Service and Jaguars

Poof! Another week gone!  Kind of a strange week haha!  We are having one 

of those butterfly blooms (like we had in Morgan Hill years ago) so there are 

always a ton of them flying around here haha.  Also our dueño (landlord) sent 

people over the last few days to come clean up the jungle in our yard, but they 

just kinda showed up and we didn´t know that they were going to come. We 

had to call the dueno to make sure he sent them because there were just random 

people outside our house.  On Saturday, there was one of the workers burning 

the dead grass and we were close to the house and saw a ton of smoke coming 

from our yard, so we thought the house was on fire or something like that.  We 

ran to the house to make sure everything was okay. haha Yep, just burning up 

the dead grass.  

On Saturday the branch had an activity to raise money to send the youth to SOY  

(Especially for Youth) in the plaza right by our house.  Basically a big garage sale 

and members cooked and sold pupusas. Super rico!  We decided we wanted to 

set up a booth with pamphlets and books of mormon and everything.  We were 

even able to borrow the big banners from the mission office.  Not a crazy amount 

of people came, but we were able to contact and teach people.  

In our district meeting, Elder Gonzalez talked about how if we are having problems 

or contention with our companions, we should just serve them.  Just do little acts of 

service for them.   I am not saying that I am having contention with my companion,

haha.  We were able to apply this to our investigators this week.  As I mentioned last 

week, we didn´t have the baptism for Fernanda because her parents changed there 

minds and there were some other complications.  We stopped by on Friday (almost a 

whole week since the last visit) and we just served them. We didn´t teach them anything.  

They were basically moving their kitchen to another part of their tiny house and were 

constructing new walls within to separate the kitchen.  So basically we spent 2 hours to 

help them remodel their house.  But this is something we can apply to everyone.  If you 

are having problems or contention with someone, the best way to solve it is to just serve 

them.  We can all follow the example of Jesus Christ and love and serve one another.    

For P-Day today, we went to Parque Aurora!  It's a park in Zambrano with a ton a 

playgrounds and a little zoo and a pond and a pool and an equestrian park with horses.  

(But we are very limited to what we can do) haha We went to the zoo and parks and 

walked around and looked at everything else.  Super Fun!

Another great week!

- Elder Burnham

Three Hours of Uno

Hello!

I think we went to Tegucigalpa 3 or 4 times this week, I can´t remember
haha!  On Tuesday we had an activity to meet the new mission president,
Presidente Ferman, who is from Honduras.  He and his wife spoke to us
and they are super great.  You can tell how much love he has for all the
missionaries.  We didn´t get out of the activity until around 6:30pm and
we pretty much couldn´t find any buses that could take us back to Zambrano,
so we and the hermanas were kinda stuck in the city without a way to get
back.  We ended up staying with the Elders in Cerro Grande and the hermanas
with the sister training leaders.  haha.  The four of us were playing UNO and
I am not kidding when I say that we played a round of UNO that lasted more
than three hours!  We added more rules to make it more complicated, but I was
not planning on playing that long! haha

On Thursday we went back to Teguc for interviews with President Ferman. 
We had three zones waiting at the church building to be interviewed and he
was spending 15-25 minutes with each person.  So we ended up hanging out
in the church building all day.  He was really spending a lot of time to get to
know each of the missionaries because he doesn´t know anyone yet.  He is
super awesome and I feel like the mission is going to be great with him in
charge. 

After the interviews, I had intercambios with Elder Gonzalez again. He came
to Zambrano to interview our investigators (the hermanas too) for baptism. 
Yeah, he interviewed our investigator for the baptism that we didn´t have this
weekend. We are teaching this family and the daughter was ready for baptism,
but when we called to confirm everything on the day of the baptism, the father
told us that they were not in Zambrano and were not going to return until the
next day, but when we passed by the house, they were all there.  The parents
changed their minds and didn´t think that their daughter was ready.  We will
keep working with this family, and make sure that they are ready. 

We decided to get rid of our garbage the way that all Hondurans get rid of their
garbage.  Burning it!!  We piled all the trash in our yard (because we have a large
back yard) and lit it on fire. So much more fun than bringing it out to the curb, haha. 

