Speaking in Church

Hola Familia!

This week was full of great moments! Elder Monarrez and I get
along great. We had already known each other from before so that came
to be an advantage. First of the great news, our convert moved back to
our area! Jorge came back from Veracruz and started to work here
again. He´s a huge asset for us because he´s a preaching machine! He
sells food and stuff in the street and he introduces us to everybody
that buys! He´s one of my strongest converts, and he should get to
perform his first baptism this week if all goes right. He gave us a
reference named Roberto, and he has a family of 6! If all goes right,
Jorge can baptize them this Sunday. So right now, we are having
problems in our ward with reverence in the sacrament meeting. Cell
phones go off, babies are crying and not being taken out, the door
opens and closes because people are going to the bathroom, etc. The
doors are always closed and locked during the sacrament so it can´t
open, but when it´s opened again, almost half the ward walks in
because they showed up late... We have had some problems with some
investigators not wanting to come back for the second or third time. I
brought it up with the bishop, and he asked my companion and I to talk
about it in sacrament meeting. haha. I thought about it a lot, and I
thought a gave a pretty good talk. I gave the reference to the
scripture in Mark where Christ is in the atonement and he asks his
sleeping apostles why they can´t watch for an hour with him. And the
way we can do that today is the one hour sacrament meeting. Then I
read the parable of the 10 virgins and emphasized how they were closed
out like the people who were late to the sacrament meeting. So I asked
the question,´´where are you during the sacrament? Sleeping like the
apostles? Outside like the 5 unprepared virgins? Or inside receiving
all of God´s blessings?´´ Then my comp. went after me and did a great
job as well. We hope it´ll make a difference. We also baptized this
week! It was the dad of 2 of our recent converts. Those 3 will be so
powerful together. We just lack the mom who is really apostate...haha
she still doesn´t want anything. But we´ll keep trying. Also, I was
really happy to hear about my girlfriend´s mission call to Fort
Lauderdale, Florida! I´m just glad she won´t be walking down the
streets of Mexico. haha. That´s it for me, I love you all!

Con amor,
Elder Barton

One of Jared's recent converts giving his first talk