Hola!

     Another fast week here. Full of weird stuff. My comp and I set the goal for 100 contacts in the week (our average is 75) and with a lot of extra people we talked to, there were a lot of more weird stuff and rude people. Each area here has the catch phrase that the people say when they just don´t want to talk to us and they don´t want to say no. Here it´s,´´llevo prisa.´´ Which means i´m in a hurry. This week, we approached a guy who was waiting for a bus on the side of the street. We got close to him and I start the conversation. He interrupted me and said that he was in a hurry. I told him that he was waiting for the bus, and he just walked to another part of the sidewalk. haha. I find it easier to be more direct to people in spanish. I say things that I normally wouldn´t say, but it´s fun. Other people just flat out ignored us, other people yelled, and we just laugh and move on. haha. Our american friend is going to feed us today at his mom´s house. He was going to go to church yesterday but ended up staying in bed instead. Also, we were going to baptize this week, but the lady wants to wait for her other daughter to come into town so she can see it. And she´s coming into town this week. So we have that to look forward to! As for my kid, he´s doing great. He´s really excited to get to work and get things done. His spanish is great and he knows how to use his testimony. Yesterday at church, we stayed at a 75 attendance, but we lacked a lot of members that normally go. They all choose the best week to not go. haha. We have a lot of good things going on here in our area. We are finding and we are having fun. Another weird thing that happened this week was my comp and I ended up deciding to get up at 5:30 in the morning to work out in the grass area of our building complex. haha. He has some flex cords and a jump rope, so we have been using that and the grass of our complex. We also bought stuff for breakfast afterwards and everything. So the reason why I´m emailing so early today is because we have interviews with President Whitehead at 3. We have to email now, go to the food with our American buddy, then go straight there. It kind of stinks having it on P-day, but it´s worth talking to President and getting letters that come. I´m loving it here in Las Torres. We are seeing a lot of progress and the ward is becoming so united. I set the goal to have 100 people at church on Sept. 14th, and the ward leaders loved it. We just need to have everybody make visits and show up here in the next 3 weeks. I honestly hope I stay here one more change. That means I would have my birthday here, and I will complete one year in the mission here. Crazy how time flies, but I´d love to spend it with this ward! I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Hola!

     Well we had another fast, weird week. The first thing I´ll mention is our baptisms! We dunked 3 more and they were so happy. We just lack the grandma of the family and we got them all. She has a baptism date for this Sunday! With their baby Jonás, he is home with his family!! Julietta, his mom, told us that she wanted to get baptized the week he got home. So I had the blessing to baptize her yesterday! I took a great picture of her and her baby too. haha she´s in white clothes looking at her baby in front of the second coming picture on the wall. The baptismal services were really powerful, and 2 of my recent converts did the 2 prayers (Maru and Kenny) Another interesting thing that happened this week was we met an American!  his parents are both Mexican and he is here visiting his mom and checking on their buildings that they own here. He´s such a funny guy and he showed us where all of his family lives in our area! He speaks perfect english, and was basically bashing on Mexico the whole time.  he misses In-n-out and all that. He heads back in a month, so we´ll try to baptize him by then.  As an update of being a dad, my kid is doing great! He started the usual blisters and soreness this week, but he´s got a great attitude. He loves to be obedient and working hard. We are having fun and we are having success. We also found another miracle for 2 Sundays from now! A little girl turns 9 on August 28th, and she´s getting baptized on the 31st. If they are 9 years old or older, it counts as a convert for the missionaries.  so we have that too! We just need to work hard and find people to baptize for September. I saw that Sept. 28th, when I was baptized 12 years ago, falls on a Sunday this year, so I´m going to be working extra hard to baptize on that day.  To finish, we were knocking on a member´s door to visit them when a friendly dog came up to me. I started to scratch behind it´s ear while we waiting. We realized the members weren´t home, so we went to walk away. Apparently I left a really good first impression with the dog, and he wanted a little something extra with my leg....haha. I got it off me and it ran away. That's about it for this week! I love you all and I´m grateful for your love and support for me!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

