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