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

 



August 28, 2013

Hola familia y amigos!

 

The keyboard is a little temperamental.... so if there are grammatical errors in this email, know that it wasn't me!  Haha.

 

We just got finished helping clean the temple! It is closed for three weeks (we aren't entirely sure if that means that it will be slower or busier in the VC.... I guess that we will just have to find out!) for cleaning, and they let the sister missionaries sign up to help clean on our p-days.  Sister He...... and I were there for an hour and a half, moving chairs from the sealing rooms off of the celestial room on the second floor up to the assembly hall on the fourth floor (they are going to re-do the carpeting in the sealing rooms/celestial room).  All together we moved 78 chairs, and we were sweating like crazy, so we both felt like that was somewhat of an accomplishment!  They said that we could stop by again next week when we have more time, and they will let us go up into the tower : ) Cool or what?

 

Guess who came by to see me on Saturday?!  Sister Chas......! (Missionary trainer)  It was so great to see her!  She was on her way up to Provo with her best friend/trainer, Sister Madr..... (Bir....), so we were able to take a four generation picture!

 

The other day I got to take a German bus!  Well, kinda.  There weren't any German missionaries on shift, so sister Eyr...... and I took it.  We just introduced ourselves and shared a couple basic facts for the church (their tour guide was translating for us), and then Elder Cann...... got there (he is a senior missionary, they called him to come over to the vc as soon as they saw there was a German Bus) so he got to take the rest.  But it went so smoothly! They took like 14 Books of Mormon or something like that.  I don't really remember the number.  But it was a lot! And there were definitely a few people that looked like they were interested.

 

An rm who served in France came by Brigham Young's the other day, and he told the sister there that while he was in France, occasionally when he would knock on a door, the people would say, "Oh yes, we know about you!  We went to St. George!"  and then they would let them in!!  How amazing is that?!  Our little planting seeds work down here really is producing fruit after all : )

 

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

 

--Sister Burner