November 16 letter

No pictures this week, just a letter.  My other son and I just got back from San Diego helping a sister in law remodel a bathroom.

That is good that you guys had a good time in San Diego. Mom sent pics of the house and the bathroom in San Diego, they are looking good. I am glad you had a good week. Our week too was really good.  On Friday I was with Elder Fifita on exchanges. He cam to my area and we went and visited Jeannine. We shared with her a talk from the priesthood session of conference by Randall K. Bennett. It was called Your Next Step, and about how we need to take the next step in coming closer to God. And we told her that her next step was baptism, and she agreed surprisingly easily! She said that she had been praying and thinking about it a lot and that she was finally ready to do it. She finally came to church to! Then on Sunday we went over and went over all the baptismal interview questions and she aced them all so we are good.

We also got two new investigators, Paula and her son. She is an old catholic lady and Is Very knowledgable about religion. So we tried to teach the restoration but in turned more into a question and answer intellectual conversation then a spiritual discussion. Update on JJ, his uncle is still causing us problems. His uncle keeps putting us off on signing for permission, but we found out that he isn't even the one who has custody. His aunt that lives in Utah apparently has custody, and we hope to fax the permission slip to her so we can get it signed and get him baptized. 

We had a cool miracle Saturday night we needed one more conversation and were at our apartment with 40 minutes left in the night. So we walked around for 38 minutes and didn't see a single person. Then right before we walked inside a lady came out of her apartment across the street and we were able to have a good talk with her. She was a
very nice Christian lady but not interested. 

Otherwise that was our week. It was super exciting because of Jeannine. Please keep her in your prayers, I know that they definitely help! I love you and will talk to you later!! 

Elder Burnside

November 9 letter

Start with the November 9 letter.  First of all a picture that Dallon sent of he and his district.

Onto the letter.  In our letter we let Dallon know that his sister Janelle is pregnant and they will have a baby before he gets back.

Sounds like you had a great week. That is so exciting about Janelle!! It is so exciting to be an uncle haha. Our weather here has cooled down but nothin like Los Alamos haha, you will enjoy it in San Diego. We haven't really done the mission plan too much on our mission but it is a good idea. Our week was also pretty good! We went on exchanges and saw a couple miracles. We taught a couple lessons. We taught a referral named Kiyoshi whose half sister is on. Mission. We taught him the restoration and he is semi interested but pretty non committal. We also taught another referral named Richard who was pretty much exactly the same. We received a referral named JJ. He is a nine year old Tongan kid. The other elders were teaching him but he is in our area. So we went and talked to him, and he is so prepared! We just went through the baptismal interview, and he has a strong testimony and is so ready to be baptized. The only problem is he lives here with his uncle during football season but come December he will move back with his less active parents in Texas. So we aren't completely sure where he will be baptized. But that was a super cool miracle. We also ran into Ricky who is a guy we met way back at the beginning of last transfer, and he gave us his new number and so we will meet up with him soon. On Thursday we had a lesson with Jeannine at the visitors center. It was awesome! We focused it on keeping the Sabbath day holy. She loved it, at the end we watched a video about some missionaries baptizing a family and the spirit brought her to tears. It was so good, and she is so close to being baptized. On Sunday she was going to come to church and then 30 minutes before she found out that the Catholic Church was having a service for all the members that died that year, one of which was her husband who passed away in February. So some bad luck there. But we stopped by that night and read the Book of Mormon with her and she will come to church next week.

So our week was really good. And hopefully this one will be as too. I love you guys and will talk to you later!!



Elder Burnside

November 2nd Letter - A trainer again

It's November 2nd and Dallon is a trainer again.  First of all some pictures.  The first is Elder Burnside and Elder Weidrich's last day together.  The next two are Elder Burnside and Elder Taylor from Las Vegas Nevada.  Good looking Elders.

And now with the letter.  It was Elder Burnside's 20th birthday on Saturday.  I think that is why they went to Island's for dinner.

I am pretty sure that the reason you can still remember the day I was born is cause I was born so it was only like the best memory ever hahaha. I am glad you guys have had a good week though. I got the birthday package thanks! Me and my companion have enjoyed the treats, and the lego thing was pretty cool. I also got the suit, and it all fits well and everything, so it is all good! Our week has been pretty good. So my new companion is Elder Taylor. I thought that was pretty funny since my trainers name was Elder Taylor. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada and came straight out of high school. He is 6'4'' so once again I got the tallest trainee/companion. It has really become a theme on my mission. While we were waiting to find out who our trainees were going to be, the trainers were all talking and all the other trainers called that I was going to get the really tall one, and sure enough haha. But Elder Taylor is super cool, and we have had a fun time in our week as companions. On Tuesday on Tuesday our first day together, we were walking between less-actives and we started talking to this guy who was washing his car. His name was David. He said he used to have a girlfriend who was Mormon, and he invited us when he was done washing his car. Turns out he actually went to UNM and lived in Santa Fe for a long time so that was cool. He spends about half his time in Florida and half his time here in LA for work. An he was telling us that he is looking for a substance abuse group to support him here, and that we were an answer
to his prayers. We then ended up teaching him about the Book of Mormon, and he was all like, "wow I need to read that, where can I get one?" We were all like here you go! He doesn't live in our area though so we will have to refer him :/ But it was a cool miracle! We then had the Tongan ward Halloween party, so we got stuffed full of great food. I finally got to try horse, it was super good! Friday we had the English Halloween party, and that was cool because someone invited a former investigator from a while back, and when we talked to them she said we could come teach her and her son again, so that should be good. We also got candy and pumpkin pie among other
assorted goods,s o we enjoyed it haha. Saturday was my birthday of course! We weren't able to get a lot of
proselyting done because Elder Taylor's ankle was acting up, he tore a ligament in it playing volleyball at the MTC.  But we did have a fun time celebrating. We went out to eat at Islands, and then we had Pumpkin pie and cookie dough ice cream for dessert, so it was a good time. Elder Taylor also taught me a tiny bit of piano while we were
taking a break for his ankle :) On Sunday we finally got to teach Jeannine again! We stopped by with
our Ward Mission Leader, and talked about her trip and everything. We read 2 Nephi 31 with her, I had thought we had done that before, but she said that we hadn't, so we read it. And it went really well talking about the gift of the holy ghost and baptism. She said she had been thinking a lot about baptism while she was in Montana and everything and that she is warming up to the idea. And just while we talked about baptism she seemed a lot more positive and optimistic about it, so that was good. Otherwise that was about it, we spent a lot of time finding, and found a couple cool people but the best ones never seem to live in our area haha. I love you guys and will talk to you later!

Elder Burnside

Oh yeah you wanted a spiritual thought! My ponderizing scripture is Isaiah 53:3-5- He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Jesus Christ bore everything, he suffered pains from others so that he could help them. He loved us enough to suffer all the way through death for us. And the last phrase is my favorite. It is through his stripes we are healed. It is through his sufferings that he can heal us from our sufferings. Because he has gone through it he can strengthen and support us through everything and anything as long as we turn to him.

Being a Trainer again - Oct 26 letter

Dallon is going to be companions with another new missionary to be a trainer again.  He sent the following picture entitled "Me and Elder Weidrich's last day together"

Now onto his letter:

Hey how is everything going? From the sounds of Mom's email everything is going well. Sorry to hear about the buttmunch's guinea pig though. I hope everything else is going well though.  Our week was pretty decent I guess. Jeannine has been out of town all week, so we haven't met with her. And I think Rick is mad at us because he has ignored all of our calls and everything since the whole Sunday fiasco. So we haven't met with him either.  We did teach a guy named Miguel this week. He is a referral we got from some members, that works in the donut shop. So we went and talked to him there for a little while. We just taught him about the Book of Mormon and the priesthood. But I don't think it clicked with him. He has a very strong Spanish accent, so I don't know how much of a language barrier is there. the concerns he expressed were that all these different churches tell him that they are right, but he doesn't know how he can know which one is truly right. We tried to answer him, but he didn't give us a lot of time top talk, and he just didn't seem to get it when we did. His other concern was how a lot of people that go to church are hypocrites, and he doesn't want to be that. So hopefully next time we meet with him we will be able to get across to
him.  

We had a cool experience on Sunday night while contacting. It was about time to head home, and we started talking to this black lady at the bus stop. And she said she wasn't interested at all, and had what she needed but then had a casual conversation with us about our missions. Then at the end as we were about to walk away she asked, "So what would you have told me if I was interested in your message?" She liked it and found it very interesting. It was a good lesson, but then at the end the bus suddenly came and we weren't able to get her information :( Those bus drivers are cruel, but she said she would check out the website, so hopefully she does.  My favorite story from this week though was this. We went to visit the somewhat less-active Tongan elders quorum President.His brother came to the door, and told us he wants to introduce us to his neighbors. So he took us over and we talked to his neighbor who was Hindu and had a good conversation, and then he takes us to the guy that lives in the back. We walk up to the door which is open, and the guy Larry who is 63, was sitting there on his bed by the door naked with just a pillow covering himself. But he just had us come in while he was like that, and we taught him the restoration. It turns out Larry was homeless for a while, and has recently become sober, so he is a little crazy. But we had a pretty good lesson with him considering the circumstances. Although It was a Tongan member that went with us, so the guy lives outside our are and we will have to refer him to the sister that cover over there. So that will be interesting for them lol. It was a memorable experience to say the least haha.

We had transfer calls last night. I will be staying in this area for a 3rd transfer, while Elder Wiedrich is actually leaving to go to the Downey second ward :(. My new companion will be brand new again, I am training again! So it will be fun. Talk to you later, Love you!!

The mission home sent the following letter, I'll admit it makes the heart swell a bit.

29 October 2015
Robert and Janet Burnside
xxxxxxxxx
Los Alamos, NM 87544

Dear Brother and Sister Burnside,

Elder Dallon Jay Burnside has again been appointed as a trainer. No more important position exists than that of training a new missionary. New missionaries need to be properly taught immediately upon entering the mission field. Initial experiences truly influence the remainder of their mission. Your son will teach by both precept and example the conduct and skills that his companion needs to become an effective messenger of the truth. I am confident that he will, with the help of the Lord, be very successful in his new calling. Sister Weidman joins me in extending to you our sincere congratulations to you for having a son of such quality. We know he will receive your continued support in his missionary service.

Sincerely,

David N. Weidman, President
California Los Angeles Mission