Hola Familia!

     Those are pretty much the only two words that don´t have the red squiggly line underneath them. haha. Anyways I had another great week here in Mexico. Christmas was just another day (besides being on skype of course) Right after I got off the Ipad, we went right to work. On Christmas Eve, we had a zone party at our stake center. We watched two worldly movies. Rise of the Guardians and Hotel Transylvania. Both in Spanish. I understood about 20 percent of them. We had pizza for dinner (heaven) and played games as a zone. We have an amazing zone. On Friday, Elder Woodbury went to the misión offices to have his final interview and go to the temple, so I went to Metepec with Elder Borgel and Elder Gomez. It was a different experience because they both only speak spanish. I did pretty good with them. I was able to understand them and have conversations with them too. It was a normal work day with them, and Elder Woodbury came back that night. Thank you so much for that Christmas present of letters from the family. I opened it up Christmas night and I loved it. As for my memory card on my camera, I have been taking pictures to fill it up and send home with Elder Woodbury. I´ll send home a piece of paper with it explaining all the pictures, like the names of the people or what´s going on. One thing you need to know is that I took some money out of the ATM using my personal card. I took out 1000 pesos just in case of emergencia. I´m going to stash it away somewhere and it will be emergencia money. Or money to buy a soccer jersey. haha they are only 120 pesos. Which reminds me, I need you all to do some homework about the soccer teams in Mexico. Tell me which team is the best, which team has the coolest jerseys, etc. haha. Other than that, I don´t need anything. I´m doing great here and having a blast. I did a lot of traveling this week, so I don´t have any cool stories that happened. Besides our baptism dates fell through. We had 2 scheduled for yesterday and they fell through and they moved away. One weird thing was this. One night, we came home and there was a HUGE party going on outside our door. Just a party in the Street for Christmas. There was so many people there and they had a mariachi and everything. The band was playing so loud. Even at 11 p.m. they were still going. If I wasn´t so tired from the day´s work, I would have had trouble sleeping. Tomorrow for New Years Eve, we are going to our stake center again for another zone party, because it is dangerous to be out on the Street. We are going to watch 2 more movies and just have fun again. And then resume as normal the next day. That´s all I have for this week. I love you all!

         Elder Barton

baptism for the Hermanas

baptism

Jared making french toast for his companions bday

laundry day

Baptism day!!

laundry day

baptism for the hermanas
Hola Familia!

 

     Those are pretty much the only two words that don´t have the red squiggly line underneath them. haha. Anyways I had another great week here in Mexico. Christmas was just another day (besides being on skype of course) Right after I got off the Ipad, we went right to work. On Christmas Eve, we had a zone party at our stake center. We watched two worldly movies. Rise of the Guardians and Hotel Transylvania. Both in Spanish. I understood about 20 percent of them. We had pizza for dinner (heaven) and played games as a zone. We have an amazing zone. On Friday, Elder Woodbury went to the misión offices to have his final interview and go to the temple, so I went to Metepec with Elder Borgel and Elder Gomez. It was a different experience because they both only speak spanish. I did pretty good with them. I was able to understand them and have conversations with them too. It was a normal work day with them, and Elder Woodbury came back that night. Thank you so much for that Christmas present of letters from the family. I opened it up Christmas night and I loved it. As for my memory card on my camera, I have been taking pictures to fill it up and send home with Elder Woodbury. I´ll send home a piece of paper with it explaining all the pictures, like the names of the people or what´s going on. One thing you need to know is that I took some money out of the ATM using my personal card. I took out 1000 pesos just in case of emergencia. I´m going to stash it away somewhere and it will be emergencia money. Or money to buy a soccer jersey. haha they are only 120 pesos. Which reminds me, I need you all to do some homework about the soccer teams in Mexico. Tell me which team is the best, which team has the coolest jerseys, etc. haha. Other than that, I don´t need anything. I´m doing great here and having a blast. I did a lot of traveling this week, so I don´t have any cool stories that happened. Besides our baptism dates fell through. We had 2 scheduled for yesterday and they fell through and they moved away. One weird thing was this. One night, we came home and there was a HUGE party going on outside our door. Just a party in the Street for Christmas. There was so many people there and they had a mariachi and everything. The band was playing so loud. Even at 11 p.m. they were still going. If I wasn´t so tired from the day´s work, I would have had trouble sleeping. Tomorrow for New Years Eve, we are going to our stake center again for another zone party, because it is dangerous to be out on the Street. We are going to watch 2 more movies and just have fun again. And then resume as normal the next day. That´s all I have for this week. I love you all!

 

         Elder Barton

Week 4!!

     Another amazing week. First off, I forgot to tell you about our baptism last week. His name is Ignacio . And again, I forgot to get a picture....sorry. I´ll try to get one when we visit him again or at church. So we have had 2 baptisms in 4 weeks, and we have 2 more scheduled for this week. But yesterday, they said that they may want more time... so we are working on them. As of now we have 6 with baptism dates in January. I set a personal goal to have 8 baptisms every month. Which is 96 in a year. In this mission, it is more than possible. This week, we invited one hermana to be baptized and she accepted. My companion then says,´´ok. Primera, necesite tomar un examine de ciento preguntas´´ Which is, first you need to take a test of 100 questions. And he sat there with a straight face....I looked at him all confused, and the hermana´s face was priceless. He then said he was kidding, and we laughed for 5 minutes. After that lesson, he told me that he thinks the Testigos de Jehova make their converts take a hundred question test, that´s why he said that just messing around. But it was pretty funny! In other news, I was worried about not being able to buy food here when I wanted or needed to. But there are 3 main types of jobs here. One is a taxi driver, another is driving around selling gas for hot water, and the third is own your own ´´tienda.´´ It´s basically a little maverick. They have Mexican treats and other stuff like drinks, bread, and whatnot. In the street, a lot of people sell bread. It´s so good and there are a lot of different kinds. They are all 2 pesos each. Which is about 20 cents. So I get 5 different kinds of bread, all pretty good sized, for just under one dollar. It´s a sweet deal. On Thursday, we had zone conference. Presidente and Hermana Whitehead come and do a presentation every zone conference. This month was a special one because of Christmas. Presidente and Hermana Whitehead did a very powerful message and presentation. It was all in español and I understood all of it! There was not a dry eye in the room, and it was the first time I took notes in español. As for my Spanish, I haven´t opened my english preach my gospel in awhile, I can do fine with the Spanish version. As for scripture reading, I´m still working on getting used to the spanish scriptures. I can understand people better and better everyday, and I learn a little more everyday. Anyways here´s a little info. about mail. If you send it through regular mail, I receive it every time we have zone conference or interviews. Which are once a month. So if it gets there the day after zone conference or interviews, I won´t get it until the next month. If you send a letter through pouch, I´ll get it the next tuesday that it gets there, because our zone leaders pick it up every week I believe and bring it to District Meetings, which are every Tuesday. Now for the most important info. to you right now. Skype! haha. Our bishop has graciously offered us his laptop and ipad for us to use on Wednesday for Christmas. We are planning on pushing the call button on skype at 11 in the morning at our church building. Our church building is about 30 minutes away, so don´t panic if we are a little late getting there;) I´m excited to see everybody and be able to talk to you guys. And lastly, I have a request. haha. I would love if I could have sent to me a small Spanish Preach my Gospel. It would be easier to carry around with me in the day. I usually just leave my PMG at our house because it is too big of a hassle to carry. Also, I would love American candy. haha. It´s not essential. I love hearing about all the snow in Utah, because I can say that right now, I´m in a short sleeved shirt and perfectly comfortable. But then again, you have a washing machine.... Also, this is a reminder to Jason and Tyler that they need to be on about page 70 in the Book of Mormon! I will be so happy if they have read it by the time I come back. I love you all. Merry Christmas, and I´ll talk to you in 2 days!

Love,

Elder Barton

Week 3!!

