October 15, 2013

 

Hola familia y amigos!

I have tons to tell you all but my keyboard is being lame so hopefully I don't give up part way through. If sentences are rather short, that is why!

My birthday was so fun! I made a smoothie for breakfast with some strawberries, bananas and this super healthy orange juice that I had found at the store the day before (it had like 12 different vitamins in it! Awesome!) so that started the day off perfectly! We had DTM and my district leader, Elder Ch......, wrote "Happy Birthday Sister Burner" across the top of the chalk board. And I got to play the piano :) In our area, we talked to this less active couple and they asked us to teach them because they really want to come back to church. And we left a cute post it with a sweet message on it on a lady's door who had been all grumpy with us the day before...kill them with kindness! Haha I felt kinda sneaky. We had VC in the evening which was perfect because there are always more people there in the evenings! Aaand I was standing right at the front desk when in walks Br....... P......... with his adorable little brother and sister, one of which was holding a bag with mint chip ice cream and the other was holding a birthday cake that had a note on it that said, "Gluten free." How cute is that! Haha Br....... told me that my mom had said I wouldn't eat the cake unless it had a note on it saying that it was gluten free. My mom knows me very well :) It was just a fantastic day overall! Plus I got a package from Aunt Lisa in the mail that day, as well as a few birthday cards from members of our ward back in Chico. Beautiful!

Thursday we had companion exchanges, so I got to be with Sister Dav.... for a day! It was super fun, especially since she speaks Spanish. Not to mention that she is super nice and just a fun person to be around! We had an amazing first lesson with this teenage girl named Han...... We read 2 Nephi 31 and had an amazing conversation about how Han...... has felt the spirit in the past, especially when she went to Girls Camp. Wahoo! We were supposed to have another lesson with her last night, but she wasn't feeling good and had already gone to bed (it was at 8). But we gave a Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet to her mom to give to her, which I am hoping her mom might end up reading as well!

Friday night we went to visit this man named St.....e. I can't remember if I have already told you how we met him...but a couple weeks ago we passed each other on the sidewalk, and I turned around and started a conversation with him about Joseph Smith as we walked him up to his house. We have been trying to catch him ever since, with little success. Until Friday!! He invited us in and we had a nice chat, which ended up turning into us teaching him the Restoration. We invited him to church on Sunday and set up an appointment for yesterday. Well, guess what!! He was at church! And we had our lesson with him last night and it went amazing. We recapped the Restoration and taught him the first half of the Plan of Salvation, after which I brought up baptism and invited him to be baptized on November 9th. He said Yes!! He also said that he believes that God sent us to him. How sweet :)

Sunday we spoke in the Mid-Singles ward in Washington. We agreed to do it since it's still in our stake and some of the members are in Leeds, so it would be good to get them all excited about doing missionary work up there. Anyways, of course we had the whole program to ourselves. So Sister Pha...... was a little nervous. But I helped her prepare her talk, and had her go first so I could just fill in whatever time was left. Well, when we got there we learned that they didn't have a pianist there that day, so I ended up filling in for that...prelude, opening hymn, sacrament hymn, rest hymn, closing hymn, and postlude. Oy. It turned out okay :) Kinda crazy going straight from the piano playing the rest hymn to the pulpit to speak! But it worked out. Passing the sacrament ended by 1:15 and my companion spoke for 12 minutes, so I ended up giving a 35 minute talk. Thank goodness for the Spirit!

Well my time is up, but know that I love you all and I am so grateful to have you in my life!

Love,

Sister Burner



 

October 8, 2013

 

Hola familia y amigos

 

.....Yesterday was kind of crazy.... I had accidentally assigned rides/dinners to both wards for next Monday, and neither for yesterday! So Sunday we called some of the people and had them move the date up.  It all went smoothly : ) But then about 10 minutes before our shift at the Visitors Center ended yesterday morning (it ends at 3, and our ride was picking us up at 3:30), Sister Cen....... (the mp's wife) texted us and asked if she could go out with us that night.  So we called our ride again for that night and canceled with her.

 

We didn't have much time in our area before dinner but we got to contact two people before we had to start walking over to our dinner appointment (our ride dropped us off in Leeds so we went from there by foot).  Guess what our dinner had?!  Gluten free Domino's pizza with pepperoni and olives!  I seriously thought for a second that they must have called and asked someone I know what to feed us.  It was so yummy! And they had Canadian bacon/pineapple normal pizza, which Sister Pha...... happens to like.  So it just was enjoyable overall!