Another good week here in Zambrano.  Have a great week wherever you all are!

- Elder Burnham

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!  On the 3rd, I remembered ¨Oh tomorrow is 4th of July¨ 

but I completely forgot about it the next day! haha.  Whoops.  This was a 

super interesting week.  We had 1/2 interchanges on Wednesday.  The zone 

leaders came to our area and we had divisions, then at about 5pm we split 

for interchanges.  I went with Elder Dunn back to his area to work.  He works 

in Tegucigalpa, which was fun because this was my first time working in the 

city.  And also my first time being in the city at night.  It's super cool to see

it all lit up at night.  

Tegucigalpa kind of reminds me of San Francisco, except dirtier, poorer, 

and less safe. haha.  But the city is built on a whole bunch of hills and all the 

houses are connected together.  That evening I noticed that my legs were 

super stiff.  That night I woke up at two in the morning and my whole body 

ached.  The next day I returned to Zambrano and stayed in the house all day.  

I think that I had chikungunya or something similar.  All of my joints hurt and 

I had a fever. poooo.   On Friday we had a zone meeting, and we kept that 

day simple by only going to that and returning to the house because I 

needed to recover haha. By Saturday I was back to normal whoo hoo!

Sunday morning before church we had the baptism for Sandra!!!  She is the 

wife of the couple that got married last weekend.  We were the 6th pair of 

missionaries to teach her and she finally made the decision to get baptized! 

We will get to meet our new president this week!   This email is a little shorter 

because my keyboard is driving me absolutely nuts!!! haha. 

- Elder Burnham 

From last week

Great week! Feeling refreshed with a new companion! Whoo!

June 22 2015
This week went by really fast, and tomorrow we have transfers.  My
companion is leaving, and I am staying.  Tomorrow I will meet my new
companion. whoo!

On Tuesday, we had a cleaning check and President and Hermana Fortuna
came to our house.  Our house was pretty clean because we had some extra
time to clean up while Elder Solano was sick.  But we have kind of an
infestation of roly polys in our house.  They just kind of come in and then die
so I am always sweeping up dead bugs. Kinda strange haha.  

Thursday I had intercambios with Elder Gonzalez  (the other Elder Gonzalez)
((I don´t know if that really clarifies anything))  He has the same time as me in
the mission and has been in this area his whole time, so he has had lots of
intercambios in Zambrano.  We were able to visit a lot of our investigators
and also explore some new parts of my area.  Fun stuff. 

Carlos and Alba showed us around some parts of Zambrano near their house
in the forest.  It was super pretty, we got to walk around and explore a little bit.

The Hermanas in Zambrano had some investigators who got married and baptized
this weekend, which was really fun.  Their investigator even got an actual wedding
dress and had lots of decorations.  They asked me to try to play the ¨Bridal March¨
on the keyboard when she entered, haha, I tried my best.  It was fun. 

Today we had an activity with Presidente for p'day. We went to Tegucigalpa and
watched Meet the Mormons in Spanish.  I got to see Elder Bradshaw and Elder
Linsemann again.  My investigator Lurbin, from Catacamas got baptized last weekend!
Super exiting!

It was a good week, vamos a ver los cambios mañana! Adios!

- Elder Burnham


June 26 2015
I survived the first week after transfers! haha.  We had lots of changes this
transfer for a number of reasons.  We are in transition of mission presidents,
and about 18 missionaries finished and only 2 came in.  6 areas were closed
(including the area I opened in Catacamas 6 months ago).  District Zambrano,
now named District Jardines, is led by Elder Gonzalez (I went on interchanges
with him in the past) in his area, Jardines/Divino Paraiso.  Yep!

My new companion is super great. His name is Elder Alvarado and he is from
Costa Rica (there are only two missionaries from this country in the whole
mission).  He has about 17 months in the mission, and was companions with
Elder Bradshaw.  He is a really good cook so that's a plus, haha.  He also likes
to sing American music and beatbox haha.  Its always nice to have a new
companion because you can learn so much from a different person's approach
to missionary work.  This should be a really good change.  We are going to work
really hard with our current investigators and find more people to teach. 

