March 28, 2011

Hey Family,


Well, this week was really really tight. I'm excited to write about it. It was the most progression-full week I've probably had for myself and that I've seen in an area before, at least in one of my 2 areas. Anyway, I'll start from the beginning. We finished up Elder McClellan and mine days up real good. We followed up and found people and worked with members and already had like 4 people committed to come to church with us. Elder McClellan doing way awesome right now. When I saw him and his attitude when I first met him, I wouldn't have expected him to have become what he is right now. But he's way hard working now. He's not afraid at all to talk to people, even when he makes mistakes. He is really getting good with the people and like is talking to everyone. He's a good kid. Wednesday was way good because we worked with some members from our ward, Geneva, Nina, and Nenita. Geneva has been a member for just like 8 months or something, and then Nenita is working on her papers right now for her mission. All three of their testimonies were really helpful and I'm looking forward to what's happening in this area. At around 6pm they had to go and I found out they were actually going to a birthday party, for Geneva. It was her birthday! Wow, I was happy she chose to spend her birthday doing the work of the Lord. It was sweet. We had a really good day that day anyway.


I don't know if I've told you about this, but every Monday, right, we have district meeting. That's where I just came from. So every week at this meeting our district leader, or sometimes someone else, teaching something called like the 8 fundamentals from Preach my Gospel. So it's about using preach my gospel more effective. The topics are like, The Doctrine of Christ, Revelation through Prayer, Revelation through Scripture Study, etc. But last week it was Revelation through the Holy Ghost. When I heard that lesson and thought about it, I really tried hard to focus on what I should do to have the spirit with me mismo, and that my investigators understand the role of that in their lives. And it really helped me a lot this week. I have a couple experiences to share with that. So these 8 fundamentals are on a sheet called Check Your Progress, where you just read some points and rate yourself so you can make goals to improve. So I made some goals for myself of how to improve these things in my teachings. So that's where the main focus of my teaching went. As I taught, I remembered my goals and did things differently and not as I would usually expect them to be like.


Anyway, before that, I'll start with Transfer Meeting on Friday. So we went there and found out our new companion, Elder Shane Ball. This transfer is his 3rd transfer, and my bata's second transfer. Elder Ball's first area was in Kalibo so he didn't speak Ilonggo there, he used Tagalog and Aklanon, but now it's Ilonggo time. So it's going to be fun. I was thinking for a while that I would get someone dugay or really old in the mission to be with us but we got Elder Ball. But I'm not disappointed because I already learned so much from him. He's a good guy. And it's really sweet being in a threesome! I'll tell you why.. because if we get even 1 member to work with us we can go on splits and get twice the amount of work done, and that's what we did. So after transfer meeting we got some Manginasal with Elder Ball for lunch and then we went out to work. All 3 of us went to our first appointment with the Delacruz family. Mom is really starting to listen to our discussions. It was a really good lesson with them. We taught about how through Christ we can be cleansed from sin and used 3 Nephi 11 to help which they had read since our last visit. It was really cool. We learned a lot about them from asking questions and just going where the spirit lead us. They are way good. They went to church on Sunday and arrived before we did. They thought that was pretty funny. After that we went to Brother Mac's house, the 1st counselor in our bishopric, and then he and Elder McClellan went on splits, and I worked with Elder Ball. On the way out we saw Wilma Elizan, a ward missionary too, and asked her to go work with Brother Mac and E. McClellan too, and she did for those 2 hours, which was way good. They did some good work.


Elder Ball and I went to some of our investigators in Taal, first to Holy Grace Po and Darleen Picara. They are way cool, they've been to church too times already. I think I've told you already about them, but there is always like 15 people there, we teach outside, and a lot of people listening, but right now we are focusing on those two. Holy Grace always reads and I feel she's way ready to be baptized, she's still a little scared so we committed her to pray if it is right. Anyway, thanks to Elder LeBaron's letter, we decided to try his egg thing going into a bottle to represent suloding the celestial kingdom through baptism by water and of the spirit. We tried earlier that week and I was going to bring a bottle but Elder Adams in our apartment said to us we could use a little glass sprite bottle. Yeah that didn't work last time. I said we'd do it again and it didn't work because you need authority to baptize. Anyway, the second time, when I did it with Elder Ball it worked great. It helped them understand that's the reason we were inviting them to do those things and they are progressing still. Oh, and Baby Josh is still healthy.


After that we went to Jerry Tuazon, he's someone I've felt had some potential for a while. The time before this we had taught him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. When we followed up we found out that he had read but he hadn't prayed, because he already believes it's true. That's a problem a lot of people have here. But we talked to him and asked him questions and taught about the spirit. Elder Ball asked him again if he understood the spirit and why it was important. Usually if someone doesn't pray we usually just commit them again but this time for some reason I was praying to know what to do and I felt I should ask him to be baptized. I thought that was weird because he didn't even pray but I remembered my goal so I just did it and asked if the Lord gives him that witness through the Holy Ghost that these are true, will he be baptized and he said yes he would. I was way happy and it was amazing. After that lesson we had to run to our next appointment because we were late but Elder Ball said he hadn't been kicked in the butt by the spirit that much for a long time. It was way cool.


Saturday was way good too. We didn't go on splits but we went tracking first off because we didn't have appointments till 2pm. Usually our day that I like to do is personal study at 8, companionship study at 9, language study at 10 (usually we practice teaching a lot and then memorize vocab) then 11 is lunch so at noon we are out until 8. At 8 we eat dinner because here that's not the best time for proselyting but 4-7 is. Anyway, so we went out and tracked a couple of streets. Elder McClellan is doing way good. I already talked about that but I'm way proud of him. I wasn't doing what he was doing when I was only 1 transfer in. But anyway, we weren't able to get any appointments in, we had about half hour till our next appointment so we started walking there, on our way we saw a tiny street we never noticed before and we decided we would try that real quick. So we went in and there were just like 4 houses in there. We tried the first one but they didn't have time but we talked about our message and testified to them and left them a pamphlet. Then we were about to walk out but we tried the last house on the street. We went in and the kid, Mike Panelo, like 19 years old, was way interested, we taught like 10 minutes and invited him to church and to read the pamphlet, he was way interested. And said he'd come tomorrow, and then he did!


After that we taught this family that Elder McClellan and I found right before transfer meeting. We taught one guy named John Bellarma and he liked the message and told us he wanted his entire family to listen, and that's who we taught. I was way pumped, he has like 7 kids so it was way cool teaching a whole family. I think they have a lot of potential. Later that night we taught John Tipon. He's way cool. I love that guy, he just needs to do the things he knows is true. Anyway, we planned for him during companion study and decided to share scripture study with him and help him get a good habit going. It was a great lesson! We read with him after we taught like 5 minutes from 1 Nephi 1 and it was great, he really was applying it to himself . Afterwards he told us he couldn't come to church with us this week and I was surprised. I didn't know what to do. He had work or something and I was sad. He was killing me because he gots to do that. I was about to just ask him to pray for a way to come but then I remembered my goal and what this guy really needs. So I prayed in my heart and just thought of what we could do. I just asked him the simple question, why does God want you to go to church. He really opened up about a lot of stuff after that and we really started to understand his concerns even more as we listened. After that we still gave him the commitment to pray for a way to go to church, but now we know so much more about him.


After that we taught the Vecindario Family and Santiago Family. They are people that the first time we taught them outside with like 30 kids but we finally are getting into their houses and it's working out great. Anyway, we taught them and they hadn't read. I was talking to them about why not and our purpose and they said they just wanted to learn what we believe and that they would just listen to us but not really do anything. I again tried to pray to know what I should do, and a simple question came into my mind again. "Why is it important for us to learn about God's word?" And because of that and what followed, it's the most change I've ever seen happen in people from the beginning of the lesson till the end of the lesson. We talked about how we're here to help you know what God's wants for you and what he's offering to give each of us. We talked about if we learn God's word but don't follow it there's no purpose in us knowing it. Then we talked about the Book of Mormon and committed them to read and pray about it. It was a way good lesson. They committed to come to church too in the end, and said they were positive they would come, and then they did. And when Sister Santiago prayed, I heard things I haven't heard to often in prayer before, and that is she asked in that prayer right there for help to know where the most correct church is on this earth. It was way cool and I saw those people change in that lesson.


So needless to say, our Sunday rocked. We went from no investigators at church for a long time, to 2 or 3 investigators at church, to like 3x as many people at church than I've ever had before. Then the Sanz family came again too. I think they are becoming active, that's 2 weeks in a row. It's been the dilligent work and prayers of members and missionaries for 15 years but they are finally coming back. And what's more, the APs had like just as many investigators at church as us, so there were like 20 investigators in our ward, a ton of less actives. I had to stand in back during sacrament meeting because it was just full. I am so happy seeing what's happening here, it's way sweet. Anyway, after church we went on splits again. This time I went with the member just because he's way shy and you kind of have to force him to talk, so Elder McClellan wanted me with him and he and Elder Ball went together, they actually did way good, I'm excited to go to the people they taught. I guess that's the main sad part, when they go out and have spiritual experiences with their investigators and I miss it. But the happy part is, on the other side of our area, I was doing the same thing. And we had a great day. The first was a family that's been slowly progressing but I took Joezel and Misha there with me. Misha lives right next to them and she said she'd pick them up for church next week so they don't have to worry about plete. I thought that was way good, because the Mom at least some has sincere hopes and desires for her family and I think she'll go. She is a way good lady. After that we taught one other family. They want to be baptized and have dates for the 23 of April, Venus and Lovely Esteban, 2 sisters, but they have to watch their brothers and sisters, there's 11 of them and like 5 of them are 5 years or younger, their parents just had them every year! (gollie gee!) Anyway, that's intense. So they want to be baptized but they are just switching off who watches these kids so they go to church every other week. But we can't baptize them till the have the habit of going every week. So we are still having troubles resolving that concern. Their parents are never home but they are happy if Venus and Lovely are baptized but they aren't allowed to take those kids to church because it might not be safe or something. So we're still thinking of ideas for that.


The last lesson we taught was way cool too. It was with Holy Grace and Darleen. They are way good. I asked them about their prayer to be baptized and they said they still haven't received an answer. They seemed a little scared so we prayed and I asked them why they think we keep asking them about baptism. It helped us understand a lot and get their concerns. We talked about that and then told them about how we had been praying too and we feel that they can be ready to be baptized on April 30. They accepted and said they would work hard to try to be ready by that date. It was just a way cool lesson with them and I'm excited for them. It's going to be a great transfer. Wow, things are going so great! Anyway, I love it here on the mission, in the hard times and in the easy times, you still see the blessings of God and the tiny miracles happen, and now they are growing and changing the lives of others. I'm way grateful that God knows these people better than I do. I'm glad he loves all of us, and I know he does, and I know that this is his work, and he's doing good things here in our area. I'm grateful he gave me a chance to be a part of it. Well, take care all of you. I love you!


Elder Burton