Transfers Week: Staying Put

I'm safe this transfer! That's a big deal since there is a new rule that President said came from higher up than him: (mission office -Salt Lake). Sisters and elders are no longer to work in the same wards. So now wards will have only all elders or all sisters. Sister Clark and I get Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years here in our same ward! With Sister Clark as well! This makes me smile so much! 


This week has been crazy! If anything, I had 4 nights I slept the whole night. Warmer weather means the mice don't move as much . . . who would have thought. So that's been a huge blessing. With that being said this week was week 6 which means I got to take lead this whole week in our companionship, holy cow it was scary. Well maybe not, It was mostly me over coming this fear of messing up. Which was hard. But Sister Clark was great at encouraging me to keep going.

Missionary work isn't easy. This week was a difficult one, but I feel like I have really grown so much in the past seven days it's insane (: This week was pretty amazing, yesterday we both had to talk in sacrament. Sister Clark had to give a talk and I had to bear my testimony because the speakers didn't use all the time . . .  then we were in charge of the youth fireside . . . 23 youth showed up. We want to help the youth have personalized Mormon.org cards (yes, you can do that) and also help them make an "I'm a Mormon video" we are pretty excited to do this, and for the opportunity we have to use technology to do this.

This Saturday is Mary's Baptism!! She came to church yesterday and stayed all 3 hours! And she only had one bad spell with her health. So please continue to pray for her. We had an early Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with Mary and Phyllis, it was also Phyllis's birthday she is 73. She reminds me so much of my Grandma Peggie! So of course I love her! How could I not? Things are going very well with Mary so far lets hope Satan doesn't attack her this up coming week. This week we had many crazy experiences, I'll be sure to share next week. I'll be sure to tell everyone all about Chris and his family. And about many others. But that's all for now.

I love each of you.
Love,
Sister Burden

Must . . . Get . . . Sleep . . . !

Sorry this one won't be super long mostly because I'm almost out of time.

So this week has been full of ups and downs. Kind of felt like a roller coaster, to be honest. Things were going really well. Monday we had dinner with the Anderson family (they are amazing)! Well, I haven't been sleeping at night because the house we live in has mice. (I know they are small but so are spiders and those things are scary!) Anyway, when the mice move at night (which is all the time) I wake up and its hard getting back to sleep, so Sister Anderson let us borrow her soft noise thingy. Well, I can still here the mice but I'm getting more sleep than before. So for me this last week felt like a roller coaster but if you ask Sister Clark she'd say otherwise. No sleep is no good for many different reasons. And I'm in week 6 this week (crazy right) and I've only had 4 nights I slept all through the night without waking up. So Melatonin is my best friend. (It's natural..)


So the dog in the picture is Taffy, she is 12 years old (I think) and she is a mini poodle. So cute and full of energy! Gotta love it. Taffy likes to come down and visit us and will sometimes bark at the mice . . . how thoughtful! At least the dog looks out for me.

The next picture is the house we live in. This was the morning after the first snow . . . its only snowed 4 times since then . . .

We taught Mary again and let me just say she is golden. I hate that she is in pain from all her health problems I wish we could take it away, Mary is 49 almost 50 and she is such an example to me of endurance. She was so set on coming to church yesterday but wasn't able to for many health reasons. She ended up going to the ER.

Tuesday night Brother Tingey gave me a blessing. My companion brought it up and after a little thought I agreed because of how tired I have been. Not getting sleep drains you. I love sleep and this has been my biggest struggle so far. The Tingey family is my favorite! They are all amazing. At the pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago we played football (yes in skirts) with their son (he's 10) and a couple other kids and one of the investigator's kids, talk about super fun. Make friends with the kids, that's the key. Sister Tingey is a great member missionary.

Elder Baxter from the 70 came Saturday for mission tour. How crazy that I got to shake his hand. He taught us many different things but the one that struck me was When Elder Baxter was talking with a member who was dying of ALS, he said to him "this doesn't seem very fair does it" the man responded "who asked for fair?". Remember this, life isn't about being fair, it's about learning to overcome the challenges and being happy, even when we aren't happy. And Satan strives to bring down the saints through: despair, despondency, discouragement, and depression. Resist these things by thinking that you are better than you think you are. We tend to be our own worst enemies and are always tearing ourselves down. Stop it."

I simply saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set it free" -Michaelangelo.

Heavenly Father is the sculpture and we are the blocks of marble. He sees our true potential and knows the amount of chipping away that needs to be done to unlock our divine selves.

Lots of Crazy Trials

This week was super crazy. One whole day was basically thrown out the window basically. We spent the whole morning at a funeral for Sister Bonnie Blackburn. And got home did personal study and as we finished our prayer from companion study we got a phone call telling us Mary (our investigator age 49) our was in the ER, talk about a moment of panic. We called our dinner appointment and cancelled. Then we went to a fast food place and got Mary's mom dinner. Then sat with them at the ER until she was released. Then it was 8:45 pm . . .we had just enough time to drive home. We were drained that day.

The next day everything fell through. We didn't teach one lesson...which was hard because it was hard not to wallow in self pity. It was hard to not look inward and feel like it was our fault. But we were both able to overcome that and not fall to deep into that trap.But Heavenly Father gave us a great learning experience from that. We had to push back Mary's baptismal date but we don't know when it will be. She will have to have her gallbladder taken out, she has an ulcer and gallstones. She keeps having attacks. So Thursday she has another appointment in which we will know more then. Please keep her in your prayers.

Well since my family always loved how I was the child who accidentally called 911 I bet you'd love to know I've done it 4 times now on my mission. ): My phone has a 911 key and my little fat hands hit it or my bag hits it....basically I'm not used to phones with keys! I like touch screen where you never pocket dial anyone.

On a more spiritual note I'll end with a quote . . . "When doubt or difficulty come, do not be afraid to ask for help. If we want it as humbly and honestly as this father did, we can get it. The scriptures phrase such earnest desire as being of “real intent,” pursued “with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God. I testify that in response to that kind of importuning, God will send help from both sides of the veil to strengthen our belief."  -Elder Holland

Pictures: Dorthy, the lady in the picture is my fave! I love her so much! She is 87, and is amazing. She has lost a lot of her memory but we go and share messages and read scriptures with her. She amazes me every time we see her. Sister Swain (In blue cardigan) was my companion on exchanges, which was crazy fun! And since I got to take lead it was a little crazy. Had 1 door slammed in my face... one of the first one l. But we were able to teach and find some less actives. So I finally took a picture with my companion after exchanges. So Sister Clark and I have 1 picture together. haha She is amazing and I can see why we were put together.

Teaching In Front of the Mission President . . . Not so bad!

This is my district! The Elder on the far right might be going home this week...He fell off his bike
and did some pretty bad stuff to his arm and the recovery time is looking to be 8-12 weeks. (with physical therapy) It's super sad. He wants to stay, but no one is sure what will happen.

Update on Mary...Well she is amazing! I never thought I'd love my investigators so much! She had been smoke free for FOUR weeks! This week she will give up coffee! She is so willing to follow and obey its truly amazing teaching her. She is so willing to follow the word of wisdom. This Saturday we are taking her to a baptism so she will understand what hers will be like. Her baptism is on the 15! Its getting so close!

Update on Carly...we had to pass Carly off to different missionaries....after we started teaching her. The Stake President decided it was okay for her to be taught in the ward all her friends are in. (not the ward she lives in). We taught her one lesson and it was at President Brown's home. (my mission president). That wasn't as scary as you might think. As long as you focus on the investigator and their needs and you focus on the spirit you don't think so much about your mission president being in the room. It was a powerful lesson. So even though we had to give her to other missionaries, I was grateful for the opportunity to teach her that one lesson and I know Heavenly Father needed us to do so.

 Kenta is our new investigator. She is a 14 year old Indian (from India). Her parents are Hindu. We had the opportunity to meet her and her amazing member missionary friends who are 15 at the ward Fall Harvest. During which she wanted a picture of the temple being built. We have pass along cards with that on there how cool! Well we had the opportunity to talk with her about Jesus Christ, who she knew nothing about! It was nice to be able to talk about him and share our testimonies about Christ and show pictures of his life. Its nice to remember our message is all about Christ, Christ is our Hope.
 

1 Timothy 1:1 

"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope"

I love this scripture because I love that Christ is our hope. Through the Atonement, we can return back to our Heavenly Father, it is through the grace of God we can return. Christ died for us because he loves us, he did this so we don't have to suffer like he did. None of us are perfect, We all make mistakes big and small, each and every day. Because Christ knew us all perfectly he understands us all perfectly and was willing to atone for us, He is willing to forgive us when we repent for our sins and change our thoughts and actions. It is thought Jesus Christ that we can talk with our Father in Heaven he is our advocate. That is why the Atonement was necessary and very important. We don't have to carry our burdens and feel worthless or alone, or forgotten. Because of the Atonement we can move forward and be better each day.