January 4th and 11th Letters

We'll start with the January 4th letter.  He also sent a couple pictures of the zone.  I commented that most of his zone is elders and he replied that most of the sisters are up near the temple and they are at the bottom of the mission.

Now the letter in which his father mentioned that he had gotten a weather station for Christmas

Sounds like you got a fun little toy for Christmas, and sounds like everybody had a pretty  eventful week. I am glad you are enjoying your new calling. We had another great week this week. We set 2 more baptismal dates this week!

One was with a lady named Lilly. She is in her 60s and has been having a lot of family issues as of late. We taught her the restoration, and she said that she is just like Joseph Smith and is looking for the truth. So she accepted a date for the 31st of January. Her 2 Grandkids are 13 and 9 and so she wants us to start teaching them too! Her husband is also really cool, and interested, he just left the lesson before we got to extending a baptismal invitation. But he was asking a lot of really good questions, and also wants to learn, and actually said he knows we can teach him the truth.

The other date was with a kid named Kris. He is a senior in high school, and we found him on a list of potential investigators. We stopped by and taught him the Restoration and set a date for the 14th of February. It was a good lesson, but he didn't really open up much, I am not exactly sure how interested he is. But that was good.

We also started teaching another kid in High School named Edwin. He is a super cool kid. His family is Catholic, but he claims to be an atheist. He said that church couldn't answer his questions and science could, so he decided that God isn't real. But he is a super sincere guy who just wants to know what is true. We have had a couple good lessons with him this week.

Our investigator Steve came on a church tour with us this week. He is the one that struggles with Word of Wisdom. He has been being taught since September, and has never come to church. But while we were teaching him, the member we brought with us invited him to come on a tour of the church. So when we took him on a tour he absolutely loved it! He said that he thought it was going to feel really awkward, but as soon as he stepped in, he felt like he was exactly where he was suppose to be. So he came to church for the first time and loved it! Afterwords he said he thinks that he just found himself a church! So this week has been full of tons of miracles it has been super cool!! I love you and hope you have a great week!
Elder Burnside

 Now the January 11th letter, starting with a picture of the elders taking a break in the rain.  I have setup a google map that shows his areas and wards, but he couldn't view it:(

Sadly it doesn't let me look at your map, because you need to be signed in, but the myldsmail account blocks me from viewing it. But it sounds pretty cool haha. Glad you guys had a good week. It is a little warmer here, like by 50 degrees but it has been raining a ton. We have gotten pretty drenched biking around, but I got to finally use my raincoat and it works pretty well. And our week was really good again, we are seeing miracles, and being blessed by the Lord so much!

This week we set 4 more baptismal dates for the 31st of January! It was with Alberto, Jeffry, Jacob, and Benjamin Garvis. We went over to teach them but Lilly was gone. So we summarized the Book of Mormon and read the intro with them. And they committed to be baptized! They have been reading a ton too! They love it! Lilly Jeffry and Benjamin all came to church and enjoyed the little bit they got to stay for. But Alberto fell and got hurt before church so Jacob had to stay home with him, and eventually they all had to leave to take him to the hospital. Luckily he is doing better now. But we are just so excited for them!

We also have been working a ton with Steve this week. We made a plan with him to stop smoking and shared it with him. He liked it and we tried to get him to quit cold turkey, he gave his pack away. But then the next day he had a new pack and had smoked 3 cigarettes. We went on a VC tour with him that day and he really enjoyed it. There was someone at the VC that really connected with him and shared his personal struggles with addiction and how he overcame it. He also came to church and really enjoyed that.
We taught Salamasina the commandments, and she is all set up to be baptized next Sunday! She is having her interview on Tuesday, so we are excited for that! I will send pictures of it next week.

