Letter #58

Hello hello everyone!

 

Well this week was just fantastic! Elder fan and I worked really hard and it really paid off for us! The best part of the week was that we had a baptism! Those are always the best! It was the husband of hou jie mei, lin di xiong! He is a really cool guy! He met with us every day this last week and was able to be baptized on that Sunday! We were so happy for him! He was able to quit smoking in that short amount of time! I really believe it was because of his faith! It was amazing how even in that short week; you could just see a new light in his eyes. We have not been able to see him again this week but we gave him a call and everything is still going great. Before he was baptized, I looked over at him dressed in all white sitting next to his wife. His wife was baptized two weeks ago. The spirit came over me so strong as I tried to picture these two preparing to go into the temple and how much that this one small choice would really change their life. I am so happy I was able to meet those two.

We had a really cool lesson with one of our recent converts this week. Her name is Ellen. She is 17 years old and is the only member in her family. She joined the church about six months ago. A little bit after I left to go up to Connecticut. She is truly incredible! She does not have any support from her family but she continues to try her best! She even goes to seminary despite the fact that it is a long slow subway ride to get there and she has to wake up really early. She met with us and told us that she does not feel like she is ready to go into the temple because she said that she does not feel worthy. She said there are some weeks that she is not able to come to church and she is too tired to go to seminary sometimes. She then continues to explain that the temple is a serious place and it should not be taken likely. Elder Fan and I went speechless. I never have seen someone take the temple so seriously. I think often times we will take that place for granted and really forget how special it is. But we also explained to her that she is doing great. She is trying her best to do all of the many things that are placed on her plate. I think the reason that we are given so many things to do is so that we will not be able to do all of them! If it were easy, there would be no need for the atonement of Jesus Christ. But, as we began to rely on him, to help us with our burdens, life becomes a whole lot easier. We learn that these things are real! Not just something we talk about for fun!

Street contacting this week was very fun! We met some great people! There was one day that elder fan and I decided we wanted to go to top of the rock area, over on 47th street. The Chinese missionaries cover the whole island but it is very rare that we leave because it is harder to find Chinese people. But this day we were feeling kinda crazy. When we first got up there it really was not going that well. We ran into a few Chinese people but none that were willing to listen to us. We ran into some really nice members that were here for a younger adults conference but other than that nothing. But then finally I saw a Chinese man walking slowly looking down at the ground. I walked up to him and started talking to him in English (just in case he was not Chinese.) He responded back in perfect English. He was really not interested at all in what I had to say. Even though in my mind there was no way this guy was Chinese, I gave it a shot and asked. He said that he was! And we started to talk in Chinese! His eyes lit up and he became so excited! He really opened up! He is a lawyer from Bei Jing and has a couple friends that are Mormon. He said that he would love to meet with us and talk about our church! I was so excited! After we talked with him, we did not talk with one more Chinese person! It was like we just needed to go there that one time to find that one guy!

A plane flew over the top of china town this week and wrote "last chance" in the sky. Elder fan and I went inside to take cover, thinking that a bomb was about to hit china town. Then we realized it was talking about a sale at a local store! That was a relief! There was also a fire in china town this week! That was pretty cool to see! There was no need to fear dragons were here! The fire department in china town calls themselves “the dragons”! I have no idea why! Dragons make fire; they do not put it out! I also met a man this week that had a pigeon on his shoulder! I walked up to him and began to talk with him. He said that pigeons are smarter than dogs and he has two that will fly away and come back to him! As he talked to me, the bird flew onto my shoulder! He got so excited and said that means he can trust me because the bird has never done that to any one else! I have to say I felt very loved! We had a great conversation about the church! I was also on a Japanese TV show this week! It was some cooking channel thing! They would give me random Japanese cooking utensils then have me guess how one would use it! They were laughing at me so hard and I have no idea why! So I am probably famous in Japan now!

Those are just some of the weird things that happened this week! Well, I sure do love you guys! Thanks for all of the love and support! I hope that you guys are all having a great week! Talk to you next week!

Elder Barton

Letter #57

Hello everyone!

