The work progresses

On April 13th Dallon wrote

Wow 2 and 1/2 hours for 6 questions, sounds like tons of fun haha. Uh
oh Aaron is driving?!?! I don't know if I feel safe over here! lol.
Sounds like everyone had a decent spring break, except for Mom :(. I
hope she feels better! We had a pretty solid week this week. This week
was once again full of finding, finding and more finding!
We actually found 5 new investigators this week, which is the most I
have found in a week before. Although one of them has already dropped
us, and three of the others are brothers who didn't seem particularly
interested, but set a time we could come back, so we will see how it
goes. One of those new investigators name is Ahjee. We had a really
good lesson with him Tuesday, and he actually committed to baptism!
But a couple days later he texted us saying he researched the Mormons
and doesn't want to meet with us anymore :( We think he found out
about the history about blacks in the church, and our stance on gays,

to which he is both. But he said he would continue to read the Book of
Mormon, and we will call him in about a month to see how he is doing.
We had a couple lessons with Ron this week. Of course we talked about
having faith again. We really just pounded into him the importance of
reading the Book of Mormon everyday, since he wasn't doing it all the
time. He committed to it, and we will be following up with him
everyday so we will see how it goes. He didn't come to church on
Sunday, although when we went over later in the afternoon, he had been
watching general conference all afternoon, so that's probably better!

haha. He is slowly progressing, he has recognized that since he has started praying that he is thinking better thoughts, and he recognizes
the spirit when he prays. He is just a stubborn old man lol, but he
will get there.
Friday I was on exchanges with one of our zone leaders, Elder White.
We had a miracle at the end of the day. We were walking to a potential
investigator, but we made a wrong turn, and spent several minutes
looking for house numbers so we could know which way to go. When we
finally found a number, a guy turned the corner by us so we started
talking to him. We started teaching him about the Restoration, and the
whole time he was saying, "Wooowwww this is amazing", "How have I
never heard this before" At one point he even told us he was mind
blown haha. When we asked him how he felt after we recited the first
vision, he said he was feeling so many emotions at once and it was
incredible.We told him that it was the spirit, and he is now super
excited to start meeting with the missionaries. The only problem is
that he doesn't live in our area :(. but that was kind of the cool
thing about it, is that we wouldn't have been right there if we hadn't
taken so long to find a house number, and he told us that he never
comes to that area. So that was pretty awesome.
Saturday I had a pretty cool experience. We went to knock on a door of
a potential investigator, and they didn't live there, but the girl
that lived there talked to us, and we had a little lesson with here
there and set a return appointment, so that was a cool little miracle.
Right as we walked away from the door, is when Ahjee told us that he
doesn't want to meet with us anymore. I started to feel a little
discouraged, I felt like that every time we see a miracle, we see the
reverse right after. Right as I was feeling a bit down though, this
lady pulled over in her car, and asked us for some literature, she
said her Mormon friend recently died and was curious as to what we
believe. She didn't want us to come over though. Then right as she was
leaving she randomly said, "Don't get discouraged" I felt the spirit
very strongly when she said that, and knew that God sent her so I
could here that. It was a really cool spiritual experience to pick me
up.
Sunday we had another cool miracle. We were walking to the hospital to
go give someone a blessing, and we started talking to this guy named
Forest; on the street. When we told him about how we had a prophet on
the earth today, he responded, "Isn't a modern day prophet a sign of
the true church?" We just responded "Yeah exactly!" He then asked
about why God only spoke to the Jews, so we taught him about the Book
of Mormon and how God loves all his children. He loved it! We are now
going to meet with him on Saturday, he seems super prepared! Last
miracle for the week: At 8:00 we had only talked to four people so
far, and needed to talk to 24 more to reach our weekly goal of 140. So
we only had 1 hour left, and usually in an hour you can talk to about
10-12 people. But we prayed for help to reach our goal, and in one
hour we had 25 different conversations!
So our week was pretty great, and filled with tons of miracles! I hope
you all have a great week. I love and miss you!! I will talk to you
next week if Aaron doesn't kill you with his driving lol!

