The greatest gift = Jesus Christ

Hello Family!

Wow, this week has been crazy. Amazing and spiritual and dramatic and happy and stressful and many miracles have been seen. To start off with I went on two exchanges this week and it was the most dramatic thing of my whole life... holy, I had to fix their problems and correct them and help them and I did like an hour interview with them each and man... it was so hard. Just for a brief moment I felt like a mission president and oh how grateful I am that I am not and never will be a mission president. haha On a more positive and upbeat note... THE MESA FAMILY IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!! So I honestly am so happy and so grateful to see them get baptized. It will be a truly great day. It's amazing to think that in just a short two transfers with the Lord's guideance and direction we were able to OYM and find a beautiful family, teach them, love them, help them, and now we are able to see them enter the waters of baptism. I am so grateful for the tender mercies the Lord poors upon me everyday. This is the last week of the transfer and I think it will be my last week with Sister Kumari. It's funny because at first we were such different people and had to figure out how to get a long and be unified and love each other, but now honestly I love Sister Kumari and I'm kind of nervous to maybe get a new companion.. It's crazy how much we have gone through together and how we are so different yet can get down on our knees and serve our Master with all of our heart and learn how to love each other. 

I've had such a cool experience these last couple of days. I'm writing you on Tuesday because we had our Zone Conference yesterday. President Ostler asked me to teach about Repentance and honestly I was so nervous. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I have ever had though. I wanted to be prepared and everything so I studied and pondered and really felt for myself why we repent and what repentance is and how I can apply it more in my life. The Spirit was so powerful during my studies and I really gained such a stronger testimony of repentance. 

Honestly repentance is one of the most important doctrines everyone needs to know. In Romans 3:23 it says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We are all sinners and because of that we can never return to Heavenly Father. The whole purpose of our lives, the one thing we are striving for, is to live so we can return to Heavenly Father, but because of us being human and making mistakes and sinning we can never return to Him. BUT, because we have such a loving Heavenly Father he sent His son Jesus Christ to come to the earth and die for us. To literally give his life so that we can be free and so that we can overcome the bounds of eternal death and instead we can look to the Atonement and repent and receive eternal life. Isn't that the best news you have ever heard in your entire life? Man, I can't even begin to express how grateful I am for the opportunity I have to change and to become a better person and really "put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Jesus Christ" (Mosiah 3:19) 

There is so much hope in our life because of Jesus Christ. The hymn I stand all amazed is one of the most in depth uncomprehending descriptions of the love Jesus Christ has for each one of us, "that for me a sinner he suffered, he bled and died." How grateful I feel for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and for the knowledge I have of knowing Heavenly Father loves me. Truly loves me to send his perfect son to die for me. An imperfect person who quite frankly doesn't deserve His love, get's to be saved because of love. 

I love what Elder Dale G. Renlund says about repentance in his last conference talk. He said something like, "Repentance is not a choice, it is not an optional back up plan... it is a commandment." I absolutely love that. If we want to receive the blessings Heavenly Father wants to give us and receive the blessings of eternal life, we have to repent. We have to use the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to be saved. And why would we not want to? It is free and it gives you the most indescribable feelings in the world. "to keep repentance before us always, we must partake of the sacrament" The sacrament is so important to take in our lives. I can't remember who said it, maybe Jensen, but I remember him saying we cannot afford not to take the sacrament. That is so true. The sacrament shows that we are willing to keep trying, keep changing, and keep repenting. I am so grateful for the sacrament. I am so grateful for the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ and for his glory and perfection. 

I feel so unworthy yet so grateful I get to wear the name of Jesus Christ on my chest, on my heart, and in my soul everyday. I am a true disciple of Him and I know that will never change. Even when I come home from my mission. I will still be a disciple of Jesus Christ. 

I just really feel inspired to share some of the things I learned this week about the atonement and about repentance and how important it is to apply it to our daily live by repenting everyday and doing things to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. I have never felt so clean in my life then right now on my mission. 

One quote that I absolutely love is by President Packer, he says, "The Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces. What it fixes is fixed. It just heals and what it heals stays healed. The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, the Savior has promised that he would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. The Atonement can wash clean every stain no matter how difficult or how many times repeated."

It's so important for us to repent. No matter how dark our life has been, because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can see the light. We can feel happiness, joy, and forgiveness because of Him. It's such a great gift and I am so grateful for who Jesus Christ is and to know Him. 

I'm grateful for all of you. I appreciate everything you do for me and for you love and for your sacrifice. Continue to chose the right and live the way we need to in order to return to our loving Heavenly Father. Thanks for all you do. 

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Sister Barton

PS. ELDER DAVID A BEDNAR IS COMING TO OUR MISSION ON FEBRUARY 25 AND I AM SO EXCITED!!! :)))))

Learning the Lesson

Dear Family!!

Wow, can you believe in just 3 months (and a little bit) i'll see your beautiful faces in real life? What the heck that's the weirdest thing to imagine. I feel like my life back home was just a dream. Sorry if that sounds mean to say that I feel like my family wasn't real, but it's true. Until I actually see you in real life I think I will always believe you were just a dream hahaha

But this week has been a great week!! We were able to learn a lot through teaching, participating, and listening in 2 zone meetings. We were assigned to teach in the Makati East zone meeting. I'm not sure why because it is not our stewardship, but it was fine for us to teach. So we taught that one on Wednesday and then on Thursday we were able to have our zone meeting as the Makati zone and wow I really felt like it was so amazing. Elder Nolty is one of the zone leaders in our zone and holy is a very creative zone leader and tries little experiments on the zone each month. This month it is called reaching for gold to get the silver. By setting really high goals and trying to get 4 baptisms per week hopefully we can see more of the zone striving for that to get at least 1 baptism per week. He also shared about how it's all about our mindset. If we set our mind for baptism and to be positive and to always think "I can" then we will be able to do anything we set our mind to. I really enjoyed his lesson and I felt like that was something that honestly was kind of a spiritual impression that I really needed at this time. After he shared about being positive always and having a mindset of knowing we can do it, I really got me motivated and just spiritually lifted. 

That night (Thursday night) after zone meeting Sister Kumari and I went out to work. We ended up getting punted, but I was so optimistic and happy and motivated to just go go go. We just OYMed a bunch of people and shared little short doctrine messages about why the gospel would help bless their life. We got so many return appointments and many potential investigators, it was amazing. We also found a cute lady who had 4 older kids who still lived with her. So we were able to share with her and testify about how the gospel will bless her life and shared about temples and families. I just really feel like this week I have had a new perspective on everything and I just feel so happy.

It was funny because this morning I was kind of looking back on my mission and experiences and companions and things and I really felt so grateful for all the many things i've learned. I have learned so many thing that I never would have learned if I hadn't come on a mission. I really feel so grateful. I remember thinking back to different times during my mission and after almost every hard time i've had on my mission at some point I would talk to President Ostler and of course he knows everything that goes on. He always asks me, "because of .... *whatever experience, what did you learn?" I really love thinking about life more from that type of perspective. To know that everything that happens to us is just for us to have an experience and to learn. It really gives me comfort to know that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for each of us and gives us experiences to grow and to learn and to be better people.

 I'm grateful for all the things that I have learned on my mission. It's amazing to think that each area, each trial, each companion has been given to me so that I can learn and so that I can grow. I love to think about the different lessons I have learned because of my mission and because of the experiences and trials I have. I'm so grateful to be a missionary. To labor so hard everyday to feel the simple joy of seeing a new face come to church and accept the gospel. 

After so much labor, 3 of the most devoted beautiful people I have ever seen will be able to enter the waters of baptism on February 5th. I know that this day will be a glorious day for them and a day they will never forget. I'm grateful to be a missionary and to be here in the Philippines serving these wonderful people. I love working and laboring with all my heart so that people can recieve the blessing that I already have. It's amazing to be a missionary and to see the truth and love of God flood into these peoples hearts and change their lives. 

I am here to love, lift, encourage, inspire, and most of all to serve. As we all get down on our knees and serve our master Jesus Christ we will feel the spirit so much more in our lives and we will love more of the people in our lives. I love you all with my whole heart and I'm excited to give everything I have to the rest of the days in my mission.

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton 

ps. heres some cute pics hahaha 

15 Months

Family,

Oh my... time is going so freaking fast and I can't keep up with it. To think that in just a short 3 months I will be home. Back in America and i'm going to go insane. Ahhh it's going to be crazy, but anyway I'm so happy with what I have accomplished and have learned on my mission. I feel like I have grown so much and really have been taught a lot of valuable life lessons that I never would have been able to learn anywhere else, only on a mission here in the Philippines. I'm so grateful for all I get to do everyday. I'm grateful for the heartaches and the happiness and all the emotions I feel everyday that come along with missionary work.

