Monday, June 27, 2016

June 27, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

Wow things have been getting better and better here in BV! We are seeing lots of progress with a few of our investigators and serving in the YSA is of course just a different experience! Ha! The YSA is so great because missionary work is done RIGHT there! Members do ALL of the finding and all we have to do is teach the doctrine while the members fellowship! Almost all of the members are returned missionaries so they recognize the joy of the gospel and do so well to share it with as many people as they can! It's amazing! 

So I'm sure everyone is wondering what has been going with all the rain in West Virginia so I'll let you know all that is happening because some of the most severely hit areas was in our zone!! It's in a place call White Sulfer Springs which is famous for the Greenbrier hotel! Houses have been literally swept away, cars overturned and in the middle of the Greenbrier golf course, and entrance ramps to the freeways collapsed! We have been sending teams of volunteers as part of "Mormon Helping Hands" with missionaries to help serve! They have been trying to do clean up, but there is just SO much to do over there it's almost over-whelming! Most recently they have just been going into peoples homes (everyone was of course evacuated) and shoveling mud and gunk out of the houses! President Salisbury has been communicating a lot with Elder Maloy and I and basically has delegated a lot of the responsibilities to us as far as what the missionaries in our zone should do! He also told us that he wants us giving as much service as we can this week, so we will be going up there to help out a lot this upcoming week! I'll be sure to send some pictures!

Last night we had a tri-ward missionary fireside at our ward building and it was awesome! We had probably about 60 people attend with 6 non-members and less-active members present! It was so successful! We had testimonies of recent converts, amazing musical numbers and uplifting videos from LDS.org! It was such a powerful meeting and one of the non-members we were sitting near was in tears as we watched the mormon message "the hope of God's light"! She unfortunately isn't in our area to teach, but it's still a sweet experience to see someone be touched by the Spirit of God! It was amazing

All of our investigators are doing well and are progressing towards baptism! Especially one who we found a couple weeks ago! We taught her on a day that we werent planning to see her but rolled with it and ended up inviting her to church AND to be baptized which is HUGE! She has a lot of concerns with coming to church alone, but the Spirit hit her hard and completely washed away all those concerns because she even accepted a baptismal invitation! It was honestly one of the most powerful lessons of my mission! I love it! It was a real experience of how the Spirit can soften hearts and perform miracles! I know that the Holy Ghost is real and is sent by Our Father to lead and guide us as we are humble enough to listen! I love this gospel and I learn things every day! I hope you all have a great week! Love ya!

Elder Barazoto

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