Elder Burnside

On April 20th he wrote

Sounds like a pretty good week. Lol I warned you about letting Aaron
drive! haha. And what is this snow thing you speak of? I seem to have
a faint memory of it haha. Thats cool that Sam got his call to
Tallahassee, and it is super weird to think that I will be half done
when he leaves...
Well our week was pretty interesting, we had a couple interesting
lessons. I guess as always I will start with Ron. We had an
interesting talk to say the least. I believe I have told you before
that he is into conspiracy theories, well he told us the craziest one
yet. After he once again mentioned that it is very difficult for him
to believe in God since he doesn't know exactly what he looks like,
and that sort of stuff; he somehow started talking about this
conspiracy that he believes. He told us that there are lizard people
that live in the center of the earth. He told us that their leader is
actually the "king of the world". He then showed us a video of one of
these lizard people attacking someone. So we just kind of ended the
lesson and left because it got way out of hand, and we didn't go back
for several days. But when we visited him again, he didn't talk about
any crazy theories and we were able to have a good lesson about the
Book of Mormon. He then actually came to church, and it was all about
the importance of the Book of Mormon, and I guess that got it through
to him. SO now he is actually going to read every single day. Which
means he is progressing slowly but surely.
We had a lesson with Nandy, a recent convert, on the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We talked a lot about how great the Atonement is, and
repentance. And we talked about baptisms, and the importance of
baptisms for the dead. Which we are trying to get her to go do. Anyway
it was a good lesson, Nandy and her husband troy always have some
really good insights.
Lubia's son Warenn had his 7th birthday, so we went to their little
party. I love that family, they are so cool! Anyway Lubia's oldest
son, Quinn, is married and has a one year old son; so we actually had
the celebration at his apartment. We shared a little message about
praying in families at the end, and they really enjoyed it. So maybe
we will be able to start teaching them sometime soon.
Saturday we had a lesson with a referral we got named Bless. He is
from Jamaica and is interesting to say the least. He is really
intelligent , when we showed up for our lesson he was working on his
invention which he is getting patented. It creates energy, like
windmills and solar panels, but it is more efficient and it can work
no matter what the conditions are. It was pretty cool. Anyway getting
back to our lesson, he was very difficult to teach. He would go off on
some really long crazy tangent after everything we would say. He said
something about how the son is male and the moon is female and they
are married. And he said that in Genesis when God says "Let us create
man in our image" that God was talking to mother nature. So he had
some crazy views, but he really wanted to read the Book of Mormon, and
was very intrigued by the Joseph Smith story. So we are going back
this week, so hopefully we will be able to stay a little more on
topic. haha.
That was pretty much our week. We had a lot of appointments cancel, so
we have a lot of potentials that we are trying to work with. So
Hopefully I will have a little more to talk about next week! I love
you have a great week!!
Elder Burnside
P.S. I actually took some pictures! They are of the super Delicious

cookies we made during weekly planning! Talk to you next week!

New Companion

Dallon got a new companion this last week, so we finally have some pictures.  Dallon's companion is on the left (Elder Shepphard).  The center elder was going home that day to New Zealand.

Dallon's letter

Sorry my letter is later than normal! Elder Shepherd had to practice
for some missionary musical thing they will be doing at the visitors
center. Life is going quite well! Elder Shepherd is from Sandy, Utah.
He has been out for 20 months now, so he is almost done! Our mission
is also dropping in numbers we have gone form 270 when I came out to
like 220 now. Sounds like everyone is having fun, I hope you know how
to cheat a lie detector! haha. We had a pretty dang good week full of
finding.
Our first day we found three new investigators, which is usually a
weeks worth, so that was really awesome. We also got got the
information for over 25 potential investigators this week, usually we
get like 10 in a week. We already have close to 10 set appointments
with potential investigators next week. So we should get a ton of new
investigators! We are seeing so many miracles! We had a referral call
us back and leave the coolest voice mail I have ever heard. He
apologized for taking so long to get back to us, and then went on to
tell us how he wanted a Mormon bible that had footnotes
cross-referencing the Book of Mormon, so he could go more in depth
with his studies. He had already read the Book of Mormon. He really
wanted to talk with us, and at the end he just bore his testimony
about Jesus Christ being his personal Lord and Savior. It was
jaw-dropping! When we called him back, it turned out he has moved out
of our area so we had to refer him :( But it was a super cool
experience!
Wednesday we took Elder Singh-Sahota around with us while he waited
for his plane back to New Zealand. He was really cool and lots of fun.
We finally got to have a lesson with our recent convert Nandy, she is
always out of town. We had a super good lesson about the the
restoration. She shared her experience about why she converted which
was super cool. While she was investigating she was having a lot of
trouble believing in the first vision. But then one night she had a
dream about it, and when she woke up she felt the Holy Ghost so
strongly that right there she told her husband she wanted to be
baptized. It was really cool!
Friday we took Ron to the visitors center, and had a really cool
lesson about faith. We read the talk by Elder Holland with him called
"I Believe" and we read some scriptures in Ether 12. We talked about
how since he is praying, he is showing faith and that he has more
faith than he thinks. By continuing to keep the commitments we give
him, he will continue to grow in faith. So we committed him to pray
for faith, and to continue reading the Book of Mormon. I think he is
getting pretty close to baptism, hopefully he will accept soon!
Conference was amazing! Lots and lots of really good talks! I really
liked President Uchtdorf's talk about grace Sunday Morning. Speaking
of which, it was a bit crazy, so we went to the church to watch, than
right as President Monson was about to speak we got a call from the
Visitors Center saying Ron was looking for us. So we told him to stay
there and watch, and so we sprinted a couple hundred yards to the
visitors center so we wouldn't miss to much of President Monson's
talk. It took me his whole talk to catch my breath lol. Then of course
the internet messed up at the beginning of Elder Hollands talk, so we
missed it and Ron decided to leave. So that was no fun. Then we got to
eat 2 Easter dinners, I was so stuffed! haha. That was my week, I hope
you all have a great week. I love you!!
Elder Burnside
P.S. The pictures go left to right: Elder Shepherd, Elder Singh-Sahota, me

It has been a month already

On March 16 I was giving Dallon a hard time about St. Patricks day the following day and he replied with the following.  I also told him about a lesson we had from priesthood meeting where we discussed that whether or not we rejoice in Christ doesn't depend on what we are doing or what is happening to us, but instead on what our perspective is.

Is today Saint Patricks day? I didn't even know, luckily I just
happened to wear the one green tie I have (Since the Jets ones aren't
allowed :( lol). Glad to hear everyone is doing well. Glad to hear
Aaron did well with the scuba diving, the mask activity is always the
hardest one. I really liked that point that you talked about from
Priesthood, that it isn't the activity that interferes with rejoicing
in Christ but our perspective or attitude. That is really an
interesting point it is true though, as they say everything relates to
the gospel, which would then me you could rejoice in Christ through
almost any activity. Our week was pretty good this week, it was full
of a lot of service!
We spent a lot of time working with Ron this week. We went over there
on Friday to talk about how his reading of the Book of Mormon and his
prayers have been going, and to answer any other questions he has. He
told us about a great experience he had with prayer this week. He said
that one day his tooth had been bothering him, and he was pretty sure
that it was going to require a root canal, because he has had a couple
before. But he can't afford a root canal, so he prayed for it to go
away, and after a couple days, the pain disappeared and his tooth was
fine! He said that that was huge for him, and clearly an answered
prayer from God! He was also able to come to church on Sunday, so he
is progressing very well! On Friday we we went over and did some
service for him. We cleared all the furniture out of his house, and
then we vacuumed and shampooed his carpet. It was a lot more work than
we thought when he asked us to help him vacuum and shampoo his carpet.
But he was very grateful and kept calling us his guardian angels, it
was kind of funny. So everything is going very well with him.
Wednesday we got to drive around the mission a little bit. We helped
the senior missionary in charge of housing go around to the missionary
apartments that closed down and clear out everything. It was fun, but
too hot to be carrying couches around. We are already in the 90s over
here and it is still March! We retaught Lubia about keeping the
Sabbath day holy. She is doing great. She talked about how she gets
all her sons together to read the Book of Mormon together, and all the
other things they do on Sunday to try to keep the Sabbath day holy. SO
everything is going very well there.
Sunday was a good day. We had forgotten about the L.A. marathon, for
which they blocked off Santa Monica blvd. So that made it very
difficult to get to church. Ended up being like 10 minutes late to
church, luckily that is when all the members show up every Sunday
haha. But anyway, when we saw that
Santa Monica was blocked off, we tried to call Ron to give him new
directions to church, but he had already left his house, and he
doesn't have a cell phone. We figured he probably wasn't' going to be
able to find his way to church. But he was able to find his way, just
ion time to catch all the talks for sacrament meeting, so that was
really cool. We printed off a longer list of referrals dating back 5
years. So we called a bunch, most of which didn't answer. Although we
need to change how we do that, because one of them called us back this
morning, and since we weren't saving all the phone numbers we didn't
know who it was. When we then asked them what their name was they just
hung up on us. So we will figure out a better way to do that this
week. That was pretty much our week in a nutshell. I hope you all have
a great week. I love and miss you!!
Elder Burnside