 

After dinner, Sister Cen..... picked us up and we had an appointment with Hay.....  Which was aaamazing!  We taught her the Plan Of Salvation, and we covered the 10 Commandments as well, during "earth life."  We couldn't have had a better lesson--we followed up on her commitment, used How to Begin Teaching points from PMG, gave an overview, had a prayer, used visuals for PoS and the hand signals for 10 Commandments, bore testimony and promised blessings, had great participation and asked some inspired questions, gave her an age-appropriate PoS worksheet for her commitment as well as committing her to go to church, said a kneeling closing prayer, scheduled another appointment and asked for referrals.  And Sister Pha....... and I traded off pretty well on the teaching : )  It was so good!  We did everything that we are supposed to do in a lesson.  Perfect lesson for the mission president's wife to listen in on!

 

After that we went to visit some less actives and potential investigators.  We had good experiences with all of them-- we got in houses, scheduled appointments, and invited people to an activity that is coming up.

 

Huge sigh of relief!!

 

Conference was great as well; it always goes by way too fast!  We got to watch most of it, although at the Visitors Center we had to take turns being out on the floor (they had conference showing in the big theater in the middle of the VC) so we missed a few talks that we'll have to catch up on later.  Saturday morning session we were able to go watch with Hay....., her sister and her grandma!  That was way fun.  And we had a nice little lunch with them afterwards as well : )

 

Well, my time will soon be out--but thank you to those of you who sent me birthday letters, e-mails, and packages!  You are the best!

 

I love you all!

--Sister Burner

Mission Temple Day at St. George!
(Hermana Burner- front row, third from right)
September 25, 2013

 

  



October 1, 2013

Hola familia y amigos--

 



We had several funny experiences this week, and tons of tender mercies!

 

One tender mercy:  A man came up to me at church and asked if I liked gluten free waffles (uh, yes!)  He then told me that he had bought about 50 boxes for his daughter when they were on sale but then she moved away, so he didn't know what to do with them and was wondering if I would like some.  Score!! He asked me how big my freezer was and how many boxes I wanted so I just said like ten...so he runs home and brings me two grocery bags full of them.  How amazing is that?!  And he said to let him know when I run low because he has tons more.

 

The other day we had an amazing experience when we were tracting through an apartment complex that is in our area.  We had met this lady and her daughter briefly before, and when we went by this time, she was in the process of boxing up everything and moving out.  When we asked her if we could help, she looked a little doubtful and asked "do you really want to?"  To which I said, "YES!"  So she let us come in and help her box up a couple of bedrooms.  While we were packing she told us that she had received a notice yesterday that she had to move out of her apartment within 3 days.  Yikes.  We talked to her more and she told us about how another woman was moving away from the apartments at the same time, who had moved there around the same time that she had.  She felt that that lady had been brought there just to help her.  She also said that there was a missionary couple who worked with an addiction program that were about to be released that she felt were placed there just for her as well-- and then now with us showing up to help her just when she needed it, she felt overwhelmed with how perfect timing all of these things had.  I shared with her how I, too, had experienced times in my life where I felt that God was really watching over me, and setting things in my path to help me just when I needed them most.  It was a truly amazing experience, and more than one tear was shed and testimony shared.

 

On a lighter note, one night my companion and I had a few minutes before heading to dinner so we decided to knock a few random doors.  Background info, my companion is terrified of dogs and cats.  So I generally distract the dogs/cats while we talk to people.  Anyways, we walked up this driveway and were trying to figure out where the front door was when this big, mean dog runs around the corner, barking at us like crazy.  For half a second I contemplated whether I should stay and protect my companion, but quickly I decided that a better course of action would be to turn around and, well, get outta there!  So I turn and run like crazy, and my companion was just absolutely petrified so she was clenching on to my arm as I turned to run and took another half second before her wits came to her and she started running like mad out of there too!  We just ran around the corner into the street, and when we stopped I started cracking up.  It was just so funny! Oh gosh.  That will be a story for her to tell later-- "One day, this huge man-killing dog came to attack me, and my trainer just turned and booked it, leaving me to fend for myself!"  Haha not really, she was only a second behind me.  But you know what they say:  there is no need to fear dogs on your mission, as long as you know that you can run faster than your companion!

