MERRY CHRISTMAS

Family,

MERRY CHRISTMAS! It was so wonderful talking to you and seeing you. Sorry the connection kinda died, but it was great talking to you for as long as I could. That was my favorite Christmas present ever. 

This week is transfer week. We will find out what is happening tomorrow at District Meeting (a little different cuz in Palawan you find out on Monday, so patience...) I'm excited to see what will happen. Hopefully I won't transfer haha but ya just never know. 

Anyway it was wonderful to talk to you and to see your beautiful faces. Another Christmas on the mission and it was just as good as last year. This year was especially great because I got to do the thing that gives the most joy in the world... Give. I bought some simple inexpensive presents for the Mesa Family and on Christmas day (after talking to you) brought them to their house. They were so excited. Their face lit up and they were just so grateful. I really think my favorite thing in the whole world is giving people things. I just love it. I bought an individual gift for each of them and then a couple gifts for the whole family. I also brought a huge bag of some of the clothes I don't wear anymore and gave it to them. Wow their faces were priceless. I can't wait for one day when you get to meet them. I'll plan a time when we can all come to the Philippines and you can meet all my great people :)

Christmas night we also had the opportunity to go to our ward mission leaders house to eat dinner and that is where Sister Kumari also skyped. The food was great and she had a good time skyping as well, but my favorite part of the night was when we got to share a message of Christmas. We just followed the Spirit while sharing and we got on the topic of Joy and where our Joy comes from. We asked all of them where they get the most joy in their lives and the first thing they said was "family". 

We were on the subject of Jesus Christ, Joy, and Family for a while and the Father of our ward mission leader gave an amazing insight that I will never forget. He said something like this in Tagalog, "The greatest joy and happiness of Heavenly Father comes from families. Out of all his creations, worlds, skies, waters, creatures, all these things, his greatest creation is the creation of the family. So if his greatest joy comes from the family, of course our greatest joy comes from the family. As well as the whole purpose of our lives is to one day receive eternal life and become like our Heavenly Father. The only way we can do that is through the Atonement and through the family. The Atonement is for individuals, but it is for individuals in order for them to repent and become closer as a family. Stronger, closer, and obtain a greater relationship with their families. In order to enter the Celestial Kingdom we need to be in families."

As he was talking my whole heart was filled with joy and love. Knowing I had just talked to the people who bring the most joy to my life... my beautiful family. I am so grateful for you all. It's hard to be away from home during the Christmas season, but it is so worth it. I love being here in the Philippines and serving these great people. The meaning of JOY is who you need to put first in your lives. 

J- Jesus Christ

O- Others

Y- Yourself

I know that as we always serve the Lord, Jesus Christ, and others first, our own needs will be met. I'm so grateful for my fabulous family. I love you all with my whole heart. Thank you for being the best family in the world and for loving me even if i'm a bit different now. hahaha I think you are all wonderful and just think next time I see you it will be in the Salt Lake City airport in person :) haha what a crazy thought. I don't like it. So i'm gonna end it at that. I love you all. Keep being great examples and chose the right always. 

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton

Ps. Random facts for you. My ankles/feet are permanently dirty from being here. Literally I try to scrub them all the time, but there is just permanent dirt. I also have permanent bruises on my legs from falling up the stairs on my birthday and they have never gone away... hahahaha anyway that's just some random knowledge for you all. LOVE YOU

14 MONTHS

Heyyy Fam,

Guess what? I GET TO TALK TO YOU IN LESS THAN 1 WEEK AND IM SO EXCITED!!! I can't even handle how excited I am to talk to you. As well as can you believe I will be turning 14 months on my mission this week? 4 months left.. ahhhhhh where in the world is the time going? It's so funny having Christmas here again in the Philippines. Last year, it was awesome, but I didn't know half of the things that were going on cuz I was brand new and just kinda was in awe all the time at the difference of America and the Philippines, but now i'm practically ancient in the mission and I can't even remember what America is like.. hahah but I AM SO EXCITED for Christmas this year. It is going to be so great.

I remember thinking last year that Christmas was really going to be terrible because of all the changes, but I remember absolutely loving it. So I am really excited to be able to serve the one and only Christ on His beautiful day. It's such a blessing to be a missionary at this time of my life. I feel so grateful for all the challenges and hardships that bring the blessings and the joys of missionary work. 

It's so funny just reminiscing back on my first couple of transfers here in the mission. I was just so bata and I didn't know what I was doing. haha I cried everyday because of the language and I really just struggled so hard. Now, I get to just kind of enjoy missionary work. I literally just get to teach and testify about Jesus Christ and His beautiful gospel everyday and help others come unto Him and accept Him in their lives. What a beautiful work this is. 