On March 23rd I told him about his brother Stevan winning the pinewood derby race and he replied with

Glad to hear everyone is doing well. So is Aaron certified now? Anddoes that mean you are all going on a scuba trip to use his new
skills? I don't understand why you are so excited to be done with
Pinewood Derby? haha. You know by saying that you are going to curse
yourself and end up doing it for many more years to come haha. We had
a decent week that can be summed up in three words: service, service,
and service haha.
We went over and painted Lubia's apartment on two separate occasions
this week. And I think I am getting pretty dang good at it haha. We
now only have one room left in the apartment to paint. She is doing
really well, and is finally getting on her feet financially. She is
working consistently and has saved up almost enough money to get a
car, which means that her son Zainn is going to be coming to church a
lot more. So that is great news. He is really warming up to the
church. When we go over to paint and stuff, instead of hiding out in
his room like he use to, he comes out and chats with us. So there is
progress there.
Thursday we had our temple day. That was super nice, the temple is so
peaceful and calming. I look forward to our temple days. It is the
best place for revelation too. We had a lesson with Ron later that
day, so we went in to the temple with questions on how to best teach
him. it definitely helped because he was tough to teach. He likes to
get off topic a lot, and he somehow related several things we talked
about to some conspiracy theories. But for the most part we were able
to keep him on track and get through the Restoration pretty well.
Friday we got another mini-missionary named Tommie. He was really cool
and a great help. He submitted his papers to his bishop right before
we picked him up, so he is waiting on his mission call! That was when
we went over to Lubia's to paint again.
Saturdays was a bit hectic. In the morning we went to help a
less-active lady Carol move. That actually went really well, as she
was completely packed up and ready to go. So it took a little over an
hour and a half to pack all her stuff into a truck, and unload it at
her new place. We then went and tried to visit some potentials. And
while we were doing so we met a guy named Tesh, who was trying to
unload a moving truck all by himself after his friend bailed on him.
So we helped him out, left him with a card and he told us that he
would definitely come to church, and that he wasn't just saying that
but he actually meant it. He didn't actually come on Sunday, but I
guess we will see next week. Then we went to see how Ron was doing,
because he had to put down his favorite cat the day before. We cleaned
up a bunch more of his house because he said he wasn't going to be
able to come to church unless it was clean. He then asked us if we
could fix his computer, it wouldn't give him the option to put it in
sleep mode, luckily Tommie was good with computers. Although he just
made it worse... now it won't even turn on. So after that happened
Ron said he wouldn't be able to come to church because he would have
to take his computer in to get fixed. So that was a bummer. The way he
acted just showed us he was using us more for service than for
learning about the gospel. Which we are perfectly fine with as long as
he is coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying. So we
will see what we are going to do with him.
Sunday we only had Zainn at church, but that was really cool that he
was able to make it. Hopefully we can continue to make progress with
him. I love you all and hope you have a great week!!
Elder Burnside

