26 February 2012

Hey Family,

This week was really great for us!! Jordan is on fire as usual. I'll answer your questions real quick though. My debit card expires the end of march. My companion Elder Collins says registration is April 4. Anyway, sounds like your week was fun. I'm excited for Jared, the actor. Sounds cool.

This week was transfer week! I am staying again!! I'm way excited. I thought maybe I would be out but I'm still with Elder Collins. He's now my longest companion. It's pretty rare you're with a companion this long but I'm way happy!! We had a couple new people come to the island. One is our old AP, Elder Ahquin, he is here for his last couple of months, and also Elder Penaia is in our zone now! I'm excited to see him again and I'm sure he'll do good in his area. He was just companions with Elder Tiamzon.

Anyway, this week again was a success. We had the baptism of Roxanne Gange. It was a great service. She's really changed a lot and it's amazing to see that in a person. She's had a pretty rough life. Both of her parents died and she got into some pretty bad situations in Iloilo. But these past two months you've really seen the effects of the atonement in her life. Before when we first taught her she was downtrodden, and had no idea who she was. As she shared in her testimony, now she's really come to know that these things are true for herself and she developed a relationship with her Father in Heaven. She knows God has a plan for her and she was so grateful for the chance she had to repent. It's amazing how so great a change can happen in someone in just a couple of months. Nothing can compare to the joy you receive from doing missionary work.

The Gonzaga's are doing good. The relief society president talked to Jimjin about becoming the relief society secretary, and she seems pretty excited about that. Big Jimmy is on fire. He finally overcame the temptation. He's actually pretty high up in his work, and he ended up going to the vice-governors birthday party. Everyone there was drinking but for big jimmy, Coke na lang!! All he drank was coke. He showed them whose boss. It's kind of funny because we shared the story about the apostle who was a business man so before they had those dinner things. We told him to just show them who is boss. And he did. When he told us we all gave each other high fives. He's way excited. On Sunday a guy came from the stake came and looked in our investigators class and said, "Holy Toledo! There's a lot of you here! Do any of you have schedule to be baptized?" It was sweet because all our investigators like raised their hands and were way excited. Yeahhh boy!!

We also have a sweet family, the Sallano family. Sister Saling is a single mother whose husband died a couple years ago. She's really excited to be baptized and should be in the next couple of weeks along with her kids. They are loving coming to church and it's really sweet because a couple members know her and said, "It's not easy to convince someone like Saling." It was kind of cool because they knew her in the past. But it taught me the lesson that the Lord is always preparing the hearts of people to accept the gospel, and as missionaries, we don't have to convince anyone to do anything, we just have to teach with the convincing power of the Holy Ghost. Because when the Holy Ghost enters their hearts, hearts will change. Missionary work is pretty simple. We just have to qualify ourselves for the work and then thrust in with our might! Saling and her family are way good. Her kids names are Sanebar and Jonabel! They are good kids. I told Dianna (she was baptized a couple months ago) to talk to Jonabel and be her friend, but Jonabel was way shy. I apologized to the young woman that she was shy and thanked them for trying and then Dianna told us, "That's okay! When I first start coming to church, I was really shy! But after I kept coming I got more comfortable!" It was really cool. They'll be good friends with her.

Keep telling me about the haps back home. I love you!I got the valentines from the woods. Thank you so much. I think uncle dan and sam win.. I moose you too. haha
Love..
Elder Burton