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

Change Night.Stake Conference. Wedding Bells

Tuesday, June 5, 2012 hello barton family and friends it sounds like the weather is getting warm out there and ya´ll pulled out the boat for the first time to do the infamous osbourne barton day of boating, and my last one that i will miss haha so yeah change number 13 has come and gone and now i enter into number 14....3 more to go. mychange is...im staying haha me and elder nygard are staying as zone leaders here in tacuarembo. so yeah not to exciting there haha. so the big 2 headlines of this week were one we had stake conference this last weekend, president heaton went and spoke along with the temple president and his wife, the tempe president is a stud 100% i have heard about 4 of his talks now and they are unbelievable haha so stake conference was awesome after the conference me and elder nygard organized a stake baptism, 7 people were baptized and there was a baptism from every ward except for one in the whole stake so wholefully that pumped up the members to help us a little more with missionar work here in tacuarembo. we had a baptism her name is marta she is the neighborhood ofthe elders quorum president, she has been an investigator for about 4 months now and hasnt missed a single sunday, she had to wait 4 months cause she wasnt married....so we helped them get married they both got married on friday and she was baptized on sunday, the husband, lazaro, has to stop drinking grandpas old cough medicine (alchol) and he is gonna get baptized on the 23rd and they already have the goal to get to the temple so its pretty freakin awesome.than the other story happened last night.......so it was about 845 at night and we were heading to the house about to call people with there changes when we get a phone call from a sister missionary crying....some guy ( a member) followed them all night and claimed his love for the sister and wanted her nametag or something like that, the sister got prettyfreaked out, so she called us and we were about 25 minutes away from where she was and we just got hallin, we started bookin it to downtown and we got there in about 10 minutes but the hermana gave us the wrong direction she we went about 1 mile to far from where they were we finally found them on the street with the hermana with tears in her eyes, so we walked them back to their apartment and made sure they got home safe, than took them some hot chocolate cause it was freakin freezing outside it was a pretty good experience, i love serving others and helping people feel better and letting them know that its all gonna be alright. so yeah it was a pretty special, fun, full of hard work week for elder nygard and I but i am super grateful for every experience i learn a ton from them. so yeah i hope you enjoy this email i feel like it was one of my funner ones haha but yeah thank you for everything you do. i love you guys so much, thanks for the support, see ya later fools. elder barton

families and boating

Monday, May 28, 2012 well this week went by ridiculously fast haha me and elder nygard were super busy with all sorts of things, first we had to give a presentation to the zone and teach them some things to make their missionary work more affective so we held a zone meeting on wednesday morning and did that than the next morning we went to seminary at 6 in the morning and taught the youth here how to share the gospel with their friends and invited them to come to church on sunday, i am really glad i never had seminary at that time haha. than on we also had a baptism this week. so super cool story we found this kid through some recent converts he is about 14 and his name is cristian, he is friends with a group of recent converts and they are all pretty strong in the church, so we find cristian and we get teaching him and than we thought to ourselves we need to try and find his parents, so we went over to cristians house and talked to his mom and 4 brothers and grandma and we left them with the book of mormon challenge to read and find out if it was true. so that went well than the next time we went back to their house the mom had read the part in the book of mormon and absolutely loved it haha later on we asked her to give the closing prayer to end the lesson, she did so and while doing so she began to just burst into tears...wow. she said she couldnt make it to church cause of work but she was going to get out of work to come see the baptism of her son...she came to church just intime to catch the last bit of relief society and saw her son get baptized. she cried during the baptism and said it was so special to see her son getting baptized and later cristian said in his testimony that he wanted to see his mom and brothers get baptized and he wanted to be a missionary one day. fahh it was pretty awesome haha now the mom and the family is pretty dedicated to being baptized and going to church. so yeah that was a super cool experience that i highly highly enjoyed and am really excited to see what happens here on this next coming week with that family. this week should be filled with stuff like that as well as its the last week of the change and we have stake conference this weekend, we are going to do a baptism as a zone cause we have 10 people getting baptized all from different wards here in tacuarembo so it should be pretty awesome and an awesome way to get the zone pumped and a great way to end the change. this change went by crazy fast. well memorial day is coming up i hope you guys have warm weather to go boating with the osbournes and you guys enjoy yourselves. you guys just gotta suffer through one more summer of boating with out me and before you know it i am back in action haha so yeah thats all here from the guay have a good one, love you all so much. elder barton

workin hard with a change of heart

Monday, May 21, 2012 family and friends so another week has come and gone out here in the guay. this week went really well, president came for zone conference man being a zone leader and having zone conference in your zone is stressfull we spent all monday organizing the food getting tables set up cleaning and all that jazz but i highly highly enjoyed zone conference both the sister and president heaton spoke of conversion and the importance that it is to be converted and how if we are converted we will reach our full potencial and a change of heart. it was really awesome something that i have been actually for the past 4 months just about having a pure heart and reaching my full potencial as a disciple of christ. me and elder nygard also had time to talk to our zone about what we wanted we chose to talk about walking with christ, we used the example of enoc in moses 6:31 to 34. it went quite well along with some other scriptures that we shared just about knowing what the lord wants us to do in our missions with our companions as long as us as people. after zone conference it was just a normal week of working crazy hard just to catch up on 2 lost days of work in our area we activated 2 families this week and one family brought some friends to church and now they are getting baptized, missionary work is just so easy when the members are involved haha so yeah i hope you all had a good mothers day and a good week with school finishing up and everything i cant believe we are already going into june and boating season is right around the corner, the last one im gonna miss haha ummm sue you asked me if i had any sisters in the zone we do we have 4 sisters in the zone 2 work crazy hard and are really good missionarys the other 2 just bug and annoy me haha i dont have the biggest testimony of sister missionaries yes i am racist haha but yeah so thats really all i can think of this next coming week is completely normal and a week just full of hard work hard work and a little more hard work, i have never beeen so tired in my wholelife haha i am exhausted i get home every night and just die haha i dont know how i am getting up and working everyday well i do its the spirit and the power of my calling and man i am gonna really miss that when i get home i am really excited to get home and just work crazy hard if thats anything i have learned on my mission its just that just when you think your done, beat, to the ground you can always get that little bit out of you and go that much farther and be that much better. its so awesome to see people grow and see the lord just build his kiindgom down here i love you all so much thank you for everything you have done. i love you all so much have a great week. elder michael barton

the phone call

Monday, May 14, 2012 hey family it was super super super awesome to talk to you guys yesterday even though we didnt have the best internet connection it was super awesome seeing you guys and it kinda sorda made me super trunky haha but thats all good it just reminded me of us always sitting in that stinkin living laughin our faces off. heather i am digging the hair cut and the new job way to go what a blessing. megan looks like a mom and just has life undercontrol just the way she wants it, even though trent didnt really talk to me i can tell that he makes her really happy, rybart, same haircut, same schooling, not much change there haha but that is actually super awesome i am excited to go hangout with thesame brother i left behind haha sarah, you look like a superstar pretty much thesame but a tad bit older and more mature which is awesome that probably naturally happens when you pack up and move to hawaii haha carly...WOW holy bonkers she is a little woman taking high school by the horns i am sorry you didnt enjoy prom thatm uch but you still got next year so dont even worry about it!!! and mary......the most changed with her huuuuggggeee looonnnngggg blonde hair haha she looks like a mini megan and is just shredding things up on the lacrosse field. mark, lost some weight??? get on that bike a little more. and the quueeeennn of them all sue...i was so excited to see you, your still my best friend and you are still the same gangsta as when i left. all in all it was a great phone call and i really enjoyed it. even though sue killed me with the question about going to school. i dont feel like i am old enough to go to college yet i am still growing up i have so much more to learn haha. so this week is basically a normal week tomorrow we have zone conference with the zone of rivera they are coming down here so me and elder nygard have to get the chapel set up tonight for that tomorrow as well as president heaton is coming up here and he is gonna take us out to dinner and talk about the zone a little bit with one of the assistants elder glenn. so tonight should be prettty fun president heaton is just the coolest man on planet earth and i love spending whatever time i can with him i learn so much about him everytime i talk to him or hear him speak he is just the man. and than after that tomorrow its just back to work. so just nothing new going on here just work work work work being a zone leader you always got a bunch of little things to do and it keeps you super super busy and you can never rest so the next 5 months here are gonna be really tiring ones and probably really really fast ones haha so yeah thats basically the update down here in the guay. i love you all sooo much thanks for everything you do. i love you keep it gangsta elder barton