On March 30 he sent

Cool, looks like Stevie is enjoying himself haha. He still doesn't
have the PS4? Dad you are so cruel lol. It is a good thing you never
did that too me haha. I remember Pinewood derby, I remember winning
awards for design, but always coming near last in speed. Of course it
was right after I finished cub scouts that you started making the
super fast cars haha. My week was pretty good this week.
Last Monday we were finally able to play basketball with Zainn, that
was nice, he is actually really good. He then came to mutual the
following night, so we are definitely making progress with him. He
would have come to church yesterday, but then Lubia had an emergency
plumbing problem at their apartment they had to get fixed.
We did a lot of work with Ron this week. We did some service for him
on Wednesday, we think he might just be using us for service, but
thats ok because he is keeping the commitments we give him. He read
the chapter we gave him in Jacob 7, because he talked about how he
would believe if God would just appear to him,and he liked that
chapter. We then gave him 2 Nephi 31 to read about baptism. We took
him to the visitors center on Friday, to see a musical they were doing
called "The Garden" all about Christ's atonement at the Garden of
Gethsemane. We then went over the next day, because he said he read 2
Nephi 31 and had some questions. Again he got back about how he needed
some proof that God was there. So we asked him if he had been praying,
to which he responded that he has been keeping a prayer in his heart.
We told him that it is good to keep a prayer in his heart, and should
continue to do that, but that he also needs to physically get on his
knees and pray, to show that extra effort and reverence to God. So he
agreed to do so, and when we talked to him the next day, he said he
tried it and felt really good about it. Although he said that he
wouldn't be able to go to church because he needed to find a job and a
roommate :/
We were able to see Lucas a couple times this week, that was really
nice we hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks because he gets so busy
with work. He was working everyday form 9 am until midnight! Crazy
there is no way I could ever do that haha. We shared the Because He
Lives video with him, which he enjoyed.
On Sunday we helped our Ward Mission Leader Rod move out. It is sad to
see him go, he is really cool and an amazing Ward Mission Leader. He
was so helpful, he would come to a ton of our lessons, So we will miss
him. And it will be interesting to see who the new one will be that we
get to work with. That is pretty much my week in a nutshell. I hope
you have a great week. I lvoe and miss you!!
Elder Burnside

Oh and I forgot too mention yesterday was transfer calls! I will be
staying in Westwood for another transfer, Elder Ching is going to
Downey. And my new companion will be Elder Sheppard. I have heard that
he works hard and is a great missionary, so I am excited!

Dallon's Testimony

I have a couple things to share.  First of all Dallon was asked to share his testimony of the power of missionary work to the young women and young men of the ward.  I would like to share his testimony here.

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......

Another February update

Let's start off with pictures:  As Dallon states "more pictures from hike of me Elder Ching and our zone leaders from left to right on the picture of the 5 of us:E. White, me, E.Clark, E. Spencer, E. Ching

AND "a poor picture of our district haha and then me by griffith observatory"

Dallon sent the following letter and picture

Glad to hear all is going well back home. Sounds like everyone is
having a good time. We had an interesting week, although you will have
to bear with me as I don't have my planner to remind me of all the
stuff we did. On Monday we didn't actually get to go to the Hollywood
sign because those missionaries who said it was re opened were wrong.
So we hiked around the Griffith observatory instead. Our week was full
of a ton of service this week. We went over to Lubia to paint the
inside of her apartment 4 or 5 times this week. we got the boys room
done, and it actually looks pretty dang good if I do say so myself
haha. Then we painted Lubia's room, but we have to put a second coat
on it sometime this week. Painting made up most of our activity for
the week, we spent a ton of time painting. The ward then had a service
project Saturday. We weeded and planted for the local elementary
school. Lucas came and helped out and enjoyed meeting and talking to
the ward members which was great! We actually found a solid new
investigator named Shirley. We got a referral for her, to a massive
apartment complex, everything about the referral seemed like it was
fake, but we decided to give it a try. So we went to the front desk
and asked to visit Shirley, and the person at the front desk called up
to the room and then told us that Shirley "Wasn't feeling well" So we
left unsurprising about the lack of interest, but then as we were
getting to our car the door man from the apartment complex ran out and
told us to come back. We came back and were told that she actually
wanted us to come up and talk with her. So we went and talked with
Shirley and she is super interested in the church. She was raised
Jewish in South Africa, but is not practicing, but she now wants a
religion to join and thought the Mormon church looked very
interesting. SO we taught her the restoration she was super excited to
get a Book of Mormon to read. We told her to read and pray about 3
Nephi 11, because one of her main concerns is she doesn't really
believe that Jesus was the Son of God. She said that she would
definitely come to church in 2 weeks because she is going out of town
the weekends before that. She really loved the Joseph Smith story and
his vision, and felt the spirit very strong when we shared the first
vision with her. Sunday Rod came to church after being out of town all
week! But he had to leave right after sacrament meeting, so we didn't
get to meet with him. Lucas also came to church which was super
exciting. They both really enjoyed it. Sunday morning was super cool
to see Lucas especially because of what we did before church. The
elders before us in this area had put up bunch of origami hearts on
Lucas and Ivette's door with little messages. Ivette jokingly asked us
when we were going to do something for her door a couple of weeks ago,
and we took that challenge to heart. We planned this out for the past
couple weeks, and learned how to make origami stars and everything. So
we sneakily set this all up from 6-8 Sunday morning without even
getting notice. And turned their door into a movie title screen, since
they both love movies. They were absolutely stunned by it, it was
super funny. Transfers are tomorrow, but luckily me and Elder Ching
are staying together here! That is pretty much all of our week. I hope
you all have a great week, I love and miss everybody!
Elder Burnside

More Pictures in the middle of February

Dallon sent some more pictures this week.  The far left is Dallon's companion Elder Ching.  The other young man is from the Los Angeles area and is on what they call a mini-mission.  He joined Elder Burnside and Elder Ching for the weekend.  The other 2 are investigators.

