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!

change numero 5

barton family and whoever else is reading this email, things went super good this week things absolutely flew by and it feels like i was sittin here just the other day writing to you guys, we had lessons with all of our investigators this week and we talked to all of them about going to go church.....watched the joseph smith movie, shared testimonies, brought members just about everything preach my gospel tells us to do. we did. and sunday comes around...no one shows up. haha i just have no idea at all what to do anymore me and elder jones have been thinking for a long time and really hard about what we need to say, do , tell them and we feel like were doing it. the hardest part is we are not even inviting them to church anymore. they say they will go before we even invite them again. haha it blows my mind, but hopefully our hardwork and obedience will kick in here pretty soon for the next change for whoever stays. thats right changes are next week already, so i will not be emailing till next tuesday next week. im really excited for changes being with elder jones for 9 weeks has been good but its definately that time for us to seperate, now the little things are starting to drive me absolutely bonkers haha i sound like a huge prick i dont know what it is but yeah its definately time to get a new comp haha. we did have a cool experience though, we were walkin on the way to lunch and a lady stopped us on her vespa and asked us if we knocked some ladys door yesterday that we had knocked and so we of course responded yes and she said she wanted us to come back so we went back that afternoon and it turns out her 19 year old daughter had died 3 months before and wanted to know where she was. and she always saw us in the road but we never knocked her door and she always wondered why haha. so we went by had a prety dang good lesson with her and i guess we will see what happens with her! i have been thinking alot. the mission is just a 2 year scavenger hunt you have to be patient and patient and patient doing what you know what you should be doing as a missionary and than when the moment comes its awesome, there is no greater feeling than being a living instrument in the lords arms or being an answer to a prayer or something its pretty awesome feeling. so yeah this week the last week with elder jones hopefully flies by and hopefully we get our peeps to church this next sunday haha. so yeah im glad to hear people are busy with different kinds of camps and just work summer is in the air over there. wedding plans are getting nice and official and its only 2 weeks away, wow that is pretty crazy!! so yeah i hope all is well with everyone. have a good week. keep it nice and gangsta

hello and happy fathers day

family and friends, i have attached a photo to this email just cause i thought it would be good ol´fun it is the statue of artigas here in salto. artigas is the founder of uruguay and everyone absolutely loves that man haha. but yeah things are going good down here with me. me and elder jones had another week of hard tough work and when sunday came around no one came to church. 1 was because it was raining, i dont know why but when it rains here the whole country just shuts down. not even the members come to church so that was one of 2 things and the next thing is. it was a holiday it was the date when artigas the founder of uruguay was born. and all the kids have to perform a play in all the schools and it is required to do. unless they get a ticket....so parents and kids were all at their own seperate schools doing that. so yeah in priesthood corum we had us 4 missionaries and one other member there....haha solid haha. so that makes me feel a little bit better about the whole not having investigators go cause not even the members came haha. the house recently bought the board game of risk from our nearest super market and have been delightfully entertained by that for the past couple days and we just have a battle raging countinually so hey thats always good to have that little change. haha we also had a zone conference with 3 other zones salto, paysandu and mercedes. so we traveled down to paysandu this last weekend which required a good ol 5 o clock wake up time which was not to fun. ut the conference was with president foster of the 70 and he just talked about ways to be a better missionary and i really really enjoyed it he is a super good guy and a super good teacher, it was also nice to see the other missionaries and my friends that i hadnt seen in a while as well as it is always a pleasure to be in the presence of president and sister heaton they both are absolutely studs and everytime i talk to president he just makes me laugh. he is such a stud to be dealing with all that he does and to do it with a smile on his face the dude works sooo hard. fyi i never want to be a mission president haha. so yeah thats about it from me this week. this change is flying by which is kinda good the whole elder jones scene is kinda getting old, now its just the little things that start to bug me haha after 9 weeks the start poppin up haha but we will be seperated before i know it haha. so yeah things here are mad chillin. that sucks that its still raining there, summer kinda gota slow start people are now being their summer activites, camps, cruises whatever it may be. thats always good. the weather down here was suprisingly warm i rocked a short sleeve shirt everyday. woow so yeah happy fathers day mark keep being a gangsta and doing what you do best think so hard that you make everyones brains hurt. haha hope the spirit is with you guys always keep it krispy and gangsta represent our family name. elder barton ;)

