Elder Taylor James Burke: Family History

October 12, 2015

Well seeing as it is almost Mother’s Day here in Argentina...,. Happy Mother’s day mom! ja ja well I won’t be able to call like last time so you’ll have to wait till Christmas. I know I’m mean. ;)

Elder Burke (aka mission nurse) hard at work!

So this last week was another crazy blast of excitement and new things. We first off had interviews with President Franco in the church, close by the coast in Corrientes. It was just me and elder Stock because we weren’t able to do the interviews from the emergency transfers we had a couple of weeks ago. They were good and he gave me a new book for the program of Swiss medical that has all the doctors in Chaco, Corrientes and Formosa. So, it’s making my work as a mission nurse much easier. Elder stock and I caught up with one another and told the funny stories of what has been going on lately. He’s having a harder time with his new companion and adjusting, poor guy. He’s already had a new companion almost every transfer, he’s constantly changing.

Teaching how to find your ancestors!
Me and Great-grandpa Butler

We had a new thing that we did this last Saturday where we all were invited to do a family history center in the district building. There were a ton of decorations and a ton of members putting everything together. They specifically told us missionaries that we are not to teach anything about the church and only help people get a good understanding on the website FAMILSEARCH.COM. It was absolutely a blast, and even though it rained, a good amount of people came to the activity. We had a lot of food and it was basically a museum. I got to be one of the explainers of how to put your information on family search. I used my own family tree to show them examples. It was cool because it’s been awhile since the last time I have used it and they have made a ton of changes to it. I showed them my great grandparents and it was super cool. There were two stories that happened. One was this member who was back from her mission for a couple of years still didn’t know how to get started. I personally helped her find out that her name and password was the same as she had used for her mission code! So when I could show her, her own family tree she got really excited and wanted to know everything. Afterwards an investigator of the Hermanas was passing along and this investigator told me that she never knew that the church did things like this. She has had missionaries visit her family for 30 years and she was visiting the church center for the first time and she was very impressed! Also her son was getting baptized that night! She received a great new way for her to connect herself to her ancestors and also feel the spirit strong. I was super happy to get to know them and help them out.

Being as we are in Mendoza Al Sur, we have very dangerous areas that we are learning to avoid by experience at night. We went to visit Alejandra and we were very blessed by God that we could get to her house and also walk in her subdivision without any really bad things happening. I guess there is a combination of two things, the power of the Lord and the guidance of the Spirit. We are constantly guided to avoid areas that are dangerous or we receive and impression to go down a different road. Also when I have read the stories of Ammon and also of Peter from the Bible, they are constantly in danger and there are so many circumstances that they are in as witnesses of Christ and missionaries. There are a lot of bad things that happen to them, but they leave from the flames unquenched nor burnt, but with true manifestations that Heavenly Father is on their side. And that’s how I have felt these past two days. Don’t ever worry about what will happen, because if you are with the spirit and worthy of it, you will be protected by the will of the Father. Oh I love my Heavenly Father for protecting my family and also my companions and I from the dangers of this world.