November 17, 2013 Pictures

 Here is the hair cut I got two weeks ago. 3 on top 2 on sides. It was a little short. But it is cheaper for us to do it ourselves than to get it done so that is what we do! IT grows quickly anyway


 Bet you don't see this in the States too often! It just had pieces of dried kiwifruit in it! And it was only like 3 bucks for the whole thing. Pretty cool!


 So here is Laurie and James at the Baptism this weekend. Laurie is on the right and James on the left. 

November 17, 2013

Well this week was real good! The best part was that we had another baptism! I can't believe how awesome the work is here in Masterton! This weekend was the baptism of Laurie. He is a 19 year old guy that is way cool. We had James, the recent convert, baptise him! What a neat experience! It did only take him maybe.....6 or 7 tries to get him all the way under! It was kinda sad but they both were good with what was going on. The main problem was that James didn't have his hand high enough on Laurie's back so his head wouldn't go all the way under. But all good! It was a great service and Laurie's mother, who has a baptismal date for the 30th, was able to attend as well and I think she really enjoyed it! We are hoping to have a lesson with the senior couple and them on Wednesday, should be good! Laurie was confirmed on Sunday and ordained in the Aaronic Priesthood, to the office of a priest. How wonderful!

The next highlight of the week is that last week we had the most number of investigators with a baptismal date out of the whole mission! Just an amazing testimony to me of how lucky I am to be serving here in Masterton! The Lord really is hastening his work here in Masterton and I am so grateful to be a part of it! We just gotta keep working hard to keep all this good stuff going! We had some baptismal dates fall through this week though so we are hoping to reset those this week and continue to set more new ones! The people here are really great! We did a lot of talking to people on the street and stuff this week. It is kinda hard for me sometimes to break out of my shell but I am doing my best. We talked to about 218 people this week! Our goal is 150 per week so we were overwhelmed with that success. Overall this was just a great week to be a missionary! 

The next cool thing that I have to share is about my old room mate, Hunter Fowers.  He was called to the............SACRAMENTO CALIFORNIA MISSION!!!!!!!!!! So, Mom and Dad, if there is an Elder Fowers that is serving in the area you better make sure to feed him and his companion every week! When I read that email I was shocked beyond all belief! He is leaving for the MTC on the 4th of December so expect him in the mission two weeks after that!!!!! I am very excited for him! Also, I would encourage you all to feed the missionaries as much as possible. I certainly appreciate anyone who gives me food and I know all other missionaries do! So Mom and Dad, if you don't want leftovers, FEED THE ELDERS! And send them home with more food! 

Speaking of food, Happy Thanksgiving! We actually have a dinner appointment for Thursday! So we should be getting a nice feed for Thanksgiving but other than that it is a normal day. Not too many Americans around here. There is one that we know, he is an Excom but a real nice guy! He gives us pies every once in a while. So nothing too exciting over here for that!
Well I think that is all for this week. Pretty exciting week! I hope all is going well in the good old USA and that you guys are having a great time! Love you lots!
Ofa'atu!

Elder Burnham

November 10, 2013

Dear Family!

This week was a very exciting one! To start of the week we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. We took the train down to Upper Hutt. When we got there we found out we went to the wrong station and we were supposed to get off at the next one. So we had to buy another ticket and get back on the train to get off at the correct stop. All together the trip took maybe about an hour and a half. Then we met the Zone Leaders at their house. We got to do all sorts of good stuff. I was with Elder Tinei who was just called to be a Zone Leader. He is from Auckland, is 25 years old and is half Samoan half Tongan. He is a really great missionary. He is very soft spoken yet bold. He taught me a thing or two about having fun while we are still doing work. For example, we were door knocking and we would give each other a color that we had to mention sometime in the conversation. So one door I gave him the color orange. He said "ok just watch this" So he knocked on the door and started talking to the guy that answered. We got a return appointment and then just before I left he says "it's been a really hot day, you wouldn't happen to have an orange for me?" I was shocked with this man walked away and came back with three oranges for us. It was really really funny! So that was really neat. We then came back to Masterton to have an interview for Kent's baptism! And he passed! So we set in stone the baptism for Saturday night. Tuesday night we had four of us Elders in our bedroom. We only had two mattresses so the Zone Leaders just slept on the boxspring thing beneath the mattresses. That was funny. Except that I didn't sleep well at all. Elder Tinei was snoring like a freight train. And it was really hot! We then had district meeting in the morning and the Zone Leaders left. 

