Nothing super exciting has happened this past week, but I know that you all like to hear everything about what's going on haha!
I'll start off by talking about what we did today for P-day: we went to a castle! The part of Leiria where Elder Cardenuto and I are assigned to serve is the newer part with mainly apartment buildings. But the other area has lots of older, more European looking buildings. This area is where the castle is. It was so beautiful! It's on the top of a big hill, so we were able to see all of Leiria from the top. It´s several centuries old, and has lots of history ( I couldn´t really understand the information signs, because they were all in Portuguese haha). I took lots of pictures, which I will send in another email a little bit later. I felt like I was in Camelot haha.
As I am still very new in the mission, random meetings and other things come up that I don´t really know about until we are on the way there lol. Like the zone meeting this week. Leiria is part of the Coimbra stake, so this past Thursday (?) we took a bus for an hour to Coimbra to meet with the rest of the missionaries in the Stake. It was a beautiful city as well! We basically just went over different topics that the Mission President wanted us to focus on lol! But apparently Elder Ozuna (my companion in the MTC) is in the same Zone as me! It was so fun to see him at the meeting! It felt so nice to see a familiar face and to catch up.
As I said in the email last week, the members in our ward are very nice. I was sitting next to an older woman during sacrament meeting, and after it ended, I turned to her and tried to have a conversation ( which didn´t last very long haha). But I found out that she has three grandkids, and one of them lives with her, so that was interesting.
There's a couple in the ward who really love to help the missionaries, and really like to feed us! Pablo and Nanda. They speak really good english too, which helps out a bit! Yesterday they had us and the Sister Missionaries ( sisters Keenan and Gilbert) over for dinner because it was sister Gilbert's birthday. They have younger kids, and Nanda told us that they love to help the missionaries because she hopes that someday when her kids serve missions, people will help them as well. So we're being taken care of here in Portugal!
We taught Edy Rocha again this week (the first lesson), and asked him to pray to know if what we've said is true. He said he would! But we have a lot of work to do with him still! Before the lesson, I was attempting to talk to him in portuguese, when all of a suddent he started talking in english about relationships--like very in depth and with explicit content! It was very awkward for me haha. But I know that the lord will guide us in how to teach him.
We were practicing the first lesson one morning, and when I was reciting the First Vision, I just felt so much gratitude and love. Afterwards, I was just overcome with the spirit, and started crying, because I realized how blessed we are to have the truth. That God loves us so much that he has established His church again on the earth!
I'd like to end by talking about a special story from this week. It's about my foot. On monday night, after we got home, my foot and ankle had such a horrible pain. It wasn't a sore, good pain, but a harsh, painful pain. I could barely walk around the house at all. I was worried about being able to walk on my foot all day the next day. So as I said my prayers for the night, I asked Heavenly Father to heal my foot over the night. I desired to be able to fulfill my missionary purpose, and I knew I couldnt do that if I couldnt walk. I had faith that my foot would be healed, that when I woke up, there would be no more pain. My prayer was answered. Throught out the night, I would wake up with the pain, but I would say to myself " have faith that itll be better in the morning". The next mornig, there was no pain at all! Maybe it wouldnt have hurt anymore even if I ddnt pray, but maybe not. To me this was a miracle, and I know that Heavenly Father answered my prayer!
This week we walked a lot. THe missions in portugal dont have bikes because all of the sidewalks are made out of cobblestone (like ALL of them), and there are many hiills. Somedays it gets discouraging when we walk so much, and nobody wants to talk to us. But I just have to remember that if I find just one person to teach, itll all be worth it. To those of you who arent members of my church, if a missionary asks if they can share a message with you, please let them. It means so much to us to be able to teach someone. And after one lesson, if you dont want to meet anymore, you dont have to. i think I speak for all missionaries wehn I say that we love the people in our missions, and that we just want to make them happy.
The bread here is delicious! I think all the weight that I lose walking and running, I gain back by eating Pastel de Nata, among various other sweets. So good!
As I said in my last letter, I think I can only go to Porto to get my letters and packages every three months., but itll be such a nice time when I get to see them all haha!
I love you all so much, every week when I read my emails from you, I get all teary because I love so much!
Até a Proxima P-day!
Com Amor,
Elder Barker
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