Month: February 2018

Snow, transfers, and conference, oh my! It’s been quite the week here in Portland. I’ll give ya the rundown.

Tuesday–It snowed a good 4 or 5 inches! We also had to carpool with elders to dinner (40 minutes away) and that was quite the experience. Thankfully Elder Tenney didn’t kill us. We were able to arrive safely and just in time to have a little snowball fight! That was a first for Hna Vazquez so we had a lot of fun. On the way back home our cars got grounded, so we had to spend the rest of the night inside.

Wednesday–We had transfers which almost got canceled because we got more snow. Hna Cornwall left for Vancouver West, and now it’s just me and Hna Vazquez! We are SO excited for this transfer and we have a lot of really great goals! We also just got new Spanish elders in our ward! One of them was just assistant to the president and he served here a year ago, so he’s really excited to be back in a Spanish area. Him and his trainee are both great! And the good thing is, he’s our district leader now, so we can do our nightly phone calls and parts of our district meetings in Spanish!

Thursday–We had zone conference and Elder Carl B. Cook came to visit! It was insanely spiritual and he just asked what our questions were and then answered all of them! During the conference Hna Vazquez and I both received revelation for one of our investigators at the same time! We learned so much and hopefully we’ll be able to apply what we learned into the work here in Portland. Also, we got even more snow on Thursday!

Also on Thursday, we had a lesson with Ali, and now he’s on date for baptism!!!

Friday–Some of the sweet elders made breakfast for the the whole zone! It was good to talk to some people I’ve been with for two transfers, and then start to get to know the ones who are new.

We also spent a good portion of our time in the hospital with a family in our ward. They are probably going to lose their 3-year-old soon and it was such a difficult moment for them to fully realize that. However, I think many people will be impacted by the strong faith they have. A really sweet social worker came in and passed out “prayer rocks” so that when they bury their daughter they can leave one with her and have one with them. That way they can always have a “connection.” It was so kind of her to offer support in this way, but I just couldn’t help but think that what the hospital could offer was so little in comparison to what a knowledge of God’s plan can offer. They already received the best comfort one can have when the missionaries knocked on their door a few years ago. How grateful I am that this amazing family has a knowledge of the Plan of Salvation to carry them through this life, that they know they will see their little girl again. And yet, how sad it is to think that others don’t have this knowledge. They may only have a prayer stone clutched in their hands, when they could be reaching up and taking the hand of the Lord. That’s why I’m out here, so that I can help people gain a testimony of this knowledge and develop a hope and a joy that shines bright, no matter the circumstance.

Saturday–We had our weekly lesson with Luz, which we were actually kind of nervous for this time. She left church in tears last week, and this week she gave us the news that her job is trying to make her work on Sundays. We weren’t sure what we were going to do or say to help her with this problem, or the other difficulties she is facing right now. But, the lesson was actually perfect and so spiritual! Life is just really tough for her right now, but she has developed a strong faith in her Heavenly Father! We assured her that things are going to work out if she keeps acting in faith and doing the daily “small and simple” things God has asked her to do. Then she told us she’s been thinking about how she’d love to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide her through difficulties like this! So of course, we asked her if she’s still been thinking and praying about the decision to be baptized. Luz said that she has, and that she wants us to teach her son more so that they can both get baptized together! What a special moment. I love this little family and I really hope we can continue guiding them towards the goal of getting baptized and entering the holy temple.

Oh, by the way, the headline is a direct quote from Dorothy, a hilarious primary child that loves the missionaries. I hope everyone decides to heed Dorothy’s advice! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr

Not pictured: the completely naked guy that we saw on the way home from church!!! In case you ever start to think Portland isn’t as weird as people say it is, I have plenty of stories to change your mind. 😂

Just a quick email this week!

Wednesday–I had what was by far one of the most spiritual moments I’ve ever experienced! We taught a new investigator named Teresa and she was so prepared to be taught the gospel! She has a member friend that calls and reads the Book of Mormon or the Bible with her every night! She also told us she has a goal to one day enter the temple with her kids and grandkids, which is exactly what our goal for everyone is. I felt the Spirit so strongly and we are all SO excited to keep teaching her! It is hard to describe how much joy you can feel as a missionary, but we definitely had a special experience on Wednesday and I’m so grateful to be here teaching these wonderful people.