     Hola again!! This last week was pretty great. My companion and I work hard and we have a lot of success. One cool story from this week happened last Tuesday. Every Tuesday, we have zone conferences. In these meetings we learn how to be better missionaries and meet with our districts to talk about numbers and how to be better. In this last meeting, we learned how to contact a bus the best way. (meaning talking to people on a bus) Basically, you pay the bus driver, ask for permission to present yourselves to the people on the bus, and get everybody´s attention. After you have their attention, you introduce yourself and what you´re doing. Then you teach a 30 second principle about the gospel, say that you and your companion will be coming around seeing who is interested in hearing more, and talk to people in the front while your companion goes to the back. So right after the meeting ended and we were going back to our areas, of course we need to get on a bus. So my companion wants me to contact the bus. I told him to do the first one then I´d do the next. At this point, we were already sitting down on the bus, so we started to go to the front. It was a very full bus to say the least. My companion says,´´well there´s not enough room up there for both of us. You got it.´´ And turns around and walks away. Talk about getting thrown under the bus. Or rather getting thrown to the front of the bus....So I just went for it. I asked for permission to present ourselves, he said yes, so I turned around and got everybody´s attention. I had to yell because it was pretty loud. So there I am, yelling in spanish to a bus full of people I don´t know preaching the gospel. After I was done, I said thank you for your time, and began to ask if people were interested. I got a couple names who were interested. I sat down after we were done talking to people, and my companion told me that he didn´t ever have the guts to contact a bus until last month, and my example would stick with the other missionaries who were on the bus. I felt pretty good about myself! Also this week, I had my first companion exchange. I went with Elder Porter to his area and spent the night there. It was pretty interesting going to a new area. Elder Porter is from South Jordan. So I came to Mexico to be with elders from Draper and South Jordan. In other news, the food is still killing me. haha. My mouth is not used to spicy food, and we have had some pretty spicy food these last 3 weeks. My lips literally were burnt. They looked like they were sunburnt, but they were burnt from the food. We eat lunch with members every single day, and one family found out that I´m fresh from the US, and they made us hamburgers and fries. I had 6. haha. The members here are great, and they are so willing to help us out. Our bishop here is so excited about missionary work, and he´s fun to be around. My companion´s dad and our bishop were actually mission companions when they served. Talk about a small world. Another night while we were on the street, we were stopped by a lady and her daughter. She asked who we were and what we were doing. (probably because we stick out like sore thumbs) and my companion´s phone rang and he had to take the call. So I was left to talk to this lady by myself. I told her our purpose and taught a principle. I gave her a pamphlet and invited her to church. It was pretty cool. Whenever I need to talk by myself while my companion takes a call, I always seem to find words to say and remember to invite them to church. I always feel happy after I do it. It´s pretty nerve racking thinking about it. But when it happens, it makes me happy. Another interesting thing happened. Remember the story I wrote about last week about my companion and I stopping on a dime and leaving quickly? Well we may have found out why we had the terrible feeling that we needed to leave. We took a member with us to a lesson, and it was near that same area where we had the feeling. I had the prompting to tell him the story of our experience. So I told him our experience in Spanish, and he told us an interesting story. The lady that lives in that house has a brother who used drugs to buy power. A lot of people hate him. He was at his ranch one day (somewhere separate from where we were) and people were sent to kill him. Well they succeeded. Then the member told us that next, this certain group of people like to target the families of the people they go after next. I was thinking, and a few weeks ago when we were teaching this lady, every time she heard the chain rattle on her gate, she would jump up and see who it was. It didn´t matter what was going on in the lesson, she would jump up to see who was coming in. We don´t know if that´s the reason we had the feeling to leave, but I´m just glad we left. We were told by the member to never go back to that area at night ever again, and he told us some more dangerous places never to go to. Thank goodness for the locals!! Anyways to lighten the mood, here´s one more story before I start sending pictures. One of my last days at the MTC, long story short, one of the cashiers at the bookstore named all his ties. haha so I started naming all my ties after Pokemon, and every time I choose one in the morning it´s always,´´I choose you!´´ It´s pretty great...anyways this morning I had an idea to film myself taking a tour of our house. So I´ll try to send it now and we will see if it works. If it does, I´ll do more videos in the future to save time with pictures. To close, I just want to let you know that I´m doing great. My health is great, I´m learning Spanish quickly, I have the best companion, and I´m having a blast. I can´t believe that today is the 2 month mark. I just blinked and it was 2 months. Thanks for all your support. I can feel your prayers. You are always in my prayers. I love you all so much!

     Love,

week 2

 This picture is at the MTC. I loved it because the people standing on the shore of the water are waiting for fresh water crocodiles to come around. They are protecting the people getting baptized.

 Our bathroom is all right there. Shower, toilet, and sink all in one room.

Week 2!!

     This week was pretty great! I got to baptize 3 people. 2 of them were for the Hermana´s, and the other was our investigator! He left before we could get a picture, so I´ll try to get one when we visit him again. His name is Sajid. He´s a pretty big guy and I nearly dropped him when I baptized him. The water in the font was FREEZING. I felt bad for Sajid. I´ll cut to the chase, the food is getting to me. haha. I did have a very good meal though. It is called Ceviche  (say-bee-chee) you have chips and you dip them in it. Other than that, I have choked down pretty much every meal. Some of them are spicy and they burn my lips and mouth. I´m always grateful when I see chicken come out. Members feed us lunch everyday. We have a schedule and we just go to the assigned family´s house. The people are so nice here. They won´t let us clear our plates when we are done. They either take them for us or dump on another round of food. I have stayed away from beans for the most part. Whenever I have had to eat them, I have a really bad stomach ache afterwards.  On a separate note, here are some really cool/scary things happen to us. Last night, we got done with the baptismal services around 8:30 pm. We have to start heading back to our house at 9. So we tried to get one lesson in with a less active famly near our house. We got to the house and knocked on the gate. Most people here have gates surrounding their yard so you need to knock on the gate with your pen. Nobody came to the door. There was another place that someone could be about 40 yards inside the gate, and we noticed it was unlocked. So we walked inside the gate and started to walk past the driveway. The house was on the right, and the driveway went for another 40 yards or so. So we walked in the gate and went to see if anyone was in the other place. It looked like a garage thing made out of some wood and sheets. All of a sudden, my companion and I stop on a dime. We both looked at each other and said, ``we need to go.`` I just had this terrible feeling that we needed to leave. When we turned around to walk away, I realized I was walking as fast as I could without meaning to. We got out of there fast and went home. I have no idea why we felt that, but it was a bad feeling there. We both recognized it, and left fast. I can´t describe the feeling that I had, but it came all of a sudden to me and Elder Woodbury. So we went home and prayed in thanks for the Spirit guiding us. We had a similar experience a few nights ago. We were in a more dangerous pueblo after dark. We needed to find an investigator before heading back home. We were talking to her on the phone and she was giving us directions. My companion hung up and we started looking. We got to the house she told us, and noboby answered. We called her again multiple times and she didn´t answer. And the same thing happened. We had a feeling that we needed to go. It wasn´t as urgent and the one last night, but we still needed to go. We got home safe. It´s so great to have the spirit with us always. It´s just motivation to strive to have it with us. On other matters, washing clothes by hand is terrible. haha. After email, we are going to eat then go wash our clothes. Not looking forward to it. Another thing, you need to make a skype account for me and give me the login info. before Christmas. We can skype for an hour or talk on the phone for an hour. I assumed you would want to skype. It´ll be on Christmas day probably in the morning, but I´ll find out for sure. Another thing is that I need American stamps sent to me. That´s how I get mail to you from the pouch. The pouch takes it to Salt Lake, and they mail it from there. So if I could get a package of a lot of stamps that would be great, because I can´t send handwritten letters without american stamps. Another thing to be grateful for back in the states is a drain in the baptismal font. My companion and I emptied it by buckets yesterday. That was fun....sorry this is so out of order, but I´m just trying to type as fast as I can and remember what I want to say. But a couple times in the last 2 weeks, I have felt the presence of Grandpa Rees with me. We will be walking down the street, and I´ll feel him or other angels with us. It is one of the most comforting feelings I have felt. I love you all so much. You are in my prayers and I can feel your prayers here. Thank you for all the love and support. Hopefully the computer will let me send pictures this week. I love you!!

            Elder Barton

December 1, 2013

Week one!!!
 
 Hola! This week has been so great for me. I can feel the Lord in my life and I can feel the Spirit basically all day. My first companion´s name is Elder Woodbury. He is from Draper. He has been here for 22 months. He is such a good example to me. He Works so hard and he is teaching me the ways of the missionary. First of all, I can not understand a Word that anybody is saying...I just kind of nod when I feel like it and laugh when my companion laughs. I have been getting better at understanding people, but it is still hard. We have had some cool stories already together. Yesterday, we committed a family of 6 to baptism, and one more kid was there who wasn´t apart of the family. That kid was so touched and he was going to invite his family for the next lesson. Also yesterday, we had a great lesson with a family of 12! Well they all live together, but they aren´t all immediate family. But it was so cool. My comp. did most of the talking, but I bore my strongest testimony I had in me whenever I felt like I should. I also taught the first visión to them. When I recited Joseph Smith´s words, the Spirit was so strong! That family I think just needs one more lesson and we have them to baptism. One funny story that happened was this. We were walking down the Street when we were stopped by a drunk guy. He had been visited by missionaries before we came here. He was drunk out of his mind and he stopped us to ask us why we hadn´t visited him in awhile. We handed him a Word of Wisdom pamphlet and walked away. 5 minutes later, a taxi pulled up next to us, and the same guy got out! hahaha we were laughing and we just kept walking. In our first week in our área, we contacted almost 80 people. My companion is a great example of talking to everyone. Our área is called Tiangistenco, and it is pretty big. We do a lot of walking and taxi riding. Anyways I´m doing great so far. My misión president is awesome. He stresses exact obedience and he knows for a fact that this is the reason why our misión has the highest baptism rate in Mexico. We have to report our obedience every week to him in our weekly letters to him. Like how many days we got up at 6:30, how many days we had comp study and personal study. I have been able to teach a few góspel principles in lessons recently, and I just love teaching. Especially when the Spirit is obviously present. I only get an hour to read, write, send pictures, and write President Whitehead. So I better get to sending pictures soon. I love you all. Thank you for all the love the support. I´ll try to write more in a handwritten letter today. I can only write on Pdays but I will try my best!
 
 Elder Barton