February 16, 2014

Kia Ora Whanau!

This has been a pretty good week! The good part is that there were no accidents or anything with our bikes. So that was good! We had a pretty busy week. Mostly what happens is that there are one or two days where we have a ton of stuff to do and it makes the week feel really really busy, even thought it was just a couple days that were busy. But the weeks still fly by. Our really busy day was Saturday. We went to a farmer's market thing that goes on every Saturday morning. We talked to quite a few people there and were there for about two hours. There were lots of cool little stalls and booths and stuff like that where they were selling food or fruit or little trinkets. It would be really cool to go to if it were on a P-day just to look around. Then we had a lesson and lunch with an investigator, Philip. He is a cool guy and really loves us coming over, but never comes to church and has been meeting with missionaries for about 5 or 6 years. Crazy. Then we had a couple of other lessons with potential and other investigators. We got a new investigator, his name is Ray and he is like 80 years old. So he probably won't change this late in life, but you never know! He accepted a Book of Mormon and said he would read it and he sounded sincere. So that was really cool. Then we had a not so busy evening. It seemed like all our plans fell through so we went to our investigator Johnnie who is always up for a visit. So we hung out for a bit and talked and right as we were about to leave, we saw Philip, the investigator from earlier in the day, walking down the street. We called him over and introduced them to each other. They were both talking about how they really appreciate what we have done for them. It was a really cool experience. It definitely strengthened my testimony on the fact that this is where I should be. It was a miracle!

Yesterday, one of the other Elders and I went to ward council. Man that was a boring meeting. I, along with a few others, were struggling to stay awake. The ward here really wants to focus on missionary work, but they are all talk and no walk. It is frustrating for us because they want to bring people into the ward but they don't do anything about it. We just have to keep saying that we want to help them and always be available. Elder Nelson came to visit New Zealand this week. There was a broadcast in our stake of the meeting. It was for the YSA and the Youth programs. I guess they talked a bit about sharing the gospel with their friends and the responsibility to have everyone sharing the gospel in the church, not just the missionaries. Stuff like that makes me really excited, but then our ward doesn't act on it. And the mission and stake presidents know that this ward really struggles. But President Kezerian keeps telling me that he is confident in me to be able to help the area so I guess it just gotta work hard!

Well that is about all the exciting stuff for this week. One more thing, we were with an investigator who isn't too interested last night and we were talking about cooking, because he is a chef. So I was talking about chocolate strawberry crepes, because I really wanted some. He asked if he could get the recipe from Mom. So if you could send that, that would be great! Hope all is going well back home!! Love you lots!!!

Love,
Elder Burnham