uruguay no mas

hey family, greetings from uruguay another week has just flown by here in the guay. this last week we had interviews with president so we traveled up to paysandu to have our interviews and to talk with president to see what he wants from young. its always good to talk with president hear he just has a way of getting your spirits up and getting you motivated. things with elder terault are the same...just gets trunkier and trunkier as the big date comes for him to leave. his desires to work just get lower and lower everyday and when we are out and about its kinda just him following me around. its kind of like the part in the best 2 years where the older guy is just all takin pictures while the other one is working super hard and just all by himself. its kind of how i feel just im trying to get lost in the work trying to make something happen here in young and my comp could care less and is just leaving the house to work cause he knows he is suppose to leave. so im hoping these next 3 weeks will just go by fast and i can have a new comp and we can perform miracles here in young. i really feel like its primed up for one. young has been my toughest area the people are hard to love, and so its hard to serve them haha so in that sense its been super hard for me just to love the people and be excited to serve them. I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting about faith hope and patience i think it went pretty well i shared the story of abinadi and just what faith and pacience he had with everyone and because of him alma was converted which resulted into a good boatload of people converting to the church than just how with the patience at times we dont see the fruits of our labors but one day we will see them and that is just one of the best feelings ever. and than if you guys dont know....uruguay won the copa america!!! the game started at 4 here and we have church from 2 to 5 so it was pretty funny the people that showed up which were very little, where just on cell phones texting friends and neighbors tryin to find out what happened haha. after church we went to a less active members house that we are pretty good friends with and watched the 2nd half. its sooo much fun to watch games with uruguayos they are just so patient and love the sport so much it blows my mind. after the game there was a huuuuuggggggeeeeee party in downtown young we went just to see how it was, i took a couple videos and it was pretty crazy i cant wait for you guys to see them haha. people down here know how to party. and so yeah they beat paraguay 3 to 0 you best believe i will be writing a letter to carter and cam rubbing it in their faces haha. so yeah thats just about it from elder barton, trying to help time fly by and with the win of uruguay yesterday afternoon it was pretty insane haha but yeah i saw pictures from the wedding at the temple looks pretty cool!! thhat was the first time i have seen you guys in pictures since i left so that was cool to see you guys you all look older (except for the beautiful exception of sue =) ) so yeah dont be growing up to much on me barton family! but yeah im out of here! love you all! have a good week and enjoy that summer sun! chau -elder michael barton

Wedding

hey guys its nice to hear that everything went good with wedding. to
be honest i didnt get a whole lot of info about the dang thing just
that everyone had fun and everything went smooth. so yeah i guess
there is not really much to tell when it all goes down nice and smooth
haha. i hope someone danced for me and ate some four cheese ravioli.
wednesday i went on divisions with elder cerna from honduras and i
spent a good amount of the time thinking about the wedding and hoping
it was everything our little princess megan wanted her wedding to be.
so yeah my week was alright just kinda of pushing elder terault along
these last couple weeks, but he is pretty trunky and pretty set on
talking about home and his restaurant he wants to start. which is all
good and stuff but i dont know home is just a topic i dont really like
to talk about it just makes me trunky haha i forgot how hard it is to
kill people off in the mission and lucky me i get to do it twice haha.
but yeah the time goes fast and we are already going into the 3rd week
of the change...halfway!! so yeah just gota plug it out till the end.
young is hard its an area with very few less active members as well as
active members to work through so basically its all the missionary
just knocking doors and hoping for a miracle. which it sucks cause as
im sure ryan known knocking doors sucks and the time goes by super
slow haha. so yeah really not anything at all to report from here.
just glad you guys had a good time at the wedding and mark got to go
to lake powell. why do you guys say its raining all the time but
whenever my friends write me they sayitss sunny....haha weird but yeah
thats the report from elder barton this week and young not much at oh
yeah we have interviews with president this wednesday up in paysandu
so that will be fun to talk to president its always fun to talk with
him and let me know what he thinks about me and stuff. so yeah peace
out have a good weekk!! talk to ya next monday

