Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Elder Burnside's last 2 weeks

Why don't we change things up and start with pictures that Dallon sent on November 3rd.  I think he had fun on his birthday.  As you can tell he likes candy and treats.

Here is  his November 3rd letter
Thanks for all the Birthday wishes!! Sounds like everyone had a fun Halloween. The primary kids testimonies are always fun, there is a kid here who gets up every month, and thanks his dad for waking everyone up to go to church, and he says he is grateful that UCLA won and all kinds of funny stuff, everyone loves his testimonies. We had a good week this week with our investigators Alfred and Dana.
Dana got into trucking school and has several job interviews lined up!! We were able to read the intro to the Book of Mormon, and the testimonies of the witnesses and Joseph Smith's testimony. We taught the restoration, and at the end he just told us that he better read the book and find out if it is true. He committed to read the Book of Mormon everyday! He came to church yesterday , and really loved the testimonies, it was perfect for him because most of the testimonies talked about peoples conversion stories with the missionaries. So they all applied to him very well. His only concern real concern that he expressed is that he believes all good is good, and that it doesn't matter what church you are a part of as long as your are doing good in the world. But we know that that concern will be resolved as he gains a testimony of the Book of Mormon and continues to feel the spirit that we bring, and the spirit there is at church.
Alfred is still recovering from his eye surgery, but we made some real progress with him. Earlier in the week he was watching some show called Ancient Aliens, and the show mentioned Moroni, so when we came over later that week he was really interested in Moroni and wanted to learn more about him and the book of Mormon. So we taught him the restoration and had a really good conversation about the Book of Mormon and the importance of Jesus Christ. He expressed beliefs that are kind of similar to ours, but are way out there. He pretty much just replaces God with Aliens, so that is a concern that I haven't seen before, but we know it too will be resolved as he reads the Book of Mormon. We left him with a Book of Mormon, and bookmarked 3 Nephi 11 the part when Christ comes to the Americas, and he promised to read it when he was recovered from his eye surgery.
We had lots of fun celebrating my birthday! For lunch we went with the other Hollywood Elders to Buffalo Wild Wings, our favorite place to eat! There they sang me Happy Birthday and we had a good time. Then after that we just went to several members homes where we got loaded up with food, cheesecake, and some candy. When we were walking back to our car to head home, we saw someones old SUV die so we decided to go help them.We tried to push the car to the side of the road, and it was TIRING. We pushed it a block uphill, and when we talked to her afterwords found out that she forgot to take off the e-brake! It was all good though, we gave her a mormon.org card and headed home. We had a curfew of 6:00 because Halloween gets pretty crazy in LA. They have a massive Halloween party for gay people right down the street from our apartment, so we were happy to be in by 6 and avoid that.
So we had a fun week this week with plenty of progress. I hope you all have a good week. I love and miss you all!!!
Elder Burnside

I know his emails are getting shorter/fewer a little bit.  I suppose that means that he is getting comfortable with both the work and where he is at.  His email on November 10 was shorter and to the point.

How was everybody's week this week? I hope you have all had a good time. Our week was okay, we had some progress but not that much.On Wednesday Elder Pierce, the new missionary came on exchanges with me, and we just went and talked to people on the streets for pretty much the whole day. It got pretty tough, that was the most rejection I have ever had street contacting. At one point 17 people in a row told us some form of no not interested. But in the end we actually got several potential and new investigators that we hope to meet with this upcoming week. So it was a solid day.
Saturday we had stake conference, and since we were getting a new bishop, we had two members of the quorums of the seventy there. One was Elder Craig Cardon, and I can't remember the other ones name, but they gave really good talks about the work of salvation, and the part that everybody plays in it. One focus they made was that everybody needs to get to know there neighbor, and far to often we enclose ourselves with members of the church and need to outreach more. So it was really good.
Then on Sunday the new stake presidency was called. And they had all the former stake presidency and all of the new stake presidency bear their testimonies. It was a pretty powerful meeting. They then spoke again on missionary work, so that was a really important focus this weekend.
We didn't really have a chance to see Dana or Alfred this week, we were able to visit them each briefly and they are both doing well, but we didn't have a chance to make much progress. Our week was mostly just talking to people on the streets, as it will be this next week too. Its moving a little slow right now, but that just means the work is going to speed up shortly. Hope you all have a great next week! I love and miss you all!!!
Elder Burnside
Well that is all for the last 2 weeks

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