Hola!

     Well this week was full of ups and downs again...haha. As a zone, we did great! Our young group is tearing it up right now! One of our assistants told me that our zone is fighting for the number one spot in the misión for this month! There´s still one more Sunday left in the month, and we have a lot of potential in the zone for people to get baptized this Sunday. Hopefully we come out on top! Here in Tacuba it was a little frustrating. We had 2 baptisms planned, and they fell through Sunday morning....one of the worst feelings of life. But the zone covered for us this week and almost every área baptized! This week will be even better in the zone. Anyways part of this week, we had to go pick up a divorcement paper from someone who lives outside of our misión. We got permission from the assistants to go get it, and the meeting spot happened to be the temple! We arrived at the house of the Lord and it was such a cool sight. We obviously couldn´t go in, but it was still incredible considering that I hadn´t have seen a temple in about a year. I took some pictures and everything. It´s a pretty big temple in comparison to some in Utah, and the lawn is just beautiful. It´s cool because when we were in the little bus, we were watching the streets of Mexico City go by, then all of a sudden there´s a huge white building out of nowhere. I loved it! So this week is my second Thanksgiving out of the US....it´ll be hard. But there´s a sister in my ward who makes the best pies in the world! I´ll see if she can make something for us...haha. And also, I complete one year in Mexico. It was really slow at first, but ever since 6 months in started to FLY. Sorry this letter is a short one, but there´s not much to say this week....haha. There will be more to say next week after our meeting with President and when we get the results of the month!!

Con amor,
Elder Barton

Temple

Lots of baptisms and Jared is cute (I miss him!)

Hola!

     Well, I completed 13 months in the mission yesterday! I honestly didn´t notice it until the night before. For about a month, I was stressing to the zone how important it was to baptize on the 16th because we were going to have stake conference. I had the idea of doing all of our baptisms together after the conference. I got permisison from the stake president, and my comp and I got everything ready to go. A lot of things happened and only 2 areas baptized yesterday. Those 2 areas were us and the hermanas in our district. So it was a great day for our district. haha. From Tacuba, we baptized a family of 3 and another lady who already had family who were members. La familia Olvera have made so many sacrifices in order to be baptized, and the Lord has absolutely poured out His blessings on them. The mom, Alicia, has cried so many times trying to express how grateful she is for her new life. I got to baptize one of the daughters of Alicia, the other lady whose family are already members, and the baptism that the hermanas brought. After we were changed and came back, our whole zone of 14 missionaries sung If The Savior Stood Beside Me in spanish as the special musical number. We were pretty powerful. So we also had stake conference. It was really cool because we had a satelite broadcast from downtown Salt Lake City. Elder Daniel Johnson, President Richard J. Maynes, Sister Reeves, and Elder Neil L. Anderson were the people there. Elder Johnson was the area seventy here for a long time. And President Maynes was a mission president here in Mexico. They all spoke in spanish, even Elder Anderson. It was cool to hear that, and to feel the same spirit in them. We also had interviews with President this week. He gave me a great council that I could use to get more references taking advantage of when the spirit is present. Sorry this letter is so short this week, but that´s all I got. I love you all!  

Con amor,

Elder Andrews (Jared wore his glasses ( I don't know why..)

baptism pics

baptism

more watches

lots of baptism pics

Hola!

     Well this week was full of events since Wednesday! On Friday and Saturday, we went to conferences with of the Seventy. Elder Jesús Ortíz came to our mission to give us some advice and just say what the Lord wants us to hear from him. He said he was sent from Elder Dallin H. Oaks for the assignment. Him and his wife are an incredible tag team and they were really powerful. All the missionaries in the city went to a session Friday morning with just us missionaries, then at 7 pm with our Ward Council members. Then we had a special meeting with him as Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders on Saturday morning. He was so full of the spirit and said some really direct things to us. I learned a lot and I have a lot of things to apply and change. One thing he said was kind of funny but really serious at the same time.  He said a missionary asked him what he should do if his companion was being disobedient. He said, and I´m translating,´´Go with your companion wherever he goes, except hell.´´ haha. Meaning we try to help our companions who are disobedient. But after 2 tries if they still don´t want to, we leave them there and we call President. And we tell President that we want changes because we want the spirit in our area. That´s in extreme cases, but it´s something he told us to do if we need to. I learned so much from Elder Ortíz, and he said something in one of his talks that I was asking myself for a long time. It caught my attention, and I made sure to ask him about it later on. I got one on one with him for about a minute by strategic thinking, and I asked my question.  He answered in the most simple way, and I was able to get that answer. So at the conference with missionaries and the ward council members, the ward leaders from Las Armas came!!! I got to see 2 of my favorite families in the mission. La familia Sanchez, and la familia Fuentes. It was so great to see them and to talk for a bit. It made my day and it made me even more excited to go see them again when I´m heading home in September. Also, yesterday we baptized Juanita!! She´s my oldest convert, 80 years old! She´s been Christian all of her life, and those are normally the hardest to convert!  Her baptism was great, and she was so happy to be baptized again by immersion, but this time with the proper authority! That´s all I got this week. I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

