Happy New Year!!! What did you all do for New Years? We had to be in
the apartment by 6, so we just had a little party with some hot wings
and sparkling cider. Sounds like you all had a good vacation.
Although now you are at the worst part, returning to reality which is
never fun haha. It got super cold just in time for you in California
haha, that was definitely the coldest week we have had while I have
been here. It is definitely important to focus on taking your time and
focusing on quality, but that is something I was never good at either.
One thing we learned this week that I like is something Elder Maxwell
said in a talk that we were listening to while driving around. He said
that the straight and narrow path is one that is very uphill, and we
will hit lots of pot holes and loose gravel, while the adversaries
path is wide and well paved, downhill and very easy. It will always be
harder to stay on the straight and narrow path, but as we put in the
work necessary to stay on the path we will find that it is most
definitely worth it. Those are some good new year goals. Mine are to
find teach and baptize more of course! But something I am really
trying to focus on is being more diligent, too often I find myself
slacking off a little, not that I was known too do that at home or
anything haha, but I want to be more consistent in my work.
We had a somewhat slow week again this week. A lot of our
appointments were with Lubia and Gavinn getting them ready for
baptism. WE finished off the lessons they needed and got a baptismal
program made. All they have left is the interview tomorrow, and then
the Baptism is Saturday!!! They are super excited, she has already
invited all of her extended family and all her friends, she has people
that are coming from other parts of the country for it so we can't
wait for Saturday!! Now we are really going to put the focus on
getting her 16 year old son Zayne involved with the young mens, he has
only come to church once, and doesn't really want to just like all
other 16 year olds. But he just needs some friends in the church,
because he doesn't have a lot of friends, and if that happened he
would definitely start participating a lot more. John has been out of
town visiting people for the last week or so, so we haven't met with
him but plan to later this week. Bram has also been busy with his
family since their kids are out of school, and can be a handful haha.
We have spent most of the week just trying to find new investigators
now that Lubia and Gavinn are going to be baptized. We didn't actually
find much success from our own efforts, but we did get several solid
looking referrals that we are going to meet with this week. One
miracle we did have was this morning, we were getting back into our
car after going to the store, and a guy comes up to us and he says
that he is 3 dollars short for getting some oil that he needs in order
for him to get home. It just happened that we had exactly 3 dollars in
our car, and so we gave it to him and he was super thankful. He said
he wished there was someway to repay us, and we told him he could by
visiting the website on a pass along card we gave him, and referring
himself to the missionaries. He said that he would definitely do that,
and thanked us once again before going into the store. It was really
cool to see God put a teaching opportunity in front of us like that.
Oh transfers are tomorrow, I am staying here but Elder Provost is
leaving :( He is going to the Inglewood zone to serve in the El
Segundo ward. My new companion will be Elder Ching, who is from
Hawaii. Everybody I have talked to says he is super cool, so I am
excited! That is about it for my week, I hope you all have a great
week! I love and miss you all!!!
Elder Burnside
This was followed by another email on January 12th. Picture of Dallon and Elder Provost from new years are included.
It sounds like every one is doing about as well as they can for having
to go back to work/school haha. January here is pretty much just like
the other months, probably because there isn't really ever much of a
break for missionaries:) And you always blame your kids as the reason
you aren't rich, yet once again you are going on an expensive trip
with OUT your kids haha. We actually had a really good week this week!
On Tuesday I met my new companion Elder Ching, who is super cool. He
is from Hawaii and has been out on his mission for 19 months. He like
video games, sports, especially baseball, and he is also on the quiet
side. So he is almost like a 6'5" version of me haha. He is literally
a foot taller than me, so we are an interesting looking
companionship:) We had some funny conversations on the street this
week. we started talking to somebody on the street, and he said we
could come visit him sometime, so I was writing down his number and I
asked him what his name was again. As I asked that my companion was
looking at the dude's name tag which said Jason, the guy then said his
name was Joshua, and then he looked right at my companion, and slowly
moved his hand up to cover his name tag it was really funny haha. We
had another conversation with a guy who asked us what color God was,
and so we asked him why it mattered. He said you can't love somebody
if you don't know what they look like. So I came back with the clever
response of, "So are you saying that a blind person can't love
anybody" to which he responded Yes. I didn't even know how to respond
it was pretty funny haha.