summmmeerrrr tiiimmmmmeeee and the livin´s easy

family and friends, this week was suuupppeeerrr good. me and elder jones worked super super hard. we had some really good lessons and found some good people to teach. we found a family of 4 the family cuña and the mom of the family her sister is already a member of the church in another ward and has always had an interest in the church. so yeah we had 2 lessons with them last week and they were super good and we answered some questions the mom said she has had for yeeaaarrrsss. me and elder jones are pretty convinced they are going to get baptized here in july. buuuttt just like everything else in missionary work there is a downfall. they live a good 45 minutes from about everything, so haha we walk a good 2 miles to 2 and half so its quite the walk. but i already love this family and so its definately worth the walk. man im such a softy haha. also we found another family this week!!!!!!!!! but your not gonna believe this their a good family of.....11 haha yes. we only had one lesson with them this week but like the family cuña, they were super interested and we answered some questions about life in general and they seem to accept it right away. me and elder jones super wanna baptize them. that would be quite the baptismal service haha. but yeah so things are going super well with me. this change is flying by and im super scared that i might be bouncing out of here. its pretty dang likely. and i really really really dont want to at all. i love salto. and it feels like me and elder jones are barely starting to see the fruits of our labors. and if i leave i will be suupper sad haha. but thats what happened to me in my last ward. me and elder hernandez worked super hard i left and they just baptized all of our investigators haha and im kinda thinkin thats whats gonna happen to me and elder jones. im gonna bounce and him and his next comp are just going to baptize all the investigators we have now. which im totally cool with...but im still human i get jealous haha. so yeah the mavericks won!!!! thats crazy psycho. poor lebron haha. but i hope all is going well and everyone is getting a nice hot start to the summer and take the glastron out!! or aka "forever a piece of crap" haha i love you all so much keep it nice and gangsta. -elder barton

I'm Freezing...

the barton clan. down here in the guay it is FREEZZZZIINNNGGGG. i know i have no room to talk cause ryan served in canada and stuff but mark was right. you just cant escape it. there is no central heating of any type and the only time you are warm is when your in bed. the afternoons are tolerable but its so humid and windy since were right next to a river and the wind just penetrates you like a ninjas sword killing someone haha. so definately been throwing on more layers. and the worst part is we get to the apartment thinking it will be a little warmer and nope its just as cold haha so literally from the moment i wake up to going to bed its just cold. but a saying that me and elder tippets always said that i kind of like is well it sucks in the moment but after there just stories haha. so yeah enough whining from elder barton other than that things are going good winter is just steady approaching and it kind of took me by suprise. me and elder jones this week had to drop literally every investigator we had cause after a month of not going to church we just decided to do it. so this coming week we are basically starting off at step 1 and with a new plate. i guess we will see how everything pans out. so yeah president arnold officially dropped kane on the misssion. sports have been offically taken away from the mission he thinks we dont have time for sports on p days and we need to focus more. and since there is no sports we now have to walk around on p days with a shirt and tie......yeah that kind of sucks haha also we will never meet as a zone ever again. we just meet as districts in different chapels every week. they think if the districts are tighter there will be more baptisms. but hey i guess if these new rules come from from an apostole they come from a profet and which they come from the lord. so i guess we will just. me and elder jones with the little success have really been asking what were doing wrong. there are missionaries in this missoin that it just seems like they have to talk to people and their baptized mean while me and elder jones are obedient working our balls of and nothing is happening. we just came to the conclusion if we can come home at night and know we worked our hardest other missionaries in the future will enjoy the fruits of our labors,and we are content with that just as long as i know im working hard im content its just hard for me being competitive and all to work work work and than at the end of the week on paper have nothing done. i guess its all in the lords time and not mine and i just hope the lord is content with me right now haha and i know the lord will bless us for our work somewhere down the road. maybe not tmrw or next week maybe not even during my mission but somewhere he will haha. so yeah that sucks about toby and his teeth!!!! poor guy. there is a golden retriever that lives in our neighborhood i think of toby everytime haha but yeah i guess summer is now here!!! lucky fools enjoy it. hope wedding plans are going smooth with little fighting!! haha but yeah love ya all keep it real. elder barton