On to Dallons email

Everything sounds just the same as when I left haha. I remember doing
the diving tables, but I don't really remember much about diving,
definitely need a refresher. But I won't be doing it for another year
and a half any way haha. Wow its almost like California over there.
Figures that now that I am done playing baseball it gets really warm
at the beginning of the season haha. Well we had a pretty solid week
of missionary work.
Wednesday we met with Lubia, we installed some new locks for her
doors, and surprisingly they work the way they are suppose to! haha.
We then taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and focused on how
reading the Book of Mormon everyday both individually and as a family
will help us to endure to the end. We downloaded the gospel library
app onto her phone, and her kids tablets so that they can listen to
the scriptures together every night.
Thursday Elder Spencer came to my area for exchanges, he was my
district leader in Hollywood, and is now my zone leader. We went and
taught our new investigator Robert, and it was interesting to say the
least. His mom actually converted from Mormonism to Jehovah's Witness,
And so he was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. He even went door to door
teaching people. But he stopped following that when he learned some
things about the how his religion started. So since then he has been
"spiritual" but hasn't been practicing in any organized religion. He
is married, so his wife sat in on the lesson with us,and that is where
it really got crazy. His wife goes by her "spiritual name" Pershia.
She is the one who is really crazy. She believes that she is a
prophetess, and that when she meditates she speaks to our "celestial
brothers." She talked all about channeling, being on the same
frequency, different dimensions, it was pretty weird. She is
completely against any kind of organized religion, because she doesn't
want to offend God and poison herself with any religion. Even though
they believe some crazy things, their beliefs are very similar to ours
otherwise. Robert believes the Joseph Smith story and accepts the Book
of Mormon as the word of God. So he is actually a somewhat solid
investigator. Our main concern with him is his wife, who was against
him reading the Book of Mormon in the first place. But there is hope
for progress there!
In Los Angeles they do something called mini missions, which I had
never heard of so I don't know if they do them elsewhere. A mini
mission is where the youth get to go with the missionaries for a
weekend. The missionaries pick them up Friday evening and bring them
home Sunday evening. I think it is a really cool idea. So this weekend
we had a mini missionary named Elder Topacio with us. After we got him
all settled in at the apartment we tried to go find some less-actives.
We had a really cool experience. While we were looking for
less-actives, we felt the distinct impression to go visit Franco. We
hadn't heard from him since he told us that he might get evicted last
Monday. He was home and let us come in, we felt impressed to read Alma
32:26-41 with him. It is the analogy of faith to a seed. When we read
it we talked about how the when you plant the seed you don't give it
all the water it will ever need right then, and then it immediately
turns into a tree. You have to water it a little bit every day, and
eventually without you realizing it turns into a strong unshakable
tree. This is the same with our faith and testimonies. We need to have
some form of activity everyday where we can feel the Holy Ghost, and
after a while we will have a much stronger testimony without even
having realized it. Then out of nowhere Franco told us that he was
ready to come to church again without us even specifically mentioning
church. And so on Sunday Franco came to church for the first time in
over 20 years!
Saturday we had a good day of service.In the morning we went and set
up an activity for the Relief Society. We then went and helped Lucas
and Ivette move some stuff around, and played some cards and then
shared a scripture with them. Then right after that we went over to
Lubia's to help her paint her apartment. The parts where we didn't let
her little kids help actually looked pretty good haha, but we are
going over again this week to put a second coat on it. We then went
and had a lesson with Rod, he hadn't been answering our calls so we
went to see if he was home. He was, and let us inside and we read 3
Nephi together. We had a good lesson about the importance of baptism,
and Elder Topacio really brought the spirit by bearing his testimony
at the end.
Sunday as i already said, Franco was at church, but otherwise most of
the people we are working with didn't come. After church we went and
had a lesson with our other new investigator named Wayne. We taught
him some of the Restoration and had a pretty good lesson. We had a
really good conversation with someone on the street named Joi. She had
her son taken form her and was really sad, I then shared the scripture
that came to my mind in Alma 7:11-13 about how Christ has felt all of
our pains so he may know how to help us. She was very touched by the
spirit that came. We then had a very powerful prayer with her, and she
gave us her information. It turns out she lives in Inglewood, but the
missionaries over there are now going to start teaching her! We then
took our awesome mini missionary home. It was really cool to have him
with us, and we actually had some great lessons with him I love you
all and hope you have a great week!
Elder Burnside