I will talke a 4 cheese ravioli

yo yo yo yo family hows it crackin in the 801!!! wow the wedding isfinally here it feels like i got the letter of megan just the otherday saying she was engaged and now here we are 2 days away from thebig day!! how are we feelin? nervous? excited? scared. its foreternity haha. i hope the temple didnt freak our little miss megan outhaha hahah i remember my first time i felt like i joined a newreligion haha so yeah i got to young safely. and i soon found out mycomp is going home early for school and so this is his last change inthe mission. i have the lovely opportunity to be his last companion.elder lopez all over again, talks a lot about home, doesnt necesarilyhave the strongest desires to work and just that kind of stuff. aftertalking to my zone leaders i guess president thought i did a good jobwith elder lopez with him finishing strong he wants the same for elderterault, soooo here we are im killin another missionary, but there isalways something you can learn from every comp and i am just going tomake sure we work. on top of it all young is known to have reallyreally disobedient missionaries just because it is clear the heck outhere and there is no one watching them and so they think its ok, so ishowed up and they literally did not work last change which means verylittle investigators haha starting all over from scratch in thataspect. in terms of the branch its a tiinnnyy branch we had 20 peoplenot including us in church yesterday and about 14 of them are oldladies above the age of 70 haha so lots of work to be done here inyoung, but its all good the area is huuugggeee and there is a lot ofdoors to be knocked and a lot of opportunities to find people. justgotta get out and find them! i gave a talk in sacrament meeting atlast minute the branch president just announced that i had a talk insacrament meeting without giving me any type of notice haha i guess ishould have known better since i am the new missionary here. butluckily we are here with 2 other elders. elder mace from st george andelder cerna from honduras. its kind of funny we hold our districtmeetings just in our kitchen and its just us 4 always together whenwere not proselyting. so yeah thats where elder barton is right now,middle of now where with a trunky companion and no investigators hahaits all good i love a challenge and there is no where to go for youngbut up haha president wrote me and said that he wants me to fix upyoung nice and good so i will see what i can do in that aspect ofthings. but yeah so i hope everything is good with you all and thewedding i cant believe its already this wednesday. sue save me adance, rybart dont get to skanky out there. hope you all enjoyyourselves, its a once in a lifetime opportunity just eat a piece ofcake for me. dont worry about your son and brother im mad chillin herejust tryin to keep it krispy myself. chau chau

The Ups and the Downs, The Smiles and Frowns.

alright well another change has officially began and i am now going into my 6th change. pretty crazy how time flies. so to hear the most absolute fantastic news!!!!!!! the 2 families that we are teaching came to church!!!!!!!!!! haha it was quite the story, we do sacrament meeting last and no one had yet to show up and i was just thinking there like nooo way this is about to happen again to me and elder jones we worked so hard this week and not less than 24 hours ago both of the famliies said they were going to go right to our faces. so we were sitting there in sacrament and it was about to start when i saw a glimpse of a little baby all bundled up through the window and I said to myself if that was a normal member they would just have came right in to the sacrament room, so i of course when outside to see if it was really them...and sure enough the little baby i saw was little milagros or they call her mili for short. and the rest of the family was sitting right there in the front of the church!!!!! heck yeah i was unbelievable stoked out of my freakin mind so we go sit down they had already met the family piedad so we sat next to them and were having a good time me and elder jones were just lit with joy. than about 15 minutes later a member comes up to me during the meeting and tells me someone asked for me outside. so i go walking outside....and their is the the other family!!!! who had missed the omnibus to get to church so they came by foot which is a good 45 minute walk easy...WOW you can only imagine how good that freakin felt!! so there we are in sacrament sittin with 2 families and wow it was pretty phenomenal. after the meeting all the members came and greeted them and they were super excited. after they left we had to stay for a meeting after church and just the whole ward was so excited to see 2 new families in the ward that day and just a spark of the missionary work that me and elder jones have been trying to get was just sparked later we passed by both families that afternoon and they both absolutely loved it!! and our getting baptized on the 22nd of this month!!! me and elder jones had worked so hard and it felt good to see the fruits of our labor and what a beautiful day that will be on the 22nd.......whoever is there with elder jones. im leaving salto. not gonna lie i am pretty freakin pissed off haha i dont even care if i had to do another change with elder jones if it meant staying i would definately do that in a heart beat. it has been super hard to say bye to the people i love here, i feel like with every area im just going to love the people more and more and more and i absolutely love salto. it sucks saying good bye i hate it. i realized i get far to attached to people haha. but yeah as for me i am off to a city called young, its in the department of rio negro, but it is the only city in the whole department and its a tiny branch out in the middle of no where it belongs to the stake of paysandu, but i wont be in the actual department of paysandu probably for the whole time im there. and i think i will be sittin there for a pretty long while to be honest. my comp is called elder terault, he is from ogden i believe and he only has this change and the next change on his mission left. so i imagine he will be finish his mission with me...yeah. i dont know maybe president feels like im really good at helping people finish their missions strong i honestly have no idea im not really lookin forward to it to be honest but i will see what kind of work we can get done down there. and i imagine after elder terault i will be bumped up to senior comp. i am kinda confused elder harris is off to train and elder miranda and peterson all got bumped up to senior comp this change, so everyone in my group except for me got moved up. one can help but to ask what am i doing different than them haha. but just one of those things you learn on the mission humility. and i guess its in the lords arms. i decided the lord has just chosen me to be a fixer uper on my mission, la pedrera was filled with terrible missionaries me and elder tippets and elder hernandez cleaned that up and when i left they had 5 baptisms, salto obelisco my ward now was known to be the worst ward as far as the missionaries goes in the whole mission, me and elder jones cleaned that up and he will have a minimum of 6 baptisms this next change. and young as well because it is out in the middle of now where has a really bad rep for having bad missionaries that do nothing cause "no one is watching them" so i am off to clean up young it looks like haha. but yeah thats the update from elder barton, 2 families in church obelisco is exploding right now and im off to do the lords next project for me, young. i love you all megan good luck at the temple!! just remember it still is the mormon religion haha mark be careful with that shade bra "worlds smartest dumb guy", and i will talk to you all next week i love you all! take luck!