hey family,
so i forgot to tell you this area is a new language again. karay-a. i've now been assigned in every single province in our mission, and every single language. this language has a lot of r's. it's weird. but it's okay.
the shift on this computer doesn't work. so i'll write you in all lower-case. i can't believe all that happened last week. let the cooper's know how much i love isaac. he's a great guy and i think you described him perfectly mom; his faith, his humor, you can't help but smile. i'm grateful for the gospel and the blessings from it. i'm also touched by the service the ward is offering. it's amazing how our faith in christ encourages us to serve one another and binds us to one another.
i got my so called "trunky letter" this week. my departure date is june 26.. that's enough of that.
anyway, this week was way good for us. i don't think i've prayed harder before. we had a really rough start though. on tuesday after district meeting and went out and tracked. our plan is to track and find families next to members homes, and then invite them to the lessons with us. i've found it really effective on my mission, because first if we just teach members 90% of the time they tell us that all the people around there house are set in their religions, and they won't want to listen. but with this we get investigators, invite the members, the investigators have support, and then the members faith grow that their neighbors are ready! as we worked though and talked to a couple people, no one was letting us in their houses. we told a couple people that we would try to go back in a couple days and they told us, ''okay, if we're here''. so we were kind of discouraged.
the next day was the same deal. we studied early and left a little early that morning and just talked to people. the only person that would even talk to us was this really old lady, and she just told us she's been in her religion a really long time, and wasn't going to change, so it would probably be a waste to teach me, she said.
we also met with one of the investigators they do have, elena. she has been an investigator for about 2 months now and isn't really progressing. we planned to teach lesson two but when we started i felt prompted to ask her if she believed in our living prophet. she told us she never even heard about that before! elder collins and i spent maybe and entire month sometimes teaching someone about the restoration to really make sure they understand, because its a really hard concept for people. so we reviewed on that a little. i think that's why she is struggling to progress, because she just doesn't have a foundation.
the miracles this week started happening on thursday. first we went to go see a less-active member and while we were there we met her non-member husband. he had been in bacolod for 4 years working and just got back here last week. he's now here to stay! we were able to teach him a little about how the gospel blesses families. he's a way good guy so hopefully we can help them both progress and become an active family in the church. after that we were walking and saw our investigator edgar and his member 'wife' tueni. they were walking and when we saw them we felt inspired to take a detour from our route and go to the municipality. we talked to some people there about their marriage and actually the guy in charge of that is a member! so we called edgar to come over and now they are ready to be married. next monday! we're really excited for them. it was sweet because the member had a temples liahona in his desk and we shared about eternal marriage with them right there in the municipality! then tueni's brother lestor, who is also a member but not yet endowed or sealed, said that he wanted to be sealed too next year! so they are planning to have a double wedding. now all we have to worry about with edgar is his word of wisdom, but he's already cut his cigarettes in half too. after that we went back to baranggay cato-ogan, to follow up with those people we talked to last tuesday. we went to our members house, the garcia's, and invited them to come with. they are like my favorite members here. they are way sweet. so we went back and it was amazing, because 2 families let us into their house! we were way excited. one is a younger couple and the wife is preggo 4 months, the other is a family with 4 small boys, thats good because our branch has no deacons. we're excited to see their progression.
on friday we had our interviews with president pagaduan. he's a great guy. and he just let me know that i am right where i'm needed. it's not the fastest progressing area, like i secretly hoped to be assigned in for my last area, but it's an area that needs help. i'm grateful anyway for all the lessons i've learned, especially patience again. i also need to learn to recognize the small miracles that happen. because i know there are so many tender mercies we receive from god. even though sometimes it's hard, or we have trials, i believe if we look in our lives for the tender mercies god is giving to us, we'll see them.
one is on saturday. we decided we would go back to that grandma who said she'd never change and at least get our message out to her. when we got there we met her grandson, who is a young father. his wife wasn't there but suddenly out of no-where there were like 10 20-year-old guys in the room and we were teaching them all. it was sweet. there is a lot of potential there and they were interested! elder andal told me later that his last companion told him to not to try to track in that area. because he had tried and everyone told him not to come back. but when i told him we should try there, he decided not to say anything to me. i just shows me that this is god's work. if we let him know where we're going to be and plead with him to grant us success, he'll put people in our path.
on sunday we actually got to go on splits. i worked with two RMs, jore and bingbing. it was sweet. we they showed my some former investigators from a couple years ago. we also went to visit a less-active member. her brother is also a member and lives in a house next to theirs. he won't face us, and everytime the missionaries visit her her brother turns on really loud music. we could barely hear eachother. i wasn't sure how we were going to share but we decided we should. as we prayed and started teaching, i couldn't here the music anymore. as we all talked, we weren't in tune to the music, we were in tune with the spirit. it really amazed me. we truly get on a different plane as we live in the spirit. i'm grateful for god's power. anywhere we are, even in hard situations like that, if we seek it, we'll find and be guided by the spirit.
that's about it family! i love you all,
elder burton
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