It's February

We had a brief email with Dallon for the first week in February.

Sounds like everybody had a great time with the snow! Everybody here
doesn't know what that is haha. I just have to say why are the
Seahawks not running on second and goal from the 1?!?! Well that
sucks, but whatever I got more important things to focus on. Some one
better keep record of this because it probably won't happen again, but
I did just say that there are more important things than football
haha. Funny you mention street contacting because that was most of our
week haha. We have several different areas we use if we are not trying
to visit anyone. We just try to go wherever there is the most people,
so we use Wishire, and Berverly dr. a lot because there are always
people there. Our mornings go: Wake up at 6:30. Try to exercise until
7, try being the key word lol just kidding. Than we shower get ready
and eat breakfast. At 8 we begin an hour of personal study of the
scriputres or preach my gospel. Than at 9 we have companionship study
where we plan out our lessons we are going to have that day. AT 10
Elder Ching does Language study, he studies Tongan because he was in
the Tongan program for part of his mission. We also tidy up the
apartment a little bit. Than at 11 we eat lunch, and then leave the
apartment at 12 to proselyte.
Most of this week was just contacting people since most of the people
we work with were busy. We were able to teach Lubia the Plan of
Salvation again which went really well. Her and Gavinn our super solid
in the Gospel! We are starting to get Zainn involved too! We got him
with the Young Mens, and they are all going to start playing
basketball every week before mutual. Zainn loves basketball, and
really all he needs is some friends in the church before he gets
baptized. We are going to see if we can get permission to play with
them because Zainn is busy every Monday so he can't play with us on
P-day. We also got to do some service for Lubia! she had about 6 big
boxes of extra books, so we went through them and took all the ones
she didn't want and took them to the library, and sometime we are
going to go over there to help her paint her apartment. We also met
with Lucas and talked a bit about prayer, and he has actually been
praying on his own lately so that was exciting news!
We found two new investigators this week. The first one is named
Robert. We were going through and trying to visit former
investigators, so we went to visit some one named Charlie. When we
knocked on the apartment door we were told that Charlie didn't live
there, but that there was a charlie in apartment 5. So we knocked on
apartment 5, and Robert answered the door, and was interested to hear
our message. It turns out that the Charlie wasn't the one we were
looking for, but it is cool how Gods plan makes these things work out
so you find the people that need to hear the message. Robert was
raised Jehovah's Witness, and actually went door to door teaching it,
than he wondered why no one listened to what he believed to be the
truth. So he researched more into his religion and found some things
that he didn't agree with. Since then he has been "spiritual" and not
religious. Robert looks like what we call a "Bible Basher," but he
actually didn't do much of that when we taught him part of the
restoration. He really wants to read through the Book of Mormon
because he likes to learn about religions. So we are going over this
week to give him a Book of Mormon with our ward mission leader Rod. We
found another new investigator named Wayne. We were trying to visit
potential investigators, and started talking to Wayne on our way to
the next house. It turns out that he use to meet with missionaries
about a year ago. He said he would love for us to come by, so we could
talk. So that was super exciting! But that was about all that really
happened this week, we are excited to visit our new investigators next
week though! I hope you have a great week! I love and miss you all!!
Elder Burnside

I mentioned to Elder Burnside how important having friends and support is in the church.  Friends and support can carry us when our testimonies aren't strong or when we are weak.  Dallon replied

Its so true, there is a stark difference in retention between times
when the conver doesn't have a specific person to befriend and
fellowship him and when he does. And it is also interesting to see how
many people are interested in the church because of the community in
the church and how everyone is fellowshipped. They have taught us over
and over again that the main purpose behind a mission is to build
those habits and testimony so that the missionary becomes truly
converted and won't have their testimony shaken through out their
life. I love you too!

Elder Burnside