Email - November 21, 2017

Gooooooooooood morning Mapleton! And all those who are tuning in. It’s Elder Barton back again but sending this from my bed.

So, this week has been a roller coaster. To start things off, Remember the pole that I walked into last week in front of the sister missionaries? Yeah well, I haven't seen the light on that pole work since then. So, I guess I did end up leaving my mark on this place after all.

So, the new MTC building has a bunch of cool murals in the West and East lobbies of each floor. I'll try to get pictures of some of them before I leave. Oh yeah 6 days until I hit the streets of LA. It's funny because technically we are on week 3 in the MTC, but we haven't even been here a full 2 weeks. Also, I forgot to mention last week, but turns out the MTC does not provide hangars and I don't have brown shoes to match my navy suit.

We got our flight plans this week! So, my flight plan for the 27th is to check out of the MTC by 9:50 and my flight is at 3:00 pm and arrive LA at 4:00 pm. It's weird looking back my time at the MTC has gone by so fast. The days feel so long and looking ahead the journey is going to be so long. Also, the Elders that are going to Jamaica are now visa waiting. So, they packed for Jamaica and they are now heading to Vancouver, Canada and Minnesota. So yeah, they are going to need some coats.

So, this week in TRC we had Matthew and Austin. Matthew is a super smart guy. When Elder Terry and I were teaching him, he understood a lot of what we were saying but he wasn't really taking it to heart. He was very logical in how he thought, and we couldn't really get through to him, but he learned a lot. Austin originally was there to help comfort his fiancé who was going through a hard time by learning about her religion. By the end of our four lessons with him we managed to make have him understand that there needs to be a point where you learn for yourself. He mentioned that if he got baptized it would cause a lot of problems within his family because they are all Christian. We explained that if he would be the pioneer for his family he would be the one obtaining the blessings for them. So we committed him to baptism on December 12th. Woot, woot. This week for TRC we had Oleg (Don't know anything about him yet because he didn't show up to our appointment) and Scott who has a lot of questions for us. I'll keep you updated on them

But honestly life out here has been hard. I have the family picture by the window next to my bed and I'm not going to lie I want to come home really, really, bad. But I listened to a talk by Elder Holland called missions are forever. In the talk he says " There will never be a bigger disappointment than a missionary who doesn't understand their mission. This is so much bigger than any of you understand. Don't you dare go home because you will never have an opportunity to be as close to an apostle as you have right now, and you will never get this opportunity again. So, don't waste these next 24 months" I’m taking that to heart. I've been praying a lot and I talked with Brother Pond (my teacher) and he said, "as time goes on and your faith increases, your worries about home will fade" so I guess it's just a matter of time. I don't really know why I'm out here, but I will figure it out at some point in these next two years.

Hymn 97

Take care everyone. I'll be sending some more pictures later.

I will see you all in 63 million seconds (2 years)

-Elder Kyle Barton

I decided to send the worst picture of my district because that's much more entertaning. 

Elder Amartey, Elder McIntosh, Sister Fairbourne, Elder Boyer, Sister Frazier, Elder Svenson, Sister Pulsipher, Elder Terry, Sister Davidson, Yours Truly, Sister Howell, Elder Day, and Elder Lawerence.

This is a mural of Moses parting the Red Sea on the third floor of the new building.