The transition is made, sounds like it went well! Brock is 16 years old!! Wooo!! Now you can have him do all of your grocery runs hahah. I miss the good foood! You will have to send me pictures of the birthday-Father´s day. And yes they do celebrate Father´s day here, I got a ¨happy father´s day treat¨ in church. (they had extras and said I would be a future father¨. Yes South America is absolutely CRAZY when it comes to soccer. On game days it is almost impossible to teach people and every time Chile scores the entire city yells ¨GOOOOAAAALLLLLL¨¨, so the bright side is we always know who wins haha. You guys had Art City Days?? Hahah mom, your story of the zipper made me laugh because I can imagine it happening! You and Nichole always seem to have something happen you go on rides haha, I imagine that the people who saw you as you got off might have had second thoughts about getting on hahah! At least it didn´t make you sick though, that´s what always happened to me in the space ship one!
I feel so grateful that Trevor is going through this experience. It sounds like that phone call was really spiritual and special. It makes me so happy and relieved to hear that even though it´s hard there, it´s a good hard, and he is learning a lot it sounds like. I pray for him, and for you all every single day. I know that God is watching over our whole family. Sometimes it can be hard to ¨keep the faith¨ with certain things, but as long as there is faith, there are miracles. I know that Trev can do this and I know without a doubt the Lord is helping him every step of the way. You know, I think the mission has really made me grateful for an eternal family, and having been born in this gospel. I see many families who haven´t even thought of the idea of an eternal family but we have been sealed and are so lucky and blessed to know that.
We had a conference this past Tuesday as a WHOLE mission (which was great to see all my missionary friends), and Elder Robbins came. He is in the presidency of the seventy and lives in Springville! We all got to say hello one by one as missionaries and I told them I was from there too. We were able to do a question and answer session with Elder Robbins, President Kahnlien, his wife, and another seventy from South America and his wife. There were several things that caught my attention and I have been working to set goals to improve and do better. One of the questions was about sealed families and how if a child is strays from their covenants, is the sealing broken? The answer is no. In fact, there is quote from Joseph Smith and though I can´t remember it word for word Elder Robbins said that with the power of the sealing, the loving arms of the Lord will always reach out to members of the family that have strayed. What an amazing promise. Other than that we talked about how to be better missionaries and be REAL missionaries, not robots (and believe me, there are missionaries that have no idea how to be themselves), and to use our minds. God has given us our minds and expects us to use them. I loved the conference. Our mission president asked if our mission was an obedient mission and Elder Robbins said that you can feel when a mission is obedient and when it isn´t and that we have an obedient mission and blessing will come with that. So we are doing good and on our way to improvement!
Well my new companion certainty is...different haha. He is a good guy but lacks social skills. When he first arrived he did some really weird things, I had tried to call our investigators and he told me no. He also tried assuming all of the responsibility of the companionship and just honestly was a little prideful. Well, I had just about had it with that and wasn´t going to have a change like that so I talked with my district leader and we got everything resolved. We get along well though no worries! He does things that I find a little strange and what not but hey, that´s the mission! I have to get used to thing and learn to work with the comps that I get. The good thing about us is that we teach together really well! I´m happy for that and happy we will be able to continue improving.
Okay, the family that we are teaching left for some relatives this weekend and get back late last night so they couldn´t go to church BUT we still have a lot of hope! Bernarda feels like the goal for her baptism is a little soon but we are going to teach her the restoration today and commit her to pray about Joseph Smith. They are a great family and i feel like they're going to get baptized it´s only a matter of time. I really just want to teach them in a way that they can feel the love of God and know this is the truth. I will keep you updated!
Today we played basketball with the other elders and Elder Schramm (the marriage missionaries), we played gringos vs. Latinos and OBVIOUSLY we won. Hahah it was like 50 to 12. So next week we are going to split up the gringos and play a bit of a fairer game. We played with an investigator too, his name is Jaime. His family are members but he has taken a little more time. We had a family night with him last night and looks like he will be getting baptized the end of this month! He is an awesome guy. We are teaching him as well as the sister missionaries. So hopeful with this double effort we can do it! haha.
Okay well, I'm going to get those shoes today then because it looks like it´s going to rain for 3 days this week. (let me tell you, when it rains, NO ONE lets us in). Hahah it´s basically just a test of enduring to the end of the day because everyone tells us to go home and go to bed. But yeah, i don´t want to ruin my shoes so I will get some today. Thanks! Tomorrow is Elder Bush´s birthday! I think we are going to celebrate our b´days together so that should be good. Seriously I am so happy that he stayed in my district, we are pretty much best friends in the mission. We keep each other sane on those harder days hahah.
Well I truly am happy that you´re all doing well and had a great week! I can´t believe how fast time is going by, I'm already almost at 9 months! I love you all so much! Be safe and have another great week (enjoy that wonderful summer weather!)
Love Elder Barton
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