May 24, 2011.

Happy Victoria Day,

I couldn't e-mail yesterday due to a holiday here. I had half of a p-day where I was very busy. My mind is quite flustered right now and I don't even know where to begin writing. I don't remember what has happened this week because the most current events have flooded my mind. Transfer calls were Sunday night. My predictions were either that Sister Cheng would stay with me or another sister who is now serving in London would come to Burlington. Boy was I way off! I got the most shocking phone call of my whole mission. I have been assigned to TRAIN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It seems as if I was just in the mission home with Sister Brack the day she got here and last night I was there with Sister Yi. Sister Yi is from MAINLAND CHINA! To have a sister from mainland China is very rare and very special. I don't fully understand why Heavenly Father has so much trust in me :) There are many other sisters who have not trained yet, but Heavenly Father and President know that Sister Yi and I need to be together. This will be a very fun, unique experience for both of us! I have much to learn. She doesn't speak much English and was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) for nine weeks learning English there. We will now be having language study in the morning. She is very sweet, cute, and fun! I am already exhausted from trying to understand her and talk to her simply today. It has been great and I know we will be great friends! I am very excited to watch her grow and to serve her. She means a lot to the Lord and she already means a lot to me. Sister Cheng will be serving in a triple in Kitchener and working with young single adults, where the majority of the university students are asian! I'm happy for her and know she will grow so much.

That news kind of takes the cake. I don't even remember what else happened this week. Oh yes, I went on sister travels this week. Sister Hodgkin came here to Burlington on Thursday night and Sister Cheng went to London. We each worked in our areas for the day on Friday. I absolutely loved working with Sister Hodgkin. She is a lot like Sister Evanson and we got along really well. We have lots of fun together. I don't know if we will ever have the opportunity to be companions, so I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with her.

Sister Cheng and I got a new investigator on Saturday!!!!! Her name is Tami and she is so amazing. We met her while tracting on May 7th, but couldn't meet with her until this past Saturday. She had cancelled our first appointment due to the family being sick. I honestly did not think she was even interested until we had our lesson with her. She had her husband take her two daughters out to run some errands so she could focus on the message. We taught her about the Restoration and as I told her of Joseph Smith's vision in his own words, she began to cry. I asked her how she felt and she said she felt an overwhelming feeling of the Spirit! My heart was full. She said that we came at just the right time in her life. She said she would read the Book of Mormon, pray to know if the message we shared is true, come to church, and eventually be baptized. I pray for her each day and know that we were guided to her.

Sister Yi and I will teach Andris tonight for his second lesson. It will be a good experience for Sister Yi. I am not sure how much Andris is progressing. He is reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church, but I'm not quite sure where his desires are. We will extend a baptismal date commitment today and just "let the Holy Spirit Guide" :).

Hmm...I know much more has happened, but I cannot remember for now :) I have a lot of things filling up my brain! I will catch up on missed experiences next week! I know that Heavenly Father is aware of each one of us. This church is indeed the Church of Jesus Christ in these the latter days! Christ is our Savior and He is the ONLY way to true joy, a fullness of joy. I love you all and pray that you have a wonderful week. Serve others, count your blessings, and find joy in each moment, for they pass far too quickly!

All my love,

Sister Barton :)

May 9, 2011.

Happy Mother's Day Yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a beautiful day here and it was so great to celebrate Mother's Day at church. All of the women were given chocolate rose suckers. I spent most of the day sick in bed, but was very happy I got to call my dad and Heather. I will call my mom and Bill next week when they are home. I talked to my little brother first and he is so funny. He is getting so big. Then I talked to Heather and my dad, which was so great. I love my family.

This week start off interestingly :). We had a lesson Monday night and the family had a pet bunny. I would hold the bunny throughout our visit because she was really cute. The mom told us that she trained the bunny to go to the bathroom in the bathtub and they have never had a problem with accidents. Well, I witnessed the first. I picked the bunny up and was holding her on my lap, not letting her go (which obviously made her mad), and all of the sudden I felt something really hot in my lap. The bunny PEED on me! It was so gross. Everyone was laughing SO hard. I went into the bathroom and the mom was rinsing out my skirt with the shower head, which she could barely do because she was bent over laughing on the floor. It was a good thing that was our last appointment of the night. Lesson learned: don't hold pets, no matter how cute and innocent they look.