There is another part member family here that we started working with. The guy Ruel is cool and really wants to be baptized. We are unsure if he is able to because of their living situation though. So somebody from the mission presidency will come down and interview him next Sunday. So our week was great we are working with a lot of people, and most of them actually came to church too! I love you and will talk to you later!!
Elder Burnside

December 21 and 28 Letters

Starting with the December 21st letter and a picture of the zone at the christmas devotional

His message was short and seemed a little different.  My wife and I thought maybe he was saving it up for the Christmas morning phone call:)

I am glad you had a good week and enjoyed D.C. I am also glad I have raised Stevie right into a Jets fan hahaha. This week was amazing. We had a cool experience this week with a less active member. She has us over every week for lunch and this week she had.........a favor to ask..........................................anyway.................so she wanted us to make........fudge.......and boy did we make fudge. It tasted amazing after it was done. She is such a nice old lady. She made my last Christmas here worthwhile.........So that was cool. I also went on exchanges with Elder Alarcon. We taught this guy named Michelangelo. He was a professional boxer at one point. His record was 19-11. He was super cool. He got baptized and confirmed recently. This week was full of miracles and amazing things. Love you!!
Elder Burnside

But then right at the end of the day we got this, so I guess we were right:_)

lol my companion wrote that then we lost wifi sorry talk to you friday
Sent from my iPad

The December 28th letter

Lol I want Stevie to know he is a buttmunch haha. I am glad you all have had a good past couple days. Sounds like a fun day planned. Somebody was just telling us New Mexico got a bunch of snow, but I don't remember what that is haha.

Anyway we have had a really good week.  I will start with the one bad part of this week though. We met with Dianna, and she is doing well! She read the Book of Mormon, and while she was reading it gave her the courage to go ask her Mom if she could be baptized. But her Mom gave her a whole-hearted No... So that was sad, but we still have permission to teach her. We are going to try and teach the Mom with the Spanish elders so she can understand what it is Dianna wants to get baptized into, because the Mom only speaks Spanish.

But otherwise it was a great week. Christmas Day was awesome. Lots of delicious food, and luckily our third dinner cancelled so I was able to keep biking with out throwing up haha. After we talked to you guys (which was nice by the way) we went and visited a less active Samoan family that is trying to get some help from the ward. And while we were talking to them, we found out that they have two kids over the age of 8 who haven't been baptized, and want to be! Their names are Marcus and Salamasini, they are 10 and 12 years old. So we went back last night and taught them the restoration, and set dates with them for January 17th! It was awesome, they only problem is their house is a bit crazy haha but we were able to get it quiet enough to teach for the most part.

On Saturday we went and taught our investigator Martha. We found her a week or so ago trying to visit her brother, who was a potential of ours. We taught her the Restoration all the way through finally, and committed her to be baptized on the 7th of February! It was a very soft commitment though, because she was hesitant. But we can work with her, and it will hopefully work out. They got the cutest little puppy the day before we came over, and he slept on my lap the whole lesson. So Jet has competition now lol. 

Also on Saturday our mission President woke up in the morning and had the revelation that we needed to talk to 20 people that day and invite 3 people to be baptized, and the Lord would really bless our areas. It was cool because the Lord up people in our path to help us reach that goal. After district meeting we ran into a guy named Jimmy on the street, very briefly taught him the restoration and invited him to be baptized, and he sad yes. We were suppose to meet him after church on Sunday but then he didn't show. At 9 it was time to go in, and we had talked to 18 people and invited 2 people to be baptized. But as we were biking back to the apartment the Lord put two people in our paths to talk to, and we set up return appointments with both, and one committed to be baptized. It was just really cool to see the Lord provide for us to meet our goal, but only as we stepped forward with faith.

Well I hope you all have a good week. I hope you enjoy this letter that was actually written by me lol. I will talk to you later! Love you!!
Elder Burnside

Catching up Dec 7 and 14 letters

Start with December 7 - Picture of Dallon and his companion meeting UCLA coach Jim Mora

Glad to hear you are all doing well! Sounds like Stevan had fun at his pack meeting. Good to hear that the baby is doing well too. My card expires on December 15th. I actually think my iPad is a mini 2. I didn't get to meet Bronco Mendanhall, only the offensive coordinator and the linebacker coaches came. It was funny too because the kid whose name is Mique asked them if Bronco was going to leave, and they said no chance, and that he would come on Sunday. Then the next day he agreed to go to Virginia. Although we did still go by on Sunday because we didn't know about that. And of course he wasn't there, but Jim Mora from UCLA was, so we got to meet him and take a picture with him. It was cool to see how they recruit, and how they do similar
things to us when we teach.  

Jeannine is still doing well. She went out of town this past weekend, so we moved her baptism to the 13th. We stopped by on Friday before she left town. We read Alma 7 with her, and it brought out a concern of hers that she has been feeling inadequate. So we were able to testify to her of God's love for her, and that he is only there to lift us up. We warned her that those thoughts will continue to come from Satan leading up to her baptism, but that us and the ward were here to help. That really helped her a lot, and strengthened her for her baptism. So we are good to go.

We also met with Rita a couple times this week. She is the lady in the wheelchair that has MS. The first time we went over we just read 1 Nephi ! with her, to show her the importance of The Book of Mormon and how it can relate to and help her in her life. We then went back and taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We focused on baptism and the
authority needed for it. We also talked about how it is a personal experience and an important covenant we need to make and understand. And when we invited her to be baptized and she accepted! So she will be baptized on December 27th! She came to church on Sunday and really enjoyed it, and got to know some members so that was really good.

On Sunday we got transfer calls. I am... leaving to Carson :/ I didn't want to leave, and didn't expect to either, because there was a mid cycle transfer 3 weeks ago, that caused me to become the district leader. But my 3 week stint as district leader is over, nobody ever even told me what I was suppose to do haha. But my new companion will
be Elder Stevens, I don't know him, but I hear he is pretty new. I am starting to get old in the mission because all the elders I know have gone home haha. But thats about it for our week. I love you guys and will talk to you soon!!
Elder Burnside

Then December 14 - Jeanine's Baptism!!!  We told Dallon about his friend Thomas' mission call to Portugal.

What business do you have to do in D.C? Glad to hear everyone is doing well, I am super excited for Thomas! We can't skype on our iPads, so we still have to figure out where we are going to do it, so we will let you know  a time next week. We live at xxxx Carson street. My new companion is Elder Stevens and he is pretty cool. He is from Spokane, Washington, and has been out for 5 months. He is a super good hard working elder. We cover the Carson 1st ward, which covers the
Carson and Wilmington area with a little bit of the east part of Torrance. The east part of Wilmington is a bit ghetto, but otherwise it is super low income. The ward had 4 baptisms right before I got
there, so it is exciting, a little more work then the Westchester area.

As you probably saw, Jeannine got baptized! I got to go back to give the Holy Ghost talk, and it all went really well. Satan had been working on her the day of trying to scare her out of it, but she was
able to push through and get baptized. She definitely felt the spirit there too. She will be a great member!

3 of the baptisms here were a part member family, the dad and the son and daughter. So we went over to start teaching them. We had dinner and watched the restoration and talked about it. They are a super cool and funny Samoan family, also really strong in the gospel. They just want to get sealed in the temple, that is their goal. They are already sharing the gospel with their friends!

We have two people with baptismal dates here, a 17 year old girl named Diana, and a guy named Tim. I got to go teach Diana my first day here. We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ. It went really well, and she really likes the stuff we share with her. There are only two problems.
One is that she still hasn't asked her mom. She is afraid because her Mom is strongly Catholic, and Diana just got baptized Catholic last year. The other problem is she works weekends, and she can't get Sunday off because she only works Saturday and Sunday.  But she is cool, and I am excited to work with her, I think we just need permission from the mom and we will be good.

I didn't get to meet Tim, but we did teach his roommate Steve. Steve use to have a baptismal date, and they both really like the gospel. But they are in a recovery home, and both have an issue with quitting smoking, so that is the main concern we will be working on with them. But yeah this area is awesome. It is a super diverse ward with a bunch of awesome missionary minded members. I will talk to you later, and see you soon!!
Elder Burnside

Way Behind time to catch up Nov23 and Nov30 letters

We'll start with the November 23rd letter just before Thanksgiving:

Wow sounds like fun... not haha. Sounds like you had a lot of work to do. I am glad you enjoyed your 50th birthday. SOOOO OOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDD.  For Christmas I need another pair of black pants. And an iPad mini case with a bluetooth keyboard would be nice too :) Thanks for your prayers for Jeannine! She is doing pretty well. We met with her on Friday and read 2 Nephi 33 with her. It was good, we just wanted to help her understand the importance of reading the Book of Mormon everyday which she has been doing very well lately. So thats good, but then on Sunday she wasn't feeling well, so she didn't come to church.  But she is still doing well and on pace to be baptized on the 6th of
December.  

We were also able to teach Rica again this week. Rica is the woman in her 50s that me and Elder Wiedrich met and she has M.S. When we had previously taught her the restoration she loved the story of Joseph Smith. But she is very difficult to get a hold of. So we taught her the Plan of Salvation and she really liked it and how families could
be together forever and all that kind of thing. It was a really good lesson and she committed to come to church, but then she didn't show up.

We also had a cool experience contacting. WE starting talking to this young guy at a bus stop, he had piercings and tattoos and all that stuff, and he was kind of blowing us off. During our conversation the old guy next to him started answering our questions so the
conversation migrated to the old guy. We began to testify to the old guy about the Book of Mormon, and as we did that the young we started the conversation with slowly become more interested. Until right before we lef the asked us for a card and where our church was. It was really cool to see the Holy ghost change him as we testified to the
guy next tom him, and it shows that the Holy Ghost can testify to anyone.

Although the bad news this week is with JJ our nine year old Tongan investigator who wants to be baptized.His aunt who lives in Utah and has custody said she was ok with him getting baptized, but she is a lesbian. Thanks to the new policy the church just released, JJ now can't get baptized until he is 18. So that was disappointing, and sad.
We will keep teaching him and stuff, and I guess just hope he stays with the church for 9 more years.

Tau came to church on Sunday. Her baby is recoverd from Jaundice which she had pretty badly, and we should be able to finally start teaching her finally either this week or next. So that is exciting, she is so prepared, all we have to do is actually teach her!!  Interesting things that happened this week. We talked with a gay porn star on the street. THen at the end of the conversation by natural reaction I stuck my hand out for a handshake, and we shook hands. I kind of felt disgusting afterwords haha. So that was weird. We had some people try to bible bash us. One of which told us that Muslims are more Christian then us because they only believe in one God. To which we responded, "Yeah... but we believe in Jesus Christ..." He was interesting and kind of annoying. We had another guy interrupt one of our conversations, shake our hand and say may Joseph Smith be with you. So we talked to a lot of interesting people on the street this week. It was a pretty good week though besides the JJ situation. I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!!
Elder Burnside

How about adding the November 30 letter as well.  We told him about our family vacation to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving including going through the Las Vegas temple.

Glad you all enjoyed your week. Sounds like a good time. Sounds like good food as well, but I guess that is the same thing haha. I am glad you enjoyed the temple. Elder Taylor tells me that the celestial room there is the best. Dang c'mon dad you gotta step up your game and get those lights going lol. Our week was pretty good. Not a ton of
teaching due to people being busy with the holiday weekend.  On Tuesday we had Elder Clark of the Seventy come and visit our mission. He spoke in the last general conference, so that was super cool. He talked to us about listening to understand instead of listening to respond. That if we do that and read the Book of Mormon with our investigators we will have more success. He also talked to us about having faith and expecting miracles. He told us a story where the was a rebellious member who ran away from home at 16 and joined a biker gang. He was at his place in southern California when he saw some missionaries across the street. They walked by, but then when they got to the end of the street they stopped turned around and came back. They stopped at his fence for a second when the attack dogs ran at the fence, but after a second the dogs turned around and went to sleep. They then walked in and talked to him, they asked him where he was from and he said Idaho, and it turns out that one of the elders was actually a brother he didn't know about who was born after he ran away. And the elder said he came to that mission to bring him home, so that was a cool story.

We had a lesson with Jeannine on Wednesday. Just figuring stuff out for her baptism, we warned her that Satan was going to try her and tempt her really hard leading up to her baptism, but that us and the ward members were there to help her. That was good. But we got a text from her this morning saying we need to move the baptism to the 13th.  But we aren't exactly sure what is going on, so we will figure that out. But thank you for the prayers! They are helping!  

Thanksgiving was good. We ate at Bishop Fifita's from the Tongan ward.  And then we went to Kampeli's who is also from the Tongan ward. So we ate till we couldn't possibly eat another bite. We had turkey, pig, lamb, crab, potatoes of all sorts, etc. It was super  delicious got us very well fed.

We went on exchanges, I went with Elder Saavedra in my area. I like him, he is super cool. We found out we might get a chance to meet Bronco Mendanhall. We stopped by a part member family's house, and their son is one of the top linebacker/quarterback prospects in the country, and Bronco Mendanhall is coming to recruit him this week. So she told us to come by and get pictures with him and stuff, so we are excited for that. other than that not too much going on. Everyone was busy with Thanksgiving. I love you and will talk to you later!!
Elder Burnside

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.