The Best Thing I Have Ever Done

Oi Gente!

I still have one more P-Day to send email, but I know that next week my brain and heart will be exploding.....so I want to share my testimony, a testimony that was definitely strengthened this year and a half that I have been serving the Lord, this week.

Serving a mission was the best thing I have ever done. No doubt. By far. I knew the mission would be hard, but it is impossible to know how hard it truly is until you have served one. I have been stretched. I have been refined in my tribulations. When we think of the Atonement, we usually think of the redeeming power of the Atonement. I have gained a testimony of the enabling power of the Atonement. I know that the Lord has given me the capacity to be an instrument in His hands. I know that as we pass through our trials, the Lord strengthens our shoulders so we can carry our burdens with more ease. He qualifies and perfects us and expands our own abilities. He allows and helps us to change!

I have seen people change. Myself being one of those people. I have seen how God changes us if we are willing to follow Him. There is no doubting that God's path that we tread by living according to the principles and ordinances of the restored gospel is the means by which we can have happiness in this life. How do I know this? Because I know that I am happy when I am obedient and seek to do God's will. Also because I have seen a DRASTIC DRASTIC DRASTIC difference in the lives and families of those who keep God's commandments and follow Him and those who prefer to worship wordly things.God is so willing to grant us eternal happiness....that is His work and His glory. If we want to be happy, we have to make and keep covenants with God. It is that simple.

I have learned that there is GREAT JOY to be found in serving people. It is great to forget about your own cares for awhile and concentrate your efforts in helping others and building the Lord's kingdom here on the earth. I have made many friendships that will last for eternity...with converts, members, missionaries, companions, President and Sister Wright. Tá louco. Why have we been blessed so much? Not to keep these blessings to ourselves, but to use these blessings, knowledge, talents to push forward Zion's cause.

I know the Book of Mormon is true. It is evidence that the Lord loves all His children. The Savior didn't just establish his church on the Asian Continent, but appeared here in the Americas to minister to the people and establish His church here as well. I know those pages are sacred and priceless.

We have a prophet here on the earth. Thomas S. Monson is the Lord's mouthpiece. We are the only true and LIVING church. Why can we say that the church is LIVING? Because of the revelation that we receive from God through a living prophet who has power and authority from God. I know that this power was restored to the earth through the Lord's servant, Joseph Smith. I know that the Lord didn't leave us here on earth without one of His special prophets.

I know that Christ lives. I know that this is His work. I know that He came to the earth to fulfill the Father's will. He passed through it all so that we don't have to if we will just turn to Him and repent. This is His church. He is at it's head. My sincerest desire is to be a worthy daughter of my Heavenly Father and one day be welcomed into His glorious presence as one who served Him with all her heart, might, mind, and strength.

I love you all and can't wait to see you so soon!!! (I don't think I will be one of those awkward return missionaries, but I will need all of your help if I am!!)

Sister Autumn Rae Barnes

Homecoming

Hey, everyone! Autumn will be coming home from her mission on May 29th! She will be speaking in the Highlands Ward on June 9th @ 12:45 - 2:00. She would love to have any and all of her friends there! The address to the chapel is: 5378 W. Old Highway Rd | Mountain Green, UT 84050. Hope to see you there!

Surrealllllllllll

Yesterday was fabulous. For one thing.....none of my investigators went to church (ok....so this part wasn't so cool) for another thing we had lunch (a delicious lasagna) at the coolest members' house. Then a little bit later.........I called home!

I am feeling super uninspired today, so bear with me.

Things are going well with Sister Loss. I am loving her. She is super hilarious. I am also living with 2 other sisters, Sister Bradley and Sister Costa.......and we have become super good friends. The other day, a member surprised us with 4 xis (a southern brazil version of a cheeseburger), so we had a little party on our balcony. We ate our xis, drank chimarrão, and laughed a bunch. This member was super inspired because that particular day was super hard for the 4 of us.

Speaking of this member, her name is Irmã Etsuko. She was born in Japan, but moved to Brazil when she was 6 years old. She is the most humble, pure, charitable person I have ever met in my life. She helps us with anything and everything that we need. This woman will be exalted!! She and her husband are planning to throw me going away party.

This week was a little hard, but it is in these moments that the Lord stretches us! It is hard to explain how I am feeling all possible feelings right now as I am finishing up my mission......sad, excited, overwhelmed, scared, anxious!!! It is definitely a mixture of about a million feelings!!

Love you all! The next email will be more inspiring!!

Sister Autumn Barnes

Family!!!!

My mission is slipping through my fingers! 3 weeks!!!!

This week something a little bit more exciting happened. One day, I noticed that the bottom of my foot was hurting a little bit. At the base of my big toe, I noticed a little thing that looked like a wart. I thought, "oh great, wart on my foot." But then I went on with my life. The next day after I got home, I looked at my foot and noticed that it had grown a bit, but it still wasn't that big of a deal. The next day, my foot started hurting..........and the wart looked like a fish eye.....a white bubble with a black point in the middle. It was at this point that I called Sister Wright to ask what I should do. I was sent to the health clinic to get it checked out. Hahahaha this was a super funny experience. I had to give my full name, but no one hear understands my name, Autumn or knows how to say or write it. Hahaha so I ended up waiting in the waiting room forever because no one one wanted or knew how to call out the name of the poor little American girl. Racism. :)

So in case you were all wondering what this thing was......it is called "Bicho do Pé." In english, the translation would be, "Foot Bug." Yeah.....there was this flee type bug that caved into my skin and was living there and laying eggs. You get this foot bug by walking through dirty sand that dogs do their business in. I HATE THE DOGS HEREEEEE!!!!! If I wasn't annoyed by them enough already. Anyway....the nurse used a needle to dig out the bug and all the eggs. So.....I am Bicho-Free. Something like this had to happen! I have been way too healthy on the mission! I needed a cool story like this to bring home from Brazil!

I don't know if you all remember about Nicoly, a girl that Sister Carneiro and I found in Santa Cruz, she was baptized yesterday! It is hard to not be present at the baptism of someone that you found, but I am happy to know that because I followed the spirit, she was baptized! That is all that matters!!

I am excited to talk to the fam on mother's day! It will be more like......."Hi. I will see you in 2 weeks!"

Haley is beautiful! She was absolutely shining in that picture that you sent me, Dad! Thank you!

Love you all! Don't worry! I am taking advantage of every second that I have left of being Sister Barnes!

Sister Barnes Sr.

Yes!!! I was transferred! I am now in Osório. Osorio is a city that is close to the beach!!!! There isn't beach in our area, but the weather is super beachy! A ton of sea breeze!

I am training again! I am training the first and only 19 year old sister in Porto Alegre Norte! Her name is Sister Loss and she is from Espírito Santo, a state here in Brasil. Sister Zeller (my comp from the MTC) served in Sister Loss's ward! Small world! I can tell you one thing, these sisters entering the mission field right now are entering super prepared. Sister Loss is amazing!

This area is completely different from Santa Cruz! The people are receptive! I about dropped to the floor dead when people asked ME to visit THEM in their houses. In Santa Cruz it was almost impossible to enter into houses! The field is super white and ready to harvest here in Osorio!!! I am also living with another companionship of sisters again, and we all get along fabulously.

I realized yesterday that my English is amazing. There is a man from my branch that wanted to practice speaking English with me. He asked me how long I have been here on the mission. I replied, "One year and cinco months." You will have to bear with me when I get home. It will be tough, the transition back into English!

Love you all! Being a missionary is sooooo amazing.

Sister Aut Barnes

TRANSFERRED!!!

I was transferred from Santa Cruz do Sul!!!! I don't even know what to think! The thought didn't even cross my mind that there was a chance that I would be transferred......I only have 5 weeks of mission left!.....and I haven't finished training Sister Carneiro! But yes....I really was transferred. At times I love being transferred because after a long time in one area, I lose steam. But after only 6 weeks in this area with my amazing companion Sister Carneiro, I will be leaving. I wasn't prepared for this and am actually a little bit bummed. But, I know that President Wright and the Lord have something in store for me and that I did my part here in this area.

 

I think my part was finding Nicoli. Last Sunday, we were on our way to an investigator's house and we passed a street. You know that little feeling that says go back and knock the doors of that street? Yeah, I felt that feeling. I suggested that we turn back and knock the doors there. We knocked on the first door and the people hid from us and didn't come to the door. We knocked the second door and out came a 14 year old girl who opened the gate and invited us into her house without even giving us enough time to introduce ourselves. Her name is Nicoli and she has had a super tough life. When she was a newborn, her dad beat her mom. He beat her so much that her mom suffered trauma and became mentally ill. Now her mom has the mentality of a baby. Her older sister, who was old enough to see and experience all of this abuse, became depressed and schizophrenic. Nicoli's dad left them of course, so Nicoli doesn't even remember him. She has been raised by her aunt who also takes care of Nicoli's mom who can't care for herself anymore. One day, Nicoli's sister had an episode. She locked her mom and her aunt out of the apartment, grabbed a knife and started destroying everything in the house. After destroying everything, she cut her wrists. A neighbor called the police and they showed up soon after and tried to get her to leave the house. She threatened to kill herself if they tried to enter. I guess she was in tanto histerics that the police were forced to shoot her with a rubber bullet. She was knocked on her back from the impact and fell onto some sort of metal thing that punctured her back. She was taken to the hospital and from a mixture of her mental illness and this wound, died a couple weeks later. This happened about 6 months ago, so it is still pretty fresh in Nicoli's mind. She will be baptized in a week. Looks like I won't be here to see it, but maybe my transfer here in Santa Cruz was to find and teach Nicoli.

 

Sister Carneiro.......I am super sad to leave her. I don't know if I will ever see her again and she is sooo amazing. However, I am at the Lord's service.

 

Lisa, stay strong girl! I know you are doing great work! Just remember that our success or efficiency as missionaries isn't measured by our number of investigators or baptisms but by our desire to do the Lord's will! I love you!

 

I love you all as well! Pray that my last area will be the best of them all!

 

Sister Barnes Sr.

SURPRISE!!

Wow.....I was under the impression that I would get home June 5! I got onto email today and found my "email trunky" (as everyone likes to call the travel itinerary here) in my inbox! I was super surprised to see that I will be going home a week earlier than I thought! Dia 29 de Maio e eu vou estar em casa! Tão logo!! Não acredito! 

This week was good. Hard, but good. It is such a blessing to have such a funny, positive companion because as hard as the week is.......it is still full of tons of laughs. Sister Carneiro has been such a strength. It was hard because we hardly taught at all this week. No one let us teach. We have been talking to everyone, knocking doors, trying to get the members to work with us......gah! 

But....the FEW people that we found this week are super special. We met a man named Valério. We saw him out on the lawn and stopped to talk to him. He let us in and we were able to talk with him a bit. We discovered that he separated from his wife a month ago. He has been suffering a lot because he knows that his wife left because he is an alcoholic. He started crying during our lesson and accepted to leave alcohol and be baptized. I am praying that all will go well! 

This week Sister Wright proscelyted with us. It was so cute to see Sister Wright with a backpack using the little portuguese she knows to talk to the people. She is soooo amazing. It was definitely a privilege to be able to work with her. She said she wanted to work with me for a day before I go home. 

I was talking with Sister Carneiro the other day how it is hard to be hated at times. It is definitely very hard to see people do everything they can just to avoid you. (The other day we almost saw someone get hit by a car because she tried to cross the street super quickly after seeing us walking in her direction!!!!!) It is hard to have people be super rude to you.....especially because I just want to bless their lives with the gospel! I don't feel like I deserve that treatment! But I have learned one thing through all of this treatment......that all of the no's in the world, the dirty looks, the laughs, the rude comments will never take my testimony from me. If I didn't have a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, I would have quit a long time ago. I am so grateful for the capacity that we have to exercise faith! I am so grateful for opportunities to test my faith!!!!!! 

I love you all!!!!! Até semana que vem!

Sister Autumn Barnes

Easter!!!

Sister Carneiro and I at the mission home!

The four of us that live in our apartment!