Letter #44

Family and Friends!

I can honestly say, I think this was the best week that I have had on my mission so far. Words are hard to describe some of the things that have happened. Well, to start off it, was stressful; I am not going to lie. Everything from trying to find my way around this area and trying to fill the place that elder boekweg had in this ward. He was here for 9 months so he was very close with a lot of our members. I was nervous starting out. I had no idea how I was going to do it. And on top of that, finding lately has not been going so well. We still have Matilda with the bap date and Jing Han that are doing really well but both of them are out of town this week! I was feeling quite a bit of pressure! But this week ended up being awesome! We found a lot of new people to teach that are extremely prepared and I have never felt closer to the spirit my whole life.

A lot of things that happened were just small but they felt huge to me. We were helping this new family move into the ward (the man invented the missionary name tag, which I thought was pretty cool!) but anyways they said they wanted to follow me to this new house they were moving into. I had been there before because a member used to live there. They told me to make sure I didn’t go under any small bridges because the Uhaul was so big. I said ok and didn’t think there would be any in the way I had planned to go. Well, as I was leading them to their new house, I took a wrong turn. Nothing to hard to correct. But on the way home took the way that I had planned on going, realizing that we would have gone under an extremely small bridge!

I was also on a split this week with a Spanish elder in my district. We decided we would get out of Danbury and go try tracting in a place called Carmel. It was about a thirty-minute drive to get to this place. We got there and began to tract. We tracted for about ten minutes, then I looked over at my comp and asked him what he was feeling. He said, I am not feeling to good man. I had the exact same feeling. I had such a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach, I felt like I was going to throw up. We got in the car and drove all the way back to Danbury. Who knows what would have happened but there was no reason for us to find out. 

Me and elder Dees one day decided that we would walk instead of drive to save miles on our car. (We have a certain number of miles given to us each month.) We ended up walking down this street that we would have never even thought about going down before. It was small and did not even look like there were people home in most of the houses. Turns out, the first two houses that we knocked, let us in to teach a lesson. Both of them were so cool! Blake was a skater kid that had just graduated high school. He had a mow hawk and the whole deal! He received the lesson really well! We had several opportunities to teach random people that we had found this week! We found so many great new investigators this week! A personal record since I have been here!

We also had opportunities to use our priesthood authority! This is something that I have not had an opportunity to do yet on my mission. Coming from china town, the branch was so small, and I don’t know how well the members even understood we could give blessings. The first lady was a sister of a man in our ward. She was not a member and did not speak English. She was from India! She just had a horrible brain tumor removed, which paralyzed the right side of her body.. She could move one of her arms and nod her head if she understood, that was about it. After we gave her the blessing, we knew that she understood, because of a small tear running down the side of her face. The spirit was so strong in that room! We also had an opportunity to give a blessing to a less active mom, who used to be extremely active. She was just visiting for the weekend when she started to have some internal bleeding. She was the nicest lady!!! When we walked in and asked her how she was she said "I am finer then a frogs hair!" very energetically! I left my scriptures in her room, so I had to come back the next day to pick them up. (Yes I still forget things all of the time!) But when we came back to see her, she had made a miraculous recovery! She was getting ready to leave the hospital! We were very happy to hear that!

Our mission president also gave us the okay to go into the fair! The fair in Danbury is a big deal! Not much goes on here! But we were able to go inside and set up a table with a poster and pamphlets! I can’t even tell you how effective this was for the whole district! We talked to a lot of people! We had the Spanish, and Portugees speaking missionaries from our district as well, which was great! The reason the fair allowed us to go in was because the man in charge of the fair that we talked to was an inactive member. His family left the church when he was only a deacon. He let us do it for free and gave us a whole tent! It was incredible! I played pool with a man working in the carnival to get a lesson out of it! It turns out he was a free mason! We had a really cool conversation and placed a book of Mormon! The Spanish elders also ran into that Chinese guy I met my first week here. He said he still really wanted to learn about our church but had just been so busy! We went over to his house that night and were able to share the first lesson! 

