October 11, 2010

Heellloo!
How are things going out there in Colorado? I think everyone here thinks I'm like a mountain man or something because when they ask about Colorado, I tell them that we are in the mountains, because, well, that's what I know how to say. Usually when I tell people I'm from Colorado, they say, California?, back to me, because that's really the only state they know. Sometimes they ask Arizona too. Anyway, I don't know how interesting that actually is.

So on Monday after my P-day, we ended up having ward family home evening. It was pretty cool and one member actually brought 3 referrals for us to it, who actually came to general conference too on Sunday. Anyway, Elder Tiamzon and I were just in charge of games at the FHE, which was really hilarious. We did group games and Elder Tiamzon did the first two. The first one was just a line up game, from like shortest to tallest, or by month of birth or whatever. People were going crazy! Then we played this game where there is a representative from each team and we tape a word to their forehead. Then they had to guess the word by asking yes or no questions. People were going crazy during that game too. It was funny. The person would ask a question and then like everyone would freak out, "Indi/OO!!" Then it would get really quiet again. It was making me laugh. I didn't know how fair that game was for everyone because one person was "Room", one person was "Kitchen" and one person was "Pimple". So pimple man wasn't able to guess who he was very easily. Then I tried to teach them the game where you get in a group and reach your hands across and grab and like try to untangle the pretzel. I can't explain really the chaos that resulted. Just from now on I'll focus on simpler games! I also realized that night how much I love my ward too. They all were just asking me before it started how they could help me with my Ilonggo! It was great. It's probably most productive for me to learn from a native too.

It was kind of a weird week again this week. Elder Tiamzon got lost his voice and was kind of sick this week on Monday-Wednesday. He was wondering why he got sick. I told him it's probably because he wakes up every morning at like 4 in the morning to do his laundry! I told him he should get more sleep and just follow the schedule in the missionary handbook and he would probably always be healthy! But anyways, since he was sick and he lost his voice I'm not going to lie, I thought it was probably a blessing for me. Because of that, I really got a chance to talk to our investigators a little bit more and like I realized I can say and understand more than I thought. Not well, but more than I thought, which, is good. It was funny because we were teaching this one new investigator and I was saying the opening prayer. In it I asked for a blessing for this woman's family and as I said that she called out, "Yeah! Lord!" I paused for a second to take in this experience that was happening for the first time in my life and continued praying and this happened for the entire prayer I said. It probably made me feel happier than it should have.

Not too much happened this week even though I feel I've done a lot. Just no really huge experiences. Thursday a lot of Elders came to our apartment because everyone in our zone was meeting up so they could go to transfer meeting together, which was cool. We just had to leave our apartment a little late because of that so we could lock it then we had to come back to our apartment on Friday after the transfer meeting so the Elders could sleep here so they could go to general conference. I loved General Conference! It was something I really needed, and it was cool to see my MTC batch again, even though Elder Pettit came to my house and destroyed it. Well that's a funny story. First background though. So Elder Bosotros, who lives with us, got a new companion, named Elder Reyes, from Manila, so now I'm the only American in my apartment again. He served in the Area where you speak Karay-a too so a couple times he throws in those words when he speaks. So in my apartment people speak Tagalog, Aklanon (E. Tiamzon), Karay-ia, and well, English. But anyway, so I like Elder Reyes, he's a nice guy and he joked with me a lot, so I like him. But anyway, he was doing something in the kitchen sink and the knob came off so water was squirting everywhere out of where the knob came off. So Elder Pettit ran in to the rescue or something and decided since water was coming out of there he would just rip the entire faucet off the wall. Well, actually I think he was trying to put the knob back on and just pushed it off the wall, but anyway, it's been two days and it's still not fixed, and that's where I get my filtered water and I'm starting to run out, so if I die, you can blame Elder Pettit.

So after conference on Saturday night (priesthood session was at 8 am) we decided to go on splits to visit more people since we had excess elders at our house anyway. So I worked with Elder Ellsworth, who is Elder Andrews companion, and Elder Andrews went with Elder Tiamzon. It was pretty cool working with Elder Ellsworth. He actually didn't just jump in and talk to people, and since they were my investigators, I had to do a lot of talking, more than I ever had before. Even while we taught he made sure I did a lot of it, although he offered a lot of insight, and while investigators talked he translated what they said to me. It was interesting because I didn't know any of that stuff about our investigators, just like about their lives and their stories. And as I heard and learned more about them, I knew exactly how the gospel would be able to help them with the troubles they had. It was cool because as I knew what they were saying I could ask them questions to find out more and relate it back to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately that lady wasn't too interested because she has her agency but hopefully one day she'll be ready. Another cool experience with Elder Ellsworth was we were teaching this 10 year old girl whose parents are less active. She was a little sick and the father asked us to give her a blessing. I thought that was cool the father asked for that and also the entire family ended up coming to conference on Sunday which was cool.

Anyway, that's all that really happened this week. I love you all so much and look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for your prayers and I'll be sure to pass on that message!

Love,
Elder Burton