 

Another slightly less funny experience we had just yesterday--we had a lady come pick us up from our dinner appointment and drive us around for the rest of the night, then drop us off at the vc afterward (we didn't have the car yesterday).  I guess it all started when I called her earlier in the day to confirm with her.  I told her that we had an appointment at 6, and then after that we were just going to contact some referrals.  She offered that if we needed to we could come back to her house to contact the referrals, but I told her that we were doing visits, not calls.  Anyways, so she picks us up and we had an amazing lesson with Ha..... (we taught her the Restoration and put her on date for Nov. 2nd!).  The contacting went great; two of the people were home who we hadn't been able to catch yet!

 

Anyways, when we were done she said, "Well would you like to come to my house before we head back?"  I just figured that maybe she needed to pick something up to take down to St. George with her, so I said it was okay if we did that.  As we headed to her house I started to realize the real purpose for stopping by there.  She started rambling about how she had two sons still living at home--one was 25 with down syndrome, and the other one was 39 who had never found the right woman to marry.  Oh gosh.

 

So we get to the house and go in, and she tells us that we can wait there in the living room while she goes to get her family to come out and meet us.  While she was gone her 39 year old son, A...., comes in from the backyard and starts talking to us.  She came back and saw he was there, and then somehow disappeared again... after about 10 minutes she comes back with a family calendar so that we could "see pictures of the family," after which I said that we probably needed to be heading back.  Before we headed out, she turned to A..... and said, "A........, would you like to accompany us to St. George?"  To his credit, he looked a little confused and ended up saying he could just stay home with his brother.  Oh gosh!  This lady was totally trying to set us up with her son!  Oh gosh!  One, we are sister missionaries.  Two, he is almost twice our age.  Three, we are sister missionaries!

 

Oh goodness, I guess she is just a little desperate for her son to get married.  He looks more like 25 than 39 though, so I'm sure he will eventually.  But hopefully not to a sister missionary!

 

Anyways, I am grateful that there have been lots of tender mercies and funny experiences lately.  

 

Thank you for all of your prayers and support!  I love you all!

Love,

Sister Burner

 

 



Victorian House!

 

 

 

 

This would be cute if it weren't for the dog eating my foot!

 

 

 

Sister Pe.......(grand-daughter), Hna. Burner, and Sister He..... (daughter)

September 25, 2013

 

 

Hna Burner and Sister Nic...... - in front of St. George Temple

September 17, 2013

 

Buenos dias, familia y amigos!

 

Guess what! Guess what! Guess what! I am going to be a mission grandma!  I am so excited!! Sister He.... and are both training, so I am going to be a "mom" again at the same time as being a "grandma" for the first time!  I am going to be in a new area called Washington East 2, which is splitting off of Washington East.  So I am opening a new area and training at the same time.... no pressure!  At least I already know what I am doing at the Visitors Center, so I won't have that added on to it.  I hadn't heard of missionaries white-wash/training that much, but I guess I am just a magnet for it!

 

I just hope that my new trainee is as easy to train as Sister He.... was!  I am thinking that I will probably train a sister named Sister Sho........., because she is called Spanish Speaking.  But, you never know.  There are also sister coming in from Germany, Samoa, Guyana and South Africa.  And a couple of Americans :)  I think we are getting 7 VC sisters and a couple of full-proselyting.  But we only have 4 trainers in the VC, so some of the VC sisters coming in will head outbound first.

 

So, good news is, I will for sure see Ky..... (Emi....'s little sister) tomorrow!! She probably won't be my companion, since she is full pros, but she might serve around me!  And I will see her at the training meeting :) Yay! I hope she recognizes me because I am probably just going to run up and give her a big hug as soon as I get the chance to!

 

Our P-days will be on Tuesdays this transfer, which is slightly better!  And we will be living at the apartments right across the street from the Visitors Center which is super convenient.  Hopefully we will meet some people right away that will be willing to give us rides to our area.  But I am just going to cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

Sister Her...... is headed home! She came into the Visitors Center yesterday because all the people who are leaving have things that they do all day today before they leave tomorrow.

 

 I am excited for this new transfer! And I am super happy that I can go with Sister He.... to our trainers meeting and meet our new missionaries together.

 

I hope you all have a great week! Know that I love you sooo much!