la familla Sanchez

Hno. Fuentez

awesome baptism pics

I'm guessing they're looking at heaven

day of the dead

Had an interesting experience this week. There is this alley-way in our área that is really creepy. And we have to use it to get to one of our investigators. The alley is wide enough for 2 cars to pass through really close together, then in gets to where only one can pass. Half way through this alley, there´s a huge glass case with a statue of la santa muerte. Which is basically the grim reaper. It´s a belief that was started here in Mexico City. They worship this idol and give it money. Saturday night, there was a huge party for the day of the dead (dia de los muertos) and that alley was a site of one of the biggest parties. There was a ton of drugs and just crappy stuff. Well we were going to pick up our investigator to go to church in a van that a member has. He helps us every Sunday pick up investigators. We were going down this alley and 5 guys stopped the van to tell us the alley was closed off. These guys were obviously drugged out of their minds, therefore really dangerous to be around. We started to back up but they started to hit the windows and basically trying to get in. Then one guy pulls out his pistol and starts shooting which I hope were blanks into the air. We made it out safely but it was still interesting. I didn´t want to include that in the main email, but there ya go. Then the day after, one of the main subjects of our meeting with President was safety. haha. I know that we are protected here. I don´t know if this is good or bad, but I had no fear at all in that situation. I was just guiding our driver as he drove in reverse, and watching that unfold. 

el Día de los Muertos

Hola!

     Well another Wednesday email! This week and a half was another grinding one. First of all, we have had our first few zone meetings. I wanted to find out the average time we have as a zone in the mission field because I noticed that we are all so young in the mission. Our average time is 7.8 months in the field. For our first zone meeting, I used an example of the 2000 stripling warriors and how great they did together, and how we can do the same. We are seeing a lot of success so far! So this week was Halloween and el Día de los Muertos here in Mexico. Halloween is the same. The kids go around asking for candy. There were a ton of families in the street, but we had to give them what they wanted in order for them to listen to us. So I went and bought a bag of candy and we went around passing it around contacting every family we saw. haha. It was fun and we set a couple of appointments that way. We were walking down one street at around 8 pm, and we see a group of people clapping and dancing to music. When we got closer, we saw that the group of people were clapping around a witch that was doing something on the ground with dolls and stuff...haha we just kept on walking. Well, I didn´t see the cable on the ground connecting the music speaker to the outlet. I kind of tripped over it, and the music went completely silent....My heart sunk. haha. I got the cable and was trying frantically to put the music back on, and it finally turned back on before anything happened. haha. So on Monday, we went to our monthly meeting with President Whitehead. One of the main topics was about our safety. The APs really drilled that subject and what we need to do in a lot of situations. And President talked about how the spirit in the secret of having success. If we don´t have the spirit, it is impossible to have success. I liked all the messages a lot. Yesterday, we had our zone meeting to share what we had learned with President. I got to share the message about our safety and what to do, and about how to have a lot of excitement what we are inviting people to go to church. To give an example of that, I casually started with a debate. I started saying that the USA is the best country in the world and why. Then, a sister (which I had prepared before so she would know what to do) started saying why Mexico was the best. So with the sparks beginning to fly, I get 2 americans and 2 mexicans debating which is the better country to live in. I choose our missionary from Uraguay to choose who won. Of course, he choose the USA. haha. One of my favorite things said by the americans was,´´my friend, if you live in the USA, you can drink water from. the. tap!´´ haha. The point was, in the debate of the countries, there was a lot of enthusiasm, and the 2 sides were using all sorts of imagination to convince the guy. The same should be used when inviting people to church. We need to say all of the benefits we receive and the blessings of going to church with the same spiritual enthusiasm. haha so that´s all I have for this week. I also received 3 cards from Cheryl! I laughed so hard at all 3. haha. When I was transferred from Las Torres, those cards were already in the house of the Zone leaders to give to me, but they forgot, so they just barely got to me now. But thanks for those! I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

A few pics of home