Hey Family,
It says Dad sent his email from an Ipad. Isn't that that huge computer thing? That's intense. I'm really excited for you all. Especially that Elder Scott came, you'll have to tell me more about that. Yeah, and you're right mom, we can use the video feature. I think the place I'm at has it. If you want we can use it or we can do what we usually do. But the call should only be around 40 minutes.
I'm glad Grandmpa made it home from Germany. I hope they will be able to get back out soon, I see how much good a senior couple can do. It's been a lot of work getting them settled in, but I love having them here in our mission, they are so cool.
This week we were really busy though. We went to Iloilo every other day, first for zone leaders council, then for zone conference, and then on Sunday night again to watch the First Presidency Devotional. So it was a way uplifting week, but we struggled to find time to visit everyone. Plus we had to show the couple around and help them get settled, but we're really excited for this week.
The hardest thing was we struggled to see the Gonzaga Family (our golden family who went to church). We didn't get to teach them once this week. So that was tough. They live further away and we went to their house 3 times this week but no such luck, but we're hearing good news about them anyway. We actually got to talk to them once. Brother Jim is doing awesome. We found out (we have a member living next to them) - actually cool side story. So the mission right now is really focusing on families and less-actives. Sad news, only about 20% of the members in the Philippines are active... so we're really striving to help less-actives come back. (we actually had 5 less-active families come back to church for the first time :D) Anyway, so Elder Reeves and I had been working our plan to find families next to each of the members. This way we didn't over-tract in any one Baranggay, but at the same time so we could build better support systems. Anyway, the Gonzaga family we tracted into and the live next to a less-active Sister. So we started teaching them then started inviting this sister to come to the lessons and fellowship them. Anyway, as a result, they fellowshipped/supported eachother and all came to church, so it's really good. Anyway, we found out brother Jim is doing super good. He has read about 100 pages of the Book of Mormon and his wife is seeing a huge change in him. For example, he used to always get home late from work drunk and smoking and now he always gets home on time. He's losing all of his vices just from reading the word. We've only got to teach them all together as a family like 2 times and we committed them to be baptized but they are progressing so much, just from keeping these simple commitments. And even though we haven't even taught the Word of Wisdom they are already stopping doing these things. It's way amazing. Sister Norma (the member) said that they were already talking to her about being baptized and like what they are suppose to wear if they are baptized. Keep them in your prayers that they'll keep progressing, I'm super excited, but we still have some work to do.
Actually with the less actives that was the focus of what we learned at ZLC and Zone Conference. How to help our investigators get an Enduring Conversion. I'm really happy about that because you see so many missionaries just trying to get a ton of baptisms even though they might not last and the people have no real support. But it's our call to help people get to the Celestial Kingdom, and that will only happen if the converts, well, if they are actually converts; if their hearts have been changed. And that's the same thing we're suppose to do with our less-actives. Teach them the way we teach our investigators so we can help them, too, to become truly converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In our area we are teaching this one family and everytime we go there this one kid comes up to us and asks, "Do you have _____ in America?" So anyway, this week it was corn.
Kid: "Do you have corn in your place?"
Me: "Yes"
Elder Collins: "Do you have THIS in the Philippines?"
[Lifts up his leg and lets out a huge fart]
Kid: Pause..... "Ooe! Yeeeaaaahh!"
I don't know about my companion. Anyway, another cool story happened. We have one area and it's doing really well right now. We have a recent convert named Nanay [momma] Bico. Anyway, she's a way sweet old lady but her son has always been pretty hard. Her son, Conrado, is like 30 years old. The past two weeks he had been in the hospital for a surgery but he just got back. Anyway, I think you know Joan right? Well her kids should be baptized this Saturday, Diannah and Bona. But we were teaching them the 10 commandments and when we were teaching about the sabbath day Conrado walked out of his room, not wearing any pants and yelled at us kind of angrily, "Hey! I'll go to church on Sunday!! Just don't be mad at me. I'm busy and can't always listen to you teach, but I'll go to church on Sunday!!" We sat, "Brother, that's fine. We're not mad. You can go to church on Sunday." Anyway, we thought he was just kind of out of it but on Sunday he actually came. It was cool that happened; Nanay Bico was really happy and Conrado was just kind of humbled. I really like Conrado. He made a homemade gun and he always shoots bird. He actually shot like some random bird and fried it and gave us some. So that was cool.
Actually on Saturday we took the Dyer's (the senior couple) with us to visit Diannah and Bona and it was really cool. We probably should have thought better because we had to walk across a rice field and a bamboo bridge. I think I had forgotten what it was like to be new in the Philippines. They were worried there might be snakes on the path and the bridge would break. The couple is actually pretty good, they got some good vocab down, but their pronunciation was just kind of funny, I really liked how they said it. Anyway we taught the Law of Chastity with them and it was good. We told them before that's what we were going to teach and Elder Dyer brought with us some pictures of Jesus with a bunch of children to remind them to be chaste and pure. It was really cool. They made it really special and the Dyer's have plans to make their baptism pretty cool this Saturday. I love them. They bring a maturity and spirit to the work here. Anyway, it was probably pretty good they didn't understand the lesson. Because I told them that part of the LOC is that marriage is between a man and a woman and you shouldn't be gay, and when I said that Nanay Bico said, "But, lots of the Elders who have come here are gay." And then she started naming a bunch of Elders that she thought were gay. Anyway, we cleared that up with her and told her they actually weren't gay. The Philippinos are just kind of straight up. They just thought, for example, one elder was gay because he liked singing. We explained that's just what he likes. So it was kind of a weird lesson, but they understood and I'm excited for them.
As we were traveling I saw a sign that said, "Thank you for leaving!"
This week we went out to the tribes too and we learned a little of their tribal language. It's called Inati. It's kind of weird. example, where are you going? in Ilonggo is diin ka makadto? and in Inati is Kiara eke kaatubang?
Well, I love you,
Halong
Elder Burton
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