I had a district meeting on my birthday (Friday), so we were off to Hamilton in the morning. Some of the elders made cupcakes and had a candle that sang "Happy Birthday" when they lit it up. I got mail too, which was great. The biggest miracle of the day happened in the evening. First of all, in the morning, I had gotten a birthday phone call from a member here who said maybe we could go over there for dinner. Well, the evening came and while Sister Cheng and I normally would have left for dinner at home around 4:45 pm, we just kept tracting to see if the member would call. We knocked on a certain door at about 5:00 pm and a little boy answered. We gave him a card to give his mom (he said his mom couldn't come to the door or something like that - I don't remember). Not thinking anything of it, we were on to the next house. At 5:09 pm we got a phone call from a woman named Jillian whose house we had just knocked on. She said her son gave her the card and she just wanted to thank us for coming by. She said that she is disabled and her son is sick. It gave her such an uplift to hear something about Christ. We set up an appointment to meet with her on Wednesday this week and I am very excited! This is why I write our phone number on every card. Even if only one out of 100 people call us back, it is worth it! I have been praying for Jillian ever since our phone call and am excited to meet with her this week.

Another miracle of the week happened minutes before a member appointment. We only had about five minutes and were trying to decide if the street had already been tracted. We decided to do a couple of houses on the side that had least-likely been done and we found a great woman at the second door! We couldn't set up a time to meet with her but we got her phone number and were able to give her the Book of Mormon. We will call her soon and check up on her reading, then set up an appointment.

I am very excited for Zone Conference in Kitchener tomorrow. I have had a great week full of the scriptures. As I said before, I am reading the New Testament as I eat breakfast and have now started reading the Doctrine and Covenants during my breaks. I will finish both books before I go home and hopefully will finish the Book of Mormon two more times. I love the word of God! There is much to learn from it :) Have a great week and continue to share your light with others!

Love you all!

Sister Barton :)

May 2, 2011.

April showers bring...May showers?

I don't really see many flowers yet. The trees don't even have leaves. It is still raining here but we did have a very sunny day this week. It was a good week, but still no new investigators. The whole zone is struggling to find new people to teach. We were able to give out one Book of Mormon to a man named Raj who is Hindu. He's interested to read but I don't know about teaching him. It was good to share that with him though. I sang in church yesterday before everyone shared their testimonies. I sang "It Was For Me" (from Sally DeFord) and it was so great. That song really brings the Spirit into the room and I got a lot of comments after.

Happy Birthday to me this week :) I'm sure it won't be very eventful here, but it will still be a great day to show my gratitude for life and my many blessings!

I was studying about Family History today because I was reading in Preach My Gospel about different finding ideas. Some people here in Burlington are familiar with the LDS Church because of our family history center and the emphasis we have on geneology. I want to use this to find more people to teach! We have a family history center in our church and I think it would be a great tool to ask those we meet if they would be interested in going. I got reading scriptures about this topic and I am so excited to be able to do this work when I get home. The research, the learning, and most of all the temple are so very important. True to the Faith says "As you receive priesthood ordinances in behalf of those who have died, you become as a savior on Mount Zion for them (see Obadiah 1:21)." Through temples, we really do become one with God in His "work and [His] glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). In D&C 128:18, we read "For we without them [those who are dead] cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect." Those who have passed on before us need our help. They cannot receive these blessings on their own. Go to the temple. Do your family history research. Pray to know how you can help Heavenly Father in His glorious work! I can hardly wait to spend more time doing this when I get home. After all, the work I am in right now is for the living!

Well, my mom will be out of town on Mother's day so I guess I will be able to call her the next week. I can still call my dad and Heather (my stepmom, not me haha) next week which I am looking forward to. I love Mother's day :) I love that every woman gets to celebrate. We all have or had mothers, grandmothers, friends, children, grandchildren, aunts, etc. whom we have had the opportunity to love. Show your gratitude for them. It is a beautiful time of year :) I am SO grateful for the women in my life! Have a wonderful week. Know that I love you all and would love to hear from any of you!

Love,

Sister Barton :)

April 26, 2011.

Hello from foggy Burlington!

How is everyone? One of the greatest parts about this week is that I am an aunt again!!!!! WAHOO!!!!! My brother and sister-in-law had a little boy on Easter and he is so cute (I've seen a few pictures). I will miss holding him, but it will be fun to see him when I get home. It was a good week this week. Our investigator, Pinky, came to church for the first time on Sunday. We met with her earlier in the week and she made sudza (african food - I had it twice in North Bay) for us. I want to attempt to make it sometime soon because it is really fun.

It was Stake Conference and the speakers were so amazing. We got to attend the Saturday night session in Hamilton because all of the missionaries in the zone sang "Called to Serve," which was very powerful. I took lots of good notes and learned so much. Sunday morning we were able to watch Stake Conference in Burlington via broadcast! President and Sister Brower spoke. After conference, we had a baptism of 8-year-old Alex. We have taught his family a couple of times. I sang "He Leadeth Me" (the same song I sang at my niece Jessica's baptism a few years ago) and there were lots of people there. He looked so cute in his little white tux.

I had an appointment with a family last night whom I met for the first time. I learned so much from the Father. That is one thing I love about a mission...learning from each person we meet. We talked about the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ. This brother brought this insight: many people in the world focus on the physical pain of Christ during the Atonement. They focus on His death, the nails in His hands, the crown of thorns, and the cross He was nailed to. They focus on these things because they do not fully comprehend the spiritual part of the Atonement. The spiritual suffering was far greater than the physical. When we understand why Christ performed the Atonement and suffered for our pains, weaknesses, and sins, then we can look forward to the crowning event of His resurrection. We do not focus on the death of Christ. We focus on the living Christ, the Master, the Savior, our Redeemer. He lives and because He lives, we will all live again. I know this is true. Pray to comprehend this spiritual meaning of the Atonement and your life and priorities will be transformed.

Have a wonderful week! Remember who you are, have fun, and act as Christ would act :)

I love you all,

Sister Barton

P.S. Here is a picture of Sister Cheng and me after getting cupcakes from a bake sale. Three girls were selling cupcakes for "the sick kids in Hamilton" and one of them was wearing a bunny costume, so of course we had to contribute :)

April 18, 2011.

Hello Hello!

How is everyone? First of all, Happy 75th Birthday Grandpa White! Yay! I hope you have a wonderful day! Is it sunny and warm in Utah yet? We had a rollercoaster yesterday of sunshine and intense blizzards haha. It was a typical spring here I guess. I remember it snowing last year at the end of April in Utah, so it's not too different. Last week Sister Cheng and I had 27 hours of tracting (knocking on doors)! And guess how many new investigators we found...zero! BUT...we shall continue the work and find them this week! I know there are people prepared to receive the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but we just need to be in tune with the Spirit to find them!

Sandy was confirmed yesterday! He was looking forward to it all week and kept referring to it as the "most important part of baptism." He's right! The Gift of the Holy Ghost is the greatest gift we can receive in this life and it is essential. The stake president's wife invited us over for dinner last night and it was so much fun. I love seeing different families and how much fun they have together. I love my family, every single person in it :)

The other day we had a dinner appointment and right when we walked in the house, I knew I was done for. I could smell the dinner....it was fish. I do not like sea food and especially don't like fish. I ate it anyway and honestly, it wasn't THAT bad. I still wouldn't cook it for myself or choose to eat it any other time, but at least I could get it down! Then came the dessert. Cherry pie, also one of my least favorite foods. Sister Cheng doesn't like it either and it was funny watching her try to get it down haha. But the crust was good. Look at the positive, right? ;)

I started a little gratitude journal where I write a few things that I am grateful for at the end of each day. They could be experiences of the day or just things that I had been thinking about. I want to show my gratitude more. I also started reading the New Testament while I eat breakfast this morning. I don't really have time to do an in-depth study of it on my mission, but I can at least go through it once and become more familiar with it. There is so much to learn from the Bible.

We have lots of people telling us to go home and spend all of our money, get married, have kids, have fun, etc. all because the earth is going to end in 2012. If any of you are wondering about this....stop wondering. It's not going to happen. Just because it was on a calendar that a man made doesn't mean that it is in God's plan for the earth hahaha. I asked a man if he really believed the world would end next year and he said yes. I asked him if he prayed about it and he didn't really have anything to say :) There is much to happen still before the second coming of the Messiah! May we ever pray to do all we can to be prepareed for that day!

Easter is coming this week, one of the most significant days of the year. We celebrate the resurrection and life of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He died for us and He lives for us. Would we die for Him and do we live for Him? Show gratitude for His infinite atoning sacrifice which makes it possible for us to return to live with our Father in Heaven again! Strive to be like Him this week! Have a marvelous week and "let the Holy Spirit guide!"

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Barton

April 11, 2011.

Bring on the sunshine!

It is the warmest day of the year so far and it feels great! Time to pack away all of those huge skirts hahaha. Well, it's been a great week. Tuesday night we taught one of our investigators named Noel. There were lots of people there. Noel lives with a member and they have two other roommates. We brought our friend Margeaux from the ward who will put her mission papers in soon! One of Noel's roommates is deaf and I was able to sign much of the lesson to him (I took two years of American Sign Language in high school). That was really neat. I couldn't remember most signs, so I would fingerspell the word and John would tell me the sign. It was so much fun. I tried to teach John how to pray, gave him an example, and then asked if he understood. He didn't :( He isn't really accountable and that's why we aren't teaching him. But it was still great to be able to teach him a little bit about God, even if he doesn't fully comprehend all of it.

Wednesday was one of the hardest days of my mission. I don't really want to go into it because I'm trying to forget it. Let's just say that we met a very unkind lady. Sometimes when people are mean I can just shrug it off. But sometimes, it hurts. It's not that I believe anything she said, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard. The rest of the evening I found it hard to even talk to anyone because I was so scared of meeting another not so kind person, but of course I buckled down and did it anyway. Right before we went in for the night, the miracle came. The main point is that my loving Heavenly Father placed an angel in my path and I felt His love for me, which took away the pain. We were about to knock on a door when we saw a man across the street. We went over and said hello. I wasn't even intending to talk about the church, I just wanted to say hi. He walked over to us and began a conversation. Nothing about the church came up, but it was incredible. He told me "I know you have had a really hard day today and that people haven't been very kind, but don't worry. Keep going! Don't listen to them." He continued and tears filled my eyes. Heavenly Father is very aware of each one of His children. If you think you are among the crowd and He doesn't know you, then get on your knees and pray until you feel his infinite love surround you. That man was sent to me from God. I didn't ask for a miracle, but God knew I needed him at that time. There is no way he could have known the words to say by himself. He treated us like real people (I know, sometimes hard to believe that missionaries are real people! :D) and was so kind. I will never forget him.

On a funny note, we knocked on a man's door on Thursday and he said something so funny. He opened the door and said "You can go away; Lucifer doesn't like you!" HA! Thank you, sir, for stating the obvious. It was actually quite a compliment. I'm glad he doesn't like me, that means I am doing something right! ;)

Sandy got BAPTIZED! His baptism was after church yesterday. It was so wonderful. It was fairly short, but powerful. He is an amazing individual and has truly been guided and prepared his whole life. I'm so grateful I can be here at this time. I am excited for him to get confirmed this Sunday and receive the greatest gift, the Holy Ghost.

Thank you all for being amazing. I love my Savior and am so blessed to be able to testify of Him each day. Have a wonderful week!

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Barton :)

April 4, 2011.

Hello from Burlington!!!!

That's right, I have been transferred, yet again! I am pretty sure I am the most moved around sister in the mission due to emergency transfers haha. I am in Burlington, which is right next to Lake Ontario. I am serving with Sister Cheng, who I was with in Brampton for her first week in the mission. This area is much different than Brampton. I am no longer in YSA work and am now tracting/knocking doors, which I like much better than contacting sometimes. We are teaching many people and are having a baptism this coming Sunday! Sandy, an 85-year-old man the sisters met outside of the bank will be getting baptized! He has tremendous faith. He has known about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints his whole life, but all he needed was someone to invite him. He said he would have joined years ago if he simply would have been invited. This is a great lesson to all of us who are trying to do member missionary work. Do not be afraid to invite! God is with you and will bear you up. There is no need to fear. We are also teaching a couple from Brazil and one from Mexico. We have a Columbian member come with us and he translates. I am going to learn a lot of Spanish and the member, Jorge, is going to give me a booklet with phrases and teaching tools. I'm excited.

Wasn't General Conference amazing!?!?! I absolutely loved it. I don't have a favorite talk yet because there were so many great ones. But I jotted down some of my favorite parts this morning. First of all, there was a big theme of families. The reason for this is simple...next to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, family is the central purpose for this life. My mission has been such great preparation for motherhood and now I cannot imagine trying to be a mother without this experience. Heavenly Father has much to teach me still. Richard G. Scott's talk on the marriage and the family was wonderful. He was so sincere and really captured the sacred nature of marriage in the temple. Paul V. Johnson said that "The only way to see the views is to make the climb." The only way to achieve a fullness of joy is be on the path now! There is no helicopter that will fly you to the top. We must climb the rocky, wet, dirty, steep, windy path (ew...that reminds me of when I hiked Mt. Timpanogos!). BUT, however hard the path may seem, if we do not climb it, we do not see the flowers, the beautiful animals, feel the sunshine, get the exercise ;), and breathe in the mountain air. Okay, lame analogy, but do you get what I mean? The joy does not only come from being on top or simply being with God. It comes from the journey we have taken to achieve those great heights. That goes along with what D. Todd Christofferson said: "The final judgment is not just about what we have done. It is about what we have become." We are always becoming :)

Sister Cheng and I are excited to see miracles this coming transfer. Our first miracle happened on the second door we knocked on Wednesday. A man named Tom invited us in and we taught him about the Book of Mormon. He is dealing with many health challenges, but we are inviting him to know how the Savior can heal him spiritually. I am grateful to be here and know that there are many people for me to meet and help. Thank you for being such wonderful people. I look up to you all!

I love you all so much!

Love,

Sister Barton