Your Missionary,

Sister Burner

 



September 11, 2013

 

Buenos dias, familia y amigos!

 

Lots of things happened this last week!  Definitely the most exciting part was mission conference.  The night before, we had another sister (she is serving in Kanab) named Sister Don...... spend the night with us.  They came early so that it wasn't such a long drive for them the next day.  We picked her up before dinner and she stayed with us the rest of the night.  Oh, and we had an amazing lesson with Ann....... that night!  We met her at the VC with one of her fellowshippers, Sister Mor...... and watched the Joseph Smith movie.  The Spirit was super strong, and she bore her testimony as well as saying the closing prayer (that was the first time Sister He..... and I had heard her pray). She is so ready to be baptized!  The bishop met with her son yesterday so hopefully he will be able to baptize her within a few weeks.

 

The next morning we got up at 3:15 to get ready and leave by 4:25.  Our zone and central zone road in the same bus.  We slept a little bit on the way, and we got to Salina around 8.  It was really weird to be back there and see all the places that I am so familiar with from serving there!  The conference didn't start until 9, so we had a little time to see people from other parts of the mission before sitting down and reading our scripture in preparation for the conference to start.  We all stood up, of course, when Elder Bednar came in.  Also with him were his wife, Elder and Sister Clayton from the Presidency of the 70, the mission president and his wife (of course), and some other regional/area authorities that I don't remember the names of.

 

Sister Bednar, Sister Clayton, and Elder Clayton each had turns to speak for a few minutes before Elder Bednar started.  It was so neat!  It was more of a big discussion than just him talking to us.  We discussed the talks that we had read before the conference, how to follow the Sprit, inspired questions, etc, and then he had a little question/answer session.  I was too chicken to say anything, but I was absorbing everything all I could :)  Afterwards, they all lined up and all of the missionaries got to walk by and shake their hands. (Ahhh!!!) He said that they didn't want any talking going on though, so sorry Grandpa I couldn't tell him "hi" for you! He did look at my tag and say my name as I shook his hand though-- the people around me told me later that they were super jealous of that! Kinda made me feel special.

 

We got a mission picture with him as well, but they haven't emailed it to us yet.  Everything was pretty rushed, so nobody got a chance to take any other pictures.  I got a couple on the bus to send to you though!

 

Sister He.... and I spoke in 4th ward on Sunday.  Both of our talks turned out so good! I spoke last and had about 20 minutes to fill, but the timing was perfect.  Just when I had finished everything that I had wanted to say and bearing my testimony, I looked at the clock and it was 10:05.  Sweet! Our topics were "missionary work."  I started my prep for my talk by reading the section on our purpose in Preach My Gospel (page one).  I decided to go off of that --on page two it mentioned 2 Nephi 2:8, which I compared also with Alma 34:32, saying that we prepare to meet God by applying the Atonement to our lives.  In PMG it says that as we learn more about the Atonement, it strengthens our desire to share the Gospel.  I didn't summarize that very well.  But trust me, it was amazing :) I feel like that was the best talk I have ever given! Maybe if I have time I will write it out and send you a copy.  But the best part was that I was not nervous one little bit! I just got up there and felt so comfortable speaking.  The mission does great things!

 

After Sacrament meeting, one of the Bishop's daughters, Ma...., came over and gave me a big hug around my middle (she is 21 but she is quite a few inches shorter than me).  She has down-syndrome and considers me her celiac buddy (she is gluten free as well).  It melted my heart a bit when she wouldn't let go of me and she said, "Sister Burner, you are my favorite missionary!" It was sooo cute! I'll have to get a picture with her before I leave so that I can send it to you.

 

Today we went and spent some time cleaning the temple--just doing laundry stuff this time.  But afterwards they let my companion and I go up into the tower! That was pretty neat.   We also got to walk around on the balcony up there and see one of the apartment rooms that are on the 5th floor of the temple.

 

Well my time is pretty much out but know that I love you all sooo much!

 

--Sister Burner

September 4, 2013

 

Familia y amigos!

 

Lots of things happened this week, so I am just going to try to start at the beginning and go chronologically.  Hopefully I remember everything I want to tell you about!

 

Last Wednesday night Sister Center (the Mission President's wife) and Sister Watkins (the VC Director's wife) put together a girls night for all of the sisters who are working in the VC.  We all went over to the mission home, and they talked to us about how we should dress and how we should do our hair/make up in the visitors center.  They made it kinda fun though, with visuals and games and things like that.  They just want us to wear brighter colors and fix our hair nicely.  Sister Watkins always gets on me for wearing too much beige and black, but hey... when I came out, they told us to wear things that were conservative! She is completely welcome to buy me a new wardrobe if she so desires.  I won't even complain one bit if she does.  Not likely though.  Oh well!

 

I had a moment this last week that reminded me of Trey!  I was going out to check on the annex, and as I was walking over I noticed this cat was climbing Spiderman-style up a tree.  I guess he was aiming to eat some bird for dinner because a minute later theses two birds burst from the tree.  One fell to the ground with an injured wing, but it was okay because it was able to fly away a bit.  The other one, though, flew straight into the roof that connects the annex and the VC, and fell to the ground with a splat.  It was so sad!  Sister Lo.... ran out of the annex and grabbed the cat from running after it, and she took the cat to the opposite end of the temple grounds and sat it outside as I tried to get the injured bird into a safer spot.  We went out to check on it a few times throughout the rest of our shift and to the best of my knowledge, Trey, the bird was safe :) I kept on thinking about that time when a bird flew into Trey's head and he felt like it was his fault so he nursed it back to health! Oh goodness... I love that kid!

 

Saturday afternoon we had some interesting visitors at the Visitors Center! Two unkempt men came, one with a big cross and the other with a sign, and protested outside of the Visitors Center.  They were rather annoying.  We had a really good German tour (quite a few even took BoMs), and on their way back onto their bus one of these men went up to them and gave them a bunch of anti-Mormon flyers.  Good thing they didn't speak English!  I think he was trying to teach them how to pray as well... at one point he was kneeling on the ground and gesturing up to the sky or something.  Anyways, temple security came out and 3 policemen came to talk to the protesters, but there wasn't really anything they could do except to remind them that they had to stay on the sidewalk and keep moving around.  And they weren't allowed to approach people or jump out at anyone.  Oh gosh.  We just responded with kindness.  One of the sister passed by and he just went off with "This is a free country! I can be out here if I want to!  You can't make me go away!"  She hadn't said anything about that though, and she just responded with, "Well, is there anything that we can do for you?"  He didn't quite know what to say to that.  They left around 6 after being there for about 3 hours.

 

Ann...... prayed out loud for the first time!  We weren't even there though.  Ahhhh!  But I was so excited when we found out.  It was during their Gospel Principles class on Sunday (we were on shift at the VC so we weren't there).  Also we were talking to her fellowshipper later that day and she told us that during testimony meeting Ann..... had passed her a note that said, "BAPTISM?  September 28th?"  AHHH! She told her friend that the thought had just hit her during testimony meeting.  Awesome!! Ann..... has yet to tell us for herself though.  But that would be so amazing!  September 28th is her birthday (her fellowshipper didn't know that), how sweet is that?!

 

The other day I was working in the annex of the Visitors Center, where it just talks about the construction of the temple.  These two girls came in who said they were going to college about 45 minutes from here.  I just assumed they were LDS because they were dressed modestly, which isn't too common for nonmembers here in St. George (it's too hot for them here.... Mormon women are tough!).  So I gave them a tour around the annex, and we were sitting there chatting for a minute when it finally came out that one of them wasn't LDS!  Ooops.  But it was way good.  Maybe it was supposed to happen that way, because by the time I found out we had already established a comfortable friendship and she didn't have to feel like it was just because she was a nonmember that I was being overly friendly to.

 

Anyways, I took them over to the main part of the Visitors Center and showed them the Savior of the World room as well as the Christus.  The girl was catholic and had just started dating an LDS returned missionary a few days ago.  She was super nice, and I know for sure that we were all able to feel the Spirit super powerfully during the tour.  It is amazing how you can show the same pictures and exhibits to different people all day, but when the Spirit is there and the person has an open heart, the tour is completely different.  The Spirit definitely had me say some things to her that I had never even thought to tell anyone in relation to those paintings before.  It was incredible :)

 

I've gotten to use quite a bit of Spanish lately!  The other day I gave five tours in Spanish.  It was like there was just one after another!  They were all members though.  But it was just nice to be able to practice my Spanish!

 

Thank you all for all that you do for me!  I love you lots.

 

Your missionary,

 

Sister Burner