This week was amazing! There is still so much that I have not even typed! My testimony grew even more this week that the church is true, god is always preparing people to hear the gospel, and he knows each of us individually. I can’t tell you what an answer this week has been to my prayers and my efforts. I will be looking back on this week the rest of my life when I am having a hard time. I really felt like things just clicked together for me.

Well, I hope that you are all having a great week and enjoying this great summer weather!!! I know that I am! Talk to you all next week!

Elder Barton

Letter #43

Good afternoon boys and girls!

So this week has been pretty intense, I am not going to lie! To start things off, I got a new companion! His name is elder Dees and he is so funny! He makes me laugh all day. He is from Washington State but is Fijian. He has been teaching me Fijian and I am teaching him Chinese. Pretty good trade off if you ask me! This week has been awesome; we have been trying really hard to come up with new ideas for finding investigators. So far we have made a huge poster board comparing the book of Mormon and the bible side by side! It is not finished yet but it is looking pretty good. We always used a poster in china town and it seemed to work pretty well so we figured hey, why not give it a shot. We also want to do a combined Newtown and Danbury ward movie night once a month, strictly for investigators and members with friends. We really want to start getting our members involved more with our missionary work. We are also going to make a sign up sheet for them to come and help us teach lessons. The longer I have been here, I have realized how bad we need the members! In this area it is through them that anything is going to happen. I am not used to it at all because in china town, everything was purely done through missionary efforts.

Our investigators are doing really well! Matilda set a baptismal date for the 24 of July! We are so excited! We are so blessed to have this opportunity to work with her, she is incredible. She wants to follow Jesus Christ more than anyone that I know. Our last lesson was really cool with her. When we first came in there was a feeling that something was different. As we started to talk she seemed quieter and her countenance was changed. So we decided to go back to the things we had talked about previously. Finally we found the problem! She did not understand what the book of Mormon was! She thought that it was a part two of the bible, it was all about Jesus Christ’s ministry continued.. Then she was very confused when she cracked it open and was reading a storey about Nephi! But after we helped her understand that Christ’s actual ministry was only a small part of the book of Mormon and the rest was other prophets starting after Jeremiah, she was much more interested! I am so happy we did not just move on with out trying to see what was wrong. The message of the plan of salvation made her very happy, she thought it made perfect sense! She said that if the book of Mormon were true she would be baptized!!

I was threatened this week by a large man with a bb gun... that was interesting. We did a ton of tracting this week and to be honest, did not have that much success! This is always a rough feeling for a missionary to have but all of the good moments we have destroy the bad ones. Our Chinese investigator is still out of town, she will be back on the 15th and I am very excited! We heard from the other missionaries that know one of her friends, she has been really enjoying meeting with us! That is a good thing to know! Her daughter called me this week because she was having a bad day. I guess she has been really stressed out with her mom not home. I am excited for her to get home! We also met another Chinese guy that wants to go with me and my companion to eat Korean food! The only problem is that he can’t drive and we can’t drive investigators, so I have to try to find a member that speaks Chinese to help us out. I am sure we will be able to find one!

Well guys, I hope you are having a great week! Thanks for all of the love and support! I know I say that every week and it is not just because my hands have gotten in the habit of saying it! I really mean it!

Elder Barton

Letter #42

Hello everyone!

Today is transfers, and elder boekweg will be transferred to Kingsbridge in the Bronx. The scariest place in our mission… I am excited for him! He is going to have some awesome stories to tell coming out of that place. He has been an awesome companion and I have learned a ton from him. I look foreword to seeing what he will do in the Bronx. My new companion is named elder Dees, I have never met him before but I have heard some funny things about him! I am going to go pick him up after this. I am excited!

This week was a little slower. We were busy with meetings so we did not have much time to go finding. We had elder Craig Christianson, a member of the seventy, come into our mission and give us training. It was so powerful. One thing that I have noticed about general authorities is they never want you to take notes, they always just want you to write down impressions that you have as they are speaking. They understand that it is by the spirit we will learn, and by the spirit they will teach. They are also always very humble; it is never about them, always about us and the spirit. We also had a zone meeting this week up in new caanan, which was incredible. The zone leaders assigned two district leaders to do the training and they did so well. They also taught about the spirit and the power that it has in teaching. After they set up this big maze in the dark that we all had to walk through only using the light of Christ at first (a few small lights set up around the maze) It was hard! I hit my shins a few times and was led of course a few times thinking that I was on track. But the second time they gave us the spirit (a flash light) and let us go through again. It was so much easier than the first time. In conclusion we need the spirit when we teach it was a great lesson I really enjoyed it.

We taught Matilda again this week and it went so well. She is the one from Ghana Africa who had a great understanding of the bible. This time we taught her and the lady that she nurses for named Alis. (A very nice old lady that was born and raised in Danbury her whole life.) At first she was extremely hesitant, she kept telling us that she was catholic over and over again as we were teaching her. But finally, she started to relax, and the spirit really came into our lesson. We taught about the book of Mormon. I have never seen someone that was intrigued by the things we were telling her! Here is some one that has been reading the bible her whole life and said herself that she still felt thirsty for the truth. As we told her about this record of scripture that was so new to her, it was like watching her thirst be quenched. We asked her to read and pray about the book of Mormon and she accepted this commitment.

I had a really cool experience this week with following a prompting of the Holy Ghost. There is a young man we tracted into a few weeks ago that expressed interest in learning more about our church. We have tried to go and revisit him a few other times but we were never able to catch him home. This last Thursday, after we finished our studies, I had a strong feeling we needed to go and visit Carlos. The feeling was so strong, I knew before we even got there that he would be home. Sure enough he was home and came outside to talk with us. Me and elder boekweg, taught him the full first lesson and he accepted it great. We could tell that he was going through a tough time so we testified of the comfort the book of Mormon can give.

Our new referral thing is starting to work! At our dinner appointment tonight a member has invited her child’s kindergarten teacher to learn about our church! I cant not even express through e-mail how excited I am for this! We have been working so hard for it! I hope it goes well!!! I have been preparing like crazy for this lesson. It will be weird not having elder boekweg there for sure! I am definitely going to have some big shoes to fill in this ward.

Well, I got to get going to transfers!

Until next time this is elder Barton signing out!

Letter #41

HELLO HELLO!

So this week definitely had its ups and downs for sure! Very high ups and very low downs! What do you want first the bad or the good? I will just start with the bad to get it out of the way. Tom Hughes will be moving out of Elder Boekweg and my area.. We are so sad. There is still a possibility of him staying, if he can find another place to live around here. But so far things have not been looking good. We were bummed when we got the call. I have been fasting and praying for him like crazy but we will see what the lord wants to happen. This was our awesome investigator with the baptismal date for July. I hope that things work out to were we can still teach him. When he was on the phone with us, he started to bare his testimony about the things that we have shared with him, particularly the book of Mormon. I was so happy we had the opportunity to introduce this to him! It is not over though! If he does move, I will still be in touch with him and we have already looked into the missionaries were he is moving, so it will all still be ok!

Now for the good news! Elder boekweg and I had a great finding week. We have been working so hard and things are starting to come together. We have been running into some of the nicest people ever! One day, elder boekweg and I were tracting and it started pouring rain outside! But we still kept going. Finally, a man saw us from inside his house and came running outside holding an umbrella, gave it to us and said we do not need to give it back. But, right after, he got into his car and drove away. Giving us not opportunity to talk with him. We were so grateful. We left it on his door with a note and a pamphlet when we were done tracting. Also that same day, a little old woman answered the door and we noticed a large tree branch had fallen from the tree in her front yard. Elder boekweg and I picked it up for her and then she insisted that we came inside. I think maybe her mother instincts kicked in. It is so great how much heavenly father looks after his missionaries. We sat on her couch and just talked with her. We found out that her husband had just died very recently and she was having a very hard time. She was lonely and had no one to talk to. She had gotten a job at a factory making dentist supplies as a way to meet people. It turns out that day her daughter had was supposed to meet her for dinner but due to the weather, she couldn’t make it. I could not help feeling the love that heavenly father has for this woman. I wanted to help her so bad. Because we were short on time, all I could do was testify of the plan of salvation and give her a pamphlet. I hope that she reads it; I know she would find so much comfort.

We have a Chinese investigator!!!!! I found her from a Chinese member that is in the ward that neighbors ours. The member is named shao and just moved here from China about a year ago. She is eighteen but looks like she is 10. When I started talking to her, I found out that her mom was not a member because her English was not good enough to take the discussions. I might have already told you about how I found out about her... but this week I was finally able to go to their house! It was so awesome! I came to find out that shao's mom had heard some bad rumors about our church. You know the basics. I guess it had been really hard on her to allow her daughter to even go to our church because of these rumors. I cleared up all of the rumors she had heard and she was very relieved! Then we started the lessons. I was expecting her to know a little from the previous discussions she had heard but she didn’t understand a thing. So we just started from the top. I asked her who she thinks god is. Then explained that he is our heavenly father! I told her that she can pray to him and he will help her because he loves her! At first she seemed a little hesitant, but her daughter bore the sweetest testimony of prayer and the power that it has played in her life. And the power of the Holy Ghost. The spirit was so strong! She agreed to pray, and ask god for help in her life. She then explained to me all of the things that she needs help with. She needs a job and better English. I told her I would love to start teaching her English and as she prays she will find a good job! So we will see what happens! It went really well and I was so happy.

We have also had some really good first lessons with people this week. I am really hoping to see people start to progress! We met one lady named Matilda, from Ghana, Africa! She is awesome! She reads the bible so she says that she doesn’t like to attend church because people are so off with the doctrines! She has been giving the sacrament to herself on Sundays! It is amazing how much sense our church makes if you actually read the bible, not just say that you do. No sarcasm intended. When we taught her about authority, she quickly brought up the story in the bible when the demons could not be casted out because he did not have authority! It was great I think that she will move along great!

My mom sent me the ward letter this week, full of all the other missionaries in our ward. It is amazing how different all of the places are but the work is exactly the same! They all sound like they are doing so great. I am so happy to apart of such a good group of missionaries. Well I hope that you all have a great week, thank you so much for all the support.

Elder Barton

Letter #40

Hello everyone!

 

I hope that you are all enjoying this lovely weather! It has been soo hot over here… it is insane! I have been sweating through my shirts like mad! But don’t worry, I have been applying plenty of sunscreen and various lotions so I am ok!

This week was so nuts! We spent a lot of time finding.. Our investigators were all very busy and did not have time to meet with us! So we did a lot of tracting and street contacting! Everyone makes fun of me up here for liking street contacting so much! They think I am still too caught up in my china town days. But I love it! I love talking with people! Tracting, you will talk with maybe 5 people in a whole hour.. Street contacting, you can talk to 20 people in an hour! It is fun! I love weeks when we do a lot of finding because we always meet the funniest people! This week there were some very interesting people! Everything from people that professed to be witches, to rock stars!

The rock star one was hilarious! We go and knock on the door of this huge, scary looking mansion with a large manikin in the front window wearing a mask and this short man with a beard answers. He says “oh we love Jesus come on in”! Elder Boekweg and I hesitantly went inside! As he unloaded his groceries, he talked with us about his life! He is in a heavy metal band! And lives a crazy life! His mansion also has the other members of his band living in it. The walls had huge holes and the floor was covered in dents from when they party! It was weird! He then wanted us to help him unload this huge inflatable so his kids could play on it! That was very interesting!

I also found a vine this week! Now I am not talking like a grape vine here… I am talking like a full on Tarzan vine! I saw it on the side of a street we were tracting! I of course, (as any one would do) went to go test the vines durability. Assuming from everything that Bear Grylls (from man vs wild) has said, this vine would support my weight. I gave it a big tug and then proceeded to take a swing. I am sure you can see where this is going.. I fell really hard on my back. And almost stained my pants.

