loved your email‏

haha no worries madre argentina people are the nicest people ever they just laugh at how bad are spanish is and are more than willing to help us out they love missionaries and if they dont love you all they tell you is "yo soy catolica" and walk away haha not much happened here this week with just 10 norte americanos in the building all the new missionaries just came about an hour ago and i guess there building a temple in cordoba and so some apostoles are down here and there gonna give the CCM a quick shoutout on sunday so that will be way awesome im excited to hear what they have to say. but this week has been boring nothin exciting oh elsa so we go and clap on her door and her husband comes walking out el libro de mormon in hand raising it high in the air and were all thinking this is either the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever sure enough he simply handed us the book told us it was of the devil and walked away without even letting us get a word in. ha i guess we will see what he has to us next saturday haha cant wait to go back. but yea like i said not much happened just going to class and eating is all i do haha but time is flyin right on by. im assuming mark is to busy reading his kindle to send me an email haha chiste chiste i know mark is a busy man and work is probably crazy right now. thats sad about gloeckners, thats awesome cate remembered me i miss playin with her and 4 inches!! thats chaos. anywho have a fun safe halloween everyone! megan i just realized i forgot to give you a shot out in my last email sorry i was in a rush tryin to finish it up and forgot. hows everythin?? you married yet?? chiste. mom told me you have another shot comin up this week if it already happened i hope everything went well and if it has not happened yet i wish you all the luck!! rest of fam stay awesome hasta luego -elder barton

numero dos

family! what what a week so I forgot to tell you every saturday everyone gets to go out and do proseltismo for about 7 hours every saturday with your companions you get your own area and everything! so saturday we went out ya know pretty scared the streets of argentina are nuts. so anyways the first person we talk to is this mechanic named miguel and he immediately invites us in to have some matte with the other mechanics....haha sooo funny so being the new missionaries we are we gladly except the invitation i told my companions like some mission presidents let you drink it and others dont so i dont know if were allowed to drink it. so we just went for it for fun haha (we found out we are allowed to drink it but not with people on the streets for the sanitary issue and its just a waste of the lords time) so yea that was funny elder harris didnt know you were suppose to drink it from the straw so he immediately just goes straight for the cup and all the mechanics start freaking out waaayy funny. than we meet this lady named elsa. elsa had her husband pass away last month and is just in the prime situation for comfort and love which the gospel provides exactly that so its a golden opportunity we gave her a book of mormon challenged her to read some chapters and i guess we will see where that goes on saturday we set up an appointment with her so its pretty cool we get hands on lessons with proseltismo and spanish. you certainly meet some crazy people. also we had an area president come on monday hermano gomez WOW what an amazing guy the spirit he has is sooo strong and everyone can feel it he talked about how families are going to consider our names sacred to their families forever and thats way awesome that my work here is just going to be cherished by generations. mark i have tried alfajors.....oh my gosh bomb diggity we get one everyday for lunch on saturdays and we can go into stores and by some for movie night on sundays if you want as well they are quite good. we also have barbeque fridays and the meat here is absolutely delicous no comparison. so all the latinos leave today and tomorrow morning that usually happens on a tuesday but this week the mission presidents have some type of conference so they had to do it early than we dont get anyone new until next frday so for a whole week its my district and another district of north americans will be here that makes a total of 9 missionaries in the whole CCM kinda crazy that provo has 2000 and we will only have 9 for a week. my spanish is still coming along absolutely terrfiic i think that in the classroom but im sure once i get out on the streets saturday it will be a humbling experience and i know i gotta go back to work on it haha my gospel spanish is great. street spanish has a ton of work left but thats what the CCM is for to get you more prepared for the field i just gotta keep working hard rely on the lord and great things will happen! weeks are starting to fly by feels like i emailed you guys yesterday but hey i got some good pictures of all the latinos i have made friends with and im excited to send you em later on. ummmm anything that i missed i have no idea i have a feeling im going to be bad at the whole hand letter thing every chance i get to either write letters or sleep i choose sleep everytime the work here is exhausting haha so i will try and gut out a letter every now and again. sue good luck with your dealio on saturday you know how to host a good party everyday at the barton household is a party. mark sorry to hear about your trip getting canceled but im sure your glad it did haha rybart whats happenin with you? work bueno? lady friends? guy friends? real pete?. sarah is morp coming up ? who are you going with? are you going? trust the phantom it will never lead you a stray its my own personal leahona. heather.......did you forget you ahve a brother on a mision i havent heard from you once! carly....dont get a boyfriend. stay innocent me and ryan can both confirm that innocent girls are the cutest girls. mary my balla hows lacrosse going is it over? basketball season? let me know how that goes glad to hear the jazz are killin it. i knew BYU would be no bueno thanks for the sports updates. alright i gotta go have fun look forward to hearing from you. please pray for elsa as well as the people of uruguay that the spirit might prepare them for the message we have to offer. your all in my prayers love and miss you all. -elder barton

week one

what up? WOW what a week it has been. i have just been crazy crazy busy the CCM is just full of class and eating class and eating haha but its way fun i get to play soccer with the latinos everyday for an hour im the only white boy that plays but its all good they know i can hang with em all the latinos are awesome guys. i think i already said this in my letter but i dont know if you guys got it haha. so yea i forgot to include in my letter besides my companions/district i have 2 elders, elder miranda y elder alvael in my room elder miranda is from panama and is a way awesome guy he reads the scriptures to me in english every night and i help him out he wants to speak english way bad and i read to him in spanish cause i want to learn spanish way bad he is also serving in uruguay monntevideo oeste so hopefully i will see him down the road. elder alvael is from chile and thinks he is some type of gangster and is all tough we have push up contests every night and he is just good fun there is also this other elder, elder bravo, who is from peru im his favorite gringo he tells me and we always mess around with each other in soccer, having nutmeg contests and see who can score the most goals its great fun. my teachers, hermano catala is awesome served his mission in texas and speaks phenomenial english for learning it on his mission he is a way cool guy. than hermana gansó is my morning teacher she is way cool too speaks alright english we have to help her with it but its all good. the food here is pure authentic tell carter and cam i actually had a paraguayian cake of some sort for lunch today and it was no bueno so wish them luck with that food haha my body has so far not taking a very good liking to the food of south america me and my companions have to make frequent bathroom stops in between classes. so yea the spanish is coming along great i can already pray, bare my testimony and teach some simple lessons all in spanish pretty exciting stuff. my testimony has already grown so much i can constantly feel the spirit with me throughout my day. i definately have learned humility. something that really struck me this week especially in zone conference is that. i am just a 19 year old kid from utah who has done absolutely nothing with my life yet i am literally NOTHING and yet the lord is trusting me to bring his children back to him through this great missionary work. wow what an honor and privilage that is the work is hard but im just getting the chills thinking about serving out in the field the MTC is a lot of memorizing and doctrine and stuff but i know i must put forth the work now so that i can be the best missionary possible. ryan i have discovered something better than naps on our couches downstairs. missionary naps oh my gosh (tracy morgan) sunday naps are absolutely unbelievable here at the CCM. but how is everything going back at home? its weird this has been a fast yet slow week it feels like i have been gone for at least 3 months but its only been a week but this week has flown by. oh pick up story so we land in argentina none of us know how to speak english so we get picked up by this sketchy guy looked like he was part of the mafia with his hair slicked back and a very nice suit on and just has a sign that says la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de ultimios dias so we go with him he takes us to this sketchy van and has us throw our stuff in it. sketchy. we walk away from the van as it goes peeling off into the distance so were thinking great their goes our stuff meanwhile he takes us clear on the otherside of the airport and takes us to his car takes us to this building and tells us to wait in the car for a while while a bunch of other guys in cars behind us get out. tight. we wait there thinkin what is goin on but it was all good he than took us to the CCM where our stuff was waiting. anyways thats all i can think of writing as of now. you guys are awesome. i love what im doing here. the church is true. i love you all. pray for the people in uruguay.

-elder barton

Safe and Sound...

Family, I have arrived in the Buenos Aires MTC. And I am safe and sound. Getting here was rather funny me, elder harris and elder peterson had troubles with the passports and exchanging money cause of the language barrier but we are now here. i dont have very much time so i will tell you about it in my next email. just notifying sue that i am here and ok and no need to worry at all!

-elder barton

And he's off...

The day has finally come. Elder Barton was set apart as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint on October 5, 2010 and boarded a plane on October 6, 2010. He is so excited for these next to years.
This blog will be updated with his weekly e-mails. Feel free to post comments to Michael on this blog and they will be passed onto him. He would love to hear from all of you. Thanks for all the support. I know that he appreciates it.