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!
