Month: January 2018

I literally cannot express how much I love being a missionary! Every day I witness miracles, share my favorite thing with dozens of people, and learn tons of new things. I don’t doubt that coming on my mission was the right decision, and I don’t doubt that Heavenly Father sent me to Portland for a reason. I’m so grateful to be here, and I’m grateful that I will (hopefully) have the opportunity to go to Puerto Rico as well.

No one wants me to leave though haha. We had interviews with our mission president this week, and he was like, “You know, if you want, I could pull some strings and we could keep you here forever.” It’s great knowing that people don’t want me to go haha. My president even admitted that he thought our area here in Portland was DEAD and so he asked me what we did to turn it around. I just told him that even if it was hard to find people at first, I knew that every mission has people who are prepared to hear the gospel so we just made new goals and plans to find them. And now look at where we are! This week we found 2 new investigators, and a bunch of our others became progressing investigators because they kept all their commitments. And then yesterday, we got 4 investigators and 3 less-active members to come to church! It was way more people than the missionaries here have seen at church in a long time and I think it’s going to get even better. It’s so cute, at the end of every prayer in the group on Sundays, they ask for the faith and the help to make their group become an actual ward. These members are so awesome and so strong, and really hope that one day their dream of becoming a ward will be fulfilled. We’re certainly going to help as much as possible!

Anyway, as you can tell, it’s been another great week. Having Hermana Vazquez with us is such a huge blessing! She is AWESOME and it’s so nice to be able to visit any of our investigators at any time now. It’s also great that she’s a native Spanish speaker because she is helping me with Spanish so much, just by being here. Being in a trio has been super fun so far, and it was truly an answer to our prayers.

A quick update on some our investigators–
Luz, the one who came to church last week, met with us this week and wants us to teach her 10-year-old as well. Her and Anthony came to church and both had a great experience. We hope to put one or both of them on date for baptism REALLY soon! We have also been having a great time with Ali, another one that came to church and we want to put on date. He even offered a fantastic prayer at the end of Sunday school! Another investigator that’s doing great is Maricela. She asked us to help her read so that she could study the word of God and share it with others. How awesome is that?!

And your fun, wacky Portland story for the week–
We were out trying to contact some people in a really sketchy apartment complex on Saturday night, when this guy and his brother started walking straight towards us. They offered us a beer, and then asked what we were preaching haha. We gave them a pamphlet and explained that we teach people about Jesus Christ. The first guy, who was either drunk or high, or maybe both, got really excited about this. He promised us that he would come to church, and then he proceeded to tell Hermana Cornwall that she was really cute and that he was going to marry her hahaha. It was slightly scary but mostly just really hilarious. We booked it out of there after that happened though, in case any more sketchy guys wanted to ask for more than just an engagement.

Anyway, I’m having a great time here, helping others come closer to Christ and doing the same thing for myself in the process. There are certainly difficulties of doing missionary work, but I don’t focus on them because the rest of the work just brings so much joy and light to my life. I miss all of you, and I’m grateful to those of you still supporting me and reading my long emails. Have a fantastic week!!!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr

P.S. I’m sorry mom, I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures. All I have is this selfie of me and my companions. I will try to take some more today!

What a week! I probably say that every week, but every week is just crazy, fantastic, and awesome.Highlights of the week:

We made SIX new investigators and one of them came to church! This is the second week that we have reached the goal for our district just by ourselves.

We taught Walter a full sit-down lesson with one of the awesome youth in our ward who wants to serve a mission. We found out that her mom and Walter are from the same tiny part of Mexico, so they were able to make that connection which was super great. Walter is SO receptive of everything we’re teaching him. He asked us how to pray so Hermana Cornwall was like, “well sometimes we start by kneeling…” she wasn’t even finished with her sentence before he was on the floor haha. I love teaching him so much and I’m so excited to see where things go with him.

This week one of our members just gave us money to go out to dinner so I convinced Hermana Cornwall to go get Indian food and it was soooo good and made me miss going to get Indian food with my fam. We went out to eat like three more times this week because our members or our district took us out, and then we had tons of food at members’ homes as well. I laugh every time my mom asks if they feed us well because they feed us TOO well here haha. They are so generous and kind though, and I really do appreciate how well they take care of us.

