Monday, January 25, 2010

1-25-09

Family and Friends,

So from last week- the Pentecostal Church. We were invited by an investigator we are teaching. The Service was two and a half hours long. It began with 45 minutes of ground-shaking music- giutars, drums, keyboards, and singers. Next was a guy who came up and cried as he paced back and forth, giving a five munite speach thanking god for the spirit he had sent to the congregation. The Pastor spoke alittle, then we heard from a speaker. He wasn't a very good puclic speaker. Imaging the most boring sacrament talk you have ever heard, and stretch that out for 40 minutes in a language you can't completely understand. While he spoke, people from the audience would randomly shout "Gloria a Dios!" or "Halleluijah!" or "Cristo Viene!" After the speaker, the was a healing. People who needed to be healed would come up front. The Pastor would shout at them for a few minutes and tell them to be healed. The service was concluded by another 30 minutes of music. It was such a contrast from what I am used to.
The people were all really nice. They all wanted to shake our hand afterward. I hope us going there opened up some doors, and that those people can feel the peace that spirit brings in the right enviroment.

I will include an excerpt from my letter to President Kunz:
"The Munoz family here is kind of the trunk of the Spanish part of the Branch. But a week or two ago, Brother Munoz got some anti-Mormon stuff from a co-worker. He ended up going online and found some stuff that really shook his testimony. They haven't come to church in four weeks. But we talked to them last week and this week, and got a lot of things straightened out. Yesterday we got a member to go with us to their house, and we shared our testimonies. It was all really powerful. I was thankful that we had the spirit. Elder Shumway shared Heleman 5:12, and it seemed like the scripture was written just for him.
Without the Munozs there, we have only had two or three people in our spanish class the last few weeks. We have had many investigators say they wanted to come to church buth then not show up. Elder Shumway and I have been talking a little bit about it and we both feel that without the Munoz family there, as the trunk, it is stunting the Spanish part of our branch. We feel that Heavenly Father doesn't want investigators to come to church without the strength of that family there. We will continue to work our best and hopefully we will see the fruits of our labors."
That's easier than writing it again for you guys.
On another note, the priesthood relief society is using the same book as the gospel principles class. This means that we get two lessons from the same book right in a row in our Spanish class. I guess we need it. Back to the Basics.

For those of you who don't know, there is a little joke that goes around our house about spanish commercials on American products. The commercials have some hispanic person doing the commentary in their fast, monotone voice, then, all of the suddeen, they say the product name in completely clear english. "SCRUBBING BUBBLES" or "SUPER BLENDER" and immediately drop back into spanish. I have heard several commercials like that here in Schuyer, and it catches me off guard every time. Spanish people never turn off their TVs. They just turn the volume way doen when we come. Maybe this is because they still want to be up to date on their "novela" (soap opera).

About 70 percent of the Spanish-speakers here are from Guatemala. Most are from a town of about 40,000 named Chichihualco. Because of this, there are two "Tiendas de Guatemala" here. They are like a little guatemala. They sell all the authentic stuff, and everyone there speaks Spanish. They are fun to go into to just brouse.

I have 4 minutes left, so it looks like I need to be done. I love you all. Until next week,
-Elder Burnham

1-18-10 Good Week

Family and Friends,
This was a pretty good week. But the library is really full so I have very little time to write about it. The little bubble just came up telling me I have 10 minutes left. I will write fast.

The weather has been really good this week. It got up to the low 40s one day. A lot of the snow has been melting, but there is still a lot more. We heard there is supposed to be some freezing rain today, but I'm not sure.

So the place we moved in to used to be just retirement housing. They lifted that at the beginning of the year. I think we are the only ones living there who are younger than 50. They are a bunch of duplex houses. We made good friends with our neighbor and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, which she has actually read. It was her birthday Friday so we sang to her.

I have had a small epiphany. Through all the times of trying to explain to investigators how the Holy Ghost feels, to help them recognize it, I found a way that I like to describe it. The Spirit is Joy. When I feel the spirit, I usually feel happy. The spirit, like joy, is a feeling that completely envelopes you. It makes you happy, and it's a feeling that you never want to end. In the MTC I heard a quote from a General Authority that said that you can tell if you and your investigator are feeling the spirit if neither of you want to be anywhere else at that moment.

We have one investigator who has a baptismal date. Her name is Nina. She is awesome. She has a whole lot of faith and wants to start her journey of doing what God wants her to do. More about her next week.

We also went to a Spanish Pentecostal Church. More about that next week too.

I love you all. Have a great week.
-Elder Burnham

Monday, January 11, 2010

1-11-10 Transfers-Schuyler


Friends and Family,

Hello again. Transfers came and went again this week. I got transferred Again!! Heavenly Father just keeps moving me around. I left Logan Iowa and got transferred to Schuyler (pronounced SKYLER) Nebraska! If you remember, that is the Spanish area in the Columbus Branch. It is nice to be back in the same branch, with a whole bunch of familiar faces. I look forward to serving here with theBranch President and Branch Mission Leader again. They are both great. The Branch President's wife also makes AMAZING food (especially rolls) and feeds us about every Sunday. We had some awesome food after church yesterday.

Oh- before I forget, next Monday is MLK day. We are going to be proselyting then (hopefully lots of people will be home), so our preparation day will be Tuesday that week. Just a heads up.

So my new companion is Elder Shumway. He has been out about a year and a half, and learned Spanish in the MTC. He is way awesome. He is a great worker and missionary. I am super excited for this transfer; I think it will be my favorite one of my mission so far.

We have a lot of Spanish investigators here, and I have already gotten a lot of practice with my Spanish. I should get a lot better this transfer. I hope I stay in this area a long time. Schuyler has about 5,000 people.

The missionaries here were previously living in a trailer in someone's garage. We finally got an apartment here about a week ago. It is really nice and I am excited to live there.

I am not too familiar with the investigators here, but we do have someone with a baptismal date. Her name is Soccoro. She is a Spanish investigator. She knows this is the church she wants to join, and that the Book of Mormon is true, but she is living with someone. She does not yet know she needs to get married or move out, but she wants to get baptized. We will talk to her about that next time we see her (I have not met her yet). We have some other potential investigators, that I will write about next week.

-Elder Burnham

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

1-4-10 New Year


Friends and Family,

Welcome 2010. Man it's gone fast. I am excited for a new year. It is a time of beginings. Transfers are here again (they come so quick!) on Thursday. Elder Poccori hates them, I think it's fun to see what happens.

Nothing too eventful happened this week. It was just plain old missionary work. We have some good Spanish investigators, and we were able to have a Spanish member in Denison go on a team-up with us Saturday. It went really well.

The scriptures rock. There's so much good stuff in them. Read them often. STUDY them. I like doing studies by topic. Read the church magazines too. We have a less active family, converts of about a year and a half. The father read the Ensign, and was amazed at all the good articles. He said he had read from the Ensigns a little bit, but he had never read an entire one and he was glad he did.

Nothing much else to say. I love you all.
-Elder Burnham

Friday, January 1, 2010

12-28-09 Christmas

Friends and Not-Immediate-Family,
(I spoke to my immediate family Thursday- they don't need an email this week)

I hope you all had a great CHRISTMAS!! I certainly did. It was nice to talk to my family and hear their voices. I will miss Christmas time, though. Ten more months....

On Christmas Eve, we watched The Nativity and Mr Krueger's Christmas with the Hess's. After that, we sang Christms hymns and read the Christmas story out of the New Testament. Christmas morning we opened presents at about 8:00. We had a big Christmas breakfast and then played in the freshly-fallen snow. I called home at 4:00 and we had Omaha Steaks for dinner at about 6:00. It was a good day.

The weather was not fun this week. Our cars were grounded Tue-Fri, so we did as much work as we could here in Persia, but that's not much. I am excited to have a normal week finally. Hopefully the weather agrees.
There is about 2-3 feet of snow on the ground right now, with drifts up to 4ft. This is apparently the worst winter they have had here in a long time.

Transfers are coming up. Don't send any mail to Persia after New Year's Day. Send it to the Mission office, so if I get transfered I will still get it.
I love you all and have a happy new year!

-Elder Burnham

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This was after an ice storm. The trees look way cool.


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We played in the snow on Christmas. I am hiding behind a snow drift.


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Me and Elder Poccori.


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He made me angry...

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There was about 3 and a half feet of snow here. We both jumped in it.

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He turned me into a newt!
...
I got better...."
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail