Ups and downs in Mexico

Dear Family,
 
 I could´ve sworn that I wrote to you all yesterday...week 4 of
 the change flew by too fast. This last week, we had interviews with
 Presidente Whitehead. In mine, he talked a lot about the problems of
 the zone and how some missionaries can improve. So my comp. and I
 focused on a few more missionaries this last week based on that
 information. President always says,´´an informed missionary is an
 inspired missionary.´´ So we also share with him all the key
 information that we know of what´s going on. Also, this week was full
 of ups and downs. It started with ups, when we committed 12 people to
 go to church in the first 3 days of the week. We were excited, and
 they stayed committed for a few days. Then all of a sudden it all came
 tumbling down. On Friday, we reported only 5 going to church, and 1 of
 those 5 actually went...kind of upsetting, but the zone had success,
 so we didn´t get too upset. As conference approaches this weekend, we
 are determined to take at least 15 people to listen to the prophet.
 One thing I don´t really like about Mexico is their culture of telling
 lies. They tell lies,´´to not have more problems.´´ It´s interesting
 the way they think that. We contacted one lady and she accepted an
 appointment. We learned that she has 4 kids baptismal age and they all
 committed to church. We went over for the appointment and went to the
 meeting place. (her house is hard to describe, so she said go over to
 the soccer field and call her so she can come find us) So we get to
 the soccer field and call. She answers and says that she´s on her way
 to come get us. 15 minutes later, 3 kids come up to us saying that
 their mom isn´t home. Saying that she had left 30 minutes before to go
 buy stuff. However, we had talked to her 15 minutes before...so we
 said that we were just going to go knock on the door, and the littlest
 kid bolts to his house to go tell his mom that we were coming. So we
 follow the little kid and find the house. haha. There are a lot of
 cement stairs going down to 2 houses, and hers was one of them. We
 went halfway down the stairs and a neighbor came out. We asked if our
 appointment was there and she went to check. 5 minutes later, the
 neighbor comes out and says that she left...we know that she´s home.
 So we just start contacting that neighbor meanwhile. Afterwards, we
 just sat down on the stairs and waited. haha. One of the 3 kids that
 came to get us from the soccer field says, my mom says to come
 in...so, a little bothered, we went in and started to talk to her. Her
 name is Guadalupe. We invite her to church again and she says she has
 to work (which we had already talked about. She starts at 3, but
 church ends at 12) and then she said she was going to leave with her
 husband (but she had told us a week before that she didn´t have a
 husband) but all of a sudden he comes every 3 days to visit...then she
 said that she might go on vacation on Sunday. The lie went on for so
 long! We finally just said thanks and walked out. But most of the
 people are like that. So I´ll be a pretty good lie detector when I get
 home. haha. On a good note, we had another zone meeting this last
 week. My comp. and I put funny examples and fun activities to teach
 how to take someone to church, and how to have faith that every area
 has great people. And we saw results this week! So to finish, I have
 to say Happy Birthday to my mom! I really hope it was a good day for
 you and that you enjoyed it. I love you so much and I really know that
 I have the best mom ever!
 
 Con amor,
 Elder Barton

(Personal note that made me smile)
Dear mom,

    I´m always happy to see the family pictures. It´s hard to believe
that I´ll be home before this football season ends. Whenever I see
pictures of Utah I think, wow that air is clean. Or, can grass really
look like that? We really are lucky to live in the United States, and
especially in Utah. One favor, can you tell me how the baseball team
is doing at Riverton? Also, I really hope you had a happy birthday.
You´re always in my prayers. You are one of the spiritual giants in my
life. Everything you teach me can by applied temporally and
spiritually. No wonder you have been put to teach adults and kids,
because it´s your gift to teach. I love you so much!

Con amor,
Elder Barton

My theme for the rest of my mission is Ephesians 6:12. So there´s a
backpack for it. haha.

pic of our district minus my comp. haha he´s looking over the rail at the water fountain of the
mall a few feet away. It´s Elder White from Arizona and Elder Vazquez from Chiapas, Mexico.

stress and bowling

Hey!
 
 So I have little time...the internet shut off in our place by our
 house so we had to book it to another internet place. I have a few
 minutes to say hi and that´s it...so we went bowling today!!! haha it
 was so relaxing after another really stressful week... this week, my
 companion made the goal to visit every single area in the zone and
 work in it for a few hours. We visited the other 10 areas in 6 days.
 We were traveling all week but we felt like we did really good. On
 saturday night, each area had a lot of people committed to church. But
 on Sunday, half of those people fell and didn´t go...my comp. and I
 still had 11 there. So we are happy about that. But we are just
 clueless as to what we are going to do to help the zone. We have
 drilled some topics to death like how to bring someone to church or
 how to have faith to find. But after that, we fall back into the same
 routine. It´s rough but we had a good session of studies this morning
 to think of some new ideas. When we went bowling today, we went with
 some other elders names Elder White from Arizona, and Elder Vazquez
 from Chiapas, Mexico. We played 2 games and I bowled a 122. haha I
 think that´s my highest score ever...but we had fun. I realized how
 badly my arm is out of shape, and how I´ll have to work hard in order
 to get it back into shape. haha. Yesterday after church, my comp and I
 were invited to a meeting with the stake president, the bishops of the
 stake, and the ward mission leaders. 3 weeks ago, we received a sheet
 of paper from President Whitehead in order to keep track of the
 progress of our converts. My comp and I made copies of that sheet,
 shared it with the whole ward council, and we filled it out.
 Basically, all my converts in this area have home teachers, follow up
 by their quorum or organization leaders, and the priesthood if they
 are men. And we can see that progress on the sheet and see what they
 lack still. It has worked well for us. Well we were invited to share
 that sheet with all the bishops and ward mission leaders of the stake.
 So we went and presented it. It was a good presentation and we felt
 good about it. President Hernandez opened it up to a question session
 and all of a sudden we were getting attacked about random things. Like
 how we need to train our missionaries better how to use their time, or
 how to fill out progress reports. We got frustrated a little because
 it just turned into a beat on the missionary session. So we went
 outside and took a few laps around the church to kind of calm down.
 President Hernandez defended us well and thanked us afterward for what
 we do. But we were still a little upset...but anyways my time is
 up...hasta luego!
 
 Con amor,
 Elder Barton

lock picking skills may come in handy on a mission

Hola familia!
 
 Well another short week until the next email. It felt like the
 same amount of time for me...haha. This last weekend was a stressful
 one. This last week, my comp. and I had hardly any time to work in our
 area. On Monday we had our meeting with President, and the rest of the
 night I was putting together a report of all the recent converts from
 the last 3 months from the whole zone (11 wards) then on Tuesday, we
 had our zone meeting and we had to stay by the stake center all
 afternoon to go to a meeting with our stake president at 5 pm. We
 ended up at our area at 8 pm. On Wednesday, we had half of a p-day
 before working. On Thursday, we went to an area of hermanas to talk to
 one of their investigators more directly about the law of chastity,
 and we were there until lunch appointment. And on Saturday, we went to
 another area to help with baptismal interviews and going back to some
 of my old investigators from Armas. It was cool to see them again. I
 found out that they didn´t get baptized after Elder Willie-Starkey and
 I left because the lady´s husband was a jerk about it and didn´t let
 them do it. The 10 year old daughter got so upset about it and just
 stopped believing in God...so when we went over there, she was still
 not wanting to talk to us, and locked herself in her room with 2 of
 her friends who are members. So we were trying every tactic to get her
 our to reason with her. I tried offering cookies, peanuts, whatever we
 had.  so my comp, Elder Goodrich, pulls out his pen, pulls it
 apart, and picks the lock. haha we got her out of the room, taught a
 normal lesson, and she now believes in God again.  we´ll see if
 her and her mom get baptized pretty soon over there. With such short
 of time, we were blessed to have found a great family to take to
 church for the first time, and we had a total of 9 at church. We are
 counting our many blessings! Also, the biggest announcement of the
 week...I have officially received my new coming home date. President
 has extended me until November 9th!! It´s another full change! I´m so
 grateful for the opportunity to change more lives, especially mine. I
 hope you are all as happy as I am!  I also bought a camoflauge
 army backpack to carry me out until November. It´s pretty sweet! I
 forgot to get a picture of it before I came to write, but I´ll get one
 next week. I love you all, thanks so much for the love and support
 that I can always feel.
 
 Con amor,
 Elder Barton

more wedding day pics

updated hymn book..It's almost colored in!!