We were finally able to meet with Lucas again this week! We went over
for dinner on Thursday, and then again on Friday for his birthday. We
had a lot of fun, and then shared a scripture with him afterwords, he
still can't come to church because he works so much, we will get him
there eventually though. We have a whole bunch of names on the
less-active list that nobody knows anything about, and we contacted
one named Franco, who hasn't been to church in 20 years since he got
out of high school. But he said that he wouldn't mind coming back, he
just isn't sure how, he was happy to meet with us, and now we are
going to take him to see Meet the Mormons at the visitors center this
week. So that should be exciting, he is pretty cool, and genuinely
wants to come back so we are excited for him! Richard s going through
his phase of not wanting to meet with us again, so we are just waiting
through that.
We met with Lubia this week to make sure she was all ready for her
baptism, and we met Zainn's uncle who is going to be staying with them
for a while. His name is Lloyd, and he recently got evicted from his
house, we met them at Del Taco which is literally 1 block form their
apartment. He has had 2 strokes in the past and so he walks very slow,
they asked us for a ride home but we are not suppose to do that so we
said no figuring it may take up to 15 minutes max. So we walked with
them and it literally took 2 hours to walk the 1 block to her house,
we felt so bad for not giving him a ride, but because of it we were
able to teach him some of what we believe, and especially after seeing
Lubia's baptism he wants to learn more! Zainn has also begun to show
more interest, so we are probably going to start teaching both of them
here really soon! We had a lesson with a guy named Lou who a member
referred to us, the member has been talking to him about the church
for a couple months now, and so we finally had a lesson with him on
Saturday. We taught the Restoration at the members home, and Lou
accepted a baptismal date for Febuary 14! He was very involved in the
lesson, and really is interested in religion, so he is looking pretty
solid!
We had Lubia and Gavinn's baptism on Saturday, it was interesting; for
some reason my baptisms can't ever turn out normal. It was suppose to
start at 4, but Lubia and Gavinn didn't show up until 4:50. We were
expecting 40-50 people but only like 20 actually showed. The guy who
was suppose to do the opening prayer didn't even come so it was a
pretty crazy start. But once it actually started everything turned out
well, I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, which went well. Then the
baptisms went well the spirit was really strong, and her son Zainn
definitely felt the spirit because now he is a lot more open to
recieving the lessons!
On Sunday Lubia and Gavinn got confirmed, which went well. They are
going to be so solid in the church. Right after church Lubia got her
temple recommend and is going to do baptism on Wednesday! Then we had
a super cool miracle on Sunday night. We had gotten a referral from
some other missionaries for Bryan who said that he was looking for a
church for him and his fiancee, but he never answered his phone, so we
went to his address. It was an apartment building, and we didn't have
an apartment number, so we knocked on all the doors and about half of
them answered and they all said that they didn't know any Bryan. So we
came back a couple days later to try the rest of the doors and one of
them answered and said that Bryan lived at apartment number 2. But
when we had come the first time a girl came to that door (who was
probably his fiancee) and said she didn't know Bryan. But we decided
that we needed to talk to Bryan and give him a chance to accept the
message, so we prayed that he would answer the door, and that his
heart would be softened for the message. So we knocked and sure enough
Bryan came to the door and said we could come back on Tuesday! So we
had an awesome week of work! I hope all goes well for you all. I love
and miss all of you!!!
Elder Burnside
Pictures from Lubia's baptism including a picture of the previous elder's that worked with Lubia.
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