awesome. This week please take a minute and reach out to a less active friend. Invite them to a family night in your home, invite them to dinner, invite them to come back to church and offer to sit with them. Your influence is needed! 

Sister Barlow

Side note: I'm not the least bit trunky, but our house is right in the path of all the airplanes coming into Guarulhos. In 6 mo ths living in this house I've never really noticed it too much, but these last few weeks will be a challenge listening to the beautiful sound of airplane breaks overhead every 5 minutes. 😂 Not to mention from my window we get agood, close, clear view of all planes. Like I said, I'm not trunky, but the irony is funny. There are always missionaries going home and new missionaries living in our house.

Thought I'd take advantage of the situation and send a few more pictures.

1- Bodaine!

2- Jello prank