This week we have had some ups and downs, but things are really starting to look up. We had our Ward Christmas party on Saturday that was suppossed to start at 6:00pm. I don't know if you have ever heard of this, but it is called Filipino time. Filipino time just kinda means everything will start later than they say cuz nothing will ever start on time. So we were thinking it would maybe start at 6:30 or 6:45pm, just planning for the worst... BUT GUESS WHAT. Literally 15 investigators came to the party at 6:15pm and literally we maybe had 5 members there... ahhhh it was so rough so we just talked to them and tried to make them feel comfortable for like an hour and a half and then finally the party started at 8:00pm. Soooo that was a rough one on me... I always thinking im gaining more patience here on the mission, but I WILL NEVER get used to filipino time.

The Ward made up for it the next day though. They brought 3 referrals to church and it was awesome. :) So honestly the missionary work here just keeps going up and it's really exciting to say the least!!

We also found the two cutest little girls to teach who are from a part member family and they are just eating up the lessons. One of the little girls literally asked if she could have a "Mormon Bible" hahahaha so that is the picture bellow.

As well as I got to go on exchanges with Sister Zarbock. She is from Draper Utah and went to Corner Canyon and said she totally knew Jess :) So that was really fun. I love being with Americans. There are only 3 of us in the whole mission... hahaha they came in July and when I found out I started screaming so that was really cool. I really enjoyed exchanges with her ahaha she's really awesome and we just got on great. 

Anyway my week was really good and honestly I just feel blessed to be a missionary. The closer I get to going home the more I find myself praying to Heavenly Father to make the days slower and longer. I can't help but feel weird when I think that in just a short 4 months I will be headed back to America.. But I don't have to think about that for 4 more months so that's the great part :) I'm excited to continue onward in the most amazing journey of my life. I really love being a missionary. 

I feel so blessed to be able to serve Christ during this CHRISTmas season. He is the reason why and I can't even express the love I have for Jesus Christ. He gave his life, his death, his resurrection, his everything so that we can be happy now, and forever. I'm grateful to be able to celebrate his birth this Christmas season without all the fancy presents and things, but just with love and through spreading the word of His beautiful gospel. I love all of you with my whole heart and I invite you to remember why we really celebrate Christmas.

Thank you for being such a great example to me and for always supporting me and being there for me. I love you all and I will see you in a short 6 days :))))

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton 

Power, Spirit, Revelation, Inspiration.. I got it all

Dear Family,

This week has been sooooo good! First of all we had this thing called a Mission Tour this week and we got to have Elder Allen D. Haynie come and speak to us. He is part of the area Presidency here in the Philippines. He is such a cool guy. He had the Spirit with him so strongly, but he also has the best sense of Humor. 

Being a leader in the Mission I was able to attend MLC and he taught almost the whole thing. He talked about the way we can really change our mission to be "that" missionary who has "those" experiences that everyone talks about after their missions. He really got me so pumped up to just work and work and work until I die... (dying means go home pala) I literally was just so ready to get out and work and kill it. Then on Thursday we had our actual Mission Tour which involved all the Manila Mission Missionaries (besides Palawan) and we received even more inspiration for our areas and how to be the best missionaries and "Find Scattered Israel" It was just a really great conference and a really great week. 

One thing that I love that Elder Haynie does every time he speaks to people is when he shakes our hands he tries to personally get to know each one of us for a min or two. So on Thursday I was kinda sick, so I literally didn't have a voice.. I sounded like a man. So he's like talking to me and I tried to talk back, but man it was a struggle. Turns out he actually went to Bountiful High School... he's a little older than Dad, but maybe they know each other or something. idk, but he's cool. It was a really awesome conference. 

We also had a Sister named Anny stay with us from Palawan. She is an amazing person. Background on Anny. She is from Brookspoint Palawan which is like the bottom part (Narra Zone, only Elders serve there). She is a school teacher and she is so cool. She has always wanted to go on a mission and she just recently decided to submit her papers, but she needed to get all the check ups and medical things first. So she stayed with us and we took her to the hospital. She has an enlarged heart so they were thinking she could maybe just get on some medicine to control it and then she could go. As we went with her to the hospital on Friday we found out that she is going to have to have a lot more done to her than what was expected... 

She will come back in two weeks to get more tests and have more things done to her, but wow it was awesome to just have her stay with us for a couple of days. I really felt how much faith she had. She wants to serve so badly, yet her circumstances may not let her. The desire she has to serve the Lord is incredible. I feel so blessed I was able to meet and get to know her. 

I felt a little bad because on Saturday I couldn't even talk and my whole body hurt so I stayed inside to rest and drink water and take like 8 medication pills.. so that was a little rough, but i'm okay now. Sister Turner (the medical nurse) thinks that because I had Dengue every little sickness I get turns really big and kinda messes up my whole system. So i'm gonna have to be kinda careful. I'm doing great right now though!

