June 8, 2014

Dear Family,

Well another week has come and gone. This week we went on exchanges. I was with another missionary in the District in my area for a couple days. As a District Leader, I have to go on exchanges with each companionship of Elders in the District. Luckily for me, there is only one other set of Elders. For the exchange with the Zone Leaders, we went up to Christchurch. We were there for Thursday night, all Friday and Saturday morning. We had a Zone Conference on Friday morning, the last one with President and Sister Kezerian. That was a little bit sad for us missionaries, but we all knew it was coming. Christchurch is a pretty big place though. Definitely bigger than I have ever served before. I was with Elder Hxxxxx. He is a good missionary. He asks questions and stuff about you and makes you feel like he cares about you.

This week we got a bit of a reprimand from President Kezerian. Last month we had gone over on how many kilometers we are allowed for the month by about 450. Which is a lot. We just have to make sure we are using our bikes every day and if we go over this month, we are in big trouble! It is hard though because we want to go to the bigger city, Timaru, about every day. But we can't afford to do that with our mileage allotments. I guess we might have to figure out the bus schedule, if there is one!

It is getting colder here but I think it is about as bad as it gets. Today it is raining quite a bit. That is no good for me because the back fender/mud guard thing on my bike is broken so I have big mud splatters up the back of my rain coat. Just have to buy one as soon as I get the chance, hopefully today!

Being a district leader isn't as bad as I thought it would be. To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to that assignment when I saw the transfer list. But now, I see it as an opportunity to help the other missionaries. I still don't really like telling people what they need to do but as long as it is out of love, then I guess it is ok!

Well not much is new this week. It is the last full week of this transfer. This one is shorter, only four weeks, compared to the normal six. So we will have news of any shifts next week. I certainly don't expect to go anywhere and my companion says he has a weird feeling he might. Well I hope you all have a great week!

Love,
Elder Burnham