Mission Field Week 8

Hello everyone! 

How are you all doing? I am doing pretty well here. So last P-Day night Elder G----- and I decided to contact as many people as we could because we were tired of not having any people to teach. We basically doubled our potential teaching pool and found our one solid investigator we were looking for. His name is L-----. He is a super jacked Tongan man that we found. He is a returned missionary and was excommunicated a little while ago for a mistake he made and he has never lost his testimony. He is trying hard to regain his membership and blessings. We meet a lot of excommunicated people out here so it's not very surprising when we teach someone who was. He is super nice and very funny. He told us to come eat dinner at his place last Wednesday and it was really good. He said he will feed us horse this next week so I'll be sure to let you know if he was serious or not.

     We have one other solid investigator actually. She is a nine year old girl named J-----. She is a really sweet girl and she is very funny. She wants to be baptized and her mom is now active in the church so we are excited for her. We have her on date for baptism in December so that's really exciting. I promised to teach her how to do a one-handed cartwheel if she will say our opening or closing prayer at or next lesson. We will see how that turns out.

     We had a wonderful blessing this past week or at least Elder G----- did. His girlfriend sent him a package and it apparently was delivered but when we went to the mailbox it wasn't there. So we went to the post office and they gave us a number to call. He called the number and they were having our mail lady come to the mailbox to see what happened. We went to the mailbox early so we wouldn't miss her (the package has been missing for a couple days now and Elder G----- is really anxious to get it). This man that lived maybe two houses down from the mailbox. He came out holding a package and calls to us "Hey is one of you Elder G-----? I have your package" why he had his package we do not know but we didn't care because G----- was overjoyed that he finally got it.

    So in this new area we are fed by a different ward every week. For some reason, this past week we had no idea which ward was feeding us and nobody called us asking where we we were so we had no dinner appointments this past week with the exception of our Tongan friend/investigator. So the older H----- brother, who lives in the room next to us with his younger brother (they are 23 and 21 I believe), took us to Olive Garden which was really good. He served his mission here maybe four years ago. The old lady with the odd questions I talked about in my last email was also one of his investigators when he was a missionary here. She is a very, very interesting person.

    Last Saturday for lunch, we went with the Spanish Elders to Costco to get some hot dogs and slices of pizza which were very good. We stopped and took pictures with reindeer afterwards. When the four of us were almost home we saw an older man on the ground in his yard who looked like he was doing yard work or something. We yelled to him and asked him if he needed help but we didn't hear him respond. We took a couple steps to keep going but I really felt like we should ask him again if he needed help. So I stopped and asked him again if he wanted help. This time he waved us over. When were got to him we saw that his head was bloody from these cuts he had all over his face and head. He had fallen and landed on a thorn bush. He managed to move himself off of it but couldn't get up and he couldn't get help from people for the next hour and a half until we came along. We got him in a chair and told his wife who had been inside. She called the paramedics and a fire truck came. They asked us if we got him up and made sure he was alright, which we said we did. The captain then said "Good, you're hired" so I can now say I'm a firefighter right? Elder G----- and I went by a couple hours later and raked his leaves for him which he was very grateful for.

    Well that pretty much sums up my week. Oh before I forget, today is a half P-Day and we do have a P-Day on Thanksgiving, but they told us we are not allowed to email. Oh well. Anyways I hope you all have a fantastic week. I do have pictures this week so hopefully you can see those. Later people! 

Mission Field Week 7

Hey what's up everybody? 

So in my last email I believe I stated that I was getting transferred. I did and I am now literally down the street from Avery. It's a little unusual but it's perfectly fine in my opinion. He took us out to Sizzler the other night and the three of us ended up getting a free meal since apparently they like missionaries. That was pretty cool. My companion is Elder G----. He has been out for a total of about 8 months. I say total because when he was only a couple transfers in, he went home because he thought mission life wasn't for him. He then went and played a year of college football. After a year he began to consider going back on his mission. Soon after that he became a starter for his football team. Nevertheless, he prayed about it a lot and decided that serving a mission was more important. So he quit and came back out. He is a very nice guy and we get along very well.

     We are over the G------ North Stake. Our one stake is one of the biggest stakes in the mission. We cover a Cambodian branch that technically extends all the way to Provo. You would think we would have a car right? Sadly not. We walk everywhere which makes it very hard to knock doors since everyone is so spread out. We talked to the assistants and they said that since we cover such a large area we will be the first to get a car once they come in. We were excited for a moment, then he told us that the new cars won't be coming in till January. Oh well we'll get walking then.

    One of the few lessons we taught this week was with this elderly lady who is known to bring a Pastor along to our lessons to bible bash with us. We were kinda looking forward to it so that we could just refuse to bash with him and be super nice to him, blowing his mind. But he never showed up. The lady was very interesting. She kept asking us questions she obviously already knew the answer to and was trying to trip us up with her questions and reasoning. It was pretty weird. She kept asking us if we believed God physically impregnated Mary or if it was the Holy Ghost that did (neither of those are correct by the way). We were able to answer her questions though, but five minutes into the 45 minute lesson the spirit was gone so it just wasn't very great.

    We are currently living in a room with the Spanish elders. We have two bunkbeds in one room and one bathroom so things are a little crowded. We all get along very well so that's really nice. We, along with the Zone Leaders, go to the gym at 6AM most mornings. Unfortunately, my sprained thumb isn't completely healed yet (I have nearly full movement, it's just a little tender) so I can't lift there. So I decided to just run on the treadmill. I usually go around 2-4 miles on it without puking which for me is incredible so that's pretty cool.

