Week 15: November 27, 2017
Hello Family!
Wow, you all look so good in those pictures! The Thanksgiving trip sounds and looks like a blast as always! Ellie won! What?!?!?! I´m so proud of her!!!!!!! Hahaha! I love how everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit! Those spongebob costumes were fantastic! My companion and I laughed pretty hard when we saw those! Ellie, I will for sure do the letter thing! Let me know if there is anything else you want me to do! I´m still debating how I should send it all, but I´m sure I´ll figure it out. Mom and Dad, you both sound great! I love hearing from you! Oh, and mom, I love it when you go on tangents like that! Believe it or not, I needed to hear all of that! I didn't cry!!!!! haha, just a little! you always know what to say. I hope you all get to put up the Christmas stuff soon, I know seeing that stuff always made me happy every day! I also hope Parker is doing ok. I´m happy he gets to go back out in February. Gpa of course wrote me a nice letter about thanksgiving. he said -
All else was great… Food was great… I won’t even talk about ribs, sausage, ham, turkey, shredded beef burritos, all the trimmings, deserts, etc. for fear of making you homesick…
Thanks Gpa. Hahahaha! I loved hearing from him! I always love hearing from family!
This week was something interesting.
We did some exchanges today, I went with another companion in another area. His name is Elder Fogg. He is our district leader. He was super funny and quirky! He and I basically walked around the whole day. We went to a bunch of different doors, but no one was available, so most of the time, we did street contacts. It was actually pretty interesting! He had a completely different style of approaching people than Elder Barrios. He was more relaxed and liked to connect more with people. It was interesting. I tried it a little bit and I really like some of the things he does. I started using it when I approached people and I´ve noticed how it has worked extra well for me this week! The morning we got up, we went on a run! He likes to run so we got to go run around to a little park with some laps. I liked running because I feel really good afterwards and I feel like I have more energy throughout the day. I feel like a better missionary because of it. Literally everything you do on a mission is to improve your performance as a missionary. Its pretty neat. We exchanged back. Elder Barrios and I went to go have lunch at a member´s home. It was super good! We also got a gluten free cake from one of the members in our ward! Love the members!! haha!!! I also noticed that day how I was able to contribute to conversations a little bit. I also got to do some street contacts all by myself that day! Crazy!!!! I got a few returns which was pretty cool! My companion is trying to let me do things by myself a little bit. He went off and talked to other people nearby while I talked to others. It was super neat! That hardest part is if they start talking about something completely random or they say you can come back and teach them and they have a really confusing sounding street address. It´s pretty awesome though!
The next day was pretty interesting. We went to teach one of our investigators later in the day and sat down with the investigator´s wife who is a less active member. The main reason we went there was because of the investigator who seemed interested. Elder Barrios had been here a transfer before me and had worked with him before. Our investigator was busy with something when we came. Elder Barrios asked him if he could join us really quick for a message, but he said he was not interested. That destroyed us, especially Elder Barrios. I literally felt like the energy in the room had dissipated entirely. Elder Barrios was pretty quiet. I ended up leading the lesson with the less active member that was there. That was neat, but we were still both pretty down about it. Then, we walked back to drop off some stuff at a non members house. The wife opened the door. she is not interested in teh church, but she loves what we do and loves to give us food! We helped her out with some things before, we mainly do service for her, and we were returning some stuff she had given us to help out another member. She was so sad when she opened the door. We sat down with her in her living room. Her husband sort of stood off to the side. She told us about some stuff she found out from the doctor and how scared she was. I didn't understand every word, but I understood the basic idea. My companion said a bunch of things to her. The only thing I could get out was, estamos aqui para você. She looked at both of us and said that she felt better because of us and was super happy all of a sudden! She also gave us some food as we left from her house to our apartment. She is super nice! We sat down and I thought about what had happened that day. I realized that for our weekly planning that week, we did not put that investigator down as a person to focus on, and we showed up at the non-member´s house right when we needed to. I thought how little did we know, we were led by the spirit! Super Neat!!!
Oh, ya, and on the 23rd, we went to the mission home to have lunch with the president! We were invited sunday. I don't know why we were invited, but my companion kept telling me how this never happens and kept saying how it is because I am with Elder Barrios! hahaha! We got to have a huge thanksgiving meal! seriously, everything there! We ate with the president and his wife, the senior missionaries, and the office missionaries. It was super cool! The food was so good too!!!!
On saturday, we got up adn went to go help a member change his oil. Elder Barrios was a mechanic before the mission so he basically did most of the work, I just scrubbed the oil out of the ground. The member we helped out was super nice and bought is a ton of chicken, sausage, and coco-cola! I drank a little bit of the soda to be honest just while I was there with him, but I gave the rest to my companion. He loves cococola! I´m still trying not to drink soda, but it´s a little difficult when you are eating with members. It seriously was so nice of him to do that though! honestly, I know that the more the more people spoil me on my mission, the more I have to give back. Seriously, I have been given so much! It´s crazy! Elder Barrios says the peopel give us food here because we do service for them. I´m learning some good tips from Elder Barrios;) haha!
The past few days have been a little bit of a rough patch. I´ve been a little down about the language. I´m noticing more and more there are things I want to say, but obviously it is pretty difficult. Yesterday, we had to teach 2 classes at church. My companion talked for the most part. I felt so bad, like I couldnt contribute. Mom, your letter helped so much! I feel so much better now! I´ve set a lot of goals this past week to make me what I hope will be a better missionary. I feel like I´m being pushed every day, but I know there is no better way to be pushed than serving a mission. I love you all so much!!!!! I love seeing all of your pictures and hearing from you!!!! I love you all so much!!!!
Love,
Elder Barton
 Us with Albino in the middle. He will be baptized this week!!! so exciting!!!! | ||
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us eating the food that the member we helped with changing the oil got us! he spoiled us!
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| Elder De Semone and I. I did exchanges with him, he is a great elder! |
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