July 20, 2014

Well another week has come and gone! It sure does go by quickly! This
has kinda been a crazy week. Well it also has been a bit of a
disappointing week. We have had a few appointments fall through and
even an investigator drop us. So I am trying hard to always remember
the line from Preach My Gospel that says "You should not, however,
become discouraged; discouragement will weaken your faith. If you
lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire
will weaken, and you will have greater difficulty following the
Spirit." That is definitely true. I was feeling a little discouraged
last night and this morning. But after pondering a little more, I
remembered this. I determined to lift myself up and to have this week
be GREAT! Our new (unofficial) mission motto is "Good, Better,
Becoming Great in Christ." So this is going to be a great week!

I had a very new experience for me this week. We had an
unplanned/emergency exchange. The other Elders in the District were
not getting along too well. They were having arguments often and had
one really bad one Saturday morning. So I got a call from them and one
of them was requesting an exchange. So I got it all arranged and
approved from the Zone Leaders and we had a little exchange. So I
brought one missionary with me down here to Temuka and my companion
was up there in Ashburton. So we switched Saturday afternoon and went
back on Sunday evening. So we went to church with different
companions, which never happens, except in the case of an emergency.
But I think those Elders are doing a bit better now so that is good. I
just hope that I helped them both with a little bit of the counsel and
advice I gave.

Funny story. There is an Argentinian member family that live about 15
km out of Temuka on a farm. We went to visit them one night. We didn't
call them before so we were just hoping that they were home. We got
there and it turned out they weren't home. Well I also made the
mistake of parking the car on the grass. And mud. When it came time to
leave, we were going nowhere except deeper into the mud. Well my
companion had to get out of the car and lift/push the car out of the
mud while I very gently gave it some gas. It took us about 20 minutes
to get out of the mud and grass and onto the still muddy/dirty road to
their house. I guess Corollas don't make good 4WD cars. Who would have
known? We went to their house a couple days later, after confirming an
appointment and this time we didn't get the car stuck! Hurray! But
their power was out for the first 20 minutes or so when we were there
so they joked about having a "romantic candlelight dinner" with the
Elders there. They are really awesome. It is unfortunate they live a
while out of town.

One more funny story. We got in a really bad car accident this week!
Well that is according to the black box that we didn't know we had in
our car. So we got a call that this "GPS unit" needed to be taken out
of the car. So we called the mission office to confirm and it was then
we learned we had a black box on the car. I guess it was a little
trial/test thing for the missionaries. So we took the car in the next
day to get it taken off. While the car was being service, we went to
help a woman with some service in her garage. We had forgot the phone!
(Oops!) When we got home the Zone Leaders were calling so I picked it
up." Elder Burnham! How is the car!?!?!?" "Uh, it's fine. It's in the
shop." "We heard you were in an accident. The car rolled over and you
are flipped upside down!!!!" Well I think what happened was that when
they were taking the black box out, it was still recording data and
sending it to the company. They informed the mission of what had
apparently happened to the car. So we then had to call the Senior
Sister that is serving in the office to tell her everything was ok.
And the sister in Timaru drove to the police station to find us
because nobody could get a hold of us on our phone. So moral of the
story: always carry and answer the mission phone!


Well that is about all for the week. A couple of good stories there. I
hope things are going well! Thanks for all the love and support! It
really has changed my mood this morning! Love you all lots!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Burnham