This week has been especially good. Honestly one of my most favorite weeks on my mission. We were able to go to MLC on Tuesday and Sister Savea and Sister Holzworth were able to stay with us from Monday to Tuesday and that was awesome. I really love them both so much. On Tuesday at MLC I found out a lot of things that made me really happy. Let's just say we will be having so many changes in our mission and I AM SO EXCITED. I think the missionary work in the Philippines is just getting started and the changes that will be made to the mission will help boost the work so much. I really can't wait for it to be announced to the mission. :)

Also this week we had interviews. I got to Interview with President Ostler and we talked about a lot of things, but one of the things we really talked about was love. We talked about my mission and how honestly my mission has been really really hard (for me) and he told me that my mission isn't the mission that I probably necessarily wanted, but it is the mission that I needed. I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for a lot of the real life lessons i've learned on my mission. 

Like I said earlier we talked a lot about love. I think that one of the most important lessons I have learned on my mission is love. I have learned how to love people even in the most difficult circumstances. To just see them for who they really are and how Heavenly Father sees them. Heavenly Father loves each of us so much and I know that as we see people the way He sees them we will develop so much more love and charity in our attributes that we will be exceedingly different from the world because of the love we have. Sometimes loving people isn't easy. Sometimes it is actually really really hard, but I know that as we try our best to communicate with others and try to look for the positives in everyone we will be able to see what Heavenly Father sees in them and we will learn to love them. I really think the verses in Moroni Chapter 7 are so true. It's so important for us to develop Christ like love in order to be as he is.

I'm striving everyday to develop more and more love in my personality and to share love with everyone I meet so they can feel not only that I love them, but that Heavenly Father loves them as well, through me. I'm trying so hard to develop the attribute of charity. It's actually a really really hard attribute, but I think it's one of the greatest attributes anyone could every have. 

One thing that I have seen myself doing is looking for example of love in the New Testament. I have read the new testament many times within the time of my mission, but this time it is so different because I am really seeing how the life of Jesus Christ was literally all full of love. He had charity for ALL men. Not just the ones he like or the ones he thought were cool or good looking. He loved everyone. He truly loved them. There is nothing fake about the love of Jesus Christ. I know that as we all really try to develop the love of Jesus Christ we will see so much more miracles in our lives and we will see everyone and everything in a much more positive light. 

I really love love. The gift of charity that Heavenly Father can give to us as we strive to obtain it is magnificent. I'm grateful to be in the Philippines where so many of the people are humble and loving. It's easy to love people who love you, but the key is to love ALL people, no matter who they are you can love them. Anyway that was just a thought that I had a lot throughout this week. I invite you as well to try to magnify the love you carry with you. Love everyone as Jesus does. He is the perfect example. We can all look to him and try our best to become as he is with the help of our Father.

 One of my favorite chapters is Matthew chapter 5. When Jesus Christ teaches the Sermon on the Mount. In verse 44 he says, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"

I truly love you all and I am excited to see what these last 3 months have instore for me. I'm excited to continue to love all the people I meet here in the Philippines. I really believe the gift of charity is the greatest gift on earth. Thank you for all you do for me and the love you show. I love you all and thank you with my whole heart.

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton

(Sorry i forgot my camera chord.. so i'll send pics next week...)

Optimism (no matter what)

Family,

Hello again Fam. This week has been good. I've learned lots of lessons and it's been awesome. I'm grateful for this upcoming week cuz we have so many events starting with MLC tomorrow. So i'm really excited for that! I'm doing great and I really love my mission. 

I have so much I want to write and tell you about, but the one thing I really want to talk to you about is about optimism. Which is funny because this week I was the exact opposite. I don't think I have had a week where I have been so pessimistic than I have this week. I don't know what happened, but seriously this week I got an all time low. I felt like everything and everyone hated me. My companion, my area, the people, the ward.. literally everything. As we worked everyday we got "punted" I don't know if they use that term in other missions, but in this mission it literally means that no one accepted you to teach them, all your appointments fell through, and really just nothing worked out. So we were getting so punted everyday as we worked this week. One thing about me being a missionary is I HATE GETTING PUNTED. I literally can't handle it. I get so fired up and just want to kill everyone (with the gospel of course) I really just don't like rejections. When people turn us away, say they aren't interested, or make fun of us, man it just really gets me sad. 

