Email: May 20, 2019 - "I like to sticker my uke"

May 20, 2019

Email: May 20, 2019 - "I like to sticker my uke"

For context me and my companion have been on a sticker craze for the past week. Surprisingly most stores will just hand out to us free stickers, so I got a collection piling up.

Also, for more context, some people have asked questions about last week's intro to the email. No, I was not actually thrown in jail or bailed out. We were over at a member’s house and their daughters "threw us in jail" which was just them taking us to the couch.

This week was great, busy, but great.

First of all, we had exchanges this week with our zone leaders and I got to go with my good friend Elder Dehlin to Gardena (for the 8th time now on my mission) it was an absolute blast! We got to do a lot of service, give some blessings and eat some food.

While we were on exchanges my companion had his “My Plan” interview down in Palos Verdes with President Galorath. Now this interview took almost 2 hours (he went in at 8pm) so he didn't get out till 10pm and it was half hour drive from PV to our apartment. So, while my companion is doing that on exchanges, Elder Dehlin and I were doing our stewardship interview on the strand (street next to the ocean) waiting to hear anything from them. Finally, they call us and let us know the situation and due to the time, we ended up having to spend a second night on exchanges. So, I got to hang out with Elder Dehlin for 2 nights in a row and it was awesome.

The next day (Thursday) we had our zone conference and it was different from what our normal zone conferences were like, but it made it fun.

The rest of the week was spent working hard in our area and having some interesting conversations.

Saturday was a pretty awesome day and let me tell you why.

So, for those of you who haven't watched the show Criminal Minds (I have watched all the episodes at least the ones that were out before my mission) there is a character on the show called AJ.

Now I have always heard a rumor that the actress that plays AJ lives in my area (and that she was a member but not active). Well on Saturday we found her...

We talked to her husband (also a member) and had a nice little chat and he was willing to let us in to share a short scripture. So, we sit down with the him and his kids and I went to grab something to sit on. As I was grabbing this small wooden box thing, I noticed a pillow that had a picture of the entire cast of the show on it (I already knew this was her house but this confirmed it) I didn't say anything and we began to share our message.

About halfway through someone comes walking down the stairs and I look over and boom all the memories from 12 seasons came flooding to my mind. It took a lot of will power to stay focused on the lesson, but I made it through.

At the end if the lesson we were shaking hand with everyone and as I shook her hand she said "AJ by the way" so I thought it was safe to make the connection with the pillow and the show since it is her character’s name right? So I did. But soon after I realized she never formally introduced herself turns out that her first name and middle name put together as initials would be AJ, so she actually goes by AJ at home. So, I probably looked like a fan that was just trying to contain himself but lost it a bit (which is 109% accurate). So not only did I look like a fool in front of a famous person, but she probably read right through by bad acting as well. I don't know if I explained this story well but just know the missionary lesson was great but Elder Barton may have ruined it all in the end.

Anyway, there are lots of great pictures this week and a lot of them so be prepared for multiple emails of pictures

-Elder Barton "the gringo bandit"

The gringo bandit sauce

Goku the pomeranian

The temple doors

Our trip to the Visitors Center with Betty
(little did I realize that I was the tallest and the whitest and was in the spot with the most light so I out shine everyone)