cleaning the church at 6:30am

baptism pictures

Julietta and her baby

Dear Family,

     Another great week this week! I went and picked up my kid on Tuesday, and found out he´s bigger than I am! haha his name is Elder Higbee from San Fransisco. He tried out for BYU and made the team, but hurt his shoulder before the season, and didn´t end up playing. My first week with him was a great one! He´s got so much fire in him to contact and share his testimony. He is so in tune with the spirit right now, and is working harder and harder every day. The thing I was happy to do for him this week was baptize 2 people! We got Emmanuel and Abdiel baptized. They are part of the big family that we have, and 2 more of that family committed to next week. Elder Higbee baptized Abdiel, and he told me that it was the first time in his life that he baptized someone. He did it perfectly. A miracle happened with Emmanuel as well. He has a one month old baby in the hospital that has never been home before. He had problems since birth with his pancreas or something, and he wasn´t getting enough sugar in his body. I went over to give him a blessing a few weeks ago, and he was improving after that. Emmanuel told us that he had to go over to the hospital to donate blood for his kid, which means he would have to wait to be baptized. But after a minute, he changed his mind, and said that he would go today to donate the blood, and be baptized. I was so amazed by his faith! He was baptized, and we went by for that family later on in the night. They told us that the baby will be leaving the hospital in this week!!! It is such a miracle. Just by his faith! Also, as a district leader, I´m in charge of the well being of the hermanas in our district. One night, they weren´t answering their phones like they didn´t have service. I was on an interchange with our zone leader, Elder Guevara, and he called our assistant. He told us that we needed to go over to the hermanas´ inmediately to see if everything´s ok. So we ran to a taxi and went to their house and knocked and rang the doorbell. We were there for awhile and they didn´t answer. We were comforted when we found out that the whole area over there didn´t have signal, and they were probably asleep in their room. At this point we were running around at 11:30 at night. We went back home and informed our assistant what had happened. We went back again in the morning and they answered their door. Turns out that they were really asleep, and one of them thought the doorbell was part of her dream...haha so everything was all good. That´s it for me this week. I love you all!

Con amor,
Elder Barton

Jared meeting his "son"

New leather skin scripture case

please don't pick on two big white dudes

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baptism

Jared cooking

Buenas tardes!

      Well today we had the changes! I was pretty excited for this change. My comp. was kind of driving me crazy...haha. He left to el Distrito Federal. And I get to stay for my 3rd change in Las Torres! I´m so excited. This ward has grown so much, and I get to see it some more. I also got another curveball this change. I get to stay in the area, as a dad! I get to train a new American missionary! Whoot! haha. Since he´s going to be an American, I´m going to pick him up tomorrow at President´s house. Meanwhile, I´m here in Camarones (in el distrito federal) with Elder Goodrich. He´s going to train as well, we are just going to be in his area today. He´s from Springville. We both are so excited to get our kids tomorrow. This morning for the changes, I helped my comp take his bags to the terminal, and I got ready to meet with Elder Goodrich. When I got to el Distrito, I saw Elder Willie-Starkey again! It was such a great moment because I didn´t think I´d get to see him again. We talked about Armas and our baptisms that we had. He has been keeping in touch with a member there and he was told that our baptisms are doing well. This work really is my joy. I have found pure joy here in the mission, and I´m stll not even half way through! So I wasn´t sure if I was going to change or stay in these changes. But my zone leader, Elder Guevara, told me that the ward and stake leaders trust us a lot, and they were trying to have me stay. haha. I get to stay, and see the part of the world grow even more. Even more fun with an American kid! This week, we were going to have 5 baptisms, but a few of them needed one more attendance at church to be able to get baptized. So we waited, and all but 1 went to church. So we are looking at 4 baptisms this week, and 1 in the future. As for my recent converts here in Las Torres, Maru and Kenny are absolutely amazing. I love them so much and they are progressing so fast. I´ll still be here when they are sealed as a family! We eat with them every Sunday, which is funny because Maru is learning how to cook, and she tries it out on us. haha. Yesterday, they gave my companion and I a new tie and some chocolates. I can´t wait to go to the temple with them in June of 2015. Also Dominga is doing really well. She´ll also be ready for the temple in June! I got the 2 letters that Mom and Dad sent me this week too! I was happy to get the talks and the letters. I have used lines from both of them in our lessions. That´s all I got for this week. Because I´m not in my normal house in Las Torres, I don´t have my cable to send pictures. But I´ll send those next week! I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton