July 26, 2015

Kia Ora Whanau!

So yes, this week we had a baptism! It really was a good weekend. The baptism was for Taylor and Anthony xxxxxxxxx. Taylor is 11 and Anthony is 8. Their father is a member but has been less active for a long time. And their mother is not a member, yet. So Saturday after noon we had the service. Their mother and grandmother, both non members, were in attendance. After the ordinance, they said that they felt overwhelmed, especially the grandmother. Certainly the Spirit was the one causing these overwhelming feelings, they just don't know how to describe it. It was the first time for me performing the ordinance, so I was very happy. And nervous. But the whole program turned out alright! I will attach a photo of us and the family! I baptized Taylor and my companion baptized Anthony. On Sunday we had ward conference. There we did the confirmation of Taylor, again by me. There were about 100 people at sacrament meeting, so I was a bit nervous but it turned out ok. 

So now we are focusing on moving forward and working with more investigators. Hopefully there will be some more in the next couple months that will be baptized. I certainly hope that this family will, whether sooner or later, become an eternal family. I can certainly see possibility, but we just have to trust the Lord and his timing!

That is the wonderful news for this week. Other than that, things are alright. Not too cold weather, not too much rain. And we are in good health! No complaints! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Burnham

September 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Well I think spring time is just about here! The flowers are starting to bloom and we have had some days with really nice weather. We had a pretty good week. Nothing too our of the ordinary except that which I shared last week. We did a lot of service on Saturday. That was good though, it is always nice to help people out who deserve it. We did some turning over of gardens (this time by hand), some stacking of firewood, and some moving of buildings! Well we moved large pieces of a partially assembled shed. So it was good to help out those people, some of whom were less active members and others nonmembers. 

There was an old man that we had been visiting here in Temuka that was taken to the Hospital in Timaru. We hadn't seen him for a few days even though he told us to come around the next day. Then the Sister Missionaries got a call from the office that this man wanted visits from someone in the church. So they went to go see him and then told us about him. So we have been visiting him in the hospital. He doesn't have any family or friends really around here so he really enjoys when we go see him. He is doing better than he was but still needs some time to recover. He is actually a member of the Church but hasn't been in several years so we are trying to get his records moved in here. 

Last night, we had an appointment with a Filipino family. They like to have us over and have little Bible Studies. Last night they also gave us some Filipino food. Well some dessert at least. It was Cassava cake. I have honestly no idea what cassava is (even though I have eaten it several times) except that it is some sort of vegetable/root. But this cake was really good! Then we had a dinner appointment with a member family but they were running late and decided just to give us groceries. Well that is fine with us! So my companion made dinner last night. I will send a picture of the "stew" he made to put over rice. I think it is safe to say that I almost fasted for another meal just so I wouldn't have to eat it. But it turned out tasting alright, not good, just alright. Not what I would choose to do with corned beef!

Well that is about all for this week. I hope things are going well! I am doing great! The time is flying by quickly!

Love,
Elder Burnham

September 1, 2014

Hello again family!

So we got permission to do our emails for a short time again today. Yesterday was pretty crazy. So we drove up to Ashburton, about 60 km away, to the other Elders in the district because we were going to spend P-day with them and now we are on exchanges. And I was supposed to email a baptismal candidate. Well we get there are we go to the Library and it had a sign saying "CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY" So we went to take down the baptismal font at the chapel. (The Ashburton ward meets in a building that used to be a bank so for their baptismal font, they have an above-ground pool they fill up and take down in a little courtyard out the back of the building.) Then we went to McDonald's for lunch. Well while we were there, one of the Elder's investigators told us not to go to the other side of the town because there was....a shooting! Two people were killed and one severely injured. Crazy! So that is why the library was closed. We saw the crime scene (from afar) and saw it was near the Sister missionaries' flat! So we thought for just a moment it was the sisters! But it wasn't. So we were all relieved. But we received instruction to stay inside all day and not do anything. The shooting was in the morning and they didn't find the guy until about 6 PM that night. I heard he was just angry with one of the government agencies called Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ for short). WINZ is the agency that does the welfare program. We heard the man was upset with the agency and specifically one of the employees that interviewed him and denied him money. So that was our crazy experience for the day. But we are all ok!

But other than that, this week has been pretty normal. We had a special meeting this week for the District Leaders. So the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders all went to Wellington then the day after, the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leader for each zone meet with the District Leaders and pass on information for the missionaries. So we had one of those meetings this week. Also, I was able to do my first interview for a baptismal candidate! That was a really neat experience. The Elders are having a baptism this Saturday for an eight year old boy named Darius. Neither of his parents are members but his auntie and uncle are. And his mom encouraged him to be baptized so that was a really neat experience. 

Saturday we had a sports afternoon. That was good. We invited the members of the Branch and specifically those who were less active. We didn't have too many less active members come but we did have one member bring a friend so we called it a success! But later that day, and ever since, I have been really sore. It was the most sports I had played for probably over six months. And I wore the new shoes you sent so I got a blister or two from breaking them in! But by now, I am feeling almost all the way back to normal. 

Well that is about all for this week. I hope things are well at home! I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Burnham

P.S. A bit of a celebration photo for my one year mark! Ginger "Beers"! (New Zealand- ginger flavored soda)

August 24, 2014

Hello Family!

Well this has been another great week. Nothing super out of the ordinary but just a good week. In fact, as far as the progress of the work is concerned, it is probably the best week I have had in this area. We just were able to teach a few more lessons than usual so we were pretty excited. We have a new man we are teaching named Mike. He is a little bit lonely so he likes to talk heaps when we go over there but he also will listen when we go to teach him. We shared with him the Restoration and he seemed to be pretty excited to learn more about Joseph Smith. We had three lessons with him last week and have another appointment with him on Wednesday. So we are hoping we can continue to help him move forward. 

We did a bit of service this week, like always. Mostly we just weeded and turned over people's gardens. The first one we did was for an older man named Graham. We do service for him pretty much every week. But this one was cool because I got to use a rotary hoe! That was pretty cool. It did make my arms/shoulders really tired though, trying to control it in the hard dirt. Then later in the week we helped out a less active lady with her garden. We spent about an hour clearing weeds and turning over part of her garden as well. There is probably another 10 hours of work to do in there though! Just weeds every where. But she gave us some cake afterward so that was cool!


Good news! My camera is not broken! I just took it to a photo shop and they did something and it works now! I actually think what happened was that the battery just got really really dead and so it looked like it wasn't charging but it really was and I just needed to be more patient and let it sit and charge over night. So that will save us all a couple bucks! 

Well that is about all for this week. Pretty exciting! We also had the Assistants to the President spend a night with us and work with us for a couple hours Saturday morning. They are just going around to the areas and I think trying to meet with all the new missionaries. They traveled about 2200 km in 5 days driving around the south island in a brand new car. Sounds like fun! Hope you are all doing well!

Love,
Elder Burnham

August 17, 2014

Dear Family,

Well we have had another good week. Monday and Tuesday were spent saying bye to people here, mostly the Tongans. Which for me meant heaps of food. So that was alright with me! Wednesday morning Elder Lxxxx left at about 7 AM and my new companion got here at 10 AM so I spent a couple hours with a couple members. So Wednesday we got Elder Hxxxxxxxxxx all settled in and did some work. We were both very very tired. Transfers are always long days. Bust mostly this week has been pretty good.

Elder Hxxxxxxxxxx is from Tonga. He is 18 years old. He is the oldest of five boys. His family are all members and area from the main island of Tonga. He went to the Church high school. He is a bit shy but I think that is how we all are at the start of the mission. That will go away as time goes on. He is pretty soft spoken but has very good English, I think as a result from going to the Church high school. This is the first companion I have had who is younger than me so that is a bit different for me. But overall, things are great with him! I am gong to really enjoy working with him. 

We had a pretty neat experience with a member on Saturday night. So we were having a meal with the Gxxxxx family. They are an older couple that live here in Temuka and they feed us almost every Saturday. We starting talking with them after we finished the meal and Sis. Gxxxxx really opened up about how she wants to share the Gospel more effectively with her friends. She asked us to help her to study Preach My Gospel and told us she would like us to follow up on her commitment to do so. She just expressed such a sincere desire to help her friends who are struggling and to reach out to those who are people prepared to receive the Gospel. I think if we all had the desire and commitment she has, missionary work would be increased exponentially! It was just a great strength to me. 

Well that is about all for this week. Hope things are going well back home! Love you all!}

Love,
Elder Burnham

August 10, 2014

Dear Family!

Well there it is! I am training again! So my new companion is Elder Hxxxxxxxxx. He is from Tonga. I don't really know anything about him because he is brand new but the cool thing is that he went to the same ward in Tonga as our Branch Mission Leader here in Timaru. So that is pretty cool. Other than that, I will tell you about him next week! 

Well this week was pretty good! We had a nice family home evening night with a member family from Argentina on Monday night. On Tuesday, we did a lot of service chopping wood and stacking it. We also did some help setting up the chapel on Tuesday night for a funeral on Wednesday. So we also helped a bit with the funeral on Wednesday. There was a woman who used to be a member of our branch but had moved away who passed away. She was taken by cancer at the young age of 46. Just goes to show how precious life really is. There were quite a few less active members and non members there as well. So we had the chance to friendship a few of them. We also helped out at the Salvation Army store. They gave me a slice of chocolate cheesecake for my birthday, so that was really kind of them.

Overall we had a pretty quiet week. We have been sorta saying some goodbyes because of Elder Lxxxx leaving. For me, that just means some nice Tongan meals! Saturday night we had an activity combined with the ward closest to us. It was a Talent Show. There was a lot of Samoan and Tongan dancing and singing going on. The ward next to ours is mostly Tongan and Samoan. But that was cool. We did a number with the Branch President. He is very talented musically and he has a song he likes to sing called "Missionary Blues." So we sung back up for him haha but that was pretty cool. 

Oh and I did get the packages so thank you for that! I am enjoying it all! Thanks! Hope you are all doing well! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Burnham

August 3, 2014

Kia Ora Whanau! Hello Family!

Time is going by quickly! We are into the month of August and we had a couple of great days of weather this week! It was up to about 20 deg. C and sunny all day! What happened was there was a very warm wind from the Northwest. So we got all the warm air from Australia. That resulted in a wonderful couple of days. We also had a good week with missionary work.

So on Wednesday evening, we had our plans and back up plans fall through. We decided we would go to visit the Branch President. When we got there, his wife answered the door and told us that we had "perfect timing"! Naturally, we were curious. So her son had moved in just recently from Christchurch and told her that he wanted to stop smoking. She told him, his name is Jesse, that we had a stop smoking program. I had heard about it but I had never before used it as a missionary. So we had to get a copy of it and came back a couple days later to teaching him the stop smoking program. He accepted all the commitments and even told us that he wanted to come to Church on Sunday. Jesse is a member but he has been away from the gospel for a little while. So he did not come to Church on Sunday, but we had dinner at their place on Sunday night and we got to catch up with him. He is doing pretty well! He went from being a chain smoker to only one or two smokes a day. And he still says he wants to come back to church. So I ask you all at home to pray from him for this next week while he gets completely clean from smoking. His name is Jesse Fxxxxx. Thanks!

We also got a new investigator the other day. It was a referral from the Sisters. His name is Jason. He was pretty busy but we were able to have a short 15 min lesson with him. He told us that last year he lost three of his family members, including his wife. So we are going to do all we can to share with him the Plan of Salvation and especially eternal families. We can see that he is a really sincere man. So hopefully we can help him and give him strength and comfort at this time. 

Well that was about all for this week. Tonight we are going to a member family from Argentina and they are going to cook us a meal too so we are excited to do that! But that is all for this week! Hope you are all doing well! Love you lots!!!

Love,
Elder Burnham

P.S. This is the sunrise from Saturday morning!