The Garden of Elder Burnham 06/20/16

I feel like this was a pretty normal week in the mission.  (I feel like I have not had one of those in a long time haha).  On Friday we had interchanges.  My district leader, Elder Small, came to my area.  That was kind of fun because I am still pretty new to the area, but we ended up not getting lost haha.  We had Walter´s baptism interview even though we decided to postpone the baptism for the next Saturday because there was this huge multi-stake activity that caused some scheduling conflicts.  But next Saturday Walter will get baptized.

We went back with this guy we found last week, Mario.  He is super awesome.  He told us that almost 20 years ago he made a promise with God that he would stop drinking and has never done so since.  He really likes our message and wants to come to church this week.  He already accepted a baptism date and is progressing really fast.  We left him one chapter to read in the Book of Mormon and he had read the three chapters after that one!  Super cool!  

We have a balcony with some potted plants that we kind of take care of for the land lady.  We have some pots that just had some dirt in them and so she gave us some seeds to plant some more plants.  So basically we have a garden that I am investing random spare time into. haha Hopefully the tomatoes, onions, and greens peas I planted do well! 

We started church on Sunday with no investigators and ended with two!  One of them was a friend of a member that she invited, but she doesn't live in our area.  But the place that she lives does not have missionaries.  So she is going to come here on he weekends so we can teach her here!  We invited some less actives to church and they showed up!  Their mom who is not a member and didn´t seemed too interested, unexpectedly showed up to church about halfway through the sacrament meeting, so that was really cool!

When it is not raining, it's really hot, so I kind of hope for rain even if we have to walk around in it haha!

Have a great week!

- Elder Burnham

lightning storms and earthquakes 06/13/16

This week has been crazy in terms of weather.  We have been getting rain all week, but on Tuesday, we had this crazy storm that caused the power to go out.  We were in a lesson and then we stayed in the investigator's house a little longer for some refuge from the storm.  When the rain lightened up, we went outside and two light posts had fallen down and there were a some little mud slides.  Then a couple days later we had an earthquake!  It wasn't very big, but we sure noticed that the house was wobbling back and forth.  Apparently it was centered in Nicaragua, but we felt it pretty well here in Honduras. But everyone is fine!

It has been pretty cool to work in a new area.  We have a few families that we are teaching and we found some new ones this week.  One of our investigators, Walter, should be getting baptized this Saturday.  He is such an awesome person,  He has changed so much to accept the gospel.  Before the missionaries started visiting him, he was really deep into drugs and alcohol.  But he just dropped it all just like that!  Miracles!  

This old member guy told us that he is more faithful than others at church because he doesn't have to get up during the meetings and use the bathroom during the whole three hours.  So if you truly want to keep the Sabbath day holy, you shouldn't use the bathroom at church because it is a big distraction.  haha

Sorry its a short one, have a great week!

- Elder Burnham

new mission limbo 06/06/16

I am in this weird mission limbo where I have my new area and companion, but I also have to come back to the office to train the new general secretary.  All last week I was in my old area, so I could go to the office and train.  But this weekend, I was able to actually meet my new companion and work in my new area.  My companion is Elder Garcia from Guatemala, super close to the border of Mexico.  He is newer in the mission (he has about 5 months).  He is super cool, and laid back.  We are the area, Los Laureles (Colonia San Francisco), which is basically on the top of this hill in Comayaguela. There are some pretty good views of the city up there.  I can see my two old areas in the distance.  I am going to end up spending almost a whole year straight just in the city, within three areas.  

Our house is on the second floor of a restaurant owned by a member.  The apartment is not bad, but I just have to get used to taking cold bucket showers again because we only have running water every few days.  It was kind of sad after taking hot showers for the last seven months haha.  The landlady´s cat sneaked into out apartment and pooped in an empty box, haha.  I hope the elders before me haven´t been feeding the cat because we are not supposed to have pets, haha.  

Elder Garcia has been showing me around the area, and we got to meet a lot of members and less actives, as well as some of the investigators that we have.  We are teaching some really awesome families.  We have also been getting a lot of rain this last week.  I guess we are heading into the wet season now.  It usually rains every night now.  

Today I am writing from the office. I might have to come and pop in every now and then to help out the new secretary.  But everything is pretty good and I am excited to work in a new area!

- Elder Burnham

Museums, cathedrals, zoos, immigration 05/28/16

Sorry folks, I have been pretty bad at writing letters lately.  Here is one for you all (even if it´s not all that long).  

The last two P-Days were pretty fun.  We went to the Basilica de Suyapa and we went to this armed forces museum in Centro.  Last Saturday we went to Sabana Grande and to the zoo that is pretty close by.  I am pretty sure this zoo is some person´s private collection because it´s attached to this restaurant and it is free to enter.  So basically pictures of animals and catholic cathedrals (I think I have some kind of obsession with cathedrals).  

I have also been going to immigration a whole bunch lately.  A lot of certifications have been coming out and I have to take all these missionaries to get their residency processed.  So that has been kind of fun (NOT).  I have been doing some math and realized that I have taken over 120 missionaries to immigration for their residencies.  Just casual.

We have been trying to have a lot of Family Home Evening lessons with members and investigators.  That has been really fun.  Sometimes we end up having really big groups of people.  We had to even bring extra chairs to a member's house.  We are hoping that Robelio, our investigator, gets baptized pretty soon.  We hadn´t been able to teach him for a while because he had been out of town for a couple weeks.  

Things have been getting a little crazier as we are approaching transfers.  Nothing is official until Monday, but I am about 99.99% sure that I am leaving the office, haha.  Seven months is a long time, haha.  May is almost over!? I hope you all have a great week.  

- Elder Burnham

Mini Coopers Yaaaaa

This week it's mostly just Mini Coopers

She read the whole Book of Mormon 5-1-20/16

Hello!

President gave us permission to go to the temple on Saturday.  We wanted to get there early because Saturdays are busy.  We wanted to go to the 6:00am session but we didn´t end up getting there in time so we decided to go to the session at 8:00.  But that one ended up filling up.  But we were lucky and got in to that season because the son-in-law of a member in our ward hooked us up! haha.  We also got to help out with other things while we were waiting.  It was a really good visit.  God really knows how to respond to our prayers and gives us the answers we need when we go to the temple.  It was also really cool because I ran into some members from my last two areas.  Two members from Sorzales were working in the temple and the branch in Zambrano had a temple trip.  So that was really cool!  I always like hearing about how the people in my old areas are doing.  

We wanted to have Robelio get baptized this last Saturday, but he is still having some problems with the word of wisdom.  But we will help him out with that.  He ended up going down south to visit his family, so hopefully he is not gone too long.  

Jina gave us some great news!  Her oldest son wants to come back to church again.  Jeremy had been the rebellious 19 year-old, but he has had a change.  Jina told us that he walked all the way to church and then the guards didn´t let him in!  (Our church building is inside a gated community with some strict and rude security guards).  He hasn't been to church in about two months, so that was good to hear.      

Jina also gave us a reference about two months ago (the mom of an old investigator), but we were never able to contact her because she was in the hospital for a while.  Someone gave her a Book of Mormon while she was there and Jina gave her a gospel principals book.  We went to go contact her and we asked her if she had been reading the Book of Mormon, and she told us, "Yeah I read it,"  And then I asked, "the whole thing?" And then she said, "Yes, it is a very great book"  Elder Dunn and I just kind of looked at each other.  She had read the ENTIRE Book of Mormon when she was in the hospital and then when she was recuperating in her home.  She also told us she had been studying the Bible and the gospel principles book.  I´ll let you know how it goes, but it sounds like a golden investigator! 

All you moms have a great mother´s day this Sunday!

- Elder Burnham

Staying in the office with a new companion 4-2-2016

Hello!  Last Saturday, we got to go and help out at a "marathon."  It was only like three miles.  But it was a big church activity with all the stakes from our mission within Tegucigalpa.  We got to hand out water to the runners and pick up garbage and stuff, so it was like a little service activity.  

For like the last week and a half, we have had some really bad air quality.  I think there have been some fires in the forests nearby and the sky has been hazy-white for a really long time.

We had transfers in the mission this week.  I get to stay in the office for another transfer, but my comp and Elder Bingham are leaving.  They both get to stay this week in the office to train the new secretaries.  Elder Dunn, my new companion, came on Monday.  He is from Arizona and is really cool, a good teacher.  This should be a really good transfer.  Elder Storrs (We were in the MTC at the same time) is also a new secretary in the office.  

The new missionaries were supposed to come on Monday morning at 8:00am but their flight got cancelled.  They ended up getting here on a different flight at around 6:00pm.  So that kind of threw out all the plans to have to new missionary meetings that day. haha.  The new elders ended up staying at our house. Then on Wednesday we had to go drop off missionaries at the airport and the travel agent for the church always like to schedule the flights for 6:20am...so we had to get up pretty early. 

I was not impressed with immigration this week.  When one of the new missionaries came on Monday, they did NOT stamp her passport...We did not have physical proof that she entered this country legally.  She was on the system on the computer, but we had to go back to immigration so she could get her stamp.  We would not be able to start her residency process without it.  And so we sat around for a few hours waiting for people to get off their lunch breaks and get us a stamp.  That was fun.  

Robelio has been progressing really fast, if everything goes well and if he doesn't have to go out of town, he should get baptized this weekend!  

This week was super busy and I am trying to remember all that happened, but I think that this is all I am going to write for now.  

Adios!

- Elder Burnham