I Love to Read the Book of Mormon!

Hello all!

This week went by so fast! It's getting colder and I'm not liking that, but I'll survive! You know what's funny, without the news we really don't hear about things....Ebola? Yeah, we found out it was here like two days ago. Haha. Don't worry, Mom, we're all fine and dandy. 

We have a new investigator, Michael, and he's so great! He loves the Book of Mormon and the message in it. He's still reading and really interested in learning more. Our second lesson was such a spiritual moment. He talked about his faith in our Savior and how he relies so much on Him. My favorite part about serving a mission is meeting new people, teaching new people, and seeing the gospel change their lives. It's such a miracle. 

Meeting Michael was a miracle all on its own. We were stopping by his neighbor that we couldn't ever get a hold of. Ever. She was a referral from the Gladys Knight fireside. We stopped by her house again and he came out and sat on his front porch to let us know she wasn't home. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and he asked us to come back with one. We said goodbye, turned around and before we walked down his driveway, he was gone. Vanished without a trace! Dun dun dun. Okay, but really, it was like he was there for a few moments and then he was gone! Just something funny, I guess. When we went back the first time he was so excited to read the book! We came back again with a member from the ward (member missionaries are the best!!) and read some of the Book of Mormon and discussed the Restoration of Christ's Gospel. Before we even asked for a return appointment, he was asking if we could meet again tomorrow. So great! He is so prepared for the gospel and you can see how much he wants it. We have a return appointment with him tonight, so we'll see what happens. 

This sure is God's work and it's amazing what happens when we let Him take the reins and be prepared to follow. That's how all of life is, not just a mission. We all can see His hands in our lives if we look, turn to Him and open our eyes. He's always there, we just sometimes try to walk by ourselves and that doesn't always end the best way it could. Our district leader invited us to write down the miracles we see everyday. That's what God does -- miracles. If we look for them, we can see them. Even if they're small, they're still miracles and blessings from God. Anyway, I'd love to invite you all to do the same. I promise you'll be able to see the little things or maybe even the big ones. 

Alexandria and her family. Love them!

Happy moment of the week! Our recent convert, Alexandria, bore her testimony at the Kirtland Fireside we hold each month. Ahh, it was wonderful! Her testimony was so powerful and so strong. She still has questions about the gospel and she is wanting to grow more (which is and will come), but that's normal. God wants us to follow Him and continue to learn and grow. That's exactly what she's doing and the Lord is blessing her so much! Just rely on the little seed of faith and look how it blooms into something beautiful!

I LOVE THE SENIOR MISSIONARIES!!! Elder and Sister Ramirez

We went to a choir fireside...it was interesting, but a nice break. Haha. Remind me to show you a video in a year and a half when I'm home.   

Okay, Heavenly Father loves you all...no matter what. I love you, too!!!

Sister Burns 

*cough* *cough* Christmas is in two months *cough* *cough*

"God hears and answers me when I pray in faith"

Hello!

This week we spent a lot of time at the doctors for Sister Harrison's leg, but all is well! It's not a fracture so she doesn't have to go home! Prayers and priesthood blessings work. One doctor said it was a fracture and then when we went to the next doctor it was gone. Blessings! 

Another blessing of this week: If we pray to God for help and it's doing His will, He will help you!

We are really lacking in the investigator pool right now and there's so much joy in teaching, so we made it our weekly goal to pray more earnestly for investigators. That morning we went to visit a lady and she wasn't home, but we felt like we should go visit another lady in the same apartment complex. As we knocked on the door we waited, and waited, and waited, and finally she came to the door right as we were about to leave. (There are a lot of retirement apartments in Mayfield and this is one of them.) As we talked with her we shared why we were there and she wants us to come back this week. Blessing and answer to prayers. We were pretty excited about that. 

As the day went on, things were just going great! Not a single appointment fell through (missionary miracle in itself). Earlier that day we had stopped by a referral from the Gladys Knight Fireside, but she wasn't home. Before we traveled back to Kirtland for the night we decided to try once more. We walked up her driveway and hear her yell that we were going up the wrong sidewalk (missionary heart currently sinking....rejection...ugh). As we got closer we told her we were looking for Kelli. It turns out there were members right across the street and she thought we were wanting them. When she found out why we were there and we were there for her she was so excited!! She welcomed us into her home (missionary heart FREAKING out with joy!!) and we shared with her the message of the Book of Mormon. I loved seeing the joy in her eyes as we talked about it. We are going back this week and I cannot wait to see what happens. She is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Blessing and answer to prayers number 2! 

Days like that are what make missionary work all worth it. Sure it's hard, but the gospel is such a blessing and being able to share it with others...nothing else compares. I know that the gospel is a gospel of happiness. It's simple. People try to confuse it and make it difficult or weird. Sure, it can seem difficult to follow if you look at it that way, but when you look at it as a plan your Father in Heaven created for you so you can find happiness and grow, those other things don't matter. When you strive to follow Him, you'll see how easy it becomes. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that it is there for us to grow closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father. I know that life is hard, but when we read that book we see life become more enjoyable and those difficult times become more easy to bear. I love being able to share this with others. I hope you all know how wonderful it is. God wants to bless us and when we choose to act for ourselves and follow Him we will see blessings pour out all around us! =) 

Not much time to write today, but I hope you all know how much I know that we have a Father in Heaven who loves each and everyone of us. I know He cares about what you're doing. If you don't feel like He's there, keep seeking Him. He's there waiting for you with outstretched arms. I promise you that.  

Love you all, 

Sister Burns

                                                         Just a picture I took. I love the Fall here! So pretty!

                                                           After a long day of work! Two new investigators! 

Walk as Christ -- Challenge accepted!

General Conference!!

I have never loved it as much as I did while being a missionary. It applies so differently when you're out here serving and when you're prayed for! (Yeah, coolest thing ever!) I love the power of faith and what God can do if you give it to Him. 

Favorite talk: 

President Monson's talk from the Sunday morning session. This talk hit me differently than I think most people took it. He discussed the difference between walking where Christ walked and walking as Christ walked. There are so many wonderful things that Christ did, and He wants us to learn from His example and follow Him. That's the gospel -- follow Christ's example and be happy. How simple is that? Are we serving enough? Loving enough? Praying enough? Are we going through our trials and always looking toward our Heavenly Father enough? We can ALL be better at these things. 

The point that came across my mind was what am I doing? I am in Kirtland. Christ was here, Joseph Smith walked here, Parley P. Pratt walked here, Joel Hills Johnson walked here (had to throw that one in!), so many saints lived the gospel here and I talk about that everyday on tour. What am I doing with this knowledge? Am I more excited to walk where they walked or walk as they walked? I am amazed at the stories of the saints and what they gave up for the gospel. My mind focused on what I'm giving or should be giving to the gospel. God knows all of His children and He notices when we reach out to help another person, obey the prophets, or say no to a temptation and He blesses us for that. Just a little something that came across my mind. It makes me view Kirtland differently and how I can learn from the past to be better now.    

Sunday morning session we watched at Patar and Uma's home. I loved it! Patar loves the gospel! He is still learning, but he wouldn't take his eyes off the TV. He had so many questions for us afterwards and He even started to sing with us doing the congregation hymn. (He's from Indonesia and hardly knows the hymns or English for that matter. Favorite moment of the day!) They were talking about going to visit Palmyra next summer and how exciting it will be to go to the temple there. We didn't even bring it up. I love seeing the desire to progress in the gospel and further their covenants with the Lord. You can see how the Spirit flows through them and fills their home. Uma always cooks for us, too! She's from Thailand and makes yummy Thai food. Thank heavens she holds off on all of the hot spices! I'd die. Haha. But I love Thai food. Yumm. 

Story time! Uma made divine dark hot chocolate (if anyone knows me, I'm slightly obsessed...) and she sent us with to-go cups full after Conference. I walked out and had no free hands so I placed the cup between my teeth thinking it would stay there long enough to dig through my purse and find the keys... fail. The cup dropped and splattered everywhere! Thank goodness we were already outside. I now have one stained cardigan and no hot chocolate. Yes, laugh and call me blonde. You're doing that anyway, I just know it! I'm now accepting replacement cardigans of any color and/or money donations to fill the WICINC fund. (Winter is coming and I need cardigans)   

We had so many member meals this week...and there were no worms! Whew! I love the members! We watched the last session with the Christensen's. They have a little girl who is four and reminds me so much of Bailey. It made watching conference feel more at home. And I had her tell me every time they said Jesus Christ....which was all the time! Overall, conference reminded me of the blessing of the Savior. He is our Lord and loves each and every one of us no matter what. He is there for us always and we just need to turn to Him. The gospel is so simple and easy if we just ignore the doubts in our heads and study His words. We will be able to see that and as we do, pure happiness comes. Missions are so hard, but I see that every day as I strive to study and learn more. Yep, the gospel is wonderful, Christ is wonderful, and Heavenly Father is, too. 

Oh! Sis. Harrison fractured (maybe) her ankle and shin! We're waiting for another doctor to look at her x-rays. Hopefully it's nothing too bad. =/

Have a great week! I love you all. 

Sister Burns

88,000 strong!

P.S. President changed our music, so we can only listen to Sacrament Meeting appropriate music (hymns and MoTab) and nothing from the Youth LDS page or EFY music. Help would be appreciated in this area since we have around two CDs we can listen to now. Haha

After a LONG day of exchanges. Sis. Mertlich. LOVE HER!!! She heads home in two weeks. =(

Wrapping trees with lights! Christmas is coming soon!!!!

Blessings!

Hello! 

I feel like I just was writing last weeks e-mail....time is a crazy thing. 

Elder Teh visited our mission this past week. We are just getting blessed right and left here! The conference was wonderful! I have never had more excitement or motivation to do more as a missionary and help the work move forward. I am so blessed to be a part of this mission at this time. It's such a testimony to me that God knows each and every one of His children and He guides us to where we need to be if we follow Him. It's amazing. When I look back over my life and especially the last year and a half, I can see God's hand in everything and I can see how it all led up to me serving here at this time. 

I don't know how many of you know why I'm serving....quick story. I knew a mission was always an option, but I never felt like I should or that I even had a desire to leave everything behind and go. So...Graduation came and went and my life went on, too. It wasn't exactly going in any direction I thought it would or that I wanted it to go. (Marriage...nope. Funny how God has a better and bigger plan than we do for ourselves). As I thought about life over the last year, I would pray to have a desire to go and nothing would ever come from it, so I just ignored the mission thing and found other ways to grow in the gospel. As I continued on in life I had the strongest desire to go through the temple...so I did. Best place in the world. Everyone should go. Because of the temple I felt so much closer to Heavenly Father and the Spirit (vital for life). One night (I wasn't even thinking about a mission) the Spirit hit me so strong and I KNEW that I had to go. Through every fiber of my being, I knew I needed to. I still didn't want to, but I knew that if I followed Christ and gave up my life to serve Him, my desires for my life would come back to me even better than I could ever imagine. That's how God works. =) So, now I'm here and I can see that God leads us to places we never thought possible. I could have stayed at home and been perfectly fine. There would have been amazing things that would have happened and God still would have been there...He's always there. But I know that because I'm following the plan He so powerfully showed that I should follow, I will and currently am being blessed.

 

This is how Heavenly Father works in all of our lives. We are all at different stages, we all need different things, and our stories are not all the same. But there is one underlying theme to all of our stories...as we follow Heavenly Father and strive to do our best, we can look back and see God's hands in our lives. It might take years to see...things that happened while I was a teenager and younger are playing into me serving...but we can ALWAYS see His hand. He loves each and every one of us. That is His entire reason for sending us here. He wants to help us be happy and He wants to pour out blessings to us...He is always pouring blessings out and we can always see them if we open our eyes and hearts and look. (Read President Uchtdorf's talk from last Saturday's Women's Conference. Illustrates exactly what I'm talking about)  

Okay, massive tangent. Pretty much, I just realized again that I'm supposed to be here and God will place people in our lives to help us see His plan. Elder Teh helped me see that again. I can't wait to see what happens over the next...few ish....months.      

On a happy note, Alexandria and Kayla (they were baptized the Sunday before I got to the area) finally got confirmed on Sunday. I love seeing the difference already! There were so many bad things that happened over the last month and they were having such a hard time, so church didn't happen. As they walked through the doors on Sunday you could feel a difference. They received the Holy Ghost and already there are so many blessings from that. Medical things that are not as bad as they thought, happiness in their home, peace on their street (they live in a not-so-great part of town). I love seeing the blessings all around us. Alexandria and Kayla see it too. They're going on the ward temple trip on the 18th and I can't wait to hear how it goes. If only we could go with them.... oh well. 

Okay, that was not what I was planning to writing this week, but there you go. 

I love you all! 

Sister Burns

(Ps, The leaves are amazing here! I will be taking pictures when there isn't as much green left. Gorgeous!)