February 11, 2013

Buenos dias, familia y amigos!

 

This week was so amazing. I feel like we saw miracles every single day. So, sorry if this email is a little bit all over the place, I just want to make sure I remember everything I want to tell you!

 

Thursday night, we had lesson with Ra... and Je...... (she is a less-active, and her husband is a nonmember). We are the sixth set of missionaries to teach them, and he told us that he could not see himself ever going to church or praying in front of people. So, we weren't altogether too hopeful about being able to help him progress. We decided before our lesson on Tuesday that we would decide that night whether or not to drop him, and we would decide based on whether or not we could get him to pray. We had a lesson on commandments, focusing on the basic 10 (reading them from Mosiah 12 and 13). We talked about how we obey the commandments that God gives us not because we can see that they are for our best interest, but because we love Him and deisre to do what he asks of us. At the end of the lesson, we talked about how God has asked us to pray to Him, and then we all knelt down for the prayer, folded our arms, and Sister Chase said, "And now, Ra... will offer the prayer for us." There was a pause for a few seconds, and then Ra.... began to pray. He offered an amazing prayer, and the Spirit was so strong. I feel like that moment was sacred--and I know that it touched Je......'s heart; I can tell that she wants to have the Gospel in their lives. It was the first time that she had ever heard her husband pray.

 

On Saurday, Sister Chase and I went up to Cleveland to have a lesson wth Ti...., but he wasn't home from work yet so we told Cy..... that we would come back in an hour. We got to the car and decided on one of our back-up plans to check in on a woman we hadn't seen in a while. As we approched the narrow road that led to her house, there was a car behind us (that doesn't happen very often here), so Sister Chase drove past it, and turned around. We ended up driving for a little ways, looking for a place to turn around, and just as we were turning around at a little 4-way intersection, we saw a woman walking her dog down the road, smoking a cigarette. We got really excited (maybe she was a nonmember!), so we drove to the other end of the road and started walking up the street, hoping to run into her. She wasn't outside anymore, so we decided to tract the doors up the street until we found her. The first few houses were members, but we didn't give up. We knocked on one door, and this lady answered and said that she was a 7th Day Adventist, and shut the door in our faces! It was so awesome!  Potential Investigator : ) We had no idea TWO nonmembers lived on that street! Anyways, we kept knocking doors and after a couple of houses, that lady we had been looking for answered the door. She was really nice and said that she was Catholic, and she was just visiting her in-laws who were members (less-active probably, because they didn't let us come in to share a message). She lives in Price, but we gave her a couple of mormon.org cards and invited her to check out the church. Tender mercies galore!

 

S.... stayed for all three hours of church on Sunday, and is way excited for her baptism a week from Saturday. She is so golden--she pretty much already believes in every principle of the Gospel, before we even teach them to her! She tells everyone we introduce her to that she is getting baptized on February 23rd. We have been blessed to find several fellowshippers for her! So many of the ward members came up and introduced themselves to her, sat next to her in class, or said that they would like to come to some of the lessons with her. Also, people have gone by and checked in on her, and a couple of her neighbors went over to her house to give her son a Priesthood blessing (he has a lot of medical issues). I love it when wards are so great with our investigators! We are a little sad that Sister Chase probably won't be here for her baptism, but we are going to take pictures with her before transfers.

 

We also had some not-so-spiritual but kind of funny events this week. We got pulled over for going 28 mph in a school zone (apparently they are 20 mph zones here in Utah). We had just eaten dinner with the cop's family a couple of weeks ago though, so he just laughed it off and said that we would need to stop speeding or else he wouldn't feed us dinner anymore (rude!). The unfortunate part was that he pulled us over in the post office parking lot, just as the Stake President was walking across in front of our car. Ooops.

 

Also, our toilet broke and President Si.............. (our landlord, he is in the Stake Presidency) came and had to replace the entire inside thing. He left a note on our table that said, "Sister Burner, please do not let Sister Chase take off the lid of the toilet tank again. I don't want to have to replace it again. Thanks : )" It was so funny. He is so great. While he was there he put ice-salt stuff on our walkway to melt the ice, and in the note he said he would try to find us another dresser, since he noticed that we just share one.

 

Well, I hope you have a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Hermana Burner

February 4, 2013

Hey Familia--

 

We finished everything we had to get done early today, so I have plenty of time to write! We are meeting the elders at the Huntington Stake Center to play basketball in a bit though.

 

I thought I would share with you a few of these spiritual thoughts that I share often when we run into a member or after dinner appointments : ) (BTW, I ate with Pres. Brown's aunt's family the other night!)

 

Ether 12:4 and 12:6--- We love to emphasize the word "anchor" and how faith in Christ is our anchor (compare Hel. 5:12)

 

Ether 12:27--- I always follow with this quote: "No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you, with an infinite love"---Pres. Uchtdorf. Smetimes even just knowing that God truly loves us is enough to give us the strength to carry on.

 

D & C 124:15--- I use this to talk about likening the scriptures to ourselves. I tell how I had this scripture printed out and looked at it often during high school to give me motivation.

 

Alma 38:9--- I love the contrast of light, truth, Christ vs. dark, lies, satan, and how if we let Him, Christ will light up our worlds.

 

A lot of times we just use various scriptures as the spirit directs, or something we have learned recently in our personal studies.

 

Remember how I mentioned in my e-mail about teaching Gl....? It has been so great. Her sister drives all the way from Castle Dale to join our lessons, and she had been going to a baptist church for the last year. And there is always one or two other random less actives or nonmembers who come. It's like we have a little class!

 

I love you all so much! I keep a family picture in my scriptures, and my favorite pen (I'm using it right now) is the one Grandma sent me that was custom made with our family picture on it. And I keep pictures next to my bed and on my dresser.

 

Have a great week!

----Hermana Burner

 



February 4, 2013

Hola Familia!

 

The other day, we were teaching a couple named the Le........s. They are 7th Day Adventist, but are always really nice to the missionaries and let us in. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation. It's a little scary because Brother Le....... is VERY well-versed in the Bible; he pretty much knows it backwards and forwards. Anyways, we were talking about how God is the Father of our spirits, and how He wants us to return to Him someday. We shared Hebrews 12:9, which compares our Heavenly Father to our earthly fathers. He then asked us, "If our Heavenly Father were like your dad, would you want to live with Him forever?" We both took a second to digest the question, but then we both said yes. It probably doesn't seem like a very powerful moment, but it really made me think about how great my dad is and how blessed I am that I have a dad who is such an amazing role model and example of a true disciple of Christ.  ...I'm going to leave it there because I'm starting to tear up in the middle of the library, but I love you, Dad : )

 

We have been teaching our friend A....'s mom (she just left on her mission a few weeks ago, and her mom is just starting to come back to church), mostly because she had a nonmember couple living with her that would sit in on the lessons, but also because President just gave us permisison during the last Zone Conference to start teaching less-actives (as long as it doesn't interfere with our goals for teaching nonmembers), and she really needs it. Anyways, during personal study I was starting to prepare our lesson for her, starting with the Restoration and focusing on the topic of love. After a while I realized that I was directing the entire lesson plan towards her, and not towards Ch.... and Li.... (the nonmenbers living with her). For some reason, I just felt that that was what I was supposed to do. When we arrived at her house for the lesson that night, she told us that Ch.... and Li.... had moved out and were living with her mom in Wellington, so it would just be her and her sister that night. I had no idea that that was going to happen, so it was just a testimony to me of how the Spirit directs our planning and teaching! I didn't know that it would just be Gl..... and her sister, but the Spirit did, so that is what He had me plan for. Amazing, isn't it?

 

On a lighter note, we were looking at some lists the other day that we got from the Stake Clerk, and one man had as his address, "Old Flour Mill." On official church records! Haha you know you are in Emery County when...! But it's legitimate; it seems like most of the houses around here don't have numbers on them, so a lot of people don't know their addresses.

 

I love you all! Tenga una bena semana!

Con amor,

Hermana Burner

January 28, 2013

Querido familia y amigos,

 

Zone Conference this last week was so much fun! I only had last Monday and lunch on Tuesday to learn the song, so it could have been a lot better, but it went well all things considered : ) I played a variation of the hymn "Each Life that Touches Ours for Good." It was a really beautiful arrangement, which hopefully made up for how slow I was playing it and my lack of dynamics ; )

 

We got to have a little recent convert lesson with Addie and Becca on Thursday! They are SO sweet. Their mom told us that one of them had said earlier, "Mom, I'm really excited to be baptized, but I'm sad because that means that we won't be able to see the missionaries anymore." They are so adorable. We met with them on Thursday just to talk a little more about how they can endure to the end. Sister Chase and I made them each a cootie catcher with little service/prayer/scripture reading ideas, which turned out really cute, and they were all excited because we colored them their favorite colors (purple and orange for Becca, pink and green for Addie). When we left they were still going around playing with them.

 

Sister Chase and I had an interesting experience the other day when we were tracting down some doors on Main Street--we went up to a house that looked a little run-down and sketchy (alot of them around here look like that though) with a dog house full of cats outside. Nobody answered our knocks, and when we turned around, we saw that a man had parked a nice truck on the side f the street and was coming up the walkway with a woman. He seemed nice and called out, "Hey Sisters! No luck?" We said no and chatted with him for a minute trying to figure out if he knew the people that lived there, but finally he just said, "No, we're here on business." It was only then that Hermana Chase saw the police badge and gun hanging from his belt, so she said, "Well, I can see your badge there so...we'll just let you take over here." So we moved on to the next house, but that was sooo sketchy! Haha I don't know if we will go back there anytime soon.

 

Mom, that completely made our day when we got your package! I'm pretty sure that you're Hermana Chase's favorite now. She said she hadn't had salsa that good since before her mission. Plus we are both in love with those long post-its that you sent us at Christmas time! They fit perfectly in our planners and we can write more on them than normal ones.

 

We challenged 5 people to be baptized this week! Four were from that family we picked up a couple weeks ago, and they didn't seem too committed--but we'll work on them a little more : ) It will be such a neat day when they are baptized. We aso challenged this elderly lady named S... to be baptized on Feb. 23, and she didn't even act surprised! She just reacted as if it was just the next natural step. It was so great! And before we left she had already told her son who was in the other room, and he didn't act very suprised about it either. I guess it was just a matter of time : ) Teaching her has been so great--she is super talkative, so sometimes it's hard to get a word in edgewise, but she just seems so prepared. All of her beliefs are in line with what the Gospel teaches, and everything we teach just seems to make so much sense to her.

 

Well, I hope everything is going well for everyone! I love you all. Have a great week!

--Hermana Burner