Blessings

August 10, 2015

As seeing as this past week has been nothing but hot in winter, you can imagine the happiness I feel to finally to have rain today! YEEEEESSSSS! Here in Formosa we are as you would say, “out of the freezer and into the frying pan!”  Not to mention the amount of dust that we had was pretty crazy.  I felt like I was in Utah again with the amount of wind and dust we had.  Well it was ok because now we won’t be worrying for a while about dust nor sun!  But anyways, here’s the details of what happened in this episode of Elder Burke: Mission Resistencia, Argentina.

Our dueno (owner) lets me play with his typewriter- It's Awesome!!

The more I train the more I feel like a parent, literally.  It has been different to be someone who knows all the ropes, to helping un-tie my son from being tangled in them.  It takes patience and love, which surprisingly I have a lot of. ja ja!  But we are studying a lot and Elder Stock is doing better than last week and that’s the key!  We have been studying about the Book of Mormon and how to use it for everything.  As usual, the scriptures are always true and have answered many questions for our investigators and have also brought these people to be more self-sufficient.  That’s what I love about teaching people the most, its showing them to look for the answers themselves because if you give the answers to them they don’t really learn, so we focus more on how they can read the Book of Mormon to answer questions and better their lives through it.

We have been having a lot of lessons with members and I have seen how much better it is to have a member in the lesson.  We aren’t perfect teachers, or the members but the spirit is, so why not have every tool you can from scriptures to members, to help invite the scriptures!  The sad part though, is some of the people we have been visiting aren’t progressing or basically don’t want anything, even from their friends.  It’s sad to see the look in members’ eyes when their friends do not want the gospel right now.  But they still keep moving forward with faith that they know the church is true.

I want to write about how we have been going to see people more because they are sick and need blessings.  The thing is that they are all asking for one thing: Help.  After all we have done, a priesthood blessing is one of our most sacred and powerful things we can do as priesthood holders.  It is our responsibility to always be prepared to give a blessing and to be there when they need it.  In the church there was a girl named Belen who is three months pregnant and she came back to the church and is attending!  But she wasn’t feeling really well and during the sacrament meeting she had me and Elder Stock and the secretary of the presidency of the branch, give her a blessing.  Her husband hurt her really bad and honestly I wanted to find the guy and have a chat with him, but after giving her a blessing she felt so happy and alive.  It was a change in her that was truly a manifestation of Gods power on the earth!

I´ll continue from where I left off. Now that I have a computer to write at! So as I was saying.  So with the priesthood we helped Belen feel better, and honestly it was a moment to see how blessed we are to have the privilege to do such things here in the world.  It’s not us, but the Spirit.  If you could only see how sad and miserable Belen was and then see her participate in class as though nothing had ever happened within minutes, you would see how wonderful it is to have the priesthood here on the earth.  I don’t think I will ever forget that experience or the feelings I felt as we gave her that blessing.  Priesthood holders must always be ready for when they are called.

We have a progressing investigator now! Yes!  Her name is Doris who is the sister of Gabriel Lopez (A convert of Elder Allen) and she is pretty awesome.  She is a single mother of 19 and her baby is super funny because she gives you all types of sass with her facial expressions. ja ja.  We talked to her about being baptized and she told us that she really wants to, because the last time that she could talk to the missionaries was when she was here about a month ago. She went to Formosa Capital because she has a tumor (don’t worry it was diagnosed benign) in her chest. When I got to know Gabriel he showed us worry for his sister and he made some awesome prayers for her when we were visiting him, and it was wonderful to see her and actually meet her.  So she is now preparing to be baptized on the 29 of August! So we will see what happens.

Being a district leader has brought some new things to mind as I am trying my best to be in charge of them along with the training with Elder Stock.  Me personally I have a hard time telling people exactly what they should do because I want them to make the decision for themselves and not do what I tell them to do.  So it has been a fun week helping people become more auto-sufficient in what they can do to fix their problems, but also maintain order.  Elder Stock (Like I also experienced) is enjoying the last final weeks, were I am basically letting him run things, helping him think more for himself so  he can be ready to be more proactive in his desires to share the gospel.  I feel like a parent sometimes, honestly, and I kind of understand how my dad must have felt trying to teach me something that at the moment I felt was hard, but did it anyway because my dad made me and now I’m thanking him for kicking my sorry little butt so that I can be ready for the world. The hardest things for us to do in this world are normally the most rewarding and important things you need to learn in life, and you learn it by doing it yourself.  So if you are a parent trying to help your kids learn something that they need to know in life, find a way to let them know that you love them and that they´ll be alright, even if it’s somewhat hard at first.  Don’t give up on teaching them the things they need, even if they don’t want to learn.  There is more than one way to teach.  Also kids with parents that are telling them how things are, Exodus 20:12 ¨Honour thy father and thy mother¨.  Your Parents have experience, so listen to what they know and add what they know to help you live a better life.  If your parents haven’t taught you anything, use their example to make you a parent who wants to help your kids have the best life in this world, which comes from careful guidance, warnings, and occasionally saying “I love you”.   Be good parents, and be good children and your family will be great.

Love

Elder Burke

P.S. We found Mater! Also a pretty gnarly fire, I was thinking of Herriman of course.

I'm a Plumber- oh yeah!