4 October 2010

Hey Family,

Things are going pretty good here in Roxas. We had transfer meeting today. Turns out I'm going to stay here in Roxas with Elder Tiamzon, who has just been made district leader. One other Elder in my apartment is being transferred, it's actually for his last transfer. So he'll be in a new area for his last 6 weeks. It's kind of crazy for him because in his entire mission he's only been in like 4 areas, so like 6 month long times. And now he's going to be in his shortest area, for only 6 weeks. But that means they'll be a new person living in our house, so I hope he's cool, and is really good at Ilonggo so I can get some help these next couple of weeks. It's cool. We'll just see how things work out though.

I'm not too sure what really exciting things have happened this week. I've felt I've been able to speak a lot better in Ilonggo. I've been trying to teach and say more what I want to say. Thank you Dad for what you said about learning the language when things are tough. I kind of know what you mean. Like earlier I was always getting frustrated at Elder Tiamzon because like he never tells me where we are going. Like if an appointment falls through he just runs off somewhere and starts talking to someone. The hard thing for me is I never know who they are, I don't know if they are like an investigator or a member or maybe less active or what. Then Elder Tiamzon always asks, "Hey do you want to share a scripture?" After he talked to them for a little bit. And for me, I want to know a little bit about them so I can know how or what scripture could be of some encouragement, since I still can't understand what they are saying. But right now I've just been trying to share anyways, just whatever scripture comes to mind first. Like we went to this one lady who is less active and I shared with her 3 Nephi 27:27, about trying to be as Jesus is. I testified to her about the Savior's life and how hard it must of been, but even with all that he still worked to do all that was asked of him. I told her sometimes in her life she may feel it's too hard to do the things that she knows to be right, but encouraged her to remember the example of Jesus and just keep working for it, and things will turn out in the end. Anyway, the next day, we were waiting at church and about 30 minutes before church started we saw her walking there. It's a 2 hour walk for her to get to the church! I love that Sister, she is always so happy and positive even though times are tough. We actually had a lot of people come to church this week. Both those who are less active and investigators.

Another experience is Elder Tiamzon and I decided to visit a less active Brother, whose family is all active. This brother is the owner of the apartment the missionaries used to live in, but now we live like somewhere else. I think he was a little offended because the missionaries moved from his apartment and they were like always reliable to him with paying rent and whatnot. But anyways, we visited him and we learned he was actually going to turn the missionaries house into 2 apartments, so I told Elder Tiamzon that we should ask if we could help, for our weekly service, which we have rarely done. So we did. What we did was we got to destroy these walls with a sledge hammer. I'm not going to lie, that's the first time I've done a project like that and felt pretty buff, especially when my 5 foot 3 inch, 90 lb companion went after me. Here's another way I can help you visualize his stature that I just noticed- My white shirts have 7 buttons on them, his have 4, they look so tiny when they are just hanging up. Anyways, It was fun though, but really hot. I love doing service. And I'm pretty sore from it. But on Sunday, he came to church too, which was cool.

So for a funny experience. I was worried I wasn't going to have any this week, but it turns out that I had 2 on Sunday night. The first one, I feel bad calling it funny, I'll call it half sad, half funny. Okay, so our ward mission leader, Bro. Bermi, wasn't at church on Sunday, I guess because four days ago his uncle died, and sunday was his funeral. I talked to his uncle before, I believe it was his time to go. Well I tried talking to him, he just like stared at me and looked amazed or something, and wouldn't reply to my questions. But anyways, so we went to Bro. Bermi's house on Sunday to try to give him some comfort. When we saw him, he seemed okay and he asked if we wanted to go into where the casket was. He said to me, "Elder Burton! This will be your first time seeing a dead person in the Philippines!" I didn't know what to say to that exactly, but I thought it was funny. That's one thing Bro. Bermi says to me all the time-"Elder Burton! It's your first time... in the Philippines!" Anyway, he's a really cool guy.

So also on Sunday night we were going to try to visit another family, well Joe, since you know his name. His family was at church but said he was sick so he couldn't come. Anyway, when we got close Elder Tiamzon said to me, "Whoa! We can't go in there, there is a war going on!" I was scared. A war!?! What does that mean? I knew that area was a more dangerous area, but I didn't know there were wars. There was like a perimeter around the location and police in there. Anyway, I kept asking Elder Tiamzon what he meant by a war. And finally he told me that there were 2 people throwing rocks at each other. That's what a war is I guess. So anyways, we just had to visit a different house.

One last thing about Elder Tiamzon and then one last experience. Okay, I've noticed Elder Tiamzon uses his hands for everything. It's like some kind of Filipino sign language. Like if we are riding a tricycle and he wants 10 pesos from me he won't say, "10 pesos" or hold up 10 fingers. Instead he like points out one finger and writes the number 10 in the air. It's kind of weird. And when he talks his hands go all over the place, I don't know how much sense his hands make to what he is saying. Anyway, so we have been making plans to ask people to be baptized. So at one house we went to a house and he read the scripture in 3 Nephi saying if we believe in his name and are baptized, we will inherit the kingdom of Heaven. So then he asked them like a series of questions like, "Do you love Jesus? Do you want to inherit the kingdom of Heaven? Do you want to follow the example of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to be baptized? And he seemed so scared to just ask them if they would be baptized. So finally I just asked if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. And because I just straight up asked her she was able to share her concern with us about it, and we were able to try to help her resolve the concern. She told us like it was easy for us to believe in the church because we were born into it but it was hard for her because she was born in a different church. I was able to talk to her about how testimonies come to be, little by little. And about how we need to pray, and magchurch, and do the things God asks and he'll answer our prayers. We committed her to doing those things and she said if she knew it was right, she would be baptized. Then I must of given her a look of something because she then said, "I promise!" So that's all we can do. You know, as missionaries, all I can do is try to show people the path to return to there Heavenly Father, to encourage them to walk along the path, to walk with them, but I can't force them to go, it's up to them. So I hope that is what I'm doing and that I'm doing things right.

Well, I love you all, thank you so much for your prayers.
-Elder Joshua Burton


Hey, I was reading in PMG and like one of the things it said we could do is write home and ask if anyone has any stories of how living a certain commandment has blessed your life. So that's what I'm doing. If any of you want to share with me your testimony of how living the law of tithing, or fasting, or the word of wisdom, or whatever, I'd love to hear to help me be able to share with mga investigators namon. I love you!