Jared Barton's Mexican Fiesta : 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