chau May

another month has come and gone. im sad to hear the weather up there is not changing worth a crap. you guys are gonna have a crazy busy summer filled with sun. and before you know it elder barton will almost be gone for a year!! haha thats pretty crazy seems like i just barely got here yesterday still. happy birthday to heather the big ol 26 thats pretty crazy fool. carlys shredding up the roads of the 801 with anything that has a motor and wheels it sounds like. hahaha thats awesome but be careful!! thats super sad to here about that baby but im glad you can provide some service and bring a little sunlight into a situation of darkness and mystery. my week was good down here in the guay. days are getting colder and colder the bed becomes more and more a pain to get out of cause the aprtment is so freezing in the mornings haha. and im just super warm in my bed. feels like every morning im camping haha. me and elder jones had a pretty cool experience this week. we were just walking down the street the other night and we had absolutely noooothing to do all of our appointments fell through and it was just about time to head back to the house. so we just decided to stop by this less active family to see how they were doing. we knock the door and the mom of the family greets us unusually welcoming haha we were both super confused we just sat there and chatted for a while shared a scripture typical thing and right before we were about to leave she just says elders i have a confession to make. and we just thought ooohhh boy haha she told us that 5 minutes we knocked the door she was praying to know if she should come back to the church and than we clapped. pah talk about crazy eh. me and elder jones just simply didnt have anything to do that night and we just decided to visit them. i think a lot of times as members we try to hard to work through the spirit and wonder what we can do to have the spirit with us. when all we need to do is just live the way were suppose to and do the things were suppose to be doing.me and elder jones were just being obedient doing what we were suppose to be doing and the lord worked through us. pretty awesome story. so yeah thats basically the talk of the town with elder barton here in the guay just had that really cool experience. were still working with this family emanual and ana and their 2 kids, milagros and manuel. they know the church is true and have seen a difference in their lives and they always tell us there going to go to church but they have yet to come pretty frustrating. we will just keep working hard i guess with em. so yeah school is ending, weddings bells are in the air, hope you all enjoy it. i love you all so much enjoy the beginning of summer. elder barton

changes, birthdays, farewells

so the big news...is not so big news at all. me and elder jones are staying together. as well as elder butler and elder morris. so the house is all staying together for another 6 weeks......kinda sucks but its kinda of good. just cause as a missionary changes are about the most exciting thing that come your way and since nothing happened it just kind of feels like a huuggee big change now haha. but hey its all good i guess nothing i can do. just keep working hard. as for austin and well the rest of my friends that are leaving here soon its super weird. just about the weirdest feeling on planet earth to be seeing these guys leave and are going to experience what i have already experienced these last couple months. they have no idea what there getting into, the mornings laying in bed thinking there is no way i can get up and work, the desperate prayers for strength. the hardest 6 months of my life i have ever been through that i dont think i would pay a dime to go back. all though i look back on it and just see good times and flowers i still remember those days. im pretty sure i spent the first 3 months out here in uruguay praying to get sick and get home haha. but its something that i think all of us as members have to go through a true test of faith a true trial. im so excited to see how they all handle it. and although being a missionary is at times nerdy, it definately weeds out the men from the boys and who can really hack it. i never thought the mission would be so physically challenging but that it is haha. than birthdays. carly happy birthday wow big 16 years old i had someone ask me yesterday how old you were and i said 14 haha than i realized nope today is her birthday she is 15 nope she is 16 haha woooww to me you will always be that little carl, take of the red phantom i give it to you unvoluntarily she drives well i hope still. so yeah as for my week went well. we had a couple of spiritualy lessons. we had a couple investigators that wanted to drop us this past week just cause they didnt want to or complete some of the principles of the gospel and it was really fun to be a tool the hands of the lord and listen to the spirit and say something and they just responded saying you know what your absolutely right i can do this. and the lessons turned from i can do this principle to i want to complete this principal and i will.so that was cool.the mission is making a lot of changes here. they took away our sports on p day yeahhh its gonna be a struggle. as well as just minor things with district meetings and such but thats the big one no sports on p day for this coming change. ha haha but yeah thats it from elder barton this week staying with elder jones for another 6....happy birthday to carl.....good luck for the first 6 months of the mission to austin and michael it feels like a life time haha i love you all and youj all are always in my prayers. good luck planning the wedding peace. keep it krisp

Change 4

Family and friends whoever is reading this another change has come and gone in the mission and due to this i will not be emailing until next tuesday. but things from the `guay are good. we had zone conference this last week. and i really enjoyed it we talked about the plan of salvacion and familys. as well we had stake conference and the temple president spoke and president heaton. and i really really enjoyed both talks very much. but yeah than we worked really really hard this week. things with elder jones are going fine. he is the comp that i get along with the least right now in my mission. he is a good kid we just dont have to much in common. and he is a little number hungry and a little to strict for me haha. like im an obedient missionary but he is the type of kid that freaks out if we were at a members house for 45 minutes or at lunch for 1 hour and 4 minutes. i dont know its different me and my comps have always been obedient but in a relaxed manner haha we are obedient but he is super strict haha. but anywho so yeah for changes i hope i get a new comp but i would love to stay here in salto. predicions in the zone say im going to the offices.sue we will find out if your prediction is right. but yeah we are actually teaching 2 families right now that im really excited about and we are teaching this lady and her daughter in law. it is a really long story between them and their family. and she told us this week she has felt a difference in her life since we started chatting with her and was really grateful so ya know its nice to see as a 19 year old piece of nothing im making a difference in someones life its pretty cool. but yeah im glad to here things at home are all good. and everyone is getting excited for wedding bells and summer. weather here is really hot during the day but it gets dark at like 630 and is reallly cold. but i have a feeling next change its gonna get nice and wintery up in here. obviously not snow or anything but nice and cold during the day. we will see what happens. so yeah sorry this email is so short. everyone be safe and have a good week. enjoy your warm weather. pull out the boat. its crazy the school year is already ending. wow. how fast does that time go by huh haha so yeah i love you all thanks for the support keep it krispy

mothers day.

so yeah seeming as how we talked just yesterday. there really isnt that much to tell and i forgot to bring my camera to send some more pictures so you will just have to wait. but yeah im glad you all enjoyed those pictures. and you guys can see the people that i met in rivera and kinda of funny having a horse staring into your kitchen as your eating dinner haha. umm so yeah you all sound a lot older and its only been 7 months everyone is growing in their own disitnct ways. it was super good to here from my homeboys austin and thomas. why didnt taylor loomis say hi to me!!!! thats kinda jacked but whatever. so yeah its weird that i have been gone for 7 months and there just barely getting out of there and its funny to know exactly what there gonna be going through these next couple months. the mission is the hardest, most tiring, at times dangerous thing on planet earth. i never thought it would be just quite this hard. but i have never had a challenge in my life and i definately need these 2 years. elder jones brother told me something cool he said. the mission wasnt the best 2 years of my life but it was the best 2 years FOR my life. and obviously im just getting started but thats soo true. i have already learned how i knew absolutely before the mission and how little and stupid somethings are but as a teenager you think its your entire world. so yeah the mission is the best, funnest, life changing experience ever. the key is just to recognize the little miracles and blessings everyday. thats something i have a hard time recognizing until someone says it or i reflect back on it and say wow that really was a miracle. so yeah all is good with me i love being a missionary, time is flying by. and i love you all take care of yourselves!! talk to you next week. your brother, your son, and i hope your friend. keep it krispy. elder michael barton

