Sister Burton Takes on Anaheim!: Week 4: Whatta Day

HELLO!

Ok. Funny note about the subject line. At the end of the day when Sister Greene and I round the corner of the dog park to our apartment stairs, we always say aloud, "What a day!". It's true! Everyday is a new adventure here and we always have something to laugh about!

Funnies/Random: We were in the 4th of July parade up in Anaheim Hills! It was super hot, but fun to walk as a brigade of missionaries, carrying the American flag! I think I heard that some of you saw the pictures. I know someone was posting it on the mission face book page, but I'm not sure what photos got put up. I'd love to see them if you don't mind ;)

- Another random thing, I didn't realize weed was legal in California. I definitely figured that out this week. We got offered some by this small group of young guys. Later this week, we made the assumption that one of our neighbors must smoke it. When we come home for lunch, we can smell weed in our bedroom and it's nasty! We smell it emanating from people's homes when we go finding. Guess I'll have to get used to that smell for the next 17 months. (haha).

MIRACLES/PEOPLE:

-Beau: Wow, Beau. Super neat! He was an investigator a few weeks ago, but with the transition from Elders to Sisters in this area, we lost track of him. We tried to reach him last week, but no luck. We stopped by and called him and no answer. BUT, we received a call from him. He said that he's trying to overcome some addictions and he doesn't know if we can really help him right now. We testified that the gospel of Jesus Christ CAN help him, especially in these times of need. He sounded hopeful and he really seemed to trust us. He's busy with meetings a lot of the time, but he said he would call us back to set up an appointment. YES! We looked him up in our area book right after he called. He told us he was 31 days sober and we looked and it was exactly 31 days since he last met with the missionaries....that is no coincidence. The gospel can help people, seriously!

-Donna: We met her our first week here as we were street contacting. She lives in this apartment building that has a similar feel to all the apartment buildings in Hanover. You have quite a "variety" there. But there are a few people that live there that we've been meaning to see. As soon as we walked up, DONNA was standing there, just opening the door. We were SO happy to see her. We talked to her for about an hour, trying to figure out what she thought of the Restoration pamphlet. She believes in God so much, but she has some mental blocks in believing in Jesus. She cancelled our appointment Friday, but we'll be seeing her again shortly.

-Roger Whiting: I mentioned him from last week. Wow, I wish I could tell you everything about him because he is such a treat. I guess I'll have to give you the detailed story when I get home...I'll never forget this guy! He was pumped to meet with us. He told us he cleaned some chairs off for us so we could sit outside. Roger is...different. We aren't sure what his mental hang ups are, but he kept talking about how he wanted salvation. We talked about the Plan of Salvation a bit and lots of other things (since he goes off on tangents). We invited him to baptism on July 29th and HE SAID YES! He committed to baptism over a year ago and then cancelled it. We hope that doesn't happen again. We prayed and felt right about that date. We know we have a lot to teach him in that short amount of time, but if this is right, the Lord will provide a way. We later found out he moved, JUST barely outside our area...so we're passing him off this week to the Elders. We think that would be better for Roger to have Elders anyway. He didn't come to church yesterday and in order to get baptized you have to come to church at least 3 times. We pushed his baptismal date back to August 5th. We will be passing him off tomorrow, so I'll keep you posted on what happens!

-Miles: He basically fell off the face of the earth this past week. He didn't show to our appointment, didn't text back, nothing. We were heart broken. We gave him a call Friday and he answered! He didn't seem like he still had that same spark and enthusiasm he had when we met with him. He said some things came up and that he would be busy again this weekend. He is supposed to text us this week to set up a time to meet again. We really hope he is open and honest with us because first and foremost, we are here because we care about him and want what's best for him. Hopefully he pulls through this week.

Another cool story this week. We went to find a potential investigator the other night. We pulled into the neighborhood and hopped out of the car. We noticed a moving truck. As we walked past, two younger gentleman popped their heads out of the truck and said, hi. They were super chill, so we chatted with them for awhile. They told us to tell them what we believe. They're both more into science and less into religion, but they were respectful and heard us out. One of them, Daniel, didn't think it was fair that if we died without being religious, we would go to Hell. We told him it's not like that! We talked about the Atonement and the Spirit World. He was SO intrigued. I could see the Spirit touching him because he told us "That changes the whole game."Anyways, SUPER cool guys, but they're from Ontario, CA, which I think is kinda far away.(Definitely, out of our area). But, he said he wouldn't want to hear the gospel from anyone else and that he would drive down here to learn more. We left our card and he hasn't called. But we hope he gets in contact with someone because he really did seem open to hearing! I love having civil conversations with people where we both have respect for one other's beliefs.

Anyways, another miracle week is about to happen this week! I hit my 1 month mark this past week. Time flies when you're having fun! Feels like I've been gone for years, but now that I'm in the field, it's going to fly by!

Love you all! Thanks for all the love and support. You all mean the world to me!

~~ Sister Burton