11-30-09 SPANISH!!!!!!

Friends and Family,

This week has been one of the most exciting of my mission, and not because of Thanksgiving. On Tuesday morning, my mission president called me and formally extended the call to me to be a spanish-speaking missionary. He ordered the MTC materials for me, which I will probably get tomorrow. As of Wednesday, I have a native spanish-speaking companion. So exciting. I will tell a little background about it.

At the begining of the transfer six weeks ago, I was talking to Elder Petersen who served in the same branch as me, but spanish. He said that he had been called English, but told President he would liketo go Spanish. He was switched a transfer later. He said that if I showed desire to do the same, there was a chance I could. I started studying Spanish in my free time with some spanish materials I found at the appartment: a MTC lesson and grammar book, the pamphlets in spanish, and a spanish Preach My Gospel I borrowed from the church library. When Interviews rolled around, I told president I would love to switch. He said he would consider it. Many of the Spanish missionaries do not have driving privelages, because they are from foreign countries. He said they were always in need of ones who could drive. Now we jump forward to the morning before transfers. I got the call from President, and I was off.

I am now serving in the Logan, Iowa branch, in the Council Bluffs stake. The branch is mostly english with the exception of Denison. Denison used to be a spanish area with its own missionaries and branch. It closed 6 weeks ago and became part of the Logan Branch. The Logan branch has about 100 people who come regularly and has a nice building.
My companion is Elder Poccori. He wasw born in Peru, and moved to the US about 7 years ago. He speaks English, but only enough to get by. I am helping him with it, and he is helping me with Spanish.

We live with members- the Hess family. It is just a husband and wife who are both retired. We live in the town of Persia which has about 360 people. It is right in the middle of the major population in our area: Logan, Missouri Valley, Harlan, and Denison. We get our mail from the post office, which has a public area of about 5ft by 10 ft inside. The members we live with are cool though. They feed us all the time, and we have a spiritual thought every night.

It is officially Christmas time!! I love it. Every one is putting up Christmas lights and we are singing Christmas hymns in Church. I love it.

Send mail through the Mission office, but if you send a Christmas package, send it to:
Elder Burnham
Box 57
Persia, IA 51563

Doing this will keep the mission office from getting flodded with Christmas packages.

That is all for this week.
-Elder Burnham

PS. Iowa actually has hills. It is nice to see something besides FLAT.

Pictures

Here are some pictures that Austin sent. I forgot to post them right when I got them, so they're a little outdated. Better late than never though, right?

2 Weeks

11-23-09 End of Transfer.

Friends and Family,

Well, this was a pretty good week! Transfers are coming up on Wednesday. They are usually on Thursday, but they moved them up to Wednesday this week because of Thanksgiving. I will probably stay, but just in case, don't send any letters to the appartment this week. Send them all to the Mission Office. Speaking of letters, thank you all for the ones you have sent. I look forward to recieving more soon!

We found some promising people this week. One couple is Tiffany and Greg (18 and 19). They felt the spirit when we taught them the first time, and we helped them recognize it. Greg asked if the Book of Mormon was the missing puzzle pieces of the Bible. We told him Absolutely it was! They have some hectic things going on right now so they won't be able to meet with us for a few weeks, but I am confident that is things go right, they will get baptized. We jsut have to get them married first!

Another couple we found in Ryan and Stasha (both 23). They were both former investigators who had recovered from narcotics. Through that experience, they learned to rely on God. Ryan does not believe too much in organized religion, but we can fix that. He also smokes. Stasha is awesome though. She loves everything we teach her, and she says it just makes so much sense. She wanted to come to church, but her phone was on silent, so her alarm didn't work. She felt bad and actually called us to appologize. That's rare! We are seeing them tomorrow, and will try to get them a baptismal date. We just need to get them married or moved out.

We had a branch family history activity this week. They showed us how to use familysearch.com and they talked about record-keeping and had some family hierlooms.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I had some thoughts about it. The Lord has blessed us with Everything! We were just little bits of knowledge before-"inteligences", but if we are faithful and keep the commandments, we will experience eternal bliss, and inherit all the powers of the universe. Wow. All that he asks is that we be righteous. He has even given us our agency. The least we can do is thank him for it, and do what he wants. But even when we choose the commandments, he will repay us and we are still in debt (see Mosiah 2:24).

That's all for this week,
-Elder Burnham

* * *

11-16-09 Interviews

Every week when preparation day rolls around, I feel bad, because I don't feel like I have anything to write. Sorry.

So this week, we went out with our branch mission leader to find some people. We visited a less active in a trailor park. We knowcked lots of the doors. We found one person who might be interested, and we taught a lesson to the girlfriend of another Less-active. We still are finding. It is hard for us, because we don't have much experience.
We have two investigators we are still working with. It is a mother and daughter. The mother cannot get baptized until she gets married, and the daughter wants to get baptized at the same time. The boyfriend is pretty firm about a date in May for the Wedding. It may be a waiting game. We have a good relationship with the investigators, though. The boyfriend has really opened up more even since I've been here (they started being taught about two months ago). He used to sleep on the couch when they were over, or just play video games. He now talks to us, and we even taught him how to solve a Rubix Cube. He told his girlfriend about a week ago "You know I'm never going to be Mormon, right?" But he's coming along. He has started praying every night during family prayer, which they started about 10 days ago. They all go around and take turns talking. I hope he sees the blessings it is bringing his family and desires to have them for himself as well.

The weather here has been really nice lately. We haven't had snow in about three weeks. And it's FINE with me. The more mild the winter, the better. one person said they usually have about a foot of snow by now, and it has snowed about 12 times. We will probably get some tonight though.

I migh have already said this before, but the church building here is pretty small. It is on the outskirts of town, and has a cornfield on three sides of it. I love it. Maybe I will take some pictures. It's a shame I can't email them home.

We had traveling interviews this week. That is where President Kunz (with his wife) comes to all the appartments and does the interviews there. It was cool. They liked our Christmas decorations. We continue to build them up. We have wrapped boxes and put them under the tree to look like presents, and I bought red and green poster boards and cut out letters to spell MERRY CHRISTMAS! on the wall.

That's all for now, but I will include some thoughts.
The first thought is about pondering. I have a quote in my scriptures by M.V. Ashton in the Nov '87 Ensigh: "Pondering gives the spirit the opportunity to impress and direct. It is a powerful link between the heart and mind." I really like that quote. I have it written down under the book of Enos. Enos was forgiven of his sins when he was pondering while hunting. In D&C 138, Joseph F Smith recieves revelation while pondering in the Temple. In D&C 9, the Lord tells Oliver Cowdry that he must "ponder it out it [his] mind".

My companion has been waiting on me for about 20 minutes, so to spare him, I will give the other thought next week. I challenge all of you to hake it a habit, however, to ponder about things, especially gospel topics. It brings some cool revelations,.

I love y'all,
Elder Burnham

11-2-09

Here is my Columbus Address:
Elder Awesome Burnham
3805 27th St. #5
Columbus, NE 68601

My Dear Family and Friends,

Well, I went on exchanges with my District Leader this week. I really enjoyed it. We had a long talk about everything mission-related. We talked about the book of Mormon, following the spirit, how to be better missionaries, and all sorts of things. It made me think a lot, and I learned about my purpose as a missionary, and how to better accomplish that.

I don't remember if I said this last week, but the Schuyler Elders live in a fifth-wheel trailer in a garage. So cool. I got to sleep in it this week. I think very few missionaries get to say they did that. Those Elders also got the only truck in the mission for their car. It is so fun to ride in.

Okay, I'm really short on time, so that will be all for this week. Sorry! I will give a longer email next week for sure.

I love ell of you.
-Elder Burnham

P.S. We had only a three foot Christmas tree before. We bought a six foot one as well. It is so cool.