7-12-10

Family,

The work is picking up here. I like it. This week we taught some neat investigators. The first ones were Benedicto and Sara. They are a couple we found knocking (how we find 90 percent of them). They told us we could come back another time, and so we tried them when they said they would be available, and about 5 other times. We finally said we would try them one more time, and they were there! We taught them the first half of the first lesson, and then Sara kind of unloaded on us. She told us that she has diabetes and a problem with her feet that are hard for her. She told us that she was a 7th day advantist in Guatemala, but isn't active here. She said that she went several times, but it didn't seem like people really cared for here there. She stopped going, and she said that no one from that church, or any church, has visited them since. They were grateful and surprised that we had come by. As she was talking, I could really feel God's love for them, and felt privileged to be able to teach them. Since then, we have taught them about the Book of Mormon, families, and we watched the Restoration video with them, which they liked. They seem like they have a lot of potential to progress. We just need to get them to church and to consistently read the Book of Mormon.

We also taught Manuel. The ELders found him before I got here, but it was difficult to get a hold of him. He lives in the basement of a house of some staunch Catholics, who like to drink, and are not terribly interested. We finally got a hold of him, and taught him about eternal families. He lost a 20-year-old son, who was never baptized. Being aroung a lot of catholics, he was probably told that his son was going to Hell. We told him there was hope, and he seemed so interested. He told us that is felt good to hear that. He wants to learn- he has said several times that faith comes by hearing the word. We hope he reads that Book of Mormon. I don't think he has a TV, which would mean he had lots of free time to read.

Momma gave me some suggestions on how to better emails home. They have been getting lame-ish lately. I will try to use a few of them every week to spice things up.

A typical day here goes somewhat like this: The night before, we plan from 9-9:30 for the next day. We usually have an appointment or two, and then we put down names of investigators and potentials in the rest of the hours. 10:30 is bed time. At 6:30 we wake up and excercize. We then shower and get ready for the day. 8:00-9:00 is personal study. 9:00-10:00 is companionship study. We share what we learned in personal study, read from the rule book, and make lesson plans for the day. Sometimes we do roleplaying to help us improve specific things. We then study the language for an hour, followed by lunch. Then we proselyte! We go carry out our plans. Many times our plans fall through, and so we knock doors, or talk to people on the streets to try to find more investigators. On a normal day, we teach anywhere from 1-3 lessons. We also teach some less-actives, although there are not many here. Some days are really good, and we teach lots, but others are really hard and we end up doing a lot of finding. The days are rare that we don't knock at least a few doors. We take an hour for dinner, usually at about 5:00. We proselyte until 9:00 and then we do it all over again!

I hope you enjoy the letter- I always enjoy yours! Love you all

-Elder Burnham

PS My companion had a "hair cutting incident". I will take a picture and send it next week.