Dear family,

     It's P-day again! I have a few more pictures that I'll send in a second. In a nutshell, this last week was pretty good. Mi compañero y yo taught a few discussions to our new investigator. We made it a goal to no longer use notes in the lessons that have all of the phrases we need to say, and just go in with it memorized. Since we have started that, we have noticed a big difference in our lessons. I´m looking at our investigator in the eye and bearing my testimony with words I know. This new investigator is harder than our last one. He is pretty shy and doesn´t look at us a lot. But when we look him in the eye and we are talking effectively, he looks at us and listens. He looks really interested when we ask him about his family and about what he likes to do, so we try to include those things in our lessons. We teach him again this afternoon when Prep day is over. My español is coming better each day. We have 4 hours of spanish class every day besides Saturday and Sunday. Sunday´s are pretty crazy around here. We have sacrament meeting at 8 a.m. followed by priesthood session. The church we go to is right across the street from where we enter LES on Canyon Road. After priesthood, we walk back to our classrooms and have personal study time for about an hour. We wait for the branch presidency to be done with meetings. Then we have branch council. It´s basically BYC. All the district leaders, the zone leaders, the sister training leader, and the branch presidency is in there and we talk about our districts needs or problems. Then after that meeting, we have a leadership meeting for the same people as in branch council. We learn how to be better leaders and we learn different ways to be a great leader. In my recent studies of the Book of Mormon, my mind has been blown. Mostly by the facsimile of Abraham (the second one) it´s so cool to study that and see connections to us. Also, I´ve read about Ammon, Helaman, Limhi, King Noah, the priests who escape, and so on. I´ve learned a lot from them. Also, Doctrine and Covenants 130 is pretty cool as well. What am I saying? It's all pretty cool. The teachers here have only been home from their missions a couple months or a year or two, so they are fresh off it. They are such powerful teachers and they have given me really cool things to study and think about. P-day is fun because we get to go to the temple. But they have shown the old film all 3 times I've gone, because there has always been at least one person that needs headphones for the translation. And apparently they don't have the translation for the new film. It shouldn't be that hard to do, seeing as it's the same script.... oh well. Keep me updated on Playoff day. I can't wait to hear about it. Thank you for everybody's dearelder.com letters, and I really appreciate the cookies from Aunt Cheryl (so does my companion) haha. Thanks to Lindsy for the posters and candy. I have my posters and pictures all set up on our bedroom desk. Also, I need an email address from Glenn and Cheryl. I'd like to email them on Saturday's as well. I was happy to read Glenn and Cheryl's letters. I'm sorry if I don't write you enough during the week. I try to write as often as I can, but by the time we finally get back to the apartment and shower, pray, and write in journals in time for bed. So every Sunday and Tuesday night we have a devotional. They are so cool and we see some cool people. We haven't seen an apostle yet, but we've had 2 members from the seventy speak to us. Hopefully we get an apostle soon. Apparently Dallin H. Oaks spoke the night before I came to the MTC. Again, thank you for all the letters and packages, I never get sick of them. I love you all!

     One request I have is from Mom and Dad. On Tuesday, our branch president came into our classroom after the devotional to talk about it with us and he asked us a question. He asked if we knew who the first member of the church was in our family on both sides of our parents, and I realized I had no idea. So if you could email or write me about how the church got started in my family, I'd love that. Well, that's all for now. I love you so much!

             Love,

                Elder Barton