Busy week coming ahead.

hey fam hows it goin up there in the 801??? things down here are going well, the weather is warming up so i cant complain, we went down to mdeo this last week with all the zone leaders me and elder gonzalez presented what we are doing in our zone and it turned out really well i had alot of missionarys tell me they liked it and learned a lot from it so thats always good to give a helping hand when i can haha, we also had another baptism this last weekend, his name is martin, he is the young mens president nephew, it was super awesome and the young mens president was super excited, martin is a goalie for his soccer team and we play soccer together every night and i told him i was a goalie as well and he thinks im just the most legit goalie there is out there haha he wants me to take him out the field one day and teach him more stuff haha i see a lot of myself in that kid its pretty awesome he is a super good guy. a lot of his buddies went to the baptism as well in cluding his mom, so we are hoping that the mom will now get baptized, and than all of his friends love going to church haha there is about a group of 5, 15 year old kids that just like going to church and playing soccer so its super cool the young mens class is just filled every week with investigators haha ummm this next coming week we have a lot going on as well, wednesday the senior couple is coming here to tacuarembo and we are talking them around to every missionarys house to do house cleanings haha makin sure that all the houses are clean and all that jazz. than thursday president heaton is coming with elder nygard my x comp, to do interviews, it will be my last interview with president heaton out here in the field so it will be interesting to see what he has to say to me haha i hope i have been a good missionary. i am sure he will just want to talk about the zone haha. so yeah thats whats going on here, i am glad everyone is hoppin into school good and that things are nice and normal back at home. the days are few now and i hope sue you can hold out till the end, i am trying my hardest haha. so yeah thanks for everyything love you all. keep it real. elder barton

23 months done 1 more to go

September 3, 2012 family whats going on???? all is going good down here in the guay entering into september my final complete month here as a missionary for the church, how crazy is that time has flooowwwwnnn by. the zone is looking fairly well for this month and according to my old comp elder nygard (asistant) he tells me that we have the best zone in the whole mission haha. but you all know me, elder barton i hate losing with a dirty dirty dirty passion so its better that i am in control of the best zone in the whole mission haha.this week all the zone leaders are getting together in montevideo and elder nygard asked me to talk about 20 minutes about how to be a zone leader and what we have to do in our zones so that everyone has success, not gonna lie its just one more thing i have to do and i dont want to but i guess i got no other options haha so we will see how that goes. we had a baptism this last week, she is the aunt of the bishop, she is a super cool lady mom of 9 kids we have baptized 3 of them but the rest are big and have their own families and live in the middle of no where here in tacuarembo like 2 hours from the city haha. so yeah the bishop was super happy and its nice to feel like i am completing my role as missionary bringing families together forever. we have also been teaching the bishops cousin, for about 2 months now she cant get baptized because she is living with a guy and they are not married, she got up and bore her testimony yesterday and talked about how bad she wanted an eternal family and how she has hope one day that her husband with want to come to church one day or for the least get married, it was super sad but at the same time super awesome to see someone really understand the gospel she has 2 little girls as well one we baptized and the other is just a little thing she has 2 years.other than that things are going good we had 13 investigators in church yesterday so we are expecting about anothe 10 baptisms this month and its not a bad way to finish the mission haha so i am pretty stoked sincerely just trying to work my tail off so that i dont get to trunky even though i think i am on the verge of death cause of how tired i am, when i am home i think i am gonna take about a 3 day nap haha i am BEAT. but i gotta do it for one more month than i am done haha i wouldnt want it any other way. so yeah tahts the news here from the guay, i love you all so much thank you for everything you do for me, keep it krispy. hast luego. elder michael barton