I'm so excited to skype you on Christmas! 2 WEEKS AND I GET TO SEE YOU! I feel like it's been sooooo long! So i'm super excited. I'll think of some cool things to tell you, but maybe if you have any questions about anything write them down over these next two weeks and i'll answer them when we skype. :) 

This week was awesome though, throw out the sickness and boom this week was a perfect week. And to top it off we had fast and testimony sunday yesterday because we had stake conference the week before. Wow how powerful the testimonies were yesterday. I swear this whole week has just been a week of power and revelation and inspiration and greatness. 

I love you all and i'm grateful for all you do. Thank you for the package and thank you for you love. I am grateful I get to serve and I get to witness big, small, amazing, great, gentle, powerful miracles everyday here in the Philippines. I feel the Spirit everyday so strongly and I am just really grateful for these last couple of months I have to really give it my all. Keep being an example to everyone and share the light of Christ. 

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton 

Pictures... Sister Anny and I, Sister Anau sliced a lizard in half because it was all over the place in our room and I couldn't handle it (she was sweat'n so hard but she over powered the lizard), and my beautiful Christmas tree. 

Miracles on top of miracles

Family,

Hey so this Computer doesn't send pics.. so sorry for the sad news, but next week I will send you a bunch :) Anyway How are you all? Can you believe we have only 3 weeks until Christmas. The greatest time of the year and the time where I get to talk to all of you??? Ahhhh i'm so excited. 

So many things have happened this week. Man, it has been so busy. We had 2 exchanges this week meaning I left to work in the other sisters areas and man it is really hard on me sleeping in other people's beds. Wow.. I feel like a zombie. I haven't had a full good night of sleep in like 2 weeks.. and i'm starting to get sick just like all of you... Yay family unity. Nothing like Dengue, so nothing to stop me from working, just the normal cold sickness.. It's starting to get cold here so I sleep in like a ton of clothing, but the thing is.. the cold here is like the really hot over there... so i'm gonna die when I actually have to come home. haha 

My exchanges this week were really good. We have a lot of Visa waiters in our mission. So I was able to go with two visa waiters. One of them is waiting on her visa to serve in Germany! So that's super cool. I'm pretty sure she is the first Filipina serving in Germany. She's awesome! The other one is Sister Peralta. She is Sister Tekanene's companion. And guess where she is called to serve... The Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission. Soooo wooooo she's gonna be going to Utah soon. She was supposed to leave on the 7th of December, but it got delayed so now she doesn't leave until January 2nd. But Mom, you have to make sure you visit her and give her a bunch of Filipino things... I will tell you more of the details when it is closer, but I want you to meet her because she is really cute. :) So anyway I love being a STL cuz I love going on exchanges IT IS SO FUN!  hahaha

I have some really awesome news as well. So last week we found that awesome family if you remember, the Mesa Family. We taught them again this week and they are literally my favorite people ever. We have a ton of investigators, but they are my favorite (you aren't supposed to have favorites but they are mine). We went and taught them for our last appointment and we taught the WHOLE family. So we taught The Restoration and wow the spirit was so strong. It was the most amazing experience I've ever had. As I was saying the first vision, with all of their eyes on me, I actually started to cry. The Spirit was so strong and my testimony just continues to grow as I talk about the Restoration of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful for all that I have in my life and I am beyond grateful for Joseph Smith and his willingness to be the Prophet in this dispensation. I know in my whole being that he is a true Prophet of God.

The miracle on top of the miracle of the Mesa Family is Ronillio Mesa. Ronillio is the Father. Before we started to teach them we were talking to him and getting to know him and we found out HE IS A MEMBER. Apparently when he worked in one of the Provinces he was baptized and just hasn't been active for the last couple of years. So that's amazing! I just feel like Heavenly Father really placed the Mesa Family right in our path so we could find them and help them accept the gospel in their lives. It's so exciting and just confirms to me that Heavenly Father is "mindful of all people" (Alma 26:37). I'm so grateful for all my mission has to offer and for all the things we get to do as members and as missionaries to help build the kingdom of God here on the earth. 

I'm so excited for the Christmas season and to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by serving Him. The one gift I am constantly trying to give my Savior Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father is my soul and my agency because those are the only things that aren't yet his. So as we surrender our will to His, that is when we will be the happiest in our lives. I love you all and i'm excited to see you really soon :) Continue to chose the right, read the Book of Mormon, be happy and share your happiness with others by looking for opportunities to serve and help those around you who are struggling or may be lost. I love and appreciate all you do and all your support. 

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton