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

June 20, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

Another great week being a missionary! I am learning and growing so much, it's awesome! This week we have been able to accomplish a lot of different things! On Tuesday we picked up a new investigator, Joseph! The Sisters who are serving in Lexington referred us to him and he is great! He is an Eastern Orthodox Bishop!! We knocked on his door and he answered in a big black robe! Haha! It was awesome! He invited us right in and we got talking about religion and all kinds of different things! There isn't a very big presence of Orthodox members in the area so for now he holds church in his living room! I was very surprised to sit on his couch and be staring directly at a "temple" modeled after Solomon's Temple in the Old Testament! Ha! It was crazy! But Joseph and his family were super nice and said we could come back to teach more about the gospel! He told us that he has read the ENTIRE standard work so our next visit should be really interesting! :) I'm excited! Haha

As far as working with the YSA's, there is so much to do and so many people to see! We had a meeting with Bishop Rodrigez on Saturday and went over a ton of people for us to go see! Some of them are even returned missionaries which is super sad! If there is one thing I've learned from serving in the YSA ward is that it's far too dangerous to skip or not make church or scripture studying a priority because it can become a habit real quick! If we do those simple things, we will never fall away and never have to experience less-activity in the church! Its one of those things that terrifies me and motivates me at the same time! Ha! 

Well thats about it for this week, but I want everyone to know that I know that Heavenly Father lives and loves us! I know he answers prayers and will help us as we trust and follow Him! I know that the Book of Mormon brings joy, peace, and purpose in life, because I have personally experienced it! I know that the church is true and am SO grateful I have a sacred opportunity to teach and preach it to my brothers and sisters! I love you all and hope you have a sweet week! :)

Elder Barazoto

A snake!

He loves me!

June 13, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

Another pretty awesome week in Buena Vista! We've been pretty busy with some more responsibilities that we took on, but thats a good thing! So this last transfer, the missionaries serving in the YSA wards got transfered because our mission is loosing a TON of missionaries and because of that we will be taking over the YSA ward! So now we are working with people that are only like 2 years older than us and its super different! Haha! Yesterday we were at a house full of YSA's having dinner with them and I felt like they could all be current missionaries but they were all RM's! It was really cool though because they are super missionary minded and told us that one of their non-member friends was coming for us to introduce ourselves too! His name was Alex and he is roommates with the Elders Quorum President in our ward! At the dinner appointment (We had no idea Alex would be there), we had already decided to teach about the Atonement and when we taught it to them, the Spirit was pretty powerful! I was really happy Alex was there because it was definitely a good taste of the blessings of the gospel for him! He is having great exposure to the church right now so hopefully that will mean that we will be able to teach him more soon!

He is also studying at Virginia Tech to become an engineer so we of course connected pretty well there too! It was a really great experience I think, and I think working in the YSA ward will be a blast! Im pretty excited for it! Ha! :)

Elder Maloy and I had another pretty neat experience with another one of our investigators. I had mentioned her in my letter last week, but she has made some awesome progress since then! We were able to teach her a couple of times and she opened up quite a bit to us which is super awesome! We taught her about God's plan for all of us as individuals and our divine heritage! I think that it really hit home for her and she is excited for us to come back and teach her more! 

I never would have thought that she would be as receptive and as prepared as she is so it was a great testimony builder to me that Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways, but His way is always the right way! I know that there are people all around us that need what we have and if we approach those situations in a spirit of love, people will receive it! When we understand our Savior's love for us as individuals, we will understand how important it is for us to share the gospel to our brothers and sisters! This work is all about love and I have come to learn that more and more each day! 

Well thats all for this week, but I hope everyone has an awesome week and that you reach out to one of your friends this week! :)

Elder Barazoto

June 8, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!!

Its been a pretty insane week and I dont have a whole ton of time, but I do have a couple pictures! Hurray!! Haha. So between last week and this week we had MLC, Zone Meeting, AND transfers! Pretty nuts! So MLC was last Friday and Elder Perkins who is a General Authority was there! He made a last minute decision to come because he hasn't been to West Virginia in a while so he came! Ha! He talked to us very specifically about how we can be better missionary leaders and what our mission is doing well and can improve on! He basically took the statistics of our mission, compared them with other surrounding missions and helped us to see exactly what our focus should be! It was awesome and he is so powerful! Then on Monday we did zone meeting and that was pretty sweet too! We taught a lot about how to be powerful and faith-filled missionaries and it was so insightful! 

Then of course we have transfers this week! The news came on Saturday and Elder Maloy and I will be staying together for another transfer!! This is his last transfers and he is pretty happy that he is staying! Ha! Then something interesting occurred to me that I will spend 6 transfers (9 months) with only 2 companions! I haven't ever heard of that happening in our mission before, but I am stoked about it! I have loved them both so much! The only sad thing about this transfer is that Elder Taylor who is serving in our zone and is from Gilbert is getting transfered... He was one of my favorite missionaries to work with but the Lord needs him in other places! He is an awesome missionary!

So a highlight of this week was when we found a pretty awesome new investigator! We had seen her a couple of times walking around Buena Vista and always waved and said hi but for some reason never talked to! We finally decided to talk to her and she was very receptive and nice to us! She wants us to teach her family as well so that should be interesting! Ha! We will be teaching her tonight so we are pretty excited about that! 

Well thats pretty much it for this week! I love all of you and hope that you have an awesome week!

Elder Barazoto

This is our zone! I would be in the picture but I am taking the picture.... Im sorry Mom!!

