Email Update: February 28, 2011

This week has been awesome and very spiritual at the same time! This week A LOT of miracles happened! First we got a new investigator Kim.  She is 16 years old and she is so awesome and she has read 3 Nephi 11-20 so far this week and she came to church and we plan on going back this week. And Bro. Tuimaseve, who hasn't been to church in who knows how long, actually came to church on Sunday! And the Youngblood family, who I have tried over and over and over again since I was here a year ago and I have only taught them once, but I finally got in contact with them and set up a return appointment for this week, so Elder Simpson and I have been very blessed and we are very grateful. Also, something very spiritual that happened this week is something Elder Simpson actually brought to my attention. On Thursday after we had the new leadership training we went and had dinner with the Foy's, then had a lesson with the Hays, then went and did 3 healing blessings at the Jenning's/Sheldon's. At the end of the day Elder Simpson said "You love these people don't you" and I never really thought about it but I really do I have so much love for the people here in Bear Creek. After this I got on my knees and offered up a prayer of gratitude and while I was praying I remembered something my Stake President said when I was getting set apart as a missionary.  He said "We bless you now that you will have the love of the Savior in your heart. That as you look upon those that you serve, whether they be members or non-members, or your mission president, or your leaders in your mission, or your companions, that you will be able to have that same love that the Savior has for them and that you will be able to express that love effectively through your actions and through the words that you say" Well this week I can say that this line was fulfilled.  I never felt so much love for so many people and for anyone for that matter. I had so much love for the people in the Bear Creek area, for my companion, for my Zone Leaders and Assistants to the President, and to President and Sister Hansen. That was definitely a memorable moment and I can't wait to get to work this week so I can show my love through my actions.

Sorry this letter won't be as long as my others I sent a super long e-mail to President Hansen as well telling him about this experience. But I also had so much love and appreciation to all my Sunday school teachers, priesthood leaders, and seminary teachers. And I plan on writing them all little thank you notes next P-Day. I hope y'all have a great week and I can't wait to hear from y'all soon. And hopefully Deanna got my birthday card.  If not, tell her on Wednesday, Happy 18th Birthday! That's so crazy that she is 18 now ah!

love, Elder Cory "Big Deal" Barton :p

Email Update: February 21, 2011

Hey family!

Well I will try to update you what happen the past two weeks.  Sorry if I am all over the place, or if I don't make some things really clear, because I usually have my planner where I take notes through out the week so I don't forget since I have a terrible memory. 

Well last week I was on exchanges with Elder Blakeman (who is going home tomorrow since he is finished) and we taught a lesson to Juan and it was an awesome lesson, the spirit was really strong there. Then on Sunday last week we had a member come out with us whose name is Brandon Martin.   This guy is so cool, he is 20 if i remember correctly, and after he is done with his semester at college he is going to turn in his mission papers. He loves to come out with us and we love to have him, but we feel really bad for him because we usually end up tracting or trying LA's that never answer the door. But Brandon has such a great spirit about him that he always learns something new when he comes out with us and he is always teaching me even though he doesn't know it, so he will be a fantastic missionary! Later that night we had a lesson with Juan at the Ita's house (awesome family -they are Samoan and Sister Ita is actually related to Elder Hill talk about crazy!) But the testimonies Brother and Sister Ita gave were so awesome, it built up my testimony just hearing them, it was great. Well that's all I can really remember from last week sorry. 

Well we got new training from our Zone Leaders about Church Tours (This new training is inspired from the Washington Tacoma mission.  Before they did church tours, their mission was getting only about 200 baptisms a year but when they put the church tours into practice, they got 500 baptisms, and continued in the years after to get that number, so now our mission is doing it.)  But the point of the church tours is to get investigators or potentials to go to a dedicated building, show them what we do at church on Sundays so the can become comfortable with it and also to meet a member of the congregation which will invite them to sit with them at church and also provide transportation if needed. We then end the tour at the baptismal font, where we teach the first lesson with them facing the baptismal font, and then we can give them a soft baptismal commitment. On Wednesday and I was really excited to try out the Church Tour and later that night we practiced doing the tour with Brandon Martin who is now one of our "minute men" (which means that he is someone who we can call at anytime when we come across someone who is interested in doing the tour).  Then the next day on Thursday, we did the tour with a member and one of our investigators Rolanda.  The spirit was so strong as we went through the foyer and then the chapel, talking about the sacrament. Then we took her to the baptismal font and had their chair's facing the baptismal font and we talked about what happens when she will be baptized.  We then we did the first lesson on The Restoration and we gave her a baptismal date for March 26th.  Rolanda loved the Church tour and you could definitely could tell a difference by having a lesson at the chapel rather than at the investigator's house. We had immediate success with the new church tours and can't wait to use them more often. 

