This week has been fantastic! The weather was surprisingly gloomy so my gnarly watch tan has begun to slowly fade away...But again, we saw so many miracles! The semester has been wrapping up around here, so we haven't been able to catch as many people on campus. But let me talk about some of the amazing miracles we experienced this week with some of our friends:
TERESA (good name, huh mom?): The Elders met her at Santiago Canyon College Monday night and set up a return appointment for us for Tuesday. Well, Teresa is SOLID. She hasn't gone to church for awhile because she felt that they brought her further away from God and His teachings, but she has been continually searching since then! As we taught her the Restoration, she noted the feelings she was having. She mentioned how she couldn't totally describe how the Spirit feels to her, but that she was feeling it right then. She accepted to be baptized on June 30th! Wahoo! Currently she works during the day Sunday, but she willingly offered to switch her schedule so she can attend church! Where did she come from?! She actually lives in the boundaries of another YSA ward, so we'll be passing her off this week. What a miracle to meet Teresa!
MAEVE: She never ceases to amaze us! We set up to have a lesson over Facebook video chat Tuesday morning, but when we logged on, her mom and sister kept trying to come into her room and it was stressing Maeve out! She is still trying to keep it a secret that she is meeting with us and didn't want to get caught!
Well, later that day, she texted us, saying she had about 15 minutes before she was meeting a friend and she could talk to us. We pulled over, parked, and had a lesson with her! She too was parked in her car! I am absolutely amazed at the dediction Maeve has to learning about this gospel. She is willing to do anything and everything.
FAWN: We had another great lesson with her on Saturday with Sister Golden and Mary, an awesome member of our ward. A few of her concerns were brought up as we taught the Plan of Salvation. She comes from a background of not knowing really anything about God or Jesus Christ, but she said herself that she is progressing to fully believe and understand their nature. Fawn is really opening up the more and more we meet with her! One roadblock has seemed to present itself though...Since she recently started a new job and still has 3 more weeks of classes, she has been super swamped and wasn't able to make it to church yesterday. We're praying that she can stay strong and still make time for these important things in her life! We know that by making church a priority, everything else will fall into place!
ANDRE: We just felt really strongly this week that we needed to stop teaching him. After our most recent lesson, the Spirit confirmed to us that he's just not ready at this time. Well, Sister Brooks and I have never dropped an investigator, so it was a first for both of us! But it went really well and we're all still friends! We continue to pray that his heart will one day soften and that he'll truly desire to act on the message.
A funny from yesterday: we went to an apartment complex to find a potential. There were so many people outside grilling, so we talked with them. A few weeks ago we found an ex-mormon in the complex. Yesterday, the first lady we talked to said she used to be a member. We were shocked. As we walked away, we noted how this complex is just full of ex-mormons. LO and BEHOLD, the next guy we talked to said HE was an ex-mormon. We were shocked! There must be something in that complex...
Transfers have come and we'll both be staying here in OHYSA! But there are a lot of changes throughout the mission. All of the spanish zones and districts have combined with the english and so now we're all together! This big change is so exciting and it allows us to become ONE as a mission and not to be separated by language programs anymore! I'm excited to see the unity that this change will bring about! I'm also pumped to get to know more missionaries!
Like I said earlier, because colleges have been ending their semester, we're having to change our finding techniques. We're really trying to get more involved with members and help bring others back into the fold. We are trying to do splits with our sisters in the ward and we actually got some good response yesterday. We hope that by bringing members out, we can better reach those who have been lost for awhile or who are really wanting to come back!
I'm grateful to still be in the YSA ward! This past transfer has just been so special and I LOVE being here! I want to share a thought I had from my studies the other day about repentance. It comes from Elder Andersen's talk from October 2009, entitled, "Repent..that I may heal you". 10/10 would recommend you go read that! One of my favorite quotes from it is,
"The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to “re-turn” toward God."
I know I'm often hard on myself, as we all tend to be. If we're feeling chastised and beat up, push those thoughts out. That's NOT from Heavenly Father! When we feel happily motivated to re-turn to Him and strive to improve ourselves, that's what true repentance means. So just remember that Heavenly Father loves you and that His LOVE is what should motivate us to come back to Him, not fear or discouragement!
Love you all! Talk to you next month!
Sister Burton
2500 N. Bristol St.
Santa Ana, CA 92706
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| A photo with Fawn (pink shirt) at FHE last week. |
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| Just remember...you're never forgotten. |
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| Sister Brooks and I got these cute "thinker" plants from Sprouts last week. |
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| Fish Taco Friday with some Sistas! |
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| Went out with a member, Emily. |
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| Went to a yummy Greek restaurant with Mary. |
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| Of course, we had to stop and smell the roses! |
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| Our little lesson with Maeve. |
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