change 16

August 28, 2012 ok. family and friends i am now entering into my final change out here in uruguay and it turned out to be not a change. haha i am staying in my area with my same comp haha which is alright i am totally cool and down for it i have no problem, we have a lot going on in our area we are expecting about 9 baptisms so its awesome. this next change i am just really gonna focus on the missionarys and their areas and let my comp take care of our area. i have found that when i am helping others the time goes by a lot faster, so i am gonna be doing changes every week outside of my area just to try and get some of these companionships that got nothing to do...something to do haha. i am super pumped though cause my kid, elder brown, is coming to tacuarembo! so i am gonna be able to hang out with probably the coolest comp i ever had and i will get to see how much he has progressed in his mission so thats super awesome i am super pumped for that, the weather here is going crazy sometimes its freezing cold the next second its roasting hot haha so its kinda confusing and from what they should it should be that way until october, or until the end of my mission so all my clothes are getting a good nice last run haha even though just about all my white shirts are now yellow and all my pants are extremely faded from the sun that it looks a little ridiculous but hey what can ya do haha. so yeah this week went well just a normal week the assistants came into town or elder harris came into tacuarembo and gave the missionaries a training it was super good elder harris has become a freakishly good missionary haha and mom no from what he has told me his parents arent coming to get him we are gonna be walking home together in the airport haha "the walk" as we call it haha. umm than the rest of the week was just work work work tonight i am gonna be at the terminal until 3 o´clock than i have to go back at 5 o´clock haha it sucks but hey its the life of a missionary/zone leader. very little sleep i guess you could say i am use to it haha. so yeah all in all i am doing well, with plans to finish the mission strong. thank you so much for everything. i love you all and we will be in contact next week. thank you. peace. mad crazy love from a crazy wanna be uruguayan. elder barton

Birthday.

August 20, 2012 for those that are reading this letter, to be honest i have no idea who reads these emails anymore haha. my week went fairly well changes are next week so before i forget i will be writing you next tuesday haha president has been calling like a mad man to us about changes and what he is going to do in the zone and all that jazz, it looks like i am the only one from my group that is going to die as a leader elder harris is getting droped down from assistant after 6 months and elder peterson as well from being zone leader after 6 months, so for there last changes they are going to be getting bumped down and things would appear that i am staying as a zone leader to die...huh it will keep me focused haha. this week went fairly well it rained alll weekkk and the rain isnt to fun with a bike, but it just makes me appreciate the days when its pretty outside haha, the worst thing about the rain on the mission is just everything is wet and you cant put it outside to dry cause its raining so everything just stays wet until the rain stops haha so i have basically just been running around wet all week haha. we had 2 baptisms though one of the baptisms is the husband of a recent convert, he had to quit drinking and we helped him out with that and he finally decided to get baptized and the other one was a daughter of a less active member who we reactivated, its a single mom of 9 kids haha yeah the oldest has 14 years and the youngest 2 years so yeah its a pretty rough life she has got goin and it was nice to help her get back on jesus team to get some good ol classic jesus help. so yeah its my birhtday this next wednesday....crazy i am 21 years old i can now gamble, buy some booze and other things which of course we all know i wont do, but i could if i wanted to haha. like i said before in this email changes are this coming week, i am pretty sure i am staying with my comp to enter into my last change and i am hoping to finish my mission strong i have been around trunky elders on their last change and it really isnt the funnest thing to be around so i have plans to just work hard and finish strong until the end. i hope i can complete that goal. its crazy how fast these 2 years have gone by i cannot believe i am going home soon, i have seen so many missionarys come and go and i feel like it will never be my turn but reality is starting to kick in a little bit. i am gonna make it home one day, the battle has been long and rough but i am about to win haha. i am glad everyone is starting school up again, my last summer missed thank goodness and next time we get on that boat i will be present i cannot wait its gonna be awesome haha, the picture is absolutely awesome, even though its the same paper as last year haha. carly i cannot believe how much she has change that is absolutely insane!!!!! she is a little lady now and as for everyone else really you look all the same haha so thats good i havent missed to much. other than mark looking like he has got some gray hairs creepin in. watch out old man. so yeah thank you so much for the picture it has been a while since i have seen an updated picture of you guys, i think my last birthday was the last time haha so yeah enjoy school, work hard, be the best, and i will be talking to you gys next week. mad love, elder michael barton

