Email - November 14, 2017

Hello, hello! It is Elder Barton coming at you live from the laundry room of the MTC. Six days in and already I feel like a different person and sorry in advance for the lack of pictures. I'll try my best to remember in the future and maybe I’ll send some later today. It's crazy time flies by so fast here.

First things first, right after my last I met my companion! His name is Elder Terry and he is from Tallahassee. He is convert to the church and he was baptized in December of 2015. He is the only member of his family and he is so excited to be out here. Then there is my district, district 45b. Our district consists of Sister Frazier from Alpine. Sister Fairbourne from Idaho and Sister Howell from Missouri and those three sisters are in a trio companionship. Then there is Sister Davidson from Washington and her companion Sister Pulsipher from Germany (her dad is in the Air Force) all five of those sisters are going to the Washington DC South Mission. Then there is Elder Boyer from Denver and his companion Elder Svenson from Canada and they are going to Jamaica. Up next are Elder Day who is also from Canada and is going to Jamaica as well and his companion Elder Lawerence from Salt Lake City who is going to Boise, Idaho. After them are my roommates Elder Terry (my companion) who is going to LA with me, Elder Mcintosh from Denver and his companion Elder Amartey who is from Canada and they are also going to DC South Mission. So 5 sister missionaries and 8 Elders, so 13 missionaries total and 7 of them are going to DC South. Kind of unfair in my book. So yeah that is district 45b and they are probably some of the funniest people I have ever met in my life.

So quick note, on the second night we met with our Branch Presidency and they are really loving and caring there is President Judd and his wife, President Stucki and his wife (1st counselor) and President Edwards (2nd counselor) and all of them are absolutely amazing. As our district met with them that night they assigned a district leader and the district leader is *drum roll* ELDER TERRY! That's right my companion is the district leader and it's a perfect fit for him because everyone in our district absolutely loves this guy. So Elder Terry has this goal where he wants to get to know as many people in the MTC as possible, so by default, that means me too. Because of this Elder Terry is MTC famous. He participates in making comments during devotionals when asked to and so many random elders and sisters come up to him and say how he killed it (which he did) but he claims he's not a "social person" which is obviously a lie. So that was Thursday night (I hope all of this is making sense so far)

So with Elder Terry being the district leader that means we are in charge of grabbing the mail twice a day for us and the other missionaries. So I’ll know first thing if I get anything from home. It’s always so fun to me to hand out the mail to the other missionaries in the district just because they get so happy and I love my district and I always want them to be happy. If you could hear our discussions in class, you would know that this district is going to do amazing things out in their missions.

The first few days of the MTC were hectic because the schedule was constantly changing from day to day but now that its P-day everything should be getting into a regular schedule. I've also heard that once you make it to your first P-day that the time in the MTC just flies by. The most notable thing that happened on Saturday was Elder Terry, Amartey and Mcintosh were walking with some the sister missionaries from another district and just trying to get to the know them better and I turned around to ask Elder Terry a question and as I turned back around to see where I was walking I slammed straight into a pole. It was apparently extremely loud, but hey, it made the sister missionaries week, so I’ll take one for the team.

Sunday in the MTC is actually pretty similar, but unfortunately I have to wake earlier than normal because Elder Terry has meetings in the morning so I just sit in the ponder box the whole time and try not to fall asleep (which has been a reoccurring issue). Life here is just a lot different than I thought it would be, but honestly it feels a lot like college (because I totally know what that is like). During Sacrament meeting on Sunday, Elder Mcintosh and Amartey were called to be zone leaders which means I have the district leader as my companion and the zone leaders in my room. I'm the only in that dorm that doesn't have a leadership calling but it’s okay, what are leaders if they don't have anyone to lead? Elder Terry and I had a cool experience during dinner on Sunday. We were going to set out stuff down with some seats by our district when we noticed an Elder sitting by himself crying. So Elder Terry approached him and tried to ask him what's going on. The Elder just brushed Elder Terry off, so we went and sat our stuff down and we went back over to the Elder and sit with him and asked him what was going on and as we did that the Elder just completely broke down and start sobbing and asked us for help. So, we stood him up and started moving him out of the cafeteria and we was clinging to Elder Terry. Eventually we got him to walk on his own and we just dipped into the nearest empty room and we pulled up some chairs and we just listened to him. I won't go into detail about what he said because it isn't my place, but us just listening to him helped him so much and he was extremely grateful for what we did for him.

So, the class room were my district meets is on the 5th floor of the new MTC building and it’s on the west end of the building. So, if you happened to stand on the street to the west of the building I would be able to see you down there on road. Also, if I go to the south end of the building I can see the entire valley. Mapleton, and all the way down to Salem. I can see the windmills out in the distance, so I have that to be thankful for that. At least I can see home while most of the other missionaries are hundreds of miles away.

The classes here very focused on how to deal with stress and how different things can play into helping and investigator. So, speaking of investigators, our teachers would act as investigators and we would go in and teach them. So Elder Terry and I had the chance to do 3 lessons with Matthew, who is played by our teacher Brother Wilson. Matthew is agnostic and is just wondering who God is. The cool thing is after our 3 lessons with Matthew, Brother Wilson pulled us aside and showed us who Matthew actually is. The Matthew that Brother Wilson portrayed is actually based on his twin brother who is atheist. Brother Wilson told us how our lessons helped him receive revelation on how he could better teach his brother about the gospel. This week we are teaching Cathi, who is played by Sister Perez. Cathi is 16 and a junior in high school and is on a religious hunt to find a religion that clicks with her. We've only had one lesson with her and began to tell her about Joseph Smith and how she can relate to him. Then we have TRC (Training Resource Center) where they bring in "investigators" most of the investigators they bring in are members of the church, but they said 2 or 3 are real investigators. So we have the opportunity to practice our teaching skills with people who want to help the missionaries or are genuinely interested in learning the gospel. So this week we have 2 TRC investigators. First there is Austin who wants to know more about our religion because he wants to help his fiancé Alex (who is LDS) who is having trouble with her parents. Then there is Matthew. That's right Matthew, now it's not the same Matthew as before but they are really similar. Matthew is agnostic and wants to know more about our religion because he has had a lot of Mormon influence in his life and wants and understanding of what we believe. This Matthew though looks a lot like Andrew Garfield. He asked to borrow my glasses and did a side by side with a picture of Andrew Garfield and it was scary similar.

Well that's about everything from me this week. Just 2 weeks until I’m shipped out to LA. I've also managed to see 6 people I went to high school with since I've been here

Love you guys!

The new and improved

-Elder Kyle Barton