Here is Cory's general letter....
Hey y'all It's Elder Barton
Thought I would drop y'all a quick e-mail updating you on what happen this past week.
Ok well, let's start with Monday (3/8) which is Prep. Day Well this day started with a phone call from a elder in my district saying we need to take him to the mission office right now so he told us to get ready and hurry up. So Elder Conrad and I got ready as fast as we could and went over to these Elder's apartment complex and drove them over to the mission office. So we get to the mission office and this certain Elder talked with President Hansen. While we were waiting I got to talk with the Assistants to the President, Elders Brady and Hiatt. I then Brother and Sister Cesnut (Mom- she is the one who does the news letters) and had a nice talk with them and it turns out that they are from Spanish Fork so not too far away from Mapleton and Brother Cesnut is in charge with the mission vehicles. Then I got to talk to Sis. Young who is a very nice lady who works in the mission office. Then I got to meet with the new brother and sister who work in the mission office but sadly I didn't catch their name. But I talked with the sister and got my baggage reimbursed and the brother is the one who goes around to the mission apartments and checks if we are keeping them in good shape or not. Well, we were at the mission office till about 1:00 that's when this Elder finally came out of the presidents office but with out his tie or name tag....yeah..... After that I got to talk with President for about a minute but I love talking with President Hansen he is so happy all the time. I love it, he can brighten your day. We then went and got some food and then dropped the Elders off at their apartment because this Elder needed some alone time. We were suppose to have a dinner appointment at a members house but they called and said they couldn't feed us. After we got finished talking on the phone with them we got a call from the certain Elder again and said we needed to take him to the Mission President's home at 7:00 so as we were driving him down there we asked what in the world was going on because while we were at the mission office Elder Brady called another Elder on the phone and told him to come to the mission office and said that it wasn't good. Turns out that this Elder in my district and a few other Elders left their mission area and that some ZL's told mission president that they were gathering together for some crazy satanic cult thing. So all the Elders involved we called in and met with President Hansen and there is a great possibility that an Elder might go home. We were taking this Elder to the Mission President's Home so that he could talk on the phone to his stake president. While he was on the phone we talked with President Hansen and his wife about the Mission and watched some videos on mormon.org, had some snacks with them, and said "hi" to President Hansen's son and his family on Skype. We didn't leave the presidents house til 11:00 p.m. so basically Elder Conrad and I did nothing that day mission wise and I hated it. I felt like I got nothing accomplished and there's a possibility that Elder might go home (So far he is still here but he meets with President Hansen weekly now).
Tuesday (3/9)- Elder Conrad and I spent the whole day visiting with less actives and recent coverts and we also gave service at Lone Star College at their theater tech department - we painted their stage black.
Wednesday (3/10)- We had a Zone Meeting at the stake center at 11:30 a.m. but only Elder Conrad and I and 2 other companionship's were the only ones there.... turns out that the Elders in our District and our ZL's meet with the AP's and President Hansen. So the zone meeting was pushed back till 1:00 so Elder Conrad and I got some lunch and waited for them to show up because our ZL's told us to stay there - ha ha. Then at the zone meeting I gave a 5 min talk about personal integrity and we had 2 other elders give talks and our ZL's gave talks also. So our zone meeting was pretty good. Then we got to meet with Jason (woot woot!) at 7:00 p.m. and we had Bro. Coronado (Jason's best friend) there which helped out a bunch! We talked with Jason about what he read in 3 Nephi 11 and about baptism and how people need to have authority to baptize others. And Jason loved everything we taught him he also asked a lot of questions like if he was to be baptized into the Mormon Church would he have to be baptize in one of our buildings or if it's okay that he could be baptized in a pond which is next to where all of his family is buried. And he asked me why I came on my mission and I told him and he said "I know what you said is true you wanna know why because I can see it in your eyes what you told me was true and I have a weird feeling that makes it feel true" So we then taught him about the Holy Ghost and he loved it of course ha ha. I love Jason, he is a great man that is willing to learn about this church. He is a little hesitant because he is shy and says if he goes he will feel more obligated to become a Mormon so I hope we can get him to come to church next week. We meet with Jason again on Tuesday.
Thursday (3/11)- We met with more less actives and recent converts. We gave service at Langham Creek High School they are redoing their bar code system. And this school is so so Huge!!! I need to take a picture of their football stadium because its not like any other football field or stands you usually see - it's seriously a stadium!
Friday (3/12)- We met with Kevin and April Friday night and we had our ward mission leader there with us too. We meet Kevin and April through tracting last week. We talked a little bit more about the restoration and we found out they smoke and drink all the time which is scary because they have a 7 month new born that they are smoking around..... But we have another appointment with them Friday.
Saturday (3/13)- We met with a referral we got from Sister Hay (She is not in our ward, and she is from Jamaica so she has the coolest accent!) Lonnie, her fiancee to be, lives in our boundaries and we taught him the restoration and he is way interested. He basically wants to be part of the same church with his wife so we meet with him again this week. Then we went to a surprise birthday party for Sis. Herrera (she and Brother Herrera are also ward missionaries) and we ate at a chineese buffet. I love sister Herrera she has been basically our mom out here. She always makes sure we are being fed and that whatever holiday it is she gets us something.
Sunday (3/14)- We went to PEC then had church and thank y'all so much for the prayers this week for our RC's and LA's....if it went something like this I HOPE THAT NONE OF ELDER CONRAD'S AND BARTON'S LESS ACTIVES AND RECENT COVERTS SHOW THIS WEEK. Ha ha. Seriously, no one showed up. It was super sad and our gospel essentials class was basically empty. It was a sad sight to see. Turns out a bunch of them went to Mexico for spring break.
That's all I have for now I miss y'all and I hope y'all are doing well.
I love y'all!!!
Elder Barton
