January 30, 2017

Well I have no time to write this but this week was really good! We taught two people on Tuesday night and I wouldn't be surprised if the got baptized next transfer so yeah we are pretty stoked about that! Everything is going well with me, love you all and have a great week! :)

Elder Barazoto

January 23, 2017

Hello everyone! So this week we saw a couple of changes! Last Monday literally right after we finished emailing and we were walking away from the library, we talked to the Assistants on the phone and they told that Elder Furrows is going to be leaving Thursday to go be with another missionary whose companion went home unexpectedly. So Thursday morning we drove down to Charleston and dropped off Elder Furrows! So now its just me and Elder Harris! Its different, but life goes on and Heavenly Fathers plan for us may be confusing but it certainly is perfect! 

This week we were able to teach a bunch of great people! Actually we have taught more people this week than I have in a long time which is super great! On Monday night we got a media referral who requested a Book of Mormon be brought to her. So Tuesday we made plans to go see her! We knew it was a ways out there, but we didn't realize it was like an hour away ha! But she is really great and we will be seeing her again tomorrow! She seems like she has real intent to learn and understand more, so we are excited to see where things go with her and her family! 

We also had a pretty great exchange this week with the Elders in our district! me and Elder Jolley worked the day in Marietta and it was way fun! I have only been in Marietta for about 3 or so weeks and although I served in Williamstown before, I dont know hardly anything about Marietta so being the person who was supposed to know the area on that exchange was kinda funny! We only got lost once so I count that as a miracle :) ha! We just did a bunch of tracting because I didn't have any idea where anyone lived! It was totally okay though because we found a sweet family to teach this weekend and we ran into an inactive member who we didn't know about! She is a really nice lady whose daughter and son-in-law we are currently teaching! Nothing happens by chance! We are excited to start visiting her more regularly and hopefully she will come back to church!

At our dinner appointment that night, the members who are just amazing missionaries invited some of their friends over for dinner! We had no idea that they would be there, but it was cool that they did that! I love seeing members doing there best to be an example to their friends! 

Well thats about it for this week! I love you all very much and I am sincerely grateful for all your love and support! I know I wouldn't be here without all of you! Love ya!

Elder Barazoto

January 16, 2017

Marietta is such a great place! I am seriously loving serving here, the members are great and we are working with some great investigators! At church Sunday, we were talking with one of the members in our ward about one of her friends thats interested in the church and she sounds pretty golden! Shes already living all the commandments which is huge AND she already been coming to church pretty regularly! For the sounds of it, she could easily get baptized in the next couple weeks! Hopefully we will be able to start working with her more regularly and help her work towards baptism!

This week we have been working on trying to find more people to teach and it has been going pretty well! On Saturday night we were walking around near our house and it was actually pretty late and dark outside too. We were a little hesitant to knock on any doors because if you knock on peoples doors too late in the evening out here in West Virginia you can really offend some people. So we were walking next to this one house and I felt this feeling to knock that door. The adversary is very clever because my next thought was this area has probably tracked hundreds of times, and that they wont be interested. Thankfully we decided to knock anyways and the lady that answered the door was super nice and has never talked to missionaries before! She has been exposed to the church for many years and has even been to church a couple of times! Super awesome! We have an appointment to go see her and her family and we are pretty stoked about it!! I am extremely grateful for the promptings of the Holy Ghost, I know they are real!

This area is making great progress, Elder Harris, Elder Furrows and I are doing great and we are having tons of fun! Elder Harris is probably one of the funniest missionaries on the planet so we are constantly laughing and having a good time so that is pretty awesome. It is really exciting to see all the things that are happening and we are hoping for a baptism in the near future! I am so grateful for the joy that I feel as a missionary and I know that this work is so true! 

I hope everyone where ever you are has a super great week and chooses the right of course! :) Love yall!!

Elder Barazoto

January 9, 2017

Fun week! This has actually been one of the most interesting weeks of my mission. Ill start with today because today is when all the weird stuff happened haha. So last week I talked about how they closed the area right next to us and we have been cleaning out the house, well when they missionaries left that house they left their car there too... So this morning we drove all the way down to Charleston and dropped off the car. We have to get back to Marietta of course so we took our car as well but in order for us to get both cars down here, One of us three had to be companion-less for the drive haha. So Elder Furrows followed us down to Charleston without a companion! So we are actually currently emailing for the chapel in Charleston. Pretty crazy! Its gets better though! :) So President wanted to make the trip down more purposeful so he decided to do our interview today instead of later in the month. So we did our interviews with President today also! Today has just felt pretty weird! Ha! Funny story, so when we get to the mission office and President acts like he didn't tell us to drive down here and everything and we felt super bad and awkward, but hes like "I'm just teasing!" President's sense of humor is just hilarious :) haha he is the best!

We also had Zone Conference this week with President so its pretty really great being around President so often! After the conference we did exchanges with the zone leaders, it was a lot of fun being on the other end of that exchange! :) I went with Elder Westmoreland and he is just great! He's a pretty young missionary, but he is really skilled and natural! We had tons of fun! Working in Charleston has always been a good experience for me, the people there are so kind of receptive it is so cool!

I am really looking forward to this week though, we have had to spend a lot more time cleaning the old car and house, so thats still really lame but this week should be really great! Thank you everyone for all the support, I love you all very much! Church is true!

Elder Barazoto

January 3, 2017

Hello everyone! Yesterday all the libraries were closed so sorry I am a little late with this email!! Haha well not too much has happened since last Wednesday, but I am really enjoying Marietta! My companions are awesome and we are really excited to see tons of great miracles! :) So what I didn't know before but I know now is they actually closed down the Williamstown area so now we cover both areas! I originally thought some other missionaries were going to be in Williamstown which is my first area, but now we get it! And we are also living in the Williamstown apartment too! This week has basically been just a huge blast from the past experience! Church was really interesting because I really didn't believe anyone would recognize me at all because I didn't serve here very long and it was almost 18 months ago but people actually remembered me so that what pretty sweet :). The only down side is now we have to get the house where the Marietta Elders used to live ready to move out and the house is pretty huge. We have been spending a lot of our week finishing that but we have definitely been having tons of fun along the way! Ha! This week should be full of really awesome missionary experiences though! I'm just so excited!

As far as teaching goes for this week, we were able to have a sweet lesson with one of our investigators named Brother Huling! He came in contact with the church because our ward mission leader and his family met him when they moved to the Marietta area and invited him to learn more about the church and even to attend church too! This member family is the bomb, they are super great people and great fellow-shippers. In our lesson he agreed to pray about a date for baptism so we will see what happens! :)

We have also been able to teach a couple of recent converts and they are really great people as well! I always love seeing new converts and the fire that they have! One of the converts received a calling recently! She'll be teaching primary and she is really excited about it! It is really just amazing to see how the Savior and His gospel can take people where they are at and transform them into someone who they never could have become by themselves. I have definitely experienced this first hand and helping others have a similar experience is just great! I love my mission so much!!

Well thats mostly it for this week, I love you all and I hope everyone has a great week and also a happy new year!

Elder Barazoto