Letter #54 Elder Barton's Back in China Town

So… this is officially the last time that you will hear me email from Danbury, Connecticut! I am making my way back to china town!! I have to say I am so excited!! I have missed that place so bad! I have been so lucky up here to meet such great people. Not only meet great people but also learn so much! I feel like me coming up here was my defining moment on my mission.

I have to say, I was actually really surprised to leave.. We had so much going on! Ernie and Lu Lu's family of five boys has still been progressing really well! They came to church this last Sunday! Do you know how exciting that was?! Our chapel is far away for the people that live in our area, so it was a little bit of a sacrifice for them to come. But they were so welcomed!! It turns out they had a ton of connections in our ward! Right after sacrament finished, they were surrounded by people that knew them or recognized them. One of the members in our ward was the crossing guard for all of the boys, and would always talk to them as they walked home from school. Another one was in the same class as the youngest, Ryan. They immediately started to play together and have a good time. Another one of our members went to a birthday party at Lu Lu and Ernie’s house along time ago. The connections go on and on! I am not even kidding there are so many more! I thought it was powerful to see how heavenly father has really prepared this family. Their whole life, little bits at a time! Until finally at the right moment, two missionaries came knocking on their door. One of our members, (the one that used to be the crossing guard for the boys.) came up to me and said wow, I never would have thought that family would have been interested in the gospel. I really wish that I had said something to them before about the church. Then she went on to say how she wants to get better at that! That was cool to hear. It was very reassuring to see them have so much support right before I leave. I know that they will be ok. Our ward is so awesome and so good at supporting our investigators.

Yesterday was such a good day. It started off by going to Jing’s house to say good-bye. I was so sad to leave her. I have gotten so close to her over the time that I have been here. I brought her a picture of her, her daughter, and I on the day of her baptism and put it in a frame. It made her very happy. She then cooked for me one last time. It was a huge meal! That was in the morning too, which was pretty crazy. Then she gave me this huge bag of candy loaded to the brim! It kinda made me feel bad for only getting her a little picture. She is such a nice lady! I really hope that I will see her again someday. I wrote down all of her contact information, so I hope that it will happen. At the end, right before I left she said that she has always wanted to have a son. (She has two girls) She then said that she kinda feels like I am her son. I thought that was pretty cool! I am really going to miss her. She has for sure been the biggest miracle that I have ever seen. I am still so amazed that happened. After Jing’s we went home and I got all packed up and ready to go. Then we went and saw most of our investigators. One of them took us out to dinner at “buffalo wild wings”! I got some really cool pictures that I cant wait to send home! Then in the middle of the day, we got this random call from a man that was an alcoholic. He was sober for many years but then relapsed. He was bawling and asked us to come over to his house. We went over and taught him about Jesus Christ and his atonement. We also told him that we really want to help him. He kept saying that there was nothing that we could do and that he had done everything before. No matter how hard we tried to tell him we could help, he would not believe us. But finally at the end we convinced him to let us try. Elder Dees and his new companion are going over there on Thursday! So I am excited for them.

Wow! I really can’t believe how fast time has gone by! I feel like I just came up to Connecticut and now I am already going back to china town! I am so torn between being excited and sad. I am really going to miss the people that I met up here, they are all so great. And our members were amazing! Now I am going back to china town were the members are not very involved… it will be a huge change!! I also have a native companion!!!! I am excited for that! This will help my Chinese a lot because I will have to use it! And not just sometimes… all of the time!! It is going to be so cool! Pretty crazy situation. Wow missions are really incredible. They are so hard at times but then you look back at it and realize how much the lord has really been carrying you! And it strengthens you so much! I can’t wait to see what lays ahead for me, it is such and adventure.

Well guys I have to get going, but I sure do love you all, hope you have a great week, and talk to you soon!

Elder Barton

PS my china town address is still the same… it is

117 Mott St., apt 3b, New York, NY 10013

Letter #53 Jing was baptized

Hello Hello!

Well, this week was a great week! Well… there were a few bad things that happened but the good replaced the bad, so that is always a good thing.

The good was really good! Jing was baptized! I cannot even tell you what a relief that was for me! I have never had an investigator go through so many trials and have so many things happen before the baptism. She would have doctrinal issues then have problems with the date, work schedules, commandments, and etc. It was quite the journey! Her baptismal program went great as well! despite the fact that she was not able to videotape herself being baptized. She really wanted to show her dad who lives in china, which is a good reason, but we are just not allowed to videotape baptisms. That made her kind of sad but she was ok with it as soon as she started getting a ton of attention! The ward did such a great job supporting her! I have never seen so many people at a baptism! Maybe this is because I am from china town and we only have like 4 members if we are lucky at the baptismal service. The whole service was in Mandarin, so it was I and two other guys in the word that spoke Mandarin doing everything! But it was awesome! I have already seen how the Gospel has blessed Jing’s life. Her relationship with her daughter has improved incredibly! They have  been starting to read the scriptures together every night! She is starting to find more job opportunities… her whole entire personality has changed really! It is like she has this new glow to her! I am so happy for her.

The bad news from this week is that we lost Shane. I am not really sure what happened but he is gone. We went to his house for a scheduled appointment that we had with him and no one was there. AND on top of that… everything in the house was gone! It looked like he moved out. Not going to lie… this was really hard on me. We have been going to his house every night to check and see if he is back, but everything is still the same. He does not have a cell phone so there is really no way for us to get a hold of him. I felt like he was so prepared for this. I was very surprised to see it all fall apart like that. I am sure that whatever happened, he had a legitimate reason for leaving. I hope that I will run into him again someday.

Lu Lu and Ernie's family are still doing really well! We have had members with us the last two times that we have gone to see them and they have taken the lessons really well! They take everything really well! It almost makes it hard on us to know what they need because they take everything that we teach so well and never have any problems with the things that we teach. We are still having a hard time getting them married and to come to church but other then that, everything is good. They promised us though that this Sunday they would be at church! We are looking foreword to that!!! They also said now that school has started up again, they should have more time to talk, and figure things out.

Elder Dees and I have been working really hard trying to figure out ways to get our members involved with our investigators. It has been really hard to find things that work. We are trying to do some things that we thought up a long time ago…. and they seem to be working pretty well so far! We made the sign up chart for them coming to help us teach and are doing a movie night this Friday at the church! We are excited. I really hope that things work out!

 Have a great week ladies and gentlemen… this is Elder Barton signing out!

Letter #52 Hurricane "Disappointment"

Hello everyone!

Well this week was pretty intense I am not going to lie! Hurricane “disappointment”, I mean “Irene” came which was actually pretty gnarly! Our whole town has lost power and most likely will not get it back until next week. Floods were everywhere! Many houses were flooded and many trees were knocked down blocking the streets! We are still helping clean up the mess! Our mission president was completely on top of it though! I was not scared at all with somebody like him leading us through it. He evacuated all of the Manhattan missionaries and some of the other places that were along the coast or in places that were in danger of flooding! He was also texting us through out the whole storm letting us know what was going on! It was pretty incredible! We had 6 missionaries living in our pad. It was a lot of fun! Almost two much fun! We were not allowed to go outside for two days under our mission president’s orders. We went pretty nuts I am not going to lie. A lot of wrestling, scrabble, and church movies!

This whole experience has really strengthened my testimony. Probably about two months ago or so our mission issued every missionary in our whole mission an emergency back pack full of survival supplies. He also told us to not let our car’s gas get under half a tank. I guess there was a member of the seventy received revelation that this storm would be coming. Our mission and the stakes in our mission have been preparing for it like crazy. It gives me the chills. The gift of prophecy and revelation is real.

My favorite clean up story that I have is for sure about a lady named Liz. She was not a member of the church but got our number from a former investigator and gave us a call. She lived right next to a river, so the street she lived on was completely flooded with water. At the end of the street, the water was up to 5 feet deep! As you can imagine, her house was pretty bad… particularly in the basement. Oh and did I mention that her husband was a HOARDER!!!! His basement was loaded with a bunch of junk! We are talking mountains of stuff! Mix that with a lot of water and it really does not end well! We were using a snow shovel to dig through piles and piles of moldy clothes!! The smell was incredible! I think in the end, we hauled off over a hundred trucks loads full of stuff to the dump! And on top of it, she was not very grateful. In a way, it made it that much better! Sometimes when we serve people with no reward or praise it feels that much better!

Jings baptism was canceled due to the hurricane… as was church. I was bummed and so was she. It will happen this week though, which is great. She is a little bummed that it is on the 4th though because Chinese people are very superstitious of the number 4!!! But I assured her that everything would be ok and we are looking forward to it! Chen is also scheduled to be baptized this weekend! He talked with his professor and he agreed to let him off! We are so excited! And so is he! The poor guy has wanted to be baptized for such a long time but has never been able to get the time off! Words cannot even describe how happy I am. Lu Lu and Ernie’s family is still doing great as well! They said they want to come to church this Sunday!!! Now that school started, they are in a more stable situation! The members are so excited to finally meet them. We were also able to find one new investigator in the heat of all of this! His name is Carlos! We actually taught him on the day the hurricane was coming! He sat in our car with us and we shared the first lesson! It went so well. As we led him through the lesson, you could just see his mind grasping on to all of these new foreign concepts. He told us in a very sincere tone that he is excited to read the book of Mormon and see if it is true! He also texted us yesterday and said he is on page 5! We are so excited for him!

If there is one thing I have learned from all of this, it is that the lord’s work really cannot be stopped. It will keep on going on. The people that are prepared to hear the word, will hear the word! The elect few that god has prepared, will learn, and there is no thing, or person that will be able to stop this from happening! I also felt very protected. I never realized how much God does care about his missionaries. I felt like Ammon when he said that the lord has looked over him in the foreign place that he was in and protected him. (Sorry I kinda butchered that scripture)

Well guys I hope that you are all having a great week! Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Barton