May 30, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

Amazing week! Debbie French got baptized! We had her baptismal service on Saturday and it was so amazing! See her make this big step in her life was so rewarding I cant explain it! She was honestly so excited and see her that happy was awesome! Funny story also, so we went to go visit her the day before her baptism and her mother calls out to her to come out of the back room for a lesson and she walks out all giddy, and confident in herself and yells "LESS THAN 24 HOURS BOYS!" Ha! It was probably one of the funniest/ happiest moments on my mission! The gospel has changed her so much and she is so happy!

Well not too much tops that experience ha! But we did have some other pretty neat experiences during the week! we had an exchange with the Elders in Timberlake so Elder Taylor (From Gilbert) and Elder McClune (Tate's Friend)! I went with Elder McClune to Timberlake and we had a blast! We decided to try a different method of tracting rather than just picking a random place to tract so we picked 10 random streets on the map of our whole area. Then we both took a sticky note and each chose 3 streets from the original 10 without looking at each others paper. Then when we looked at each others sticky notes, we had almost the exact same street names! It was obviously the Spirit guiding us and we went to go tract one of the streets called Arrowhead! We weren't finding a lot of success on that street until we ran into a guy who was outside on his front porch. We introduced ourselves and just starting talking to him when we invited us to sit down and talk to him more about the church! We were of course super happy about that and our lesson with him went really well! He accepted it all and took the challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon! It was super cool because we were in a part of the area that hasn't been worked very much and probably wouldn't have seen missionaries very frequently if the Spirit hadn't guided us there! It was cool to see how the Lord works and how he helps us to find those that are ready to receive the truths that we enjoy! I know that it was not a coincidence! We call Arrowhead the golden street now because Elder Taylor and McClune have found 2 other new investigators on that street already! Haha!

Thats all the highlights for this week! It really is a joy to serve here in Virginia! I know that this church is true!

Elder Barazoto

PS I have pictures this week! Yay!!

May 23, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

We had a super great week! Mainly because Sister Debbie French is getting ready to get baptized next Saturday! HURRAY!!! We had her baptismal interview 2 days ago and passed it with flying colors! She is probably one of the most prepared investigators for baptism I have ever met! She cant wait and even better than that is she is also looking forward to going to the temple! She is such a powerhouse! Ha! Yesterday at church, she was honestly so excited and was talking to everyone about it and was inviting everyone to come to her baptism! It was great! I love seeing her so excited to make this special covenant and I love seeing how the gospel has already brought a mighty change of heart in her life! Its going to be amazing!

Another person that Elder Maloy and I have been focusing on this week is Charlie! So Charlie was a referral from the YSA Elders who found him out on his porch! He told them that he wanted us to come by and teach him and also that he was reading his Book of Mormon that he already had! It was honestly such a golden referral! Our first lesson with him was amazing, he told us he knew the Book of Mormon was true and he asked us if he could come to church which has never happened to me on my mission before! It was so awesome!! Then we got a pretty strange call from him a day or 2 later about how he wasn't going to be able to come to church and that he didn't want to learn anymore... It was super sad, but we thankfully we able to set up another visit with him to see what had happened. At that visit he told us that a preacher from another church said all these bad things about us and the Book of Mormon and so that was why he didn't was to meet anymore so we just asked him to do one last thing before we would let him go and that was to ask God if what we were sharing was true. Last Saturday we went back to follow-up on that visit and what he told us was that he got an answer that it was all true, but he was still bothered by what the preacher had said. We read Moroni 7:13 with him and boldly taught him that we dont have to be afraid of what other people tell us, because God will never lead us astray! The Spirit was intense and he felt it because after that he was himself again! It was one of the most powerful testimony builders to me that I have experienced on my mission! I am so eternally grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and I know it is true! I love working with and teaching people about it because it brings me joy to testify of it! I love it!

Thank you all for being a support to me and helping me a lot in ways you could never imagine! I am honestly so blessed! :)

Elder Barazoto

May 16, 2016

Dear Family and Friends!

We had a super great week this week! We were pretty insanely busy with exchanges and Zone Conference but it has really been great! We went on 3 overnight exchanges this week so Elder Maloy and I havent really been working a whole lot together, but we definitely saw some awesome miracles in the process! Our first exchanges was on Monday and Tuesday and I went with an Elder that I served around in my first area, Elder Tan! He is awesome and we of course had a ton of fun remembering our experiences back in Williamstown, WV! Then we had another exchange from Wednesday to Thursday over in Lewisburg, West Virginia were I got to interview someone for baptism! I love doing these interviews because seeing people who are converted enter in at the gate of baptism is such an amazing thing to witness! Another really cool thing is I also interviewed her younger sister for baptism as well! That family is doing SO well and the gospel is truly working miracles for them! I love it!! Then immediately following the exchange, we had Zone Conference down in Lexington! President Salisbury taught us all so well and he really helped me see what I can improve on! He focused a lot on living up to our potential and how we can be a more effective mission! I remember coming away from that meeting being SO grateful for inspired leaders and ready to go to work! I know that President Salisbury is called of God to help and direct me in my efforts! It is so amazing! Following Zone Conference we had our 3rd exchange of the week! This time it was with the Assistants! Both assistants stayed in our area and we got so much done! That was pretty much the bulk of what we did this week and it was honestly so much fun!

The investigators that we are working the closest with is of course Debbie French! She was having a pretty rough week this week, but is so determined to get baptized, I love it! She currently has some health challenges that makes it a little hard for her to be able to progress fast so please pray for her that she will have the strength to do all that she needs to do this week! Can you all do that for me and her? Thank you! :)

We are also working with another family who we found recently and they are really starting to see and understand that we arent a scary cult! So that is HUGE! Ha! Pray for them as well, they are the Harris family! :) Thank you! Well that is all that has been going on this week for us! I truly love what I am doing and know that there is so more fulfilling work than this one! I know this church is true!

I love you all and have a great week!

Elder Barazoto