Mothers Day

hey family, so before i forget to tell you all. we need to arrange this i was going to tell you last week but completely forgot. so i will be calling at 8 o´clock MY time here in uruguay. I have no idea what time it is there I think its like 5? so yeah I am leaving that job up to you fools to figure what time that is there and also I will call like i did at christmas give you the number real quick and you guys will just call me back. I dont know what you guys have to do to call me back if you ahve to put numbers or whatever so yeah you all can figure that one out as well you all figured it out on christmas you can do it again haha. so yeah next sunday 8 o´clock guayan time. ummm what else yeah elder morris he saw real salt lake playing on tv and his dad told him all what was go ing on with them with the tournament and everything that super sucks!! but thats tight they are mad balling it up. i also heard the jazz got rid of d-will?? thats psycho crazy. but yeah all is nice and fally here in the guay nights are starting to get really cold the sun goes down at about 7 and it is nice and chilly. nights are starting to get colder and colder i might have to pull out the sleeping bag here in 2 or 3 weeks. I pulled out the good ol´ thermals yesterday thats how cold it was haha well i guess it wasnt that cold but it was definately nice to have them on. i also found out 3 days ago that 4 of our investigators that me and elder hernandez had in rivera got baptized on saturday so that was waaayy awesome to hear about those 4 people that i helped teach get baptized. but yeah things are just kinda going whatever with me and elder jones. we are complete opposites during p-day he is the type of kid that just sits there and doesnt wanna play any type of sport and i just feel bad cause im out playin soccer or whatever and just look over and see my comp sitting there i feel bad. so its just weird cause all the comps i have had just love sports and thats all we talk about and all that jazz haha but with him there is not much to talk about so i mean were friends and all and things are going bad at all but its just kinda of like a whatever relationship and i dont know he is kind of an akward kid haha in lessons and stuff i kind of have to take charge cause he just doesnt talk that much and so thats kind of different too. but hey its fine it could definately be a lot worse. so yeah things are all good with me i didnt really here from a lot of you today. im assuming your just all waiting for sunday. so yeah im super excited to hear from you all. it will be weird it definately feels like i just called you guys yesterday on christmas. but yeah how was everyones spring breaks? how is the weather looking in the good ol´ 801 starting to get warmer? pullin the boat out soon? mark im glad to hear all is well with you and your bike thing went well i can see you now scorching through the streets of new york with your front belly zipper on your biker suit chest hair soaring through the wind like a chickens feachers how magical. but yeah i love you all so much. thank you for the support. i will TALK to you sunday at 8 my time and who knows your time. wait for the call. keep it real keep it krispy.

members of the Barton family

dear family, hi, how`re you doin? fall here in uruguay it as full swing and i love it. the trees are different colors, the weather is a tad bit cooler during the day, and startin to get respectably cold during the night. but i love it. i couldnt think of being in a better place right now. i love salto i love the ward the only thing is we dont have anyone to teach as of right now. which is kind of a struggle and we spent a lot a lot a lot a lot of time clapping doors with little to no success. i hate clapping doors haha but i did realize this week how much of a miracle it is for someone to let 2 gringos that barely speak the language into their house and alk to them openly about god. i did realize this week how much i love teaching. in rivera we were getting about 30 lessons a week and i took teaching for granted. and now me and elder jones are teaching about 15 lessons a week. and i realize how much i love teaching and just talking with people in general. so yeah this week was just a lot of nothing but im still having a blast i love the other 2 elders in our house and i have just about half the ward convinced that i am from germany and dont know how to speak a lick of english haha. as well as everyone thinks im 30 years old....everytime i ask why they just tell me "i dont know their is just something about your face" haha but yeah we spent easter with a family called the family piedad they are a really famous family in the mission. the mom is known for being a "mom" amongst the missionaries and so she cooked up a lovely meal for the holiday. but yeah fools, hows spring in utah goin? brighton soccer how they doing? nba playoffs are goin in right now i walked into the terminal the other day and celtics were playin the knicks i believe. why isnt anyone filling me in on sports (mary) but wow april flew by fast and sarah will be graduating high school before we all know it. than uhhh megans day...haha than school will be kickin back in and i will hit my year mark haha but yeah thank you all for the love and support i love you all very much. mark tenga suerte with the 42 mile bike ride. the farthest you have ridden is 21 miles?? mark you have to ride double that...get it in gear fool. but yeah i dont have to much to say. love you all elder barton