     Thanksgiving is coming up soon. We have had one offer to feed us so far but I don't know what we will be doing that day. I do know that it is an all day P-day so I'll be able to respond to your emails on Thursday all day instead of only until 6PM.

     I have not been seeing any riots since Trump was elected president. I'm sure there are people throwing fits everywhere but since I don't watch the news I have not heard much at all on the subject.

     I live upstairs in a member's home. It would probably be best to send all packages to the mission office. I hope you have all had a great week. I heard it will probably be snowing this week so I may not survive but whatever. Love you all and I hope you all stay warm. Sorry I've been lazy with pictures.

   Elder Burner

Mission Field Week 6

Hello everyone! 

I hope you all had a great week. I don't have a lot to talk about for this week. I usually use my journal to help me remember what happened this week, but I had to write with my left hand with a pen. If it was with a pencil it wouldn't be a problem because I've had a lot of practice with writing with a pencil left handed. Pen is a lot harder. So what I'm getting at is I didn't write a lot. But my thumb is doing a lot better now so I am back to writing with my normal terrible handwriting again.

     We had something really unusual happen twice this week. So twice we have had people call us and ask us to come over and teach them. We figured they were either crazy or just wanted a welfare check from the church. But they turned out to be super awesome! The first were a couple that have not come to church in a very long time. They are in their late twenties I think. His name is T----- and her's is K-----. When we knocked on the door, T----- answered and he had tattoos all over his neck and on his knuckles, so I instantly liked him. They are really spiritual people and they really want to be more like Christ in all that they do so they really are golden investigators. The second call we got was from a man named D-----. He is a really kind man. He has a seven year old daughter who was mad at him because he wouldn't put Ghostbusters on pay per view for her to watch so she said "Daddy I don't like you right now". He responded by saying "Well Daddy loves you very much". He's super kind and he has been having a lot of troubles in life right now which has led him to humble himself and seek out help from us. I challenged him to baptism on the first lesson and he accepted with joy. It was really cool.

     Unfortunately, I then found out I am getting transferred out of our area tomorrow. Awww man. Oh well. I am getting transferred to the Granger North Stake. So I'm staying in my district though. Elder B--- is the new district leader which is hilarious because of who he is. He's a great missionary and all, he just likes to watch the world burn. But the good news is, I think I am now in Avery's area. Weird right? I'm not for sure though. My new companion is Elder G----. He seems like a pretty fun guy. The only problem I have with him is that I know he likes to go to the gym and work out at 6 in the morning, which means we would be getting up an hour early. But luckily for me, President Palmer is putting restrictions on gym for missionaries since a lot of them are going into debt because they don't pay their gym membership fee.

     Yesterday I went on splits with Elder K---- again because our companions are working on their musical firesides with the Polynesian choir "Devine Heritage". Since K---- is also getting transferred, we went around to the people in his ward he was close to and said goodbye. When we were at dinner with a member family, they had 3 daughters ages 17, 13 and 7. The 13 year old really likes Superman so she had an instant giant crush on Elder K----. It was pretty hilarious. We took a picture with them and the mom should have sent it to you Mom. As we walked out the girl yelled "I love you!" to Elder K---- and I nearly died laughing. Poor K----. We then went to another family who were very nice and fed us a second dinner. We laughed a lot with them. I'll try to send the picture I took with them. The last family we went to was one of the ward mission leaders. They served us pina colada and margaritas (non alcoholic of course) which were really good. They have really great people in their area.

   Well that is pretty much everything. Mom I'll be sure to answer all your unanswered questions later today. Have a great week everybody. Be good and don't drive like a lot of Utah drivers do.

    Love,
    Elder Burner

Mission Field Week 5

Hello there everyone! 

I don't have a lot of stuff to say for this week. Elder B---'s friend took us to a Thai food restaurant which was really good. He was around 60 years old I think and is a yoga instructor. He was a pretty cool guy. Later in the week Avery took us to Red Robin. It was awesome to hang out with him and the food was really good. My companion regretted ordering the ghost pepper burger though. His fault.

     So we have a sorta investigator named T---. I say sorta because she really just needs a friend right now. Anyways, we were going to help fix her bike. Her tires were all messed up so we took them to get new tubes the next day for her. We stopped at some food trucks for dinner. The one we went to was called the Fatty Tuna, where I had some really good ramen. We accidentally left the tires there and when we went back for them someone had stolen them. So Elder B---, since he has quite a bit of money in his savings, decided it wasn't right to go back to her empty handed, so we went to the Pawn Shop and bought her a new bike. It was a nice bike and it cost him less to buy it then it would have to fix the tires. Weird right? She was really thankful for our help.

       Speaking of bikes, so we moved apartments on Saturday. When we arrived in the parking lot on our bikes, my bike did something wack and sent me flying. I am so glad I did martial arts for so long cuz I rolled and was on my feet instantly (the member that saw it said I was a circus performer in a past life). I was seemingly unhurt for several minutes before I realized I had sprained my right thumb. It is rather uncomfortable, but the important thing is that the incident looked super awesome. We just got wifi in our apartment, but we still don't have a functioning water heater but that will be fixed today I hope. 

      I had the awesome experience to sing with the Samoan/Tongan choir called Devine Heritage. Even though I can't sing to save my life or anyone else's life, it was pretty cool. I only know four words in Samoan. I can say hello, excuse me, thank you and I'm white.

See ya later!

    Elder Burner