the last testimony, and my 1974 green bullet

August 13, 2012 hey family and friendssss,,, so this week was my last and final...zone conference. yes. haha i dont know why i have never been the biggest fan of zone conference i just cant sit down for that long haha but it was super good i was in charge of lunch and all that jazz so i was pretty stressed out haha we as zone leaders had about 1 hour to teach our zone something so me and elder gonzalez decided to invite some recent converts and share their testimonys with the missionaries and tell them thank you, it was super awesome and everyone was crying haha we than talked about sharing our testimony with everyone and the story of brigham young and how he was converted to the gospel through a simple mans testimony. than later on in the conference as tradicion the missionarys that our finishing their missions give their last testimonys. and it was my turn haha kinda weird seeming how i am missing 2 months still haha so yea that felt really weird and trunky haha i still feel like i am missing a ton, but we will see. other than that the week went well worked pretty hard a pretty funny story happened, my companions bike broke so we went to go get it fixed but we had an appointment about 8 kilometros from where we were so we needed a bike instantly the bike guy loans us a bike that is from the year 1974 and glow in the dark green, seeing the rather worried look on my companions face i gave him my bike that ran a lot better and i had the huge privelage to go on the green bullet as i called it, here i am going in the mud in the mountains of uruguay on a bike that has one change and is on the verge of braking just pedaling with all my might haha. it sucked haha i got home that night just about on the verge of dying haha but my companion was very grateful for the sacrafice that i made so i guess that was worth it...only on the mission haha than after that their was a huuggge rain storm here on sunday and it killed all of us basically no one had people in church haha and yeah i really dont know what else there is to say just still working hard haha. i hope you all are doing well school should be starting up here pretty soon in the follwing week, that sucks haha. so yeah not to much more to say, i love you all thank you for everything..keep it real peace. elder barton

a looonnnggg time since that has happened.

Monday August 6, 2012 hey family and friends i hope all is well with everyone. things here are going well things are getting a little warmer in terms of weather so i am getting happier haha. this week waas good not really to much to tell i got 2 main key storys. the first would be, we had 3 baptisms on saturday!!! all of them are the cousins of the bishop so the bishop baptized them it was pretty awesome and now the mom of them or the aunt of the bishop wants to get baptized!! they were a reference from him and so it was pretty awesome, he later on told me that it says in his patriartical blessing that he would have the opportunity to share the gospel with his family members, so it was prety awesome he gave me a big hug and thanked me, it was pretty cool not gonna lie haha the bishop in our ward is an awesome guy him and his mom are the only members in his family he was baptized when he was 15 all by himself and when he left on the mission his mom got baptized so he has gota super strong testimony and we are hoping that there will be a chain effect on the rest of the family!!! nothin better than baptizing the family members of hte bishop haha. the next story would be my comp...elder gonzalez, got sick..super sick. and i spent 2 days in the house while he was sleeping....holy cow i almost died of boredom haha that when me missing music and tv really kicks me in the butt haha i have never had a desire so bad to jam out to some taylor swift haha i was on the verge of going insane, but he is getting better little by little and so hopefully we can work everyday this week. tonight the president is coming here to tbo for zone conference tomorrow, he is taking us out to dinner tonight with his wife to talk abot the zone and what is goin on. and also tomrrow in the conference me and elder gonzalez have about 1 hour to share something with the zone, i have invited some recent converts some not so recent converts to come share their testimonies with the missionaries and tell them thank you for the sacrifice they are making by leaving their houses and all that jazz, it is something that always pumps me up and i hope it does the same for the missionaries here in the zone. i guess we will see. i will tell ya about it next week haha. that is super crazy about taylor and his mission call leaving super super quick, lucky guy doesnt have to wait, and oklahoma that is like football city he is gonna love it there, i am pumped for the guy i wish i could see him before he leaves, maybe the next time i see him will be with my wife hahahahahahahaha JUST KIDDING. so yeah thats whats up with me, i love yall thank you for everything, if you need anything just let me know ok. and i will do what i can, take care, mad love. elder michael barton

Bein' the big Boss Dawg

July 30, 2012 hey family and friends hows it goin for ya´ll out in the 801!!!!!!!! here things are going pretty well i am enjoying my time with my paraguayan companion and i am kind of realizing that my time of speaking spanish is running out...pretty sad i really really like speakin another language haha. but yeah things this week went well, Workin like crazy i am starting to feel the diference of bein Zone Leader 1 than 2, its weird to be known as the big boss dawg in tacuarembo. i went off divisions and i had a bishop call me that haha super weird but its awesome this little town of tacuarembo just knows me as the bigg stud of the missionarys which is a load of crap, thats why its hilarious haha. so yeah all is normal here really nothin to new just workin my tail off. i got to take that missionary out that i wrote about last week and i just wooped him on the bike it was a blast. than the next day we went to another town about 14 miles away that a missionary hasnt been there or about 1 year haha it was super fun, we found a really awesome family and i hope they progress in the gospel. the bike is really sticking to me i think i am really gonna get into it when i get home, plannin on doin a trip from SLC to st Geore on the bike. that would be pretty awesome haha. but yeah its gettin a little warmer here but not really, the day is fine but the night is freakin freezin haha. so yeah thats really about it from here. I hope all is well over there i didnt really here much so i am just assumin people are busy with activitys with the summer and doin all sorts of fun things. its gonna be awesome to live with ryan i cant wait i am stoked haha. so yeah i love ya all thank you for everythin. keep it krispy. hasta luego. elder barton

changes

July 23, 2012 hey family and friends so here is another quick update on what happened this week my new companion elder gonzalez from paraguay is awesome he is super awesome and really relaxed guy and i have already learned a lot from him we get along super well and i am pretty sure i am going to be finishing my mission with him prettty weird to think i have gone through all my mission companions that the lord has chosen for me haha i hope i learned what i was suppose to from them. mom you had a couple questions, the pig was from the elder corums he has like 12 and we killed the biggest one, we just fried the meat and i cant remember the other question you asked haha.this week went fairly normal with changes i was in the terminal until 5 o clock in the morning than i had to work all the next day i was pretty beat haha took a lovely nap today cause of it. so yeah tomorrow i am pumped a new elder came into the zone that is pretty dang prideful he is from costa rica and is 23 and doesnt listen to anyone i guess i am gonna bring him with me tomorrow and work him into the ground haha i cannot wait its goin to be fantastic and we will see if he gets humbled up and gets things going in his area. other than that all is good july is flying by the 24 is tomorrow that is super awesome i hope you all go to cottonwoodheights and wach some fireworks, time is flying by. so yeah that is insane everyone is moving out there at home and that is fantastic that ryan is gonna wait for me haha we are gonna kill it with our own apartment i cannot wait. so yeah other than that all is good and dandy here in the guay, and time is flying. hope you all are doing well and are enjoying your summer. elder barton

I am officially a man

July 17, 2012 well this wednesday i took one of the biggest steps in being a man. we went to our elder corums house and we helped him pay for his trip to the temple....how did we do this....we killed a monster of a pig. yes with a knife and an ax. yes we hit the pig with the ax in the head to stun the daylights out of it than we stabbed it right in the throat while it was stunned...i am a man, i personally than had to carry the dead big pig over my back to the place where we would skin it. we boiled up some water and would throw water on it essentially burning the hair and taking the rest off with a spoon haha yea than we shaved it and all that jazz. we than continued on to skin it with a knife, that was new i learned how to skin an animal and it was actually relatively fun, later i had the grand privelage to help fernando, elder chorums president, to gut it out we opened up the body and just cleaned the sucker out completely haha. and than he gave us some of the meat to take home and cook...it was delicous haha it was really cool though he told us that the money he earned from selling the pig was the just perfect amount to get him and his family to the temple and he was super super grateful for us and what we did for him. ok that was the cool story of the week. now changes......i am going into change 15 (second to last) elder nygard is getting out of here and i am staying and going up as zone leader 1, yes the big boss dawg. my new companion is elder gonzalez from paraguay, i met him once he is a really really good guy and it would appear that he will be my last companion here in this great adventure in uruguay. i have the goal to work my tail off until the end of my mission as well as learn guarani with my new paraguayan companion haha. but yea this week all in all went really well, we made the zone breakfast this morning we made pancakes and little sandwiches with eggs and bacon than we played dodgeball and soccer all in allthe zone really enjoyed it and they had a lot of fun. so it was good. i am sorry to hear the trip to bear lake didnt really go as planned but its still always nice to get out of the house for the weekend, i thnk it rained cause you all went without me haha. other than that it sounds like everyone is super busy with their summer time and everything is going well. thats awesome i am super glad. i hope it goes by fast. thats about all i have to say to yall, thank you so much for everything and we will be in contact next monday. mad love. elder barton

Barbeque Chicken

July 9,2012 hey family so yeah another has come and gone and i hate to break it to you but i got nothing new to tell ya haha. this week we went down to montevideo again to have our grand zone leader conference and it was really good i learned alot it was also the fourth of july so all the americans sang the nation anthem as well as sister heaton cooked barbeque chicken and we had root beer probably the best meal i have had my whole mission haha it was awweeesssooommmeee. so yeah than it just got freezing cold here its fine during the day but when it is night time and you are on a bike it is freeezzzsing cold haha and waking up in the morning isnt the easiest thing either haha....i feel like im camping, in my famous words haha. so yeah we had a super good week interms of investigators and stuff we took the bishop and his wife to a lesson with us and it was super awesome and when the investigator was leaving church yesterday she said she was gonna get baptized she was off and on about getting baptized due to the law of chastity she had a long time boyfriend of 11 years haha and than she was praying to know if she had to get baptized she caught her boyfriend walking out of a house with another woman so she dropped him super fast and now she can get baptized but she still feels like she is not ready but when we had the chat with bishop and his wife she realized that you dont need to know the whole world to get baptized just need the desire, thats cool olivia gloeckner got baptized tell her congrats and yeah sounds like its time to buy a new boat(cough cough) rebecca coligan wrote me that was super awesome to hear from her i love the colligans haha so yeah thats really about it for my part i hope you all are doing well and yeah love ya and miss ya all, keep it gangsta. elder barton

giving a helping hand to the children

family friends and loved ones of elder barton hows it goin.....things are going good down here in the guay, and thisweek was just full of giving a helping hand to the children aka the missionarys haha me and elder nygard went on a total of 5 divisions this week just trying to teach the missionarys...how to be a missionary haha. as bad and terrible as it sounds one of my favorite parts of being a missionary is bringing a missionary into my area and just working him till he cant even stand haha i do it with love of course but its just so fun to show missionarys what working your tail off is, and i love hear them saying, man i could definately put a lot more work into my area haha just making them realize that there is another level of working hard that they have no idea about haha, and thats exactly what i did this week about 5 times just worked the lights out of the missionarys haha. thats what being a missionary is all about, the lord just cares about out mentality and if we are ready and able to work for him, he doesnt care about the knowledge we have or the experience, just that we are willing to give everything we got for him. we are really starting to focus with the missionarys on HOW to do the things in stead of just WHAT they need to do, just treating them like children and molding them into what we want them to be haha. i never thought i would find myself like this on the mission just people looking up to me and my teachings and what i do as a missionary, super weird but a super good feeling when i say something or do something and a missionary just goes wow or thats a really good idea haha super intersting. but yeah thats whats goin on with me just working my tail off haha. i hope you all are doing well, soakin in that summer sun, the 4th of july is coming up here, i hope you guys get the neighborhood gang together and get lightin some fireworks haha. so yeah thats all from me and the guay i am still the same, and still have hair. i love you all so much, thank you for the support and love. mad daps. elder barton