We have been SO blessed here. I seriously can’t believe it. This week has made me think of the story where Jesus comes upon some of the disciples who couldn’t catch any fish, and he tells them to cast the net on the other side of the boat. And then, they catch so many fish that the net breaks. That’s how it feels right now haha. We have been blessed with so many investigators over this past transfer that we don’t even know what to do haha. We are super happy, but, things have been crazy.

We decided to ask a departing missionary to slip the idea to president to make us a trio, and then prayed for it to happen to haha. And when we got transfer news this week, we found out that we are getting another hermana! She was over in a neighboring zone training the other sister that is supposed to go to PR, but president decided to give her to us! I don’t know where we’re going to put another bed in our apartment, or what kinds of changes will come with being a trio–but we are so grateful that we are getting Hermana Vazquez! Now we will be able to teach all of our single male investigators without having to worry about coordinating with members so much, and we will have one extra person to help us take care of everything.

I just wanted to share a quick thought I had while studying near the end of Alma in the Book of Mormon this week. I was reading the part where Moroni is strengthening and protecting all of the cities from the Lamanites, and I likened it to protecting ourselves from the attack of the adversary. We must find all our weaknesses and ask God to help us become stronger in those areas so that when temptation comes knocking, when challenges try to keep you down, and when the enemy is at your front gates, you can withstand it all. Keep pressing forward and trusting in God!

On Tuesday, ALL of our lessons canceled on us and no one that we tried to contact was home. But, at the end of the day (this seems to happen often haha) we knocked on one more door and made a new investigator out of Walter! He was super excited to learn from us because one of his friends had already given him a Book of Mormon a few months ago, and he knows one of our investigators. We taught him how to pray in a phone lesson later in the week, and he told us he really wants to come to church next week!

On Thursday, I got to give a training in our district meeting. Yep, they asked the newest person to teach everyone else haha. It actually went really well. After that, our district leader chose two random people to do a presentation of the Restoration in 9 minutes. There’s a bunch of things you’re supposed to do for it to be considered a good presentation and I barely knew anything, but I got called up to go give the presentation with one of my zone leaders! I was pretty nervous but I just followed the Spirit, and afterwards everyone told me it was the best Restoration presentation they had ever seen! Don’t worry, I won’t let my head get too big haha. But it’s been awesome hearing from a lot of people that they think I’m really well-prepared for a mission. I know I still have SO much to learn, and I can’t wait to keep improving and getting better.

On Saturday morning, we had the best adventure yet! We got up early to go with the elders and some other members to help a less-active member (who is a hoarder btw) move out of his house. That alone would have made for an interesting experience, but it got even crazier. This man had a drunk, violent roommate who was NOT HAPPY that we were in his house at 8 am. We just kept packing while he swore at us and waved around a metal pole, as if our lives weren’t in danger. By the time we were done, Hermana Cornwall was thoroughly terrified. I was able to laugh it off as a fun adventure, but being from the bubble of Orem, Utah, she has never heard anyone speak like that, and has never been around drunk people. I think it’s safe to say, neither of us will forget this experience anytime soon.

As soon as we left that craziness, we immediately saw one of the neighbors in need of help. Her name is Chequeatta (good luck pronouncing that one) and she is quite the character. We helped her push a dead, rusty car up into her driveway, which she was very grateful for. We also met the homeless Mexican guy that she took into her home. His name is Romeo, he’s very interested in learning more about the church, and we gave him a Book of Mormon! After all of that, Chequeatta gave us slice of her heavenly homemade pound cake, which gave us the energy we needed to go help ANOTHER hoarder clean up their yard. It was definitely an awesome day full of service and I can’t wait to do more!

Last night we got to have a sleepover with all of the sisters in the zone and it was so much fun! We decided to be more obedient than the elders and went to bed at 10:30 still haha.

The last interesting thing about my week is what Hermana Cornwall and I have termed the kalespiracy. We have been served the same kale and cranberry salad by like 6 or 7 families and I finally mentioned it a few days ago. Hermana Cornwall was like “You noticed it too!!” So don’t worry mom, I’m getting plenty of greens in my diet in the form of a salad that keeps haunting us.

On a more spiritual note, I wanted to share Mosiah 4:9 with all of you.

“Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that no man doth comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.”

I love this scripture so much because it’s so straightforward and simple! All we have to do is believe and try our best without worrying about how things will work out, because God knows everything and His hand is constantly guiding our lives.

I hope all of you had a fun time celebrating last night! Good luck with all of your goals and hopes and dreams that you have for 2018, I know it’s going to be a fantastic year!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr