February 22, 2011-Old

DJ Funk and Big Barton

Conceicao's family

Elder Craig, Conceicao, Elder Barton

Dear Family and Friends,

It's great to hear that Mom and Dad had a great time in Mexico. That must have been pretty fun. The story about the sisters and lunches would have been a lot more funny if it wasn't so true. (Here's the story: We attended the San Vicente Ward in Puerto Vallarta. In Relief Society, they asked for sisters to sign up to feed the missionaries. One sister said "Whenever I sign up, they don't show up and I don't like that". Another sister said to her "Now sister, sometimes the missionaries get called away to help someone, or to a conference, or the buses are late. When they don't show up at my house, I just yell at them....with love.")

Conversation with a less-active sister:
Elder -"Irma (Sister), why don't you go to church anymore? Was it something that happened with another member, the bishop, another sister?"
Irma-"No, I love the ward. I still go to the bishop's house for bbq once a month and the president of the Soc. Soc. is my best friend."
Elder-"Then what happened?"
Irma-(whose eyes have gone red and starts emitting steam from the ears)-"The Elders always forgot about my lunch or called to cancel."
With lunch, irmas don't forgive or forget. Never.
This week was a roller coaster (but isn't every week?) as the mission moved the focus to be about men and families. A lot was moved around, so I was in trade with the Zone Leaders a lot. It is really weird to have people calling to "report" to me. I found out that I can do a trade of sorts with the sisters. What we do is we walk around with them, do contacts, all 4 of us. We went out there Thursday and Lago Sul is pretty amazing. It is full of gated communities and it's like stepping into California. Nice houses, manicured lawns and nice cars. It was really hard, because people really don't have interest, so we're making some plans to help them.
The mission couple is really great-Elder and Sister Swallom. Elder Swallom is still learning Portuguese, so it's difficult for him. But his persistence is really inspiring. They do a lot of practices with us in District Meeting and it is interesting to see how they work. We have a few people that will be baptized this Sunday. Sandra and Maria, two friends that Elder Funk and Elder Terra found last transfer. So it's exciting to be involved with it all. I also received news from Gama that Conceicao was confirmed! Here are the pictures from the baptism. They didn't have a jumpsuit in her size so we used a dress from one of the sisters of the ward.
I finished the Book of Ether recently and it just blows my mind how they killed each other. I was reading what Mom wrote about the difference with the atmosphere of the beach resort world and the Gospel. And that's so true. People are really not happy, they just run from one high to the next and in the end, they destroy themselves. And if we don't start changing things, it'll be our nations as well.
On a sadder note, I am now officially "Old". Yesterday I made another month on the mission and Elder Funk told me "Elder Barton, you're old now. Not just kind of old. Old, old." So to try to look younger, we have a picture of DJ Funk and Big Barton in the pictures.
If I was 4 younger brothers of Elder Barton, I would start checking the mail box starting in a few weeks...maybe like a month, because Santa/Elder Barton is taking care of 2 years of Christmas and birthdays.
Love you all,
Elder Barton