back to normal

well family and friends i am writing a little early today because president is coming to tbo and i dont know if i will have time later to write so here it goes. this week was really really really nice and good it was a normal week, and from what i have seen as a zone leader you hardly ever get a normal week. haha so it was nice to feel like a normal missionary again. we had 2 baptisms this week fabricio who is 30 is the brother of a member and bruno who is the brother of a recent convert. they were super good baptisms and the ward was super pumped to see them. we also made the bishop a really happy man haha we brought his aunt and 7 of his cousins to church and he was super pumped to see his family members in church they will all be getting baptized here in the next monrth....awesome. there wasnt really any cool stories to be honest this week just a lot of working hard and i am starting to love the bike more and more i am thinking about buying one when i get home and going from salt lake to st george on it, it would be a blast i am cranking out about 25 kilometros a day on the thing so its helping me get back into shape haha and i am super pumped to get back home and start training me for my tour to st george haha. so yeah president heaton is coming tonight he has to do interviews tomorrow so he is probably gonna take us out to dinner tonight with his wife and we will talk abot the zone there and how things are going and what not. i always learn a lot from president heaton when i talk to him so i am pretty excited. so yeah all in all the work here is going good and i am definately excited to be here. i cant believe june is already over before we know it its gonna be my birthday again haha. the big 21 crazy. so yeah i hope all is well with you guys hopefully you are planning a trip to bear lake or something for the 4th that would be super fun but i dont know do what you guys want with your summer haha. so yeah i really dont have to much more to tell. i love you all and miss you guys and hope you guys are enjoying the summer sun. thank you for everything, i have the best brother, sisters, mom and dad i could ask for you. keep it gangsta. elder barton

loooonnnngggg weeeeekkkkk

hey family, so this week not gonna lie was probably the longest week of the mission haha. i will tell you what happened now. so on monday we met with the stocker of the sister missionary here that is a member and we had a little intercourse with him and in the mean time while i was playing soccer outside someone seem to have stolen some of my things from my backpack that was inside of the church, bad day number onehaha, tuesday we had to get up at 1 in the morning cause the sisters called us scared and crying cause they thought the stocker was outside of there house and so the following day we had to see the sister missionary off to her new area cause she was just to freaked out by this guy and didnt feel comfortable here anymore, it sucked losing her in our zone, bad day number 2. wednesday we had to get up at 2 am to go to montevideo and have our meeting with our the zoneleaders that was a good day other than we got home at 12 pm dead and had to get up at 630 the next morning haha thursday, we did divisions i had to go to an area where they had absolutely no investigators and not very good plans to find investigators, that was a long day haha. friday was normal and saturday was just stressfull cause no one could listen to us. yesterday was sunday i gave a talk in sacrament meeting about how all are called and few are chosen, it went rather well, than we had a meeting with all the bishops in the whole stake and we gave a 20 minute presentacion to them, talk about feeling pretty insignificant haha i never thought i would find myself standing in front of 7 bishops and the stake president, telling them what to do so that was pretty stressfull haha and than last night it POURED ran and we couldnt get into a single house haha so we rode around on our bikes from 6 to 9 in the pouring and freezing rain. great way to end a terrible week. haha so yeah me and elder nygard are both feeling it today and just got done taking a loonnngg deserved nap and we are hoping that this week will go alot better as of right now it should be a pretty normal week. but it never is as a zone leader haha. so yeah thats whats up with me i cant believe we are already halfway through june it has flown by and i hope you guys areo ut and about enjoying the summer sun, i gotta run but i love you all so much and thank you for all the support. all the love in the world. elder barton

changes.

hey family barton, so this email is gonna be quite short i am running really really short on time haha but yeah this week was good we had changes and on tuesday night i had to live at the terminal i was there from 11 at night till 5 in the morning making sure missionaries left here and arrived safe here so yeah haha it was quite the long night than we had to go out and work a full day so yeah it was pretty rough on the eyes. haha really i cant remember a whole lot of what happened this week it was a tougher week full of trials and working hard and not having a whole lot of success, there was a cold wave that came through here in uruguay and it was freezing all week i pulled out the sleeping bag haha, but they say that its gonna get a little warmer and today was quite warm so thats always good. you guys know me i dont like the freezing cold at all hahaha. so yeah just worked really really really hard trying to be the example for the zone and all that jazz, we had kind of a sad experience we are teaching the mom of a recent convert and she loves us she takes the book of mormon to her work and everything, but she told us that some of her work buddys and her boyfriend of 11 years they have been making fun of her quite a bit for talking with "the mormons" but we had a great talk about how there is an opposition in all things and that after trials comes blessings so she was really grateful for the chat and just loved us more for it haha she is for sure gonna get baptized. so yeah more than that i cant really remember about the week. mark and sue congrats on the big 25 that is awesome, hope you did something special. rest of the fam i hope you enjoy the warm weather, go to the beach or beating or something fun for me. love you all thank you for everything. elder barton