July 14-21, 2014

Hello my family and friends,

How are you guys doing this nice day? I hope you are doing good and enjoying the nice summer weather. I sure am! I love the nice warmth we've had, it makes me grateful I'm not serving in a hot place, I don't think I could handle it. So last week as I was leaving emails I realized I didn't send a spirtual thought, so I will this week. It comes from some studying I did on Conversion for a talk I gave on Sunday. This a quote from Marion G. Romney.

"Now there are among us who are trying to serve the Lord without offending the devil. . . . must eh choice lie irrevocably between peace on the one hand, obtained by compliance with the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the prophet Joseph Smith, and contention and war on the other hand?"

This was a cool quote that interested me and made me think. It reminded me of the scripture that says "You cannot serve two masters." It made me think over things in my life and see if there were things holding me back from serving God 100% and I invite you all to do the same.


It has been a great week! It started out last Monday as we went to another Hutterite colony. It was so fun to go around and see the colony. We were given a tour by a group of girls who just love the missionaries! At the end when we were in the school house, they did our hair and let us try on their clothes. We only looked like Hutterites long enough to take pictures. It was really funny, but I don't think I could live that way. Today for P-day we are going out to Waterton. The whole zone is going, but we had already planned to go with a member before the zone planned it. Maybe we will see them there. 

Of course we have also done missionary work this week too! We have put a lot of focus into finding this transfer. This past week did service for two potential families. The first family the Fossum's we ran into when we went to go contact another house, their neighbors, who we knew were non-members who recently moved from Nova Scotia. They weren't home, so we went to the Fossum's. Sister Connor thought they were members so she offered service and gave them our number. About a week later they hadn't called us back, so we decided to stop-by and see how they were doing and we ended up scheduling to come back the next day, Saturday, to come back and help her mow her lawn and week the flower bed. We are going back on Tuesday to continue helping her. We also did service for the Moore's. We do service for them a lot. This time they called us and asked us to water their garden while they are away on vacation. Before leaving we gave Donald, their 8 year old son, a children's Book of Mormon. He loved it and so did his mom. She said it was going in the book bag to read on the trip. The Moore family is progressing towards being ready to be taught. They are awesome.

We were only able to teach one of our investigators once this week. We saw Sam when they were getting their house blessed and we taught a lesson to them on how they can strengthen their family. We did stop-by Scott's house and visited with them for a few minutes. They were doing good, just getting ready to go to Lethbridge and we were going to a lesson. We scheduled a time to go see them on Friday, but then Cheryl called us and told us that Scott was in the hospital because he was sick and got dehydrated. We will try and stop by a little later this week to see how they are doing. We have been working with a few less-actives too, and trying to help them come back to church.

As this transfer draws closer to an end, I just keep reflecting on how much I've grown so far in my mission. I can't believe how much I've changed and grown. I know it probably wouldn't have happened on my mission, or at least as fast has it has here. It just makes me so grateful for the opportunity I have had to come on a mission and change myself, but also help those around me change. Yesterday I gave my second talk on my mission in fourth ward, which is the same ward I gave my first talk. I got to choose my topic, so I prayed and felt like I should talk about conversion. That topic I realized is relevant to my life right now. I am noticing myself becoming more converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I love it. I want to continue learning and growing on my mission.

I can't believe this week I will be out on my mission for 10 months, and I will turn 20! It will be crazy, but crazy fun. I love this gospel and being a missionary!!!!

Love, Sister Barton