Thursday–We had a wonderful district meeting, and then the Thatchers, the sweet senior missionary couple in our district, bore their testimonies to us because they are about to go home. Then they took us out to Red Robin afterwards. It was the perfect way to celebrate the end of the transfer with this awesome district, especially because three missionaries are going home and two are getting transferred.

On Thursday night, we were in charge of mutual for the youth! I asked the YM and YW presidents if we could hold the activity because I really wanted to show them how to use social media to share the gospel. The bishop was super surprised by the turnout and the activity went really well! I hope that we made some sort of impact on them because I truly believe that technology was given to us as way to further the Lord’s work, and that we should use it as such. It’s incredible that we can now reach the whole world with our message!

Saturday–On Saturday we brought Luz and Anthony to a baptism! It was a very neat experience and I hope that they were able to feel the Spirit. Hermana Cornwall and I gave a presentation about the Restoration of the Gospel, which something our mission president has asked us to do at every baptism. It went really well and the mom of the investigator who was being baptized started crying, so I think we made some impact on her.

Also on Saturday, we finally got transfer news! Hna Cornwall is getting transferred to Vancouver West to whitewash an area AND train! Hna Vazquez and I are staying here, and we’re getting Spanish elders here as well! One of them has been the assistant to the president for the past few transfers, so he is awesome and probably really excited to get back to Spanish. We are so happy to be getting him and whoever his trainee is to help us out with the Spanish work here!

Sunday-We had a munch and mingle with the ward after church! It was a ton of fun, we had investigators and less-active members there, and it was a really great way to end the weekend. Hna Cornwall was really happy about it because she got to say goodbye to everybody. This will be her first time getting transferred!

A small spiritual thought for all of you:
This week I studied how to come to know Jesus Christ in Preach My Gospel, the (book missionaries use to study and learn how to teach). PMG says that the best way to do this is by doing three different things:

1) Read about Him in the Book of Mormon
2) Ponder His teachings in the BoM
3) Pray about the BoM

The key is the Book of Mormon! The BoM testifies of Christ–it “affirms the reality of His life, mission and power.” So it’s that simple, if you want to truly come to know Christ, study the scriptures!

Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr

Darn, I forgot to send pictures.

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve had a great week! Not a ton happened this week, so here’s just a quick recap.

Monday-My parents sent me a flute! I’m not even going to lie, I was so happy when I got it that I started crying. Hopefully my comps aren’t tired of hearing me play, because I’m going to be using it whenever I get the chance!

Tuesday-Went to teach a lesson over breakfast. Was fed cake, overly sweet yams (again), chicken, and enough rice to feed a starving village in Africa. Died.
No, not really. But if you don’t recognize me when I get home, I won’t blame you haha.

Wednesday-We took the Stake President with us to teach Ali! It was great because he served a Spanish speaking mission and he’s just an awesome leader and teacher. The lesson went really well and was super bold, and I think Ali is much closer to accepting a baptismal date now. He even texted us about 20 minutes later and thanked us for being such a blessing in his life! It’s definitely nice to be appreciated for helping people make changes in their lives.

Thursday-We had exchanges this week. One of the STLs, Sister Davis, stayed with me and Hna Vazquez in our area while Hna Cornwall went with Sister Lavaka to their area. We had such a great day and I learned a TON from Sis Davis. I love being surrounded by so many great missionaries that inspire me to be better.

Friday-I made SO MANY cookies! We eat with the Halls every week and once they found out that I like baking, they put me in charge of dessert haha. I, of course, loved the idea! The cookies turned out great, and I made some members and the elders very happy, so I felt great.

Saturday-I’m starting to learn that when you ask Heavenly Father for help to make certain changes in yourself or develop certain qualities, He’s definitely going to give you plenty of opportunities to do so. There have been some struggles on my mission so far, but I think I was able to see some of the ways those have changed me for the better on Saturday.

Sunday-It was great! We had 3 investigators at church, and we taught them gospel principles again. I’m starting to love teaching the gospel really simply because the simple doctrines are just so beautiful! Just saying that we have a loving Heavenly Father and that He has a plan for each of us is so basic and fundamental, but it’s something that can have a huge impact on people.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that we were asked to go to seminary every day this week! They are studying about Ammon and a lot of the other fantastic missionaries in the Book of Mormon, so the teacher wanted to do a fun missionary week. We taught them a ton of great stuff, like how to do door approaches and how to bear their testimony in Spanish. I loved seminary so much (shout out to my favorite seminary teacher, Sister Cluff!) so it was a neat opportunity to go back this week.

Anyway, I love all of you, and hope things are going well! Whenever things start to get difficult, just remember how much your Savior has done for you, and how much He is still doing for you! I have a firm testimony that if we really look with our spiritual eyes, we can see miracles every day! Keep looking, keep hoping, and keep enduring!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr

What a fantastic week! I love being a missionary!

This week tons of things have happened, as usual.

Tuesday-A recent convert fed us sweet potatoes that were drenched in some other sweetener, and all three of us were on the verge of hacking those things back up because they were so nasty. I have never tasted anything so sweet in my entire life, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything sweet for almost 2 days afterwards. I haven’t had to eat too many strange or terrible foods yet but I suppose every missionary has to have at least one story, so there was mine.

We also stopped and ate at a ward family’s food cart, which was amazing. And luckily we didn’t have to eat anything sweet there.

After that, we taught a really sweet less-active that has 6 huge dogs! It was crazy but so awesome. One of the dogs was blind!

Wednesday-We got to help one of our members start her family history from scratch and it was so cool! As soon as we helped her get some names put in, thousands of others showed up! I love that this ward is so excited to do family history work. We also got to see their three little girls which remind me a lot of my little sisters, so that was a nice bright spot in my week.

Thursday-We had a FANTASTIC lesson with Ali! He is getting closer and closer to settling on a baptismal date and we couldn’t be more excited for him. We read Moroni’s promise in chapter 10 which talks about seeking to know the truth with real intention, a sincere heart, and faith in Jesus Christ. We picked apart the whole scripture and asked him lots of great questions, and I could feel the Spirit so strongly as we testified to him that he can find answer for himself if he does these things that we are asking him to do.

Another great thing on Thursday–I got a Valentine’s Day package from my family! It’s very fitting that Valentine’s Day is coming up because for some reason we’ve had 4 different members talk to us this week about finding someone to marry after our missions! I definitely don’t want to be thinking about that yet haha.

Friday-We made a new investigator named Oscar!

Saturday-We had a really great lesson with Luz and Anthony. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved every bit of it. She is super golden but still has doubts about baptism so we also wanted to figure our what her worried are. We eventually found out that she’s mainly just worried about not being able to be a good enough member after baptism. We told her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how through the Atonement we can repent and overcome all of our mistakes! We told her that she definitely doesn’t have to be perfect to be a member of this church, or to be baptized. What a wonderful thing, to be able to explain this blessing to people! We are definitely going to talk more about the Atonement next time we teach Luz.

Sunday-Sunday was CRAZY, in a good way, of course. Ali, Luz, and Anthony came to church, as well as two less-actives that have been coming back, Ignacio and his grandma, Elba. We taught a gospel principles class for the first time to Ali and Luz, which went really well. And her son Anthony is doing great in primary, so that made me really happy. Every time I see people coming to church I just get an insane grin on my face because it lets me know that they are on the right path. We had NO ONE come to church my entire first transfer, and now we have these sweet people that are progressing so rapidly and I have come to love them so much!

After church, we taught a new investigator named Elsi, and it was awesome! She wanted to hear about the Plan of Salvation, and it basically lined up with everything she already thought! We ran out of time because we had to go to dinner, but we are definitely going to talk so much more about the PoS next time we go to her house.

Finally, at the end of the day, we had half an hour left and we still only had 1 new investigator for the week. Our mission president really wants us to find at least 3, so we were a little discouraged. But, I had a spiritual prompting to go to this random and sketchy apartment complex, and we found 3 more investigators! Our mission president also sent out a rule this past week, that he doesn’t want anyone to knock doors past 7:30. We were worried about that, but decided to be obedient. As a result of that obedience, we were able to surpass our goal and find 4 investigators this week! It was a small but significant miracle to me, and I’m really grateful for all the new people we get to teach.

Have a great week! Share the gospel with somebody!

Love,
Hermana O’Barr