So one day this week I just couldn't handle it anymore. We had been walking all day in the heat of the sun and no one was home. Literally we went to like everyone we could think of walking probably like 10km this way and that way and finally we get to the last person we could think of going to.. and guess what. She wasn't home. So I bursted into tears and just cried on her doorstep. I really felt so sad. I felt no love and just like everything really sucked. Then I said a prayer. I really really simple prayer. I just asked for Heavenly Father to help me get through this day. And that was it. When I gathered myself together and stood up, I decided to smile. I decided to do what I needed to do and be a disciple of my Savior Jesus Christ. As we were walking back to the road, we decided to OYM a lady who was standing outside. Her name was Niang and she was amazing. She was a Catholic, but had a really good friend who was a Mormon and she was always interested in what Mormon's believed in. She let us teach her and we taught the Restoration powerfully. We then gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read it for herself. A couple days later we came back and she had read the whole introduction and had started in the beginning part. 

As this small and simple miracle occurred and can't help but think how important it is for all of us to just keep trying and to keep going no matter how hard things get. This experience proved to me that Heavenly Father is mindful of each one of us and he really does want what is best for us. 

I have felt like many things have been a real struggle in this area and with some of our people, but this week I decided to end the week being as positive and as happy and bright as I could. People then could look at me and want what I had, but when your sad and grumpy it's hard for people to want what you have.. haha but as we ended the week and as I continued to make this my goal the more success we found. Not only with investigators, but with the Ward as well. We went from no one talking to our investigators and no one really caring about missionary work, to a ton of the members going up to our investigators and talking and fellow shipping them. As well as we coordination in a great meeting with all of the Auxiliary leaders about missionary work and wow, It was amazing. 

So I testify that being optimistic and staying positive at all times can really help. It has helped me so much on my mission and i'm grateful for the change of heart I had this week to change and be more happy and be more positive about everything. :)

Plus it's more fun to be happy anyway. The joy I feel as a missionary though is indescribale. As I describe the hardships and rough parts about missionary work, it doesn't mean that there aren't the same amount of joys and happiness. I am so happy and I feel so grateful to be a missionary. The joy that fills my heart when I see my investigators come to church, or a less active become reactivated and taking the sacrament again, or someone simply accepting a message and changing their lives step by step is literally indescribable joy. 

I'm grateful I get to feel this joy everyday. I love you all with my whole heart and I'm grateful for you. Thank you for being wonderful people and for staying positive and happy no matter what. 

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton 

Ps. Yes Mom, that is the dress you gave me for my bday. It looks better on her promise :)

The New Year of 2017

Family,

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Wow, I can't believe it is already 2017! That means... this is the year I will be coming home... isn't that crazy...? Wow. But sorry, this letter may be a little short cuz I'm running out of time... I love the New Year because it means we get to have a fresh start. We get to make resolutions and hope to have them be accomplished. Last year I made a couple resolutions and one of them was to do all of my personal progress. I know that sounds a little weird, but back in March I found out that Sister missionaries who haven't completed their personal progress can do it during their missions. So I decided to give it a try cuz I've always felt like a little bit of a failure not getting my medallion ever since I came on the mission... So guess who actually accomplished one of their long time 2016 resolutions??? MEEEE! I completed my personal progress :) So I thought that was kinda cool. I really enjoyed doing it and I learned a lot as well. So I would recommend doing it because I think it is a good way to learn the divinity and role of women.

As for this new year.. I'm so excited to think of what I can do this year to make it meaningful and things. I was reading earlier in the week in the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes. In chapter three verses one to eight it says, 'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace."

I really like these specific verses because it just shows that Heavenly Father has a perfect time and season for everything that we do and everything that happens in our lives. The best part is we can control a lot of things that happen, but sometimes we just have to follow His plan for each one of us and exercise faith in Him and pray that it is the correct one.

I know that there is a time for everything we do in our lives and that Heavenly Fathers timing is the perfect timing. He let us come to earth at this specific time so that we could learn and develop our own personal skills to become the people he wants us to become. I'm grateful that I get to use His time right now by being on a mission and serving the Lord with all of my heart. As I keep thinking about what 2017 will hold for me, my mind keeps going back to timing. Everything is in His timing and we can chose if we want to use our time wisely and do our best to be the best we can be and make this year the best it can be, or we can chose to waste time and do pointless, useless activities that have no eternal value.

I want to do things with a purpose. That is why I am grateful to be on a mission because everything we do everyday has a purpose. I know it will be different when I come home, but I know that I will continue to give my time to the Lord and I invite you to as well. As you make all your funny resolutions like loosing weight, saving money, not using electronics, or watching tv as much, I just encourage you to maybe make a more spiritual resolution that will help build the Kingdom of God and that will help you become more spiritual intune. I'm grateful for all of you and I am grateful for this wonderful gospel. I hope all of you have the best 2017 ever!

Mahal ko kayo!

Sister Barton