One Fantastic Week

Sorry for freaking you out mom. P-day is on Tuesday this week because we had a super awesome, super spiritual mission conference yesterday. I'm glad you get to meet the Beals and Sister Smyth! It's kinda weird to think that they are with you guys but hey it's whatever. My worlds are meshing :) Grandma I feel so bad I didn't thank you last week for the frog! I opened it at district meeting and the whole district thought it was so fun! It's on my desk. The box smelled like your Bear Lake store and I was just in heaven smelling it....kinda weird but hey that's the missionary life. OH by the way. We have a pet scorpion. His name is Joe Junior and we love him. He eats the cockroaches and glows in the dark. Pretty legit. He would be my mom's favorite pet because we really don't have to feed him or clean up after him. He has lasted 3 weeks on one cockroach. I'm getting attached. Yesterday, Elder Malm came from the 70. He is from Sweden and is just a very inspired man. He talked a lot about what it means to be a successful missionary. Throughout the 6 hour conference he would randomly select people to stand in front of everyone and give a talk on certain topics. SCARY! I was worried the entire time. Hermana Lunquest was one of the first ones to get called up. She was sitting right next to me. I was so happy that he picked the tall ginger hermana and not me :) Hermana Lunquest is fantastic. I've gotten really close with the Hermanas. We go on runs twice a week and they are so nice about giving us rides to all the zone meetings that are in Thatcher. Elder Malm also talked about using all the "tools in your tool box". He was referring to letting our talents be a part of our missionary work. I've been thinking a lot about that. The more I'm myself the better our lessons always go. I love getting to know people and showing them who I am. Everyone relates better to Sister Barton then they do a robot missionary. Alright so I know ya'll want to know about the new companion so here's the schpeal. Sister Rhodes is 19 years old and from Morgan, Utah. Everyone thinks I'm 15 and she is 21 which kinda is getting old but whatever I'll get over it. It's probably because she is way more mature than I am. In our lesson the other day someone told us that I am a type 1 and she is a type 2. If that helps anyone picture her then there ya go. She loves to sing and always wears the color pink. We are getting a ton better at teaching together. It's fun to see how differently she teaches than Sister Smyth did. Since I'm leading the area I've been leading a lot of the lessons until she gets the hang of where everyone is at. I LOVE it. I've decided to embrace this new responsibility. It's fun to be the one pointing out who lives where and who is who. I'm finally understanding what leading by the spirit means. This week we had 3 days in a row where everything went according to our plans. WHAT!?!? That is pretty much unheard of. It was cool though. Along with that we also had so many people tell us that they felt like our lessons were exactly what they needed to hear. I was in heaven! That was the greatest reward ever! We also have 5 new investigators! AHHHHHH All those prayers ya'll have been saying are coming in handy! One of the new investigators is named Derek. He is 14 years old and just super cool. He has been going to church with his grandma and told us we need to get him baptized as soon as possible.....okay we love this kid. Bikes: It feels so good to be back on bikes! Holy Cow! Sister Rhodes isn't used to the extra work and having to schedule in extra time for travel but she is getting the hang of it. On our 2nd day of bikes I decided it was time to show her the 4th ward hill :) Half of the 4th ward is up a pretty significant hill. It's not super steep but it sure is long. haha I have kinda grown to love the hill because it's fun to see how hard you can push yourself/work off the ice cream and jello that members are constantly feeding us. Sister Rhodes didn't like that hill very much but she'll get the hang of it. Once we got to the top we went right to an appointment....We were both drench and the woman that we had gone to visit wasn't home. Typical. After trying to find someone to teach up there Sister Rhodes got a flat tire. Also typical. We decided to use this as an opportunity to go to a less actives house. He was home and fixed our bikes for us. We taught him a little lesson and then he sent us on our marry way. THEN he was a church on Sunday for the first time since I've been here! Whaooo! That flat tire is also the reason we found one of our investigators. The lord works in mysterious ways. A girl named Cassady has been coming with us to lessons lately. She has been debating whether or not to go on a mission. She's 19 and has a missionary out right now. Wednesday was the first time she has ever joined us for a lesson. It was also our first lesson with Derek when he accepted the invitation to get baptized! Cassady was in shock and was clearly feeling the spirit. Since then she is always texting us questions and asking if she could do a mini mission with us for like a week or something! I'm so excited to see what she decides to do. It's really fun to take her to lessons. That's one thing that I really wish I had done before coming out. On Sunday we got to go to a fireside with Sister Stevens (General Relief Society Presidency). She talked a ton about dealing with the pressures of the world and how much stronger we are when we are spiritually full. After a little while of speaking she noticed Sister Rhodes and I with our missionary tags. She had us go up and talk about missionary work and the responsibilities that we all have as sisters to lift each other up. haha I can't even remember what I said but that happened and it was awesome. Super intimidating but awesome. I'm trying to think of what else happened this week but my mind is going blank. I hope you all are loving life and feeding your spirit daily! Follow up: (because what's an assignment without following up) How did ya'll like the last assignment. I know Heather enjoyed Peter. He is so awesome! Reading Assignment: Preach my Gospel page 126. It's kinda a big assignment so just pick one attribute that you want to work on and do it :) Other favorites of the week: Moroni 7:33 and 47-48, 2 Chronicles 20:17, Psalms 116:1-2 enjoy! It sounds like everyone is loving life and still doing the same old crazy stuff. Yesterday was my 2 month mark. So weird. I feel like I've been here forever yet i just got here. I love the everything about Safford! The members here have my heart. They are all so amazing. I have learned such beautiful things from all of them. Above all I love my savior. It's incredible how he understands my potential way more than I ever will. He keeps putting things in front of me that I can't do without his help and I'm grateful for that. My savior has become my very best friend and constant companion. I have definitely felt his impact in everything that I do. The more that I give to him the more he gives to me. It's amazing how much I've learned and grown in the past 2 months. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! Thanks again for everything. I love you all! Your prayers are being felt. -Sister Barton

Back on Bikes Aug. 19

Biking season has come back quick...After a 10 day break we are back on bikes and ready to work. My week started in Sierra Vista (Is that where Natalie is from because I was looking for her around every corner ALL DAY). Nobody knows why we do exchanges so often but I guess every once in a while the whole Tucson mission does exchanges and they call it THE DAY! It's supposed to be a day dedicated to nothing but finding. Well...my companion Sister Peirce doesn't believe in the day so we just did whatever she wanted. Nobody warned me that Sierra Vista Sisters are on bikes so riding a bike without leggings was terrifying! I think all of Sierra Vista saw all of Sister Barton! Ahhh haha maybe don't put that in the blog. ANYWAYS!! The day taught me a lot about what kind of missionary I want to be. It was a really long and hard day. Sister Peirce and I got to learn from each other and see different ways of doing things. I learned a lot on the day. I gotta tell you about my neighbor Bootsie. The man who owns our duplex is a really great member named Brother Blake. He called us Wednesday morning and told us that our neighbors granddaughter had recently passed away. We decided to go over and see if she was okay. At first Bootsie was really stiff and cold towards us but she let us in anyways. As soon as we sat down she told us all about her life! She has been through some pretty crazy stuff in her 89 years of life. Then she looked at both of us and commented on our hair and how she misses having long hair. Before I new it she was playing with our hair and asking us to sing to her. We sang I know that my redeemer lives. She loved it! She's a very strict Roman Catholic. As soon as our song was done she got all emotional and started singing to us. After 5 songs we had to leave but she told us that we can come by and sing to her whenever we want! Missionary work comes in all different ways. It was soooo cool to feel the spirit with cute Bootsie through singing. By the end of this week I was getting really down on myself. I was looking back on the transfer and thinking, "Where are the fruits of our labors?" We try so hard to be exactly obedient. It had just been one of those days where nobody had time to talk to us. I prayed about it and oh boy were those prayers answered. The next day at church we had so many less actives show up to sacrament and most of them stayed all three hours! Then after church we had calls from 2 investigators asking us to come by as soon as we can. Okay. Yeah I learned pretty quickly that having lessons every single second and a baptism all the time doesn't measure your success. Then yesterday Sister Smyth and I spent the whole day saying goodbye to people. That right then was the fruit of our labors. I love so many people here. They have so much faith in me to keep the work going in their wards. They trust and love me. I feel so blessed to be here. This week I learned the definition of a broken home. We went and visited a less active woman who currently has some of her kids and 5 of her grandchildren living with her. Her son is involved in a lot of negative things which really caused a lot of contention and hard feeling in the home. The house was really really...broken. They currently don't have utilities or enough furniture so the kids sleep on the floor. Looking around that house made realized how luck I am. My parents took care of me. I always had a roof over my head. I never worried about if there would be food in the fridge or clothes in my closet. All of these are blessings that I so easily overlooked. Just having both of my parents be members of this church is huge! The kids didn't know how to pray or anything about religion so we taught each of them one by one how to talk to their Heavenly Father. The grandmother and kids were at church on Sunday. We were blown away at how much the kids likes church. As soon as we walked into the building we were attacked with hugs from 5 crazy kidos! I was in heaven. Now it's time to talk about companions. Yikes. Saying goodbye to Sister Smyth was an all week process. We went through all stages of denial, pep talks, crying, and then the final farewell. That girl really knows how to scatter sunshine. She is so awesome. Sister Smyth is another one of my big sisters. It was really hard for her to leave her mission. It was really hard to see her leave but I've got Sister Rhodes her to help me further the work! She is from Morgan, Utah and I met her a good hour ago. She has been on her mission for 12 whole weeks and seems really sweet. I'm excited to get to work and learn from her. Taking over the area is really intimidating because I still feel so new but Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he put me here. This transfer I plan on completely relying on him to tell me what to do. If he has faith in me and everyone here has faith in me then it's time for me to have faith in myself! That's something that I've never been good at but that's what I'm going to do! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL AND KALLI! I will try to get letters to you this week! I haven't been able to write a letter or go grocery shopping in 2 weeks (don't worry mom I've still had food) so be patient :) Love ya! Reading assignment. I'm glad last weeks went so well! This week read: 2 Peter 1, D&C 138 (that will blow ya'll away), Do things that make a difference by Elder Ballard, and D&C 98:1-3 ENJOY :) THANKS FOR THE PRAYERS AND KIND WORDS! YOU'RE THE BEST -Sister Barton

Getting lost in the lightening storms

Hello everyone! I have a lot to say so buckle down and grab some chips and salsa! Sister Smyth and I are growing closer and closer everyday! Now that we have a car we belt out hymns and church music as we RIDE from place to place! It's kinda awesome! Sister Smyth as also brought out her artsy side and has begun leaving me "shower art"! Have you ever made pictures on shower walls with super long hair? Yeah I was grossed out at first but then we started making a game out of it. I tried to get a picture but it just didn't do it justice. This week we also had to drive down to Tucson for a new missionary training thingy with President and Sister Passey. We love them! Sister Passey is so fun to learn from! I could read the Book of Mormon with her all day! After the training I pulled President Passey aside and got to talk with him about a few things that I've been struggling with. It was such a blessing to hear that so many other missionaries have come to him for the same reasons. He was able to give me amazing advice and I've been doing so much better ever since! While in Tucson the elders asked Hermana Smyth to take them to see an investigator that she had taught when she served here. I guess she hadn't been letting the elders in. As soon as we got to the apartment complex I saw a woman running out screaming "HERMANA HERMANA!" It was the investigator. The elders couldn't believe it. I sat awkwardly in the corner while the 3 other missionaries spoke Spanish. Every once in a while someone would say something in English and I could pick up on what was going on but mostly I just sat there feeling like an alien. At the end of the lesson I said my one sentence that I could remember in Spanish! Yo se que Jesu Christo viva! I felt a little dumb because it sounded way better in my head and I came out sounding like a robot. The investigator looked at me with huge eyes and started crying! Ahhh I didn't know what to do. Hermana Smyth elaborated in Spanish and the spirit was so strong! I had no clue what was going on but the spirit was there and I loved being a witness! Too cool. I can say one line in Spanish and I eat Mexican food on the daily. I guess you could say I'm pretty much Mexican :) Next great story! We are teaching an investigator named Salvador. We are 99% positive that he only listens to us because he is in love with Sister Smyth because he tried to cuddle with her and he won't let the real Hermanas talk to him. Yeah it was the funniest thing I've ever witnessed. We were teaching him how to use Mormon.org on his phone when he all of a sudden went in for the kill! HAHAHAHA Sister Smyth's face was pure terror. Too funny. I couldn't believe it. He also sends us pictures all the time of random memes. Yes. Salvador has a special place in our hearts! Having a car is awesome! I never realized how much time we spent getting from place to place. We fly to each appointment now! All of the women in our ward freak out when they see us in cars. They were about to go on protest to get us a car. It's pretty funny to see them more happy about our cute truck than we are. Exchanges were this week. Sister Shrader came and acted like my companion for 24 hours. She was super nice and it put me at ease a little bit to see how we worked together. It wasn't the same as with Sister Smyth but it was still great. We decided to go see a woman that I had never met before. We met with her and had an amazing lesson that you can read in my journal in 18 months because I'm running out of time! Ahh. After exchanges we had to ride an hour to Wilcox in a monsoon. It was the scariest moment of my life! Highways and monsoons don't mix. The lightning was like a firework show. I love Arizona lightning! It's incredible! On the way back Sister Smyth and I were paying way too much attention on the driving part and not on the direction part. We got lost for a bit but eventually found our way home after making a few calls! It was a fun little adventure. On Wednesday we had an appointment cancel after another dinner at El Charro's Mexican restaurant. We were close to one of our recent converts houses so we decided to give miss Mary a visit! Mary has been going through a really hard time with her daughter in the middle of Chemo. The stress got to her and she turned back to smoking to try to ease the stress. WE WERE HEART BROKEN! We had a super awesome lesson on prayer and how it is the key to dealing with stress. She told us she would work on it. Then we decided to ask her about preparing for the temple. She told us how badly she wants to go to the temple to be baptized for her mother. We were so happy! Mary is the only member of her family and all of her siblings are very apposed to the church. It was awesome to hear how much Mary wanted to get her mother to the temple. She has never seen the temple in real life so we will be taking her to the temple this week! The temple president has agreed to meeting us outside and talking to Mary about the blessings that come from being worthy to enter the temple. I'm really excited for that! Because of the set back we have to wait a little while but Mary is working towards it and that's all that matters. In the mean time we will be working on some family history! We started teaching a part member family called the Visconti's. The wife isn't a member but everyone else in the family have been less active for a long time. Grandma Visconti goes every once in a while but the rest of the family has kinda given up. The first lesson we taught them was about celestial marriage and getting the family sealed in the temple. Sister Visconti got super defensive and said there was no way she was going to be a Mormon. It was interesting to hear how badly the rest of the family wanted that though. It got a bit emotional. The spirit was for sure there. Last night we were driving from our appointment with Doug to our appointment with the Visconti's. We had planned to just read with them Ether 12. While I was driving Sister Smyth asked me if that still felt right. It didn't. That's when Mosiah 26 popped into my head. Neither of us knew what Mosiah 26 was about so she opened up and read a little bit. Okay Pause the story- open up to Mosiah 26 for me. Now picture reading that to a less active/investigator family that haven't exactly been living worthily. Okay back to the story. We were super intimidated to read it with them but the spirit said so. As we were reading I was holding my breath! I kept waiting for someone to get offended and get mad but that didn't happen. We talked about the story and how Alma was faced with a situation that we had never dealt with before. I asked Brother Visconti if he had ever been put in that kind of a situation as a parent. He got a little emotional and said he was dealing with that right now. HOLY MOLY! The spirit flooded in! We kept going and talked about how Alma when to God for help. Alma's question was answered but Alma still had to put in work in order to fix the problem. The family asked a lot of questions and we did our best to answer. During the entire lesson I was in shock of how the spirit knew exactly what this family needed. We were scared to death to read Mosiah 26 with this family. We did and it worked. The spirit was there and each of them committed to go to the Lord with a question this week. I love being a missionary because of moments like this! AHHHHH! I'm super out of time but I love you all and am so grateful for you! Nicole I'm so happy that you are going on a mission. You won't regret it! Stacy- YOU'RE MARRIED. WEIRD! Ahh oh and hubbard family I love your cousin. She's so cute! I'm so glad I spoke in church at a mission farewell because that's the only way they found me. SMALL WORLD! K BYE! READING ASSIGNMENT- THE FIRST GREAT COMMANDMENT it's a talk by Elder Holland

This week in pictures

"making bread"

"us and doug at fhe. Elder roper was a great warrior"

"sister smith's bread is so yummy!"

"The next is cute mary! LOVE HER SO MUCH! She's super sassy"

Our Tired Carl....

I think I say this every week...but how is it already Monday? I can barely remember what happened this week. I don't have a lot of time left so this has to be quick. We came up with a new term around here. We don't just baptize. We baptivate. About 90% of the work that we do is with less active families. It's hard but I really love it. It's cool to watch people remember why they wanted to be a part of the church when they were active. A lot of people grew up not really going to church so once they were married they kinda stopped. Another really common on is their spouse isn't a member. Whatever their situation is we are there for them. I love the people of this cotton/mining town. We had 2 less active families come to church this week! WHAOO! It's so fun to watch their testimonies light up again. One less active that we go visit is a super super old man. We know he still has a testimony because all that he likes to wear is his temple garments. It's so awkward to try to sit through a lesson with him. Grandpa Carbijol just doesn't like clothes I guess. Last night we finished all of our appointments and we didn't know where to go next. We said a prayer asking for guidance and an old couple came to my mind. We were close to their house so we made our way over there. Grandpa and Grandma Bingham (Everyone here has the same last names so don't get confused when I say Bingham's about 10 different people) were sitting on their porch waiting for us. We said we just wanted to chit chat with them for a bit and share a prayer and thought with them. They said that they had to hear "the new missionary" pray so I said it. When the prayer was over I looked up and saw that Grandpa Bingham was crying. He told us about how he feels like he has tried so hard to serve Heavenly Father his whole life. As he is getting old he is worried that his efforts weren't enough. He wanted to go back and try harder to do everything he can to serve. On the ride home Sister Smyth and I talked about how a mission is like a small little life of it's own. I'm freshly born and still learned one thing at a time. I'm figuring out what kind of missionary I'm going to be. She is almost done. As her mission life is coming to an end she doesn't want to look back and think, "Did I do enough?" WOW! That really got me thinking hard. When we are biking down the street I don't want to regret not talking to someone. You never know who is ready to hear what you have to say. I've been trying really hard to have faith that the Lord will direct me. Heavenly Father expects us to talk to all of his children. We made a goal at the beginning of the week to hand out at least 2 Books of Mormon a day (That doesn't sound like a lot but it is!) We almost made our goal. Half the time that someone accepted a book my heart leaped a little bit! Those people are blessings! We don't have a lot of investigators right now but we have a lot of friends who are starting to trust us and hopefully will eventually listen to what we have to say. One of those people is AJ. Oh man I love this guy. We go over like three times a week to clean motorcycles and talk about life. He LOVES the bible and knows that he has a Heavenly Father that loves him. His big concern is Joseph Smith which links to the Book of Mormon. That's kinda a big deal in our church. Right now we are starting off slow by praying with him and sharing a message with him everyday. We discuss similarities between the book of mormon and the bible. I'm seeing a light grow in that sweet old man. It's the coolest thing to watch. Sister Smyth and I have started waking up an hour earlier (5:15) in order to study more. I love personal study time. Getting an extra hour of it everyday is so worth missing out of a little bit of sleep. We are so tired everyday but so happy! It's amazing. Today we were told that we are getting a car. This might sound weird but Sister Smyth and I were so sad to hear that they might take our bikes away! I love those things! We eat way too much jello casserole to go without bikes! It's funny how all of our meals either have jello casserole or chips and salsa themes. Never before have a realized how many different kinds of jello casserole there are. Whenever we walk into dinner appointments I party a little bit in my head when I see salsa on the table! I'm becoming more and more Latino every day :) This small mining down of Safford Arizona is the greatest! Oh I almost forgot to tell ya'll! DOUG IS GETTING BAPTIZED! We can't set a date yet because of some legal stuff BUT he says he knows it's what he wants to do and that's good enough for me! Whaoo!! Okay I am pretty disappointed with how short this is because I know I'm going to log off and think of something I forgot to share but for now I'll just say I love you all so much and am grateful for your kind words and prayers. Mail is seriously heaven. You have no idea how great it is to know how many people are backing me up in this crazy adventure. I'm working hard and trying my best to do what Heavenly Father wants me to do. I'm nowhere near where I want to be but I will be as I stay obedient and diligent! LOVE YA! The power of prayer is real. I see blessings and miracles everyday that are the result of a lot of fasting and prayer. Do your scripture studies! That's important. Have a good week. Isn't someone's wedding this week? And Happy Late birthday Megan Meyer! We don't have enough time during the week to do all that the members want us to do with them so today we are playing with the ward members! Sister Smith is teaching us how to make bread, the Van Skoyks want to take us to lunch and shopping and Sister Carpenter has some surprise for us. It's going to be a crazy busy P-day!! Good reads of the week: Isaiah 41:10, Mosiah 5, Hebrew 11:6, 1 John 5:14-15 The picture I'm sending are pretty embarrassing but Sister Smyth somehow keeps getting pictures of me sleeping. Proof that I'm working hard! The family is the Huish family. I love those kids! I promise I only held the baby for the picture!