Okay so my testimony on the power of missionary work. Well I think you
just got to start out with the fact that missionary work is just flat
out awesome! There is nothing that can ever bring you more joy than
assisting some one in coming closer to their Heavenly Father and Jesus
Christ. That is what the gospel is all about, looking outwards and
loving others. God has complete joy and happiness, and he gets it from
his work which is, "to help to bring to pass the immortality and
eternal life of man." Missionary work is our chance to participate in
that work and feel some of that joy. The spirit that is there when you
do missionary work is sssooooo powerful too. Some of my most sacred
spiritual experiences have come from instances where I was helping
someone come close to Christ. I will always remember Thomas's baptism.
It was amazing to see someone that I was close friends with to be
baptized, I have never been happier. I don't even think I would be
happier if the Jets won the Superbowl, that is how powerful missionary
work is. The spirit that I felt walking out of the baptismal font was
so strong, I will always remember it. That moment not only helped
bring Thomas closer to our Father in Heaven, but it also brought me a
lot closer to my Heavenly Father. Missionary work has really brought
me so much closer to God. Every time I come out of a lesson where the
spirit was strong, or we help someone to accept baptism, or do
anything to bring others unto Christ, I feel that much closer to
Christ and Heavenly Father. Over the past year, my personal
relationship with God has grown substantially. I had always believed
in God and all that, but once I started to participate in missionary
work, that is when It became real for me I guess. It was when I
started to do that, that I actually felt like Heavenly Father was my
literal Father, and that he actually listens to me, knows and
understands how I feel, and does answer my prayers. Missionary work
has changed my life, and I am so thankful for it. I truly love to
serve others and help them come closer to God. I am thankful for the
opportunity to serve a mission, and i love it. I know that the this is
the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and I know that this is the true
and living church. I know that Jesus CHrist is at the head of the
church. I know that we have a Father in Heaven who loves and knows
everyone personally. I know that as we help others come unto Christ
that we will also come closer to Christ with them. I know that there
is nothing better that we can do and nothing more joyful than
missionary work. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
He also has sent a couple letters the last two weeks. Starting with the letter from March second.
Wow that is a ton of snow! I sent the testimony about missionary, I
hope it is long enough and I hope it is what they were looking for. I
am glad to hear that everything is going well. We had a decent week,
not a lot of appointments but we had a good amount of success in
finding new investigators.
Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Azera over in Baldwin Hills,
while Elder Ching went to a District Leader training. It was a
tttooonnn of walking, I am so thankful for a car! WE just went around
asking people what they knew about the Book of Mormon, and then
testified top them about it. It is something that the mission as a
whole instituted recently, and it really seems to be better than just
trying to give someone a pass along card.
Wednesday we went to help a new sister in the ward move her stuff into
a storage unit, she told us it was just a few things and would take no
more than 30 minutes. When we got there there was only 1 dude there
and a ton of stuff! We packed that storage unit to the brim, there was
no space whatsoever in it, and we hadn't even put in her mattresses,
we ended up having to throw those away. And since there were only
three of us it took 3 hours instead of 30 minutes. But service is
always fun, I love it! We then went and visited a former investigator
named Ron that a missionary that was in this area in the past told us
to visit.WE went and visited him, he is a bit crazy. He is super into
conspiracy stuff, and when we went over there he was watching some you
tube video about how the earth is really hollow and Hitler worked with
Aliens. So he is crazy, but he said he wants to believe in God it is
just hard for him, and he wants us to come back, so we will. Gotta
take what you can get right? Haha.
Thursday we went and printed off all the referrals that missionaries
in this area had gotten over the past year, and it was a list of 51.
So we spent the second half of this week trying to contact them and
see if the had become interested again. We actually found several new
investigators from it. We are going back to visit Rosie tomorrow. She
has at least 2 kids that we know of, and said she was interested in
eternal families. She was happy to see us, and really wanted us to
come back. We have an appointment with a lady name Kim too. We talked
to her on the phone and she says missionaries come over a while back,
but she would love for us to come over. THe thing was the referral
said it came in when me and Elder Provost were here, but we never got
it. Then we talked to one other guy named Eddy, he was out of town on
vacation but he said he would love to meet up with us when he gets
back. He said he really wants to talk about the Bible, so we think he
may be a bible basher, but I guess we will see!
We had a lesson with Lubia and talked about tithing, fasting, and fast
offerings. She actually remember most of it from the first time we
taught it, which is really good, because she usually has trouble
remembering what we taught. She is so solid in the gospel though, she
doesn't really understand a lot of it, but she has felt the spirit and
know that whatever we teach must be right. Which really shows a lot of
faith, and is a quality everyone could use.
Sunday we didn't have any investigators or less actives at church,
which was the first time that has happened since I have been here.
Then it rained all day so one of our appointments cancelled, and there
was nobody outside to talk to. Do it was pretty quiet, we just tried
to go see if potentials or less-actives were home. That was our
week,. it was a great week of finding, so hopefully next week can be a
great week of teaching! I love and miss you all!!
Elder Burnside
And finally we got another letter yesterday March 9.
I am sorta used to daylight savings time, although I think I liked the
last one better haha. Sounds like you all had a good week. Our week
was decent, a bit slower than last week, as we had several of our
appointments with our new investigators get cancelled.
We did some service for Ron, the older man who use to meet with
missionaries. We went over to his house and took down all his
curtains, washed them and put them back up. and cleaned up other
little things. We are going back this week to vacuum, and shampoo the
carpets. Then we had a lesson with him on Friday at the visitors
center behind the temple. It was pretty cool, when we were trying to
decide what member to bring, we both decided on a member named Mitt.
It turned out that Mitt already knew Ron so that was pretty cool. Our
lesson went really well too! When we had previously met Ron, he stated
that he didn't believe in God, but he wanted to. But he also didn't
really express any desire to do the things necessary to gain a
testimony. But when we showed him the Christus, and watched some of
the videos they have at the visitors center he made a complete 180. He
got really excited to pray, read the scriptures and come to church. He
said he was going to go home, and the first thing he was going to do
was pray and ask God if he was there! It was really cool to see the
strong spirit at the visitors center soften him.
We had a visited a couple times with Lubia. We went over one day and
read 2 Nephi chapter 33 with her. And just talked about the importance
of the Book of Mormon. And how we need to read or listen to it
everyday whether it is just for 5 minutes or an hour, we need to have
some of that spirituality in our life everyday. We also went over
another day to give her a blessing as she had been struggling with her
apartment situation and things in her family. She absolutely loved the
blessing, she said that she felt completely more at peace and felt so
much comfort from that. So that was pretty cool.
Other than that our appointments fell through, so we just spent a lot
of time finding, but we didn't find any new investigators this week.
So that is about it, I hope you all have a great week, I love and miss
you all!!
Elder Burnside
No pictures the last couple weeks maybe next time......
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