Then during the week we did tracting of course, but one interesting person answered the door and we talked for a little bit and he says that all the prophets in the bible are black and that Jesus isn't the Savior of the world but some man that was born in Oklahoma named (and I don't know how to spell this but i will take a shot at it) Yaway Been Yaway so I was like "whaaaaaaaa?" But pretty interesting fella.

Then this week we also had lessons with Juan along with awesome members named Laura and Tiana. We always have a  fun and of course good lesson when we have Juan, Laura, and Tiana they are the bomb! (A little shout out to my homies because they read the blog) Oh also this week I saw a Chuckie Cheese mascot doing the Jerk! And I was like "Elder Hill we gotta stop I want to do the Jerk with him!" But of course Elder Hill said "no" but, oh well.  I bet people would have wondered why a missionary is Jerkin with a Chuckie Cheese mascot, that would have been quite a sight! 

Then on Saturday night we got transfer calls and Elder Hill is getting transferred down the street to the Wheatstone ward which is in the Cypress Stake and I am staying here in Bear Creek where my new companion is going to be Elder Simpson, who is also from Idaho. So after this transfer I would have been in the Bear Creek ward for 8 1/2 months which is 6 transfers. I am worried that I might get stuck here for another couple of months and end up being in Bear Creek for a 1 year, which is half of my mission! That would be crazy! Well that is all I got for ya! Hope all is well with y'all peace!

Email Update: February 7, 2011

Hey family,

I don't have that much to tell you this week but I will give you a run through with what happened.

On Monday we had dinner with the Willis family and we talked to them about Mormon.org and Elder Hill got a haircut there.  After that, we went and picked up our bikes since we got a new bike rack, and that night I went to Copperfield's area to be on exchanges with Elder Bergener.

On Tuesday we rode our bikes and it was freezing this day - it was super cold and windy, and I was on the bike with no gloves or a beanie, so I basically died that day.  We did a lot of tracting, and later that night we visited with a inactive in their ward and turns out they own the biggest paintball park in Houston, so that is pretty sick. (I had a flashback moment when Dad and I went paint balling - that was fun.) That night I went back to my area and Elder Hill and I were in our apartment and out of no where our power went out! Then we went out and looked around - our whole block was out of power! The Walmart across the street didn't have any lights, the stop lights were out (Texans can't drive in normal conditions, but then you turn off the lights, Texans have no idea what to do.  You are supposed to treat an intersection as a 4-way stop, but Texans make up their own rules - talk about scary). The power kept turning on and off that whole night.

On Wednesday the city of Houston was doing forced rolling blackout's to save energy, or something crazy like that, so random parts of the city would be out of power and then it would change to a different area and this happened the whole day. We did service for a family in the Copperfield ward -we sanded this family's table and chairs but we didn't finish, so we will do that again in the up coming weeks. Then we did tracting (I feel bad that I keep saying that -  I bet it gets very repetitive, but it's what we do). Then that night, we had dinner with the Johansen's, who are a really cool family. They are so funny and oh, we had chicken 'n dumplings, talk about soul food! After that, we went on splits and I went with our ward mission leader, Bro. Stoddard. We went and visited the Ochoa's, who are inactive, then we visited with the Jenning's and Sheldon's and had fun there.  Bro. Stoddard has a pretty sick car!

On Thursday Elder Hill and I had weekly planning and he makes his granola when we have weekly planning and it's so good! We went tracting and Elder Hill and I took a lot of fun pictures that day. In fact, we took a picture of this guy's door who left a post-it note saying "Don't bother me I am not changing my religion" so Elder Hill put a pass-along card on it and took a picture.  I'll send those pictures when the card gets full. But we got 27 ITL's that day, which was awesome and it was funny because supposedly, it was suppose to snow this day like 1-3 inches, but we never saw any snow so the weather people messed up on that one. But it was cold though. Then we had dinner with the Padilla's who are totally awesome.

 On Friday we were supposed to have Zone meeting at 9:30 a.m. but they pushed it back to like 12:30 since Houston closed down some of the roads due to the "snow".  School even got cancelled here the day before because they were expecting snow. But it didn't show. We then went tracting and then went to the Herrera's and had dinner with them.  Sister Herrera is awesome, she just is so kind and loving toward the missionaries.

On Saturday we visited with Jay and his son, Mason. Jay is an inactive member, who thinks members of the church are perfect, and feels like he would be out of place since he has tattoos and he likes to smoke and drink occasionally. But we gave him the church's addiction recovery program, so hopefully he will use it to help him out. His son Mason is getting baptized this coming Saturday and it's not a convert baptism since he is 8. We then had lunch with Sister LeBlanc and Brad Marshall (Amber's Dad) and we had fun. We then went out tracting and then had dinner with the Ramos family.

On Sunday we had a Regional Conference - this included the whole state of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. It was a televised broadcast from Salt Lake and Elder Jepson, Sister Dibb (President Monson's Daughter), M. Russel Ballard, and President Monson all spoke to us! It was super neat to listen to the Prophet speak before General Conference. Everyone that spoke gave awesome talks, it felt like they were all talking to me, and I also think that this stake needed to hear the words spoken because they all tied in missionary work. After that awesome experience, Elder Hill and I got a new car! That's right, Claire had over 48,000 miles on it and the church takes out mission cars when they get to that point, so the church provided us with a 2011 Silver Toyota Corolla.  It is really nice, but Elder Hill and I are still working on a name for it. We then went to the Chavez house for lunch and we gave Sister Chavez a blessing of comfort because she is stressed, but the Chavez are so awesome, they are always willing to feed us awesome Mexican food. We then had dinner at Sister Hillier's house and she is the Relief Society president.

Well that's all for now hope to hear from y'all soon     -Elder Barton

Email Update: January 31, 2011

What up family! Here is my update for the week.

Well on Monday, Elder Hill and I went to a funeral.  I said the opening prayer and Elder Hill gave a talk about the Plan of Happiness, but the funny thing is, this wasn't a funeral for a church member.  Everyone at the funeral was Catholic, so that was interesting. Then we had dinner with the Valenciano's (they are Hawaiian) and we just had a blast.  After that, we had FHE with the Tuimaseve's (they are Samoan) and that was so much fun too.  The father is a inactive member because he doesn't feel like he should come to church since he drinks, but the thing is, he has a super strong testimony about the gospel and the church so he will come around in time. Also I wish I could speak Samoan because that language is so sweet! So Monday was a great day since we partied with Polynesians.

Tuesday we tracted all day. Then on Wednesday we had interviews with President Hansen and he and I had a good meeting.  It was so good to be back in the mission having interviews. Well we talked and he hinted at some things about what he wants me to do to be prepared for leadership.  He hinted at me at being a trainer but we will see what happens there. The rest of the day we tracted and we ran into a 14 year old kid named Nick Nixon who actually was attending another ward then moved here.  He just finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time and loved it, and turns out he isn't a member! So we got his info and we will try and visit with him. Then that night we were driving and our bike rack broke! So our bikes are stranded at a member's house now.

On Thursday Elder Hill and I walked to our bikes since our car is out of miles and turns out Elder Hill's bike has a flat and we have nothing to fix that so the rest of this day and the week we walked everywhere. We spend the rest of the day tracting.

On Friday we were tracting and we walked into a man named Keith who basically is living the life of a LDS member, but he isn't.  He was super nice and loved everything we told him about the church. His wife then came out and loved how we are out trying to bring people unto Christ and she even did a little dance for us haha and they gave us this free organic pomegranate french soda which was delicious. We got their info and will try to contact them again. Then we had a lesson with Juan, our only progressing investigator, which is OK because he is super solid and it's always a great lesson when we are over there. We had 2 members there also, so it was fun.

On Saturday we walked and tracted the day and went to a baptism that night for the Copperfield Elders so it was so cool to see someone change their life and join the church, that is always special.

At church on Sunday we had testimony meeting since next week is Stake Conference and I loved all the youth who bore their testimonies.  They have the spirit so strong, especially Taylor Tuimaseve, who talked about his dad being inactive but having a strong testimony of the church and how he loves him,  it was very touching. Elder Hill and I had a super spiritual experience while tracting. We knocked on this door and a lady answered, she is in her 30's and we told her that we are sharing a special message about how our family's can be together forever and how we want to share this message with her. She started crying like a baby saying that this is crazy because her aunt is dying and before we knocked on the door, she was praying and then we showed up on her door step. This lady's name is Ashley and she is married and has 2 kids (so our prayers on finding families are being answered).  Ashley told us she was just talking to her husband about how she wants to go back to church, but didn't know which church to go to. So that was an awesome miracle.  After we left there, Elder Hill and I immediately offered a prayer, giving thanks for being able to find Ashley.

So that's all I have.  Oh also, if your wondering about Rhonda, I didn't really explain her deal.  Well she was stealing money from the member of the church she was staying with and took off, so she isn't getting baptized.

I love ya Barton family you better represent the name! And y'all better have made your www.mormon.org profiles!

Love, Elder Barton