 

Marriage, baptisms and a great week

Dear Family,

This week was another fun one! A lot of things happened in a week
and a half. First of all, Elder Goodrich and I are pretty much a
powerhouse.  We are a great team and we think as one. I know that
we are going to have so much success together in the zone this change.
Also, we baptized 3 this last Sunday! Jorge, Maria Antonia, and Maria
de Jesús. All 3 are so great and so converted. I´m excited to see
their progress. It was a little bit harder because we had to get Jorge
and Maria Antonia civily married, and also Maria de Jesús married to
her husband by the civil law. We did that all last week with the help
of my recent convert Hno. Milan. We made the trip to the judge and his
office where he marries people in a big van that we rented and we all
went up. It was a fun trip. They got married, interviewed, and
baptized all last week. I was waiting down in the font to baptize
Jorge, and he comes down the stairs doing a fist pump and an excited
face. haha he´s a great guy. On Monday, we went to our meeting with
President and the other zone leaders/sister training leaders. The zone
of Culturas took 3rd place this last month. We gave it a fight, but we
got edged out by Camarones. In the meeting, they talked about our
message that the church is putting out for Easter. All about the
resurrection. We are excited to share it. Then they also talked about
how the investigators now have to go to church 5 times in order to be
baptized. The old standard was 4. So it´ll be a change, but we have a
lot of faith to follow our President´s orders. It was changed to 5 in
order to try to retain all of our baptisms and help them get baptized
to stay, instead of get baptized to leave. Another cool thing about
the meeting was I saw my kid, Elder Higbee!!!! He went up to zone
leader this change. I was so proud of him and so happy to see him. He
has lost a ton of weight but has the same big smile. He´s doing great,
but of course, misses his dad.  Yesterday, we had our zone
meeting, and I talked about what our assistant talked about yesterday,
which was setting goals. Wasn´t too thrilled about it, but I think I
did a good job. I used the example of great grandpa Barton and how he
always had the straightest lines in the crops. His answer was that he
looked off into the distance and picked a point, and went to it. So I
used that as setting goals and how we need to have an objective out in
the distance, and be able to reach it perfectly straight. Then I
talked about 3 Nephi 12:6 and what it means to have ´´hambre y sed de
rectitud´´ (not sure what it says in english) But everyone after the
zone meeting said that it was powerful meeting, so my comp. and I were
happy with it. And also yesterday, President, the assistants, and us
met with the stake president of Culturas to talk about the stake and
how we are doing. Our stake pres. is a great guy, and presidente
whitehead says he´s the best stake pres. in the mission (however, he
doesn´t compare to Pres. Chugg) We talked about what we needed to talk
about, and left. Before leaving, President Whitehead told me that I
can have an extension!!! He said that he can only get me 2-3 weeks
more, and he said he would get back to me as soon as he can with my
exact return date. But I´m excited to have a few more weeks here in
the mission. That´s it for me this week, thanks for all your love and
prayers!

Con amor,
Elder Barton

Happy day!

wedding bus

happy couple

wedding celebration

baptism pics

? 

Elder Barton with his son, Elder Higbee and Elder Huber....the mom (your first trainer is you dad, your second is your mom)

Moving day...hard for the Hermanas

Hola!

     Sorry for not remembering to tell you, but when the first Monday of the month is change day, we don´t have our meeting with President until the second Monday. So that´ll be next week! But today was change day. In other words, a really stressful day for zone leaders. I was asked to be the station boss again. I had to get all the missionaries from 5 zones moved around. The most frustrating people to work with are the hermanas....the hug each other and cry for about 30 minutes not moving. I pretty much have to grab their suitcases and take them out to a taxi. (mom note...he loves the hermanas, it simply is about moving 8 sets of women. It builds character,right?) We got there at 8 am, and I left at 12:30, after everybody else. So for my changes, I´m really pleased with them. I stayed in Molinito 2 with a great friend of mine, Elder Goodrich from Springville, Utah. He was in my zone in Camarones my first change there, and I talked to him every night. He´s a great guy and now he´s my comp. as a zone leader. He´s really smart in the scriptures, likes to joke around, and we have already made a good team before in the interchanges that we have done. I´m really excited for these changes!!! So this last week, we had a multi-zone conference. We had Culturas, Camarones, and Lomas Verdes. President and Hermana Whitehead put a lot of emphasis on self-reliance. It was a great conference. It gave us a lot of enthusiasm to meet the goal that President has put for us for these next 2 months. In the months of March and April, he wants 500 baptisms. In the month of January, the mission had 202. So in these next 2 months, he wants a little more. We´ve been getting psyched up for that for a few months now, and we started off strong yesterday with the first of March. Elder Arellano and I baptized 6! It was so rewarding after a change full of hard work. We left a lot of people who are progressing for this next change as well. And with Elder Goodrich, I know that we will find a ton of people to find and baptize. 3 of those 6 baptisms got up and bore testimonies yesterday. And all 3 of them cried. I was in tears as well...it was so spiritual. So that´s all I got for this week. Thanks so much for all the prayers and love!

Con amor,

Elder Barton

Pedro and Abraham's baptism

gift from Maru and Kenny

baptismal service on Sunday of Cesar, Jenni, Brenda, and Glenis