Thursday morning we went to a funeral for the long time ward adviser for the Masterton ward. He was also a part of a big family here in the Wairapa. We just helped with preparing food the whole time. I was kinda sad because I thought we were there to meet nonmembers and less actives that came and to give them the opportunity to learn from the missionaries, but oh well. I am sure our service helped a lot, just not in the way I expected. There was heaps of food afterward and I was definitely filled up. We then got a ride home from a member senior couple from Carterton. Masterton is like an extra 10 minute drive from Carterton so we were really happy for them helping out with that. Friday we went to have dinner and a lesson with Michelle and her family. We had some real good BBQ and some very tasty dessert. It was wayyyyyyyy too much food. It always is over at her house. We then taught the rest of the Plan of Salvation. We then invited them to be baptized and they all accepted! Michelle was especially excited! We set their date for the 7th of December, which is out of this transfer so we were kinda sad about that but it will be all good! They then set off fireworks after the lesson. This is the only week fireworks are legal in NZ so it is kinda exciting. They had some that shot up little ones into the air that popped. So Brad, the son, set some off. But the firework bundle fell over so they started shooting these fireworks every which direction. It was actually quite scary! There were some that went toward a shed in the neighbor's yard. It was a close call a couple times but nobody got hurt! It was probably the most exciting fireworks I have ever watched haha

Saturday we had our baptisms, two in the district! One was the sisters investigator down in Featherston, about 30 minutes away. The other was Kent! It was a really cool service. A recent convert, James gave a  talk on faith and repentance that was real cool. Elder Christensen was the one to perform the baptism. Kent's father and brother attended the baptism and he was very excited about that. They were unable to make it to sacrament meeting yesterday so the Bishop decided that he should be confirmed that night. He asked me to perform the confirmation. I was apprehensive because I thought that the confirmation was supposed to be at the sacrament meeting. But I went ahead and did it anyway. I had a couple people tell me that it was a beautiful confirmation which made me feel good since it was the first one I had ever done! It was an overall great service. I am very grateful to see the fruits of the work that we have put in. It for sure gives me confidence to keep working! 

Yesterday we moved forward a baptism date to this weekend. The investigators name is Laurie. He is 18 or 19 years old and is a real cool guy. He has really enjoyed coming to church. So we might be having another baptism this weekend and a couple more in the next couple weeks! Laurie may baptize his mom, Brenda, once she is ready. She has not been able to attend church yet so it is going to be at least another couple weeks. The bishop is going to be out of town next weekend when the original date was set so he told us to either move it forward or back a week so we did. The zone leaders weren't too happy though, it means they need to make another trip down here. But oh well! So that is about it for this week. Lots of exciting things happening! We also had some really yummy food given to us. It is called Paua. It is a shellfish that is maybe about the size of the fist. I first had it a couple weeks ago raw. It was good then but yesterday we were given 4 whole ones that we fried up for lunch today. Real good! They grow very slowly so the ones that we ate were probably 80-100 years old and worth $150 each if they were sold in China. Crazy. They are pretty much the delicacy of New Zealand. Well that is about it for the week! Lots of exiting things happening! Hope all is going well at home!
Love,
Elder Burnham

November 3, 2013

Wow! It's November already! Time is flying by so quickly! I can't even comprehend that I have already been gone for two months, it feels like two weeks! I do remember dad saying that something like the first year of the mission is really fast, then the next 6 months are kinda slow, then the last 6 months are like a twinkling of an eye, to use a scripture term I guess! So I certainly believe the first part for now!

This week has been a real good one! We have been super busy all week. We almost have too many people to meet with and teach that we don't have enough time for them! But we are managing. There is always enough time for more investigators! We are really focusing on Kent this week. He has his baptism interview tomorrow! I think he is very excited. We met with him on wednesday and he asked some really neat questions about the temple and temple marriage. Unfortunately, these question came up because his family doesn't really support him in the decision that he is making to be baptized :( We are certainly sad about that and praying that his family softens their hearts. He is a little bummed because he said "I don't think many people will be there" when speaking about his baptismal service. We hope the ward will support him a lot!

We did some service this week, helping this guy move. Well we didn't really help him move, we helped him clean his house while he packed up so that he could get all of his deposit back. It was pretty gross actually. But he really appreciated it. He was running real late and just left while we were still cleaning. He left a whole bunch of stuff behind and told us that we could take anything we wanted. So I scored a 16 GB usb drive for free! Well not free but just for soing service. We also got an axe and some cleaning supplies. And a whole stack of XBOX games to take to one of our recent converts and his brother. They really appreciated that. There was a game in there that his brother was looking for for ages! And we just show up and give it to him for free. He was blown away. Way cool.

Halloween here is really really low key. In fact, the vast majority of Kiwi's don't "celebrate" it at all. They say it's an American holiday haha. We saw maybe 10 people the whole night that were trick or treating. They just don't see the point in handing out "lollies" to people dressed to scare other people. We just explained to people that it was more about the coming together with friends and family and just having a good time than it was about the whole scary demons stuff.

Michelle and her family are doing well. We stopped by there last night and were supposed to have dinner but Brad wasn't home so we weren't able to come in. So she just gave us heaps of groceries instead. I think it is the most food we have ever had in our flat. We won't have to go grocery shopping this week! Which is good because right now we are actually on exchanges with the Zone Leaders again. We took the train down from Masterton and got off at the wrong stop so we had to get another ticket to go to the correct stop. Then take out suitcases and bikes (yes, I biked with a suitcase; pretty comical) to their house. It was only like a 3 minute bike, but it was also through a very busy roundabout. That was exciting. But more on the exchange next week, it has only just begun! It was neat about Michelle and her family though, when we talked to them yesterday she told us that Brad, who she thought was not too interested, was asking her questions during the week about the differences between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Like why the names and stuff were different. It was neat to hear that. We have another dinner appt. with them on wednesday this week where we will share the rest of the plan of salvation. I am very excited!

We have had an unusual number of very ill people we have heard about this week. There are 3 people very close to the ward that are in the hospital. One is the previous Masterton ward adviser from the high council. He is also part of one of the big families here in Masterton. I believe he suffered from a brain aneurism. He is the uncle to the Bishop and the Bishop says he thinks that we are going to be having a funeral very soon. He is on life support as far as I know. It is sad. Also the father of one of the counselors in the bishopric suffered something similar but is in a little better shape. And there was another brother in the ICU on sunday as well. Human life certainly is fragile. Our fast and testimony meeting went for about an hour and a half, maybe a little more.

On friday night, the Zone Leaders challenged us to find three new investigators on saturday. So we planned to visit several of our potential investigators. We ended up getting three new investigators! In one day! It was certainly a miracle because not everything went according to plans but it all worked out! Three new investigators is actually the weekly goal for every companion ship in the mission. We were able to achieve it in one day! Last night we saw another miracle. We were door knocking but it was getting late, about 8 pm. I was feeling frustrated and unproductive and I kinda got on Elder Christensen's nerves. I said something to set him off and he said something back at me that made me feel kinda bad. I was pretty quiet for the next little bit. We walked back to our bikes and started to unlock them and stuff and my comp. apologized for what he said and that he didn't mean it. I accepted the apology and moved on. We then started to head into town for some unknown reason. It was 8:30 by that time and there was no way anybody would be out. We then stopped to talk to one guy on the street, the first guy. He was walking back to his flat and it was on the same street we were on so we started walking and talking with him. He really opened up to us. He said that he didn't have many friends so he wanted to go on bike rides with us. We said we would love to do that! he's a little apprehensive about taking lessons because right now he is going to a Catholic Church and doesn't want to confuse himself but he said he feels guilty every time he sees us and turns us down. He has a brother in the Church and I think he really admires him. We will just continue to be friends with him and maybe one day start teaching. When we got back to the flat we had a little laugh. I said the only reason that happened was because Elder Christensen didn't listen to me when I was complaining. He said that the only reason that happened was because we had gotten over the little conflict we had haha

Well that is about it for the week. We did not get the chance to go to the beach this week. We are on exchanges but even if we weren't, our trip could only be 3 hours from the time we leave to the time we get back and it is about 50 km away so most of that would be travel time. So we might not be able to go at all. But oh well! Hope things are going well at home!!! Love you lots!

Love,
Elder Burnham

October 28, 2013

Dear loved ones,

This week has been a great week! We had heaps of stuff to do this week. We had so much food this last week I feel I am going to explode. And much of it was unplanned dinners and some from investigators. We have this family we have begun teaching that we met door knocking. The mother's name is Michelle. Last night we went over and had dinner with them and taught the first half of the plan of salvation. Her son and daughter both joined us. We were able to introduce the Book of Mormon to them and to give them a passage to read. I feel the lesson went very well. It was very interesting. I had my scriptures out on the table and they saw that my first name was Derek. They thought that was a big coincidence because the name of the father and grandfather of the children was Derek. Then they saw that my middle initial was A and they guessed Andrew. Andrew was the name of Michelle's brother who also passed away this year. That was when things got REALLY weird. I felt at that moment that I was the person that needed to teach these people the Gospel. That we had been led to this wonderful family and that I must do all I can to help them receive the great truths we have. There was no way this was just a coincidence. She always sends us home with more food we know what to do with. It is great! 

We got to go up to visit our investigator, Kent, who lives on a farm on Mt. Bruce (every thing around here is named after Dad I guess....). He was going to have us for dinner and watch the Joseph Smith movie. Unfortunately, he had some trouble with a cow that was giving birth. I guess they calf had died a couple days earlier and he didn't know. So he went to pull the calf out and the leg just tore off....he had to call the vet and get some help. It took them some time to get the calf out, much longer than it should have. I just remember Mom telling me that the only time she saw her dad get really upset was when birthing a cow. Now I can see why sometimes. We also got a little tour of the dairy shed. It was pretty cool!

On Friday we went just over the hill to do some volunteer work. We heard that it was at a go-kart track. But when we got there, we found out it was an outdoor karting league track. There were people from age 6 and up that were driving these karts around the track. It wasn't too good of a day for it though...it was pouring rain and very windy. The track way very slick. SO our jobs as volunteers was to be flag marshals. So if there was ever an "incident" on the track we were to hold out our yellow caution flags. I was at the end of a long straight were there was a tight hairpin turn. There were quite a few crashes and spinouts. It was very exciting and makes me kinda want to do it now! They are much faster and bigger than the little indoor ones. These ones were cool!

On sunday we went down to Upper Hutt (just over the mountains) to go to a special fireside. At this fireside we had a former All Blacks player speak of his conversion story. His name is Norm Hewitt. He had been investigating the church for 13 years before he and his family were baptized. He had some very rough times in his life where his rugby career got in the way of everything else and he really treated his family very poorly. But he shared some very good insight and it was great for everyone there. We had an investigator that wanted to go, Kent. He even offered to give us a ride! So we rode down and back with him. There he got to meet President and Sister Kezerian. I think he really enjoyed that and the fireside. On the way back he had some good questions that he asked us and we were able to answer. We are looking forward to his baptism on the 9th of Nov.

We did some service the other day. I don't know if you remember the lawn that I mowed a while ago that was really long but this one was even taller. Probably like 18 inches tall, no joke. The mower had some struggles sometimes but over all not too bad. The crazy thing was what happened to my companion. He was pulling some weeds near a wire fence. He reached down and pulled a handful out and accidentally grabbed the fence. He pulled up the weeds and got a gnarly cut on his pinky. You could see the huge chunk of flesh that he got cut out of his hand. I was pretty sure it needed stitches but he decided he was going to just put super glue on it. But we had no super glue. So he just put a bandaid on it until yesterday when we got super glue. It was pretty crazy. 

Well I think that is about it for this week. Pretty exciting stuff though! I hope all is going well back home! Oh also I am emailing on a Tuesday because yesterday was Labor day, a public holiday so the library was closed. That's why it's a day later! Love you lots!!!

Love,

Elder Burnham

October 20, 2013

Dear Friends and Family,

Well this week was the last full week of the transfer and today I found out what the transfer looked like. I am staying right here in Masterton! Our whole district is actually staying intact which is wonderful! I am excited to continue to work with the Elders and Sisters in my district and the people here in Masterton. It really is a wonderful little town and the month of November is going to be a very exciting one! We have a few baptisms on the horizon and other exciting things going on. This last week we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders from Tuesday afternoon to Friday morning. I was with Elder Lawson, who actually grew up in the ward next to where he is serving right now. His family moved up to Auckland a couple years before he left on his mission. He thought he would never serve in this area of the mission but I guess it is the right place for him. It was really good to get to learn and grow from the things he has to share with me, as a younger and less experienced missionary. He told me that many of the struggles and challenges that I am facing right now, he remembers going through the same things. He helped me just to open up and talk with everyone I see. I even talked to a guy that was wearing a Tyreke Evans jersey. He had just gotten out of prison...but he is a less active member and asked us to pray with him before we left and talked to other people on the streets. It was interesting just praying right there on the street but a very neat experience too. 

Funny story. As we were leaving Masterton to go down to Upper Hutt, a suburb of Wellington, for exchanges we got a flat tire. What happened was we were going to stop and get some fish and chips. We passed the shop and so the driver turned around. One of the Zone Leaders was driving and he is a CRAZY driver. He whipped the van around super quick. I guess there was already a nail or something stuck in the tire and they knew about it but the little slide the back tires did caused the nail to be pulled out and the tire was rapidly losing air. So when we got to the fish and chips shop, my companion and I went in and ordered for the four of us while the zone leaders changed their tire. They have changed so many tires on their car that they finished changing the tire before the fish and chips were ready! And it was takeaway fish and chips! I was very impressed. So that is the funny story. Another funny but sad story. The crazy driver zone leader had the wheels and seat off of his bike stolen. We thought it may have been a joke by someone but when we learned it wasn't, it was kinda sad. He was "gutted" as they say here in New Zealand. Scary story. That same day we had to drive over the mountain range to get to the zone leaders area. There were several instances on this drive that I, no joke, thought we were going to catapult off the cliff to our deaths. This zone leaders is the most insane driver ever. And we were in a minivan! It was a very curvy road and while I was ok, my companion started to get sick. That part was kinda funny. On the way back though, he drive even slower than normal just for my companion haha. 

Things are going well over here though, overall. We have been fairly busy with stuff other than lessons so we hope to teach more lessons this week. But it will be good not having anyone be transferred because we don't have to drive down to Wellington to drop anyone off. Hopefully we can get lots of lessons to help these investigators with baptismal dates ready! There are several right now in the month of November. Some are very promising! We are working hard every day and loving every minute of it! One of the recent converts here just was called as a Ward Missionary. We really like him and he says he wants to serve a mission so we are going to bring him along to as many things as possible in order to help him reach that goal and so he can help fellowship people into the Church. We have also been having a ward basketball night for our investigators to come to but in the letter President Kezerian sent the whole mission, he clearly explained we are not to have Elder or Sister missionaries playing any sports with members, investigators, or nonmembers of the opposite gender. So we are going to have to cancel that but it was just for the month of October so it hopefully won't be too bad. 

Well that is about it for my week! It has been a pretty good one, very busy! I hope things are going well back home! I look forward to hearing from all of you next week!

Love,

Elder Burnham

Pic Oct. 13, 2013

This is the name of the street that the grocery store we shop at is on.  (For those of you who may not know- Derek's dad's name is Bruce).

October 13, 2013

Hey Mom,

Things are going well. We had a good week and were pretty busy. General Conference was really good! We had 4 investigators show up so that made us really happy! Today we woke up and one investigator, Kent, who was planning on getting baptised this weekend told us that he wasn't quite ready yet. That made us pretty sad because we had planned to have an interview with the Zone Leaders this tuesday. But we will just have to keep working with him and address his concerns. He is a real good guy though, we really like him. Just takes a little more time and we won't be able to baptise anyone this transfer. This week we went on transfers so I went down to Carterton and Featherston which is about 20-30 minutes drive south of Masterton and a fair bit smaller. It was good to work with another Elder and learn from him. He actually went to BYU fall semester and we had the same Book of Mormon and American Heritage professors and didn't even know it!

I haven't really had to eat anything too weird. I did have something called boil-up. Basically they take a whole bunch of pork bones with a little meat, cabbage and some dough and throw it all in a pot with some water and boil it for who knows how long. It was pretty good but not too much flavour. And it was kinda hard to eat it politely so the member's house who we ate it at, Tame, told us just to dig in with our hands next time! Our flat is really nice! Next week I will take some pictures and do a little visual tour for you. Its two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a little living area. We also have a one car garage. Fairly new too. We have a washer and dryer but no dishwasher. One of the bedrooms is our study room. I will be wearing a suit until like January or something I think. That is when it gets the hottest I guess. It is sometimes already way too hot to be wearing a suit but oh well! Sounds like things are going well back at home and maybe settling down a little bit. Jacob is pretty creative to come up with something like that to ask Eva to Homecoming. Hopefully he has a great time! 

This week we will be going on transfers with the zone leaders down closer to Wellington. They are pretty busy I guess down there so they need some help to get things done. Either that or things are going slow so we are going down there to help things pick up, I can't remember. But that will be exciting, they are real good Elders. Well that is about all for this week, nothing too exciting. Oh except that we are both pretty much completely out of money. I have nothing at all left and Elder Christensen has like 13 dollars. We need to get reimbursed for purchasing some petrol so we are waiting on that. And we get our "blessing" in just a couple days but just not in time for p-day. So we get to make do with the little bit of food we have left and see what members will feed us haha. I am not too worried. When we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, the Lord always provides for us missionaries so I will just keep working! And making sure I don't get "hunger anger.' Haha. 

Well I hope you all are having a great week and I am enjoying the pictures you are sending! Did you spend time in St. George because Grandma isn't doing too well again or just to get down there? Either way, I hope you are enjoying your time! 

Love,

Elder Burnham

October 6, 2013

Kia Ora family and friends!!!!

This week has been fairly good! We were able to do a whole bunch of service it seemed. We just got a lawn mower and a weed eater for ourselves and the sisters flat. Also we got it so we could do service if there was anyone who needed something done but didn't have a lawn mower. So we got it and mowed our own lawn. Which was full of rocks and was really not flat. It was also about as long as the lawn was that I showed you the pictures of last week, about mid-calf! But a lot smaller. We didn't bag it up either because it was just way too much grass. It would have been like 20 bags of grass. It was also a super small bag so that might be part of it. Then we went up to our bishop's house to help him out with his lawn because he does so much for us as missionaries! He then fed us a super huge dinner off the BBQ. Pork, steak, and sausages, garlic bread, salad, and some amazing bread and butter pudding (dessert). Then on saturday, we were riding our bikes to stop at our flat real quick and we stopped to talk to a lady on her porch. We asked her if we could do anything for her and she said yes! People almost ALWAYS say they are good. So we changed, and headed back over. She just wanted her little gardens weeded and turned over. She had cancer twice and was pretty weak, unable to do it all by herself so it was good to help. She had lots of questions about the Church and Missionaries that we were able to answer.

Other than service though, we haven't been able to do much. We made a trip down to Upper Hutt to have district meeting where the zone leaders are. We also had interviews with President Kezerian. That was a really cool thing to be able to talk about what was going on and meet with him for a couple minutes. He actually knew a lot about Sacramento and used to go there all the time when  he was still working for UPS I think it was. He knew the Folsom Dam and Folsom Prison! So that was good to talk about home a little bit. To get to this place, we have to go over the Rimatuka mountain range. There are some pretty steep and narrow roads up there so it is always exciting haha very beautiful though!

When we had dinner with the Bishop, he kinda filled us in on what was going on in the States. He told us that Oracle won the America's cup 9-8 after being down 1-8. I think all of New Zealand is a little sad about that. He told us a little about what was going on politically. He was pretty shocked that the US would allow something like this to happen but I wasn't too surprised. I guess he said that the government is "losing" about $300 million a day when it is shut down. That is heaps if it is an accurate figure. He also said something about a woman being shot and killed because she tried to drive her car though the fences at the white house. That is kinda crazy. Hopefully things get worked out! Bishop was asking questions about what party the majority of the members of the Church align themselves with. We are kinda instructed not to talk to much about politics but I guess this was ok haha.

We won't get to watch conference until this weekend. They have to wait for it to be broadcasted because they can't get it live here. It is kinda a bummer that we have to wait but it is something I am certainly looking forward too! We printed out 500 invitations to hand out to people. It was probably a little optimistic but we are going to do our best to hand them all out! We want as many people as possible to show up to the Chapel to watch conference on our new bis projector screen! We were planning on having a couple baptisms this weekend but I think they are all going to be postponed because there won't be a sacrament meeting. And because the investigators aren't quite ready yet.

Things have been going alright. Our key indicators this week have been fairly low because we have been busy doing random things. We haven't had too many lessons or anything this week. We are going to try really hard to have an awesome week this week! We had a lesson with the xxxxxxxx family last week. It went pretty well. They are really pretty interested on learning more. We taught them about the restoration and invited them to baptism. They said it was something they would think and talk about to see if they are interested in pursuing.  We left them with a restoration DVD (20 min) and a Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration (60 min) to watch. We are going to follow up soon on if they have. We invited them to a kneeling prayer at the end of the lesson and the 15 year old son, Jonas prayed. Both parents thought it was really neat to hear their son pray, even though they haven't ever really been religious. They have really good values though! We set our next lesson with them on the 21st of October. It is really far away so we are kinda sad but we just get to do more pop-in visits!

We are going on exchanges this week but I am not too sure where I am going. I could be staying here or going down to Carterton to go with the other senior companion in the district. It is about 10-15 km away and smaller than Masterton. I am excited to learn from another missionary. Elder Christensen and I are hoping that we are staying together for another transfer. I am thinking that we will because I still have a transfer of training left.

The weather here is starting to get really hot. Well really hot for a suit. We went door knocking yesterday and pretty much everyone told us we were crazy to be wearing a suit. It was only like 25 degrees though. I guess it can get up to like 30-35. Oh boy. But it does cool down at night and is really really nice. And there are heaps of stars you can see because there aren't too many lights in town.

The other day we had a excommunicated member give us a call. I had met with him once before and the other elders have met him before too. He is a really nice guy but also will tease you on like everything you say. He was a seminary teacher and a bishop before so has a lot of knowledge of the church. He just made some serious mistakes. Anyway he called us and we were really confused because he doesn't really ever do that. So we called him back and he asked if we were coming over so we said sure. When we got there he asked if we were wondering why he called us and we were very curious. He then walked into the kitchen and grabbed about a dozen little meat pies to give us from his work as a chef at a golf course here. He said he had heated them once and his rule is that he doesn't heat things twice. We gladly took them off his hands haha they are really good! So that was awesome to get those from him!

Well I think that is about it. I have started driving though, even though my license has the wrong date. It is kinda weird being on the wrong side haha Hope things are going well back home! I am enjoying the pictures you are sending!

Love you lots!!

Elder Burnham