I don’t know if I told you last week about the investigator I met form Haiti. He was so awesome and we really thought that he was prepared! He was prepared! But after we left his house he went on like 10 different anti-Mormon websites. It was really too bad! We walked into his house for our second lesson with him and you could already tell that something had changed. He printed off a page for each of us on why our church was wrong. We started trying to explain some of the things but it didn’t matter. He was already convinced. Not knowing what to do, I bore my testimony. I have never felt the spirit so strong as I defended everything that I believe in. It really became evident to me how much Satan does not want this work to continue on! It was sad.

As for the rest of our investigators, they are still doing great! We were not able to give Tom his blessing this week to help him quit smoking but this Tuesday we are going to! I am so excited! He is such a great guy. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen. Everyone else has been so busy and has not even been able to get in contact with us! It is discouraging at times! But, I have noticed I am always quickly humbled when I see how fast the lord gets my back. Right as I start to feel that nothing I am doing is working, we will run into some one or get a call from someone awesome. That always helps me so much! This week after a long day of tracting, I was feeling so tired and discouraged. But right then, one of our investigators called and invited us to come eat dinner with them this Friday! They are going to make Argentinean food! I am so excited!

Well, I hope that you all had a great week! Thank you so much for the love and support! I am sorry this email is a little short but we are going to the driving range! I am excited… I have never done this before! Have a great day!

 

Elder Barton

Letter #39

HEY HEY HEY!

 

This week was an awesome week for elder boekweg and I. We met some really cool people and had some great things happen! 

So to start this week off there is a story I would like to share…. Elder boekweg and I were tracting in a rougher part of Danbury, before a dinner appointment that we had around that area. On they last house we knocked, it was elder boekwegs turn to talk. As he started to speak, he was quickly interrupted by "where do you live!?!" we told him in Bethel. He started screaming at us to write down our address so that he could come bother us at our house. We apologized and walked away. He slammed the door. Then, as we started to tract his next-door neighbor, he ran outside again yelling and swearing. He wanted us to get out of his neighborhood. As we started to walk away he followed us yelling at us as we walked. Telling us that we were not walking fast enough. We just looked down and tried to ignore the comments he was throwing at us. Finally, he shoved me in the back and said "boy you are not moving fast enough." When we got to our car (that was about a block away), he saw that we had New York plates (where the mission home is) and started to yell at us for lying to him about where we lived. When we got in the car, he stood in front of us and told us to go the other way. We couldn’t back up because there was a large landscaping truck blocking us. But no matter how hard we tried to explain, he really wanted us to go the other way. As I started to inch foreword, he punched the hood of our car. This made me mad, so I pulled out our phone and called the police. I really should have done that sooner because he left right away and went home! So in Danbury there are 6 cars on patrol at a time. 4 cop cars pulled up to investigate the situation. Do you think this town sees a lot of action? When I told him what happened he said based on what you just told me, I could go arrest him right now! Do you want to press charges? I said no, but he needs to know that is not the best greeting to give someone when they knock on your door. The cop and the eight others with him fully coated in all of the latest tactical gear, (I think there was even one with night vision goggles), said that if he gives them any lip, they are going to arrest him with out question! I am not sure what happened to my little friend but I hope he is ok. That was a great way to start out the week!

On the positive side, it really was a great week! We had a really funny dinner appointment where the kids were forcing me to translate all of the latest songs into Chinese! It was hilarious! The kids brought the parents into the room and the parents called their friends all in to listen to me translate hip songs into Chinese! It was so funny… I was laughing so hard! I love my ward; the members here are so great and supportive! We played ultimate Frisbee on Saturday! The missionaries from our ward and new town ward against the more seasoned crew in the area. The missionaries owned. The others were all talking smack the whole time too and it was great!

Me and elder boekweg are going to implement a new way of getting referrals, we want each person we visit for dinner to write down 4 people and an action they are going to do to spark interest about the gospel. We really hope that it works!

Tom is still doing great! He is progressing so well! We taught him the word of wisdom yesterday and he accepted to start living it. He has been smoking since he was 16 years old, was an alcoholic, and drinks coffee every morning! So this was no small sacrifice on his behalf! He requested a blessing, but wants to prepare himself before he receives it. He is really taking it seriously!!! I love it! We are getting so close with him and Mariza! Now we just have to teach him about the law of chastity and he is set to be baptized! I have not met many people that have faith like this man so I really don’t think that it will be a problem. I love when an investigator is a better example to you than you are to them! It is so motivating for me!

As far as the Chinese people, nothing has changed so far. I am having a hard time getting a hold of the ones that I have met. And the referrals that I have gotten were addresses that don’t exist! I still have faith; I hope to see some good things happen. Yesterday tracting we found a large clan of Asian people. I was so excited to go and start talking with them! Until I found out they were all Vietnamese and Cambodian. Frustrating!

Well I love you all so much thank you so much for all of the support you give me out here! I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Barton

Letter #38

Hello hello!

 

This week was so awesome! I am really starting to enjoy myself up here, starting to get used to the way things work up here! Elder Boekweg and I worked hard and we ran into some great people! We found some great new people that are interested in learning about the church! The first one we found was in a part member family. His wife was a member and he was not. But they came to church and requested to have their baby blessed. My comp and I went over to their house and gave the certificate to them, and also invited Louis to take the discussions and learn about our church. He agreed!! He is from Argentina and his wife is from Mexico! Luckily, their English is really good! We also ran into a guy tracting that wanted to learn about prophets… he told us to come back at a different time and teach him and we set up an appointment and came back! The appointment was great! Because not only was he there but also he had two of his friends over! As we were talking to them trying to get to know them, they were being weird at first. Then, finally we found out they thought we were Jehovah Witness! When they found out we were Mormons, they became so excited! I guess both of the friends were history majors and loved to study about Mormon history! The lesson with them went great! They new a lot of information but as we helped them understand reasons behind the history and the story of Joseph Smith the spirit was so strong! We are going to meet with them again tomorrow, and I am so excited! They are a great group! Another contact that we had was sooooooooooooo exciting! We ran into a Chinese guy tracting!! He had just moved here from main land china and wanted to learn about our church! What a blessing! We have not met with him yet, but I am so excited for this opportunity! I have actually been finding a lot of ways I can use my Chinese! The librarian here is from Taiwan and I have been talking with her quite a bit! We are becoming good friends! It was funny because right away she was very standoffish. I asked her if she was Chinese and she said, “why do you need to know?” But when I started to speak with her in Chinese, she was laughing and having a good time. She requested a pamphlet about our church as well so I am really happy! There is also a Chinese girl in our neighboring ward that was just baptized! She also just moved here from China! BUT!!! Her mom is not a member yet and does not speak English!! dun dun dun! I got permission from my mission president to start teaching her the “after baptism lessons” and try to teach her mom! So I am soooo excited about that! I really hope you can all understand my excitement!

I was so scared to come up here because I thought that I would not have any opportunities to speak Chinese… boy was I wrong! I really wish I were better at just trusting the plans heavenly father has for me! OH and we also have some really good news! Tom Hughes has agreed to be baptized! This was the awesome guy with the mullet! We are not quite sure when (due to some problems that he has) But he was so excited when we mentioned baptism to him! I have never seen someone so accepting of what God wants him to do! He was already baptized as a catholic, but he understood authority so well, he said, " even though I was already baptized as a catholic, can I be baptized by the right authority? I really don’t think my baptism was legitimate in the Catholic Church!" he is so cool! It has nothing to do with Elder Boekweg or I! It is purely him! To be honest, I felt like I was having a bad teaching day, when we were teaching him authority! I kept stuttering, and bouncing around like crazy! It was purely the spirit that has taught him these things. What a great guy! He also invited Elder Boekweg and I to go ice climbing with him next winter and was very discouraged when we told him we could not leave New York! He is so cool. Sorry I am being so repetitive but it is so true!

I am learning so much up here! Elder Boekweg is teaching me a ton! He has this real love for people he teaches and is purely motivated by that! He is also so patient! It is very relevant what heavenly father wants me to learn for him! It has been good so far. I am not sure how much longer he will be here considering he has been here 5 cycles, but I hope I will learn all that I need to.

Well I hope that you have all had a great week! Thank you so much for all of your love and support out here it helps me so much!

Love Bao Zhang Lao