Dear loved ones,
Hey y'all! Your Missionary reporting again woot woot! So this week was way better than last week now that I am finally healed!
4/12- I did my laundry and we watched "The Prince of Egypt" with Copperfield, Wheatstone, and Spanish Elders and also the Spanish sisters. It was awesome to watch that movie again because it reminds me watching that film with the siblings! After that we went to the Willis' - Sister Willis is another mom to us and we had dinner and guess what we had.........Chili and that means BEANS!!!! BLAH!!! But y'all would have been so proud because half of my plate was full of this chili but I said like 100 prayers throughout dinner and I slowly ate every single piece of that chili and yes, that's including those horrific beans! The beginning and the last bit of that dinner was the hardest but in the middle I couldn't taste the beans which was amazing because I could feel throw up coming up and I would chug the juice they had to keep it down. I swear I had about 6 full glasses of that juice, but I ate all of it, and that's quite an achievement in my book.
4/13- Went to Lone Star and we finished setting up the set and putting up chairs for this play they are going to be having. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it cause it looks great. I would take it this week but I am going to the temple tommorrow (4/20) so I won't be doing service at Lone Star this week. We got a couple of referrals so we went to visit them but found no one home except one. We were walking up to the door and rap music was blasting from this house and we ring the door bell and eventually this teenage black kid answers the door and he is covered with tattoos all over his body and I know this cause he answered the door naked. He was holding up this little cloth covering his manhood OH MY GOSH! why in the world would you answer the door NAKED!!!! His excuse......he got out of the shower...... whatever anyway. We had dinner at the Ravenberg's and they are are young couple and we had steak, potatoes, and salad then some pie after ward. We then went with Brother Ravenberg and we went and visited the Youngbloods. Elder Conrad and I have tried to visit the Youngbloods since I have arrived in the mission field and all I know about this family is that they are very inactive and he is a RM. But when we went by with Bro. Ravenberg a kid came to the window and waved at us and so he gave their cover away that they are home because when we have visited we have heard people inside and have seen people look through their peep hole but they never answer. So we finally met the Youngbloods and set up an appointment with them next week. We then dropped by the Davis' (RC) because Sister Davis was going in for surgery on her shoulder on Friday so we gave her a blessing.
4/14- Elder Conrad and I went to Langham Creek by ourselves. We usually go with our district but Elder Hackett had in-grown toe nail surgery this day. We were there for a couple of hours and when we left the head librarian gave us some cookies and some drinks so that was nice of her. We then went to the Urrutia's for dinner and we had some chicken and rice but while I was talking with Brother Urrutia I told him I was from Mapleton, UT. Turns out his brother or some relative (this is a spanish family so it was hard to understand him) lives on main street in Mapleton. In fact, it's the house that has the big deer statue in front the house and I hope y'all know the house I am talking about because we drove by like all the time on the way to church. So its a small world! We then went with Brother Stoddard and visited the Perez's (LA).
4/15- We all went to Langham Creek because Elder Hackett felt up to it. But we were not there for very long because we had interviews at 1:00pm. So we went to the chapel building where we were supposed to have meetings but President and Sister Hansen didn't show up until about 45 min. later. I met with Sister Hansen first and we talked about my goals I want to accomplish this transfer and she wanted to know about the family and making sure y'all are doing well. I then visited with President Hansen and he told me that I need to know the Bear Creek Area book backwards and forwards since Elder Conrad is leaving and a new Elder will come in so I have to be the one who says "hey let's go tract here or let's visit this family". So he made sure I was worthy so I could be in tune with the spirit so I can know where to go. Then later he asked if I had any concerns or anything that is on my mind that will keep me up at night. Well there was something that was troubling my mind and we had a very emotional talk but President Hansen is awesome and he gave me a blessing so all is well. Elder Conrad and I went to dinner with the Beckstroms after interviews and the Beckstroms just moved into the ward and they made chicken roll up's!!!! I was so happy because I was craving some kind of meal that mom makes. So that was delicous and we had molten cake after that so we had some amazing food. (Mom, when I come home from my mission we are definitely not going out to eat. We are going to stay home and have some of your chicken stroganoff.) We then had an appointment with new investigators at a member's house but they forgot so we walked over to the investigator's house and set up an appointment for next week. We then gave Sister Lilywhite (Spanish speaking missionary) a blessing because she has been ill for a few days.
4/16- Had Zone Meeting and it was focused on repentance. We then went to Cracker Barrel afterward for some lunch. We then visited a new investigator, Troy Brown. His wife is a member but she goes to the Spanish ward and he doesn't speak Spanish so we are teaching him the gospel. We helped a member in our ward move their dryer in and out of their house. We then had a member deliver us pizza because they had something come up to where they couldn't feed us. Then at the end of the night I started my exchange with Elder Hackett and I went to his area.
4/17- So I am in the Copperfield area which is a bike area. Elder Hackett and I went tracting basically all day which I am glad I was on a bike because we rode all over so it was good to get a work out and also get tanned :) Oh also while we were riding (I was using Elder LaMont's bike) the front tire is one of those road tires so its really skinny and I was riding behind Elder Hackett and he went over a small ditch thing and his tires are the ones you normally see which are bigger and well when my front tire hit the ditch the bike flipped forward and I mean a full flip.....but I didn't crash.....because while the bike was flipping forward I somehow managed to get my feet over the handle bars and I just walked off while it was flipping.....I wish I could have gotten video of this because we were going really fast and I somehow walked away from this bike while it was flipping right from under me. As soon as I got off I stood there and was like....."how did that just happen?" but I am very grateful (haha). We had a dinner appointment at a member's house. Before hand, I told Elder Hackett the address to this member's house because he had his planner out so I thought he wrote it down. This member lives in an apartment complex but we get there and we are at the right building and floor but we don't know which door it is and there were 5 doors. So we start knocking on them and the first 3 no one answerd but at the 4th one, a man answers the door and instantly says "sorry I don't deal with holy rollers so y'all can leave" and slams the door in our face. Well there is only one door left but when we get to that door the 4th door we were just at flings open again but this time a girl looks out the door and asks if we are Mormons and we said "yes" and then she says "Ok well I am Lutheren and y'all can leave this whole building - better yet this apartment complex because we don't deal with solicitors". I just wanted to be like "lady we are not solicitors because we are not selling anything. Also you can't speak in behalf of your building or the apartment complex if we can be here or not" (I was not in the best of moods because it was a very hot day and we have been riding our bikes all day and had tons of doors slammed in our face.) But thank goodness I didn't say those things because that would have been dumb of me to do. I just told her we were here for a dinner appointment and sorry that we knocked on the wrong door and sorry to disturb her. All she says is, "oh, okay" and just closed her door. I just somehow found that humorous. But we met the Hunsinger family and we had KFC and we taught the restoration lesson. Later that night I went back to my area in Bear Creek.
4/18- When I woke up it was pouring rain and there was thunder and some lightning. I was so happy because I wanted a good rain storm for a long, long time and it rained all day long. Had PEC at 9:00am. Then went to church at 1:00pm and Elder Conrad gave a talk about temples. Then we had dinner at the Herrera's and Sister Herrera is seriously amazing. She is definitely our mom out here. She made amazing food, as always, and she also served strawberries and y'all know how I love strawberries :) But she is so nice she asked us both for our home numbers so she could call our family and let them know how we are doing. But both Elder Conrad and I forgot to give it to her but don't be surprised if you get a phone call from her some time. We then visited Lonnie (I) but we tried to teach him the restoration lesson but it was like teaching a brick wall because the smell of alcohol was on his breath, had the attention span of a cat, and he was so skatter brained that we didn't really progress with him.
Well another week down. I hope to hear from y'all soon. Love you
Elder Barton
