Winter (October 12)

Friends and Family,

It is officially winter here in Nebraska. Nature couldn't hold off any longer. I suppose she felt like she needed to start early just because she has a native Arizonan living here... It snowed Friday night about an inch or two leaving a nice blanket of snow for us to find Saturday morning. It was so weird. It honestly took me a few hours to wrap my head around it (as stupid as that sounds). I am finally used to the idea that there can be patches of real snow in random spots around the own that I live in. The snow didn't make the roads icy, thankfully, and was mostly gone by that evening. The cold is here to stay though. It hangs around the trirties or fourties during the day. My Arizona body has some adapting to do. We also got a heavy dusting of snow last night and this morning. It makes me miss highs of 85 down in Mesa.

In the past few weeks, swine flu has hit Hastings, and hit it hard. It seems like everywhere we go, someone has it. Our mission president has counciled against going into places that could put us in risk of getting it and putting us out of work. It can be quite frustrating sometimes.

Okay so I've decided that I am really glad I did not go somewhere requiring the acquisition of a new language. It would be so hard. I feel like it's a blessing being able to jump right in and not have any cultural or language barriers. Sometimes, though, I wish the missionaries here would have had to learn a language. It would be a huge investment of time and maybe everyone would be more invested in their missions and have the desire to work their absolute hardest.

I've had the realization of how amazing of an investment of time a mission is (is done properly). My mission prep teacher back home said that when he got home from his mission, he felt that even though he had given two whole years of his life, that he came out on top and that the Lord had blessed him more far more than he had deserved. A member here who's family recently got baptized (the Pendletons) said that out of all his schooling and life experience, that if he could only keep one thing, it would be his mission because that's where he learned the most. I am begining to feel the exact same way. I also feel that the harder you work, the more blessings you get and the more you mature. I am amazed at how much I've grown spiritually and emotionally already.

Okay so this is an interesting story. Our appartment is on the West edge of town. Whenever we go anywhere, we go through a certain traffic light by our house. Here's the weird part: about 80 percent of the time we pull up to it, it's green, and then turns red right before we get to it. What the heck!! How does it do that?? There is no way of the light "knowing" when we are coming. It is the first light we come to, so it's not like it's just the timing of the lights. I am baffled! I can only come up with two solutions: either it is just a freakish coincidence, or Satan has one of his minions sitting there messing with it to stop us from going to work. Either way, I think it's kind of wierd.

About a month ago, some members of the ward PEC suggested that we teach a primary class to help the ten-year-old Pendleton twins better understand some basic doctrines. We agreed. When we visited them at home the next time we asked the boys some questions and found out that they understood everything astoundingly well. We diagnosed that they did not really need the extra lesson in primary. We made a call or two. Apparently the message never got through, because we were left last minute to teach them that Sunday without any preparations. We couldn't just leave them sitting there. We had to teach them Something. But we couldn't just teach them anything. These were rowdy kids- the 8-11 year old class. We had to try hard to keep their attention. What we ended up doing was teaching the ten commandments with hand signals I made up on the stop. It was a rush, but it was a blast. And now, I know the ten commandments really well!

Transfers are this Thursday. I am excited to know what is going to happen and who my new companion will be. President basically told me in interviews that I am taking over the area. Because of a few other reasons, we know I'm staying and Elder Burton will be leaving. I'm going to miss him. In mission lingo, he's my "Daddy", or my trainer. In sacrament meeting he went up to bear his testimony. In it, he told the ward that he would probably be leaving and that I was a hard-working obedient missionary. I was grateful for that. I love the Hastings ward and I got up after his to tell them that. I also shared a few of my short insights from General Conference and bore my testimony. I was a good church.

I hope that's long enough to fulfill my promise of giving a long letter this week, and I hope you enjoyed it. If not.... deal with it I guess. Or complain to me in a letter. those are always nice- even if filled with caustic remarks. That's all for this week.

Love you all. Study the November Ensign! It's good stuff.
-Elder Burnham