Well this week was what we like to call a little bit of a tougher week. We spent a lot of time rolling up the sleeves and getting to work, but did not see much success. We had one guy that was willing to come up to the church though and listen to a lesson, which really in a sense makes the whole entire week worth it. Regardless of the challenge I still love street contacting. It is the best. I think the reason that it is so awesome is just indescribable. You see all of these people walking around holding in so much pain and sorrow, and it is so nice to walk up and tell them how they can lift those pains and sorrows. If only more people would listen to us when we talk.
This week a few of the people that I contacted a long time ago in Chinatown showed up and are going to be taught again, this really made me so happy! Elder Near and Elder Faulkner are going to teach them, because they are the ones that took over my old companionship, but I am still excited for them. I would tell you which ones they were, but I doubt you would be able to remember because it was such a long time ago. It is crazy how timing sometimes is everything in peoples journey through the gospel. Then at the right time people will decide that the gospel is right for them. I was thinking about the analogy that is often made between missionaries and fisherman this week, and realized that it is not always correct. Fisherman will often hall in many fish at the same time, using huge nets, and large machines. On my mission so far this has not been the case. We are also known as harvesters. Well during the time of a harvest, many rewards are reaped, and all at the same time. I feel that in some missions this is accurate. I know that many who serve in South America or other Spanish-speaking missions will see much success, kind of like the fisherman or the harvester. I feel like I am a hunter. Now I am not saying this to sound gnarly, or because it sounds cool, but this is really just how I feel. A hunter will work long hours stealth and swiftly searching for his prey. Some days he might not have any success but, when he finally does make his attack he feels a true feeling of success that cannot be described. I hope that everyone reading this understands that it is an analogy, I am not running around Chinatown with face paint on and a machete.
I loved conference this week! I got so much out of it. It is amazing how if we prepare ourselves to hear the word of the Lord, we really can receive revelation. There were so many talks that I felt like I was having a one on one conversation with the speaker, like it was directed right towards me. One talk that particularly stood out to me was by Dieter Uchtdorf. He talked about the people through out history who have not been written about. The people that just do what is right and willingly follow the word of the Lord. I thought about some of the people that are very briefly mentioned in the Book of Mormon. For example, the small group that follows Alma into the wilderness after Abinadi was executed, or the one person that was converted when Alma and Amulek preached to the Lamanites. What faith it took on these people's behalf. They were really true Christians. Elder Uchtdorf encouraged us to not worry about our reputation with man, but worry about our standing with God. He said that God does not care if we work in marble halls or stable halls, He loves all of His children the same. Compared to God we are nothing, but to God we are everything. Pretty incredible! What an amazing Heavenly Father we have.
I also wanted to say thank you so much for all the love I received for my birthday! That was so nice of you guys. I have to be honest; it felt so good to know how many people support me out here. I got amazing letters and pictures from the primary, I loved them all so much! I received some very nice letters from the Relief Society as well. It was so great to hear from all of you. I keep you in my prayers constantly. I really hope that all is still going well. I sure do love you all.
Well, it is time for me to go and spread the word! Have a great week, and I look forward to talking to you next week!
Elder Barton

Letter #56

Hello hello everyone!

 

Well this was another great week in china town! I love this place. Our baptisms last Sunday went so well! Hou jie Mei is what we like to call a feisty one. She came in and wanted to be baptized in a week but at first I really don’t think that she understood why. She had a friend getting baptized and she just knew that Christianity was a good thing.  In our lessons we would try hard to get her to feel the spirit, but it was hard for us to really get her attention. It was not until se received the gift of the Holy Ghost that you could just see it hit her. We had to confirm right after the baptism because we are having general conference this weekend so we did not want to wait two weeks. Our ward mission leader put his hands on her head and confirmed her. He was completely overcome by the spirit. He did not know anything about her background. As he started to confirm her, he talked about her like they were best friends. The spirit was so strong. When she looked up from being confirmed, there were tears in her eyes. She held her heart and said my heart is beating so fast.. It was perfect! It was just what she needed to be completely converted to the gospel. Her husband wants to be baptized next week, so we are excited for that as well.

This week, we also decided we needed to find some more investigators, so we spent a lot more time contacting. We did not find a ton of people but I am very excited about the ones that we did find. They were all very nice. One of my favorite finds was named Yin…she was from Beijing. It is very rare that we meet people from Beijing… people around here are usually from southeast china, but people from there are always funny. They love it when you tell them that they have very educated Chinese. It makes them all happy. So when I first walked up to this lady, she was not really very interested. She said that she had a church and she did not need to find another one. I had a feeling just to try to get to know her. The more questions I asked about her, the slower and slower she walked, until finally she came to a complete stop. We talked on the side of the busy street for about 30 minutes. She really started to open up and tell me different things about her life. And in the end of it all, SHE started talking to me about church… I did not even have to say anything. She told me that in China, she saw a card in Chinese that was about our church and has always wanted to learn about it. I am not sure what will happen with this but I had a very good feeling about it.

We also had a really cool lesson experience. An English class student asked us to give her some personal English lessons. We agreed that we would and we were planning on sharing a lesson with her after we helped her. We had found out that her brother had just died, so we figured the plan of salvation would be a great way to start off teaching her. On the day of our lesson with her, another English class student saw us helping her and wanted to join in on the party. We taught them a lot of English and then started into the plan of salvation. As soon as we started the lesson, the lady that we were planning on teaching completely checked out of the lesson. She started looking down, studying English as we spoke to her, the whole ten yards. But, the other English class student… leaned foreword in her seat and her eyes widened with interest. When we got to the part about families living together forever in the celestial kingdom, she said really? In a very excited tone. It is incredible what heavenly father will do to get one of his children to hear the gospel. Another great example of his love for us.

Yesterday our mission had a great mission conference. I really took so much out of it. He share a story that Elder Boyd k Packard shared long ago. It was about a man going up into his attic and finding a really old picture of his grandfather that had just passed away. It was a beautiful picture, but the frame that it was in was old, and thrashed. He got a screwdriver and began to dismantle this frame so that he could get out the picture. But as he did, he noticed that under much dust and debris laid a beautiful golden frame. He cleaned off the frame and was so excited to see how beautiful it was. He used this analogy for the missionaries in our mission. He told us that we were all of great worth and sometimes because of investigators not progressing, and not many baptisms we will feel useless. But we are still beautiful golden frames! This made me feel very good.

Well guys thanks for all of the love and support! It really does make me feel so good. I love you guys! Have a great week.

Elder Barton

Letter #55

Hello my dear friends!

I am back in Chinatown and loving it! I have decided that I am much more of a city person then an up state person. Don’t get me wrong, I loved up state! But, it was just so slow.. I would street contact for three or four hours and maybe talk to 20 people on a good day. Here I talk to over a hundred people every day, and it is just marvelous! I really did not realize before how much joy I get out of talking with people. It is the best thing ever!

Chinatown has changed a lot! We have three new sisters that were not here before! Two of them are from Taiwan and one is from main land china! They are all so cool! It has been hilarious teaching them some English. Sister Gao (the one from mainland china) can now say, "what’s up homie g?" if you say that in a Chinese accent I promise you that you will laugh. It sounds so funny! They have been helping my Chinese a ton as well! My companion and I do not speak any English all day long! And we do not read English all day long! He makes me struggle through the characters until I finally understand what it means. He has been really good for me! In Connecticut my tones got really bad! I still remember how to say everything, but my tones are just off a lot of the time. So that is not very fun. But Elder Fan has been helping me so much!! I love this guy! He makes me laugh so hard.

One of the things that I really liked about coming back to Chinatown was teaching English class again. It is still the exact same group of people and you get to have a pretty close relationship with them from teaching English. It is kinda funny how it works. But anyways, I walked into the room to teach, and Elder Near got on the piano and started to play a song on the piano that kinda sounded like the beginning of “eye of the tiger”. Then he started to tell English class to but their hands together for the “return of Elder Barton”! I am not going to lie to you I felt like I was a movie star. It was almost like being Ammon in the road show again. Ok maybe not quite that cool. That was a pretty intense experience. But it was cool. I really like teaching English class.

Elder Fan and I have also had an amazing week. We got a few referrals from members and investigators. It is always a good feeling when you get them from an investigator. Two of them want to be baptized this week! Pretty crazy considering that we met them on Sunday! They have been meeting with us every day in order to prepare for their baptism. It is a husband and a wife, which is also really cool. We are so excited for them! This is a miracle! Such a miracle that it feels like I am dreaming. I have noticed that the biggest miracles always happen when someone new comes into an area. Or if you are on companion exchanges.

Chinatown has had so many baptisms since I left! I barely recognized anyone on Sunday! It was like going into a new church. Luckily we were able to see some of the converts that Elder Near and I had while we were together. It was so good to see all of them again! Chen Dixiong is starting a restaurant! Fan Jie Mei moved to Queens now, but she came up to see us, and she has been doing really well. She had this huge backpack full of English learning books! Wang di xiong had a baby! All kinds of new things happened! But it is so good to be back! It almost feels like coming home after a long trip.

My mission president gave me permission to call Jing, and see how she was doing up in Connecticut. I was worried that she did not have any one to translate for her on Sunday. It turns out that her daughter did for her, and it went really well. I was glad to talk with her, and see that everything is still going well.

Well I hope that all of you have a great week! The church is true! Thanks for all of the love and support!

Elder Barton

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