This week we spent a lot of time to let Elder Alvarado meet everyone and learn
the area. We also had some service opportunities this week.  One member basically
had us clean up her backyard, and we helped clean up the chapel for church the
next day. 

We had another wedding!  Dani and Sandra.  He is a member, but she is not.  We
finally got everything ready and had the wedding at the church building on Saturday. 
The only problem was that the lawyers were an hour and a half late...but besides that,
everything went well.  We are going to have her baptism next week! 

This week we had Carlos come with his weedwhacker and destroy the jungle we had
in our yard.  haha. 

This morning I saw a billboard in Tegucigalpa for a movie called Terremoto!
(Earthquake) with a picture of a giant tsunami about to crash over the Golden Gate
Bridge in San Francisco. haha  Let me know how cheesy this movie ends up to be.

Great week! Feeling refreshed with a new companion!  Whoo!

- Elder Burnham

Rain... So Much Rain...

So this week was really interesting.  We had soooo much rain and
lightning this week.  But we didn't get too soaked outside haha.

Also, my companion, Elder Solano, got super sick this week, so we
pretty much stayed inside for two days.  We went to the medical center
in Tegucigalpa so he could get a blood test.  He thinks it might have
been chikungunya (a local virus).  But he is much better now.

We had the baptisms for Carlos and Alba!!!!  They are such a great family
and have really strong testimonies.  It was a long process to get them to
this point, but we did it!

On Saturday, I was asked to give a talk on Sunday.  The topic was an
article from the Liahona April 2015 called ¨I need thee every hour¨  It
was about a woman who received her conversion from the spirit she felt
through this hymn, and how the spirit can testify through music.  Which
was pretty much a perfect topic for me. The talk went really well, and
I was also asked to direct the music during sacrament meeting, so that
was really fitting, haha.  A really good Sunday.

This morning we went and hiked this hill in Zambrano and could see all
of the town from up there,  It was super pretty.

Whoo hoo!

- Elder Burnham

Carlos and Alba got married

Termine una semana otra vez aqui en Zambrano.  

 

We had a really good zone meeting on Friday.  Our zone leaders focused on always having a

positive attitude and to always love everyone.  Our companions, members, investigators, everyone!  

This zone meeting also included a musical number provided by Elder Burnham.  haha.  

Later on Friday, I had intercambios with Elder Gonzales (a different Elder Gonzales).  He is a super 

great missionary and has about the same time as me in the mission.  He can really connect well

with others and is always making jokes.  

Our ward mission leader, Wilson, got his mission call!  He is going to Cuzco, Peru!  Super exiting. 

(Mission  neighbors to Hermana Brogan!).  

We also had a wedding this weekend!  Our investigators Carlos and Alba got married this weekend. 

Next weekend they are going to get baptized!  They are great people and Alba has such a strong 

testimony.  Only two more weeks in this transfer! Time flies!

Sorry, no photos this week, the computer I'm using doesn't have USB ports that work. Whoops! 

Next week.

- Elder Burnham

 

and now... last week...  

 

We have a CIRCUS!

There is this little plaza/park thing by our house and earlier this week, they started setting up a 

circus.  There is a giant tent and you can hear all the music and cheering, and the TIGER ROARING 

from our house.  They had the tiger cage outside while they were setting up the tents and we got to 

take pictures! Whoo!  Super fun.  Maybe we will be able to go for a p-day activity in the future. haha. 

 

Like I mentioned last week, president wanted me to sing in the choir for the activity we had at the 

temple yesterday.  On Tuesday, we went to Tegucigalpa and practiced. It was really fun to take all the 

buses throughout the city.  I think we ended up taking two or three buses and a taxi to get there. haha.  

It was a fun practice.  We formed some quartets and they sounded really good.  I also got to see Elder 

Dial (my old district leader) again. He is doing really well, but also  a little baggie. He has less than a 

month left on his mission.  

 

After the choir  practice, we stopped by the mission office (my first time going there). It is in the super 

nice part of Tegucigalpa where all the big businesses and sky scrapers are.  The church´s main offices 

for Honduras are also in this building, as well as the offices for Mission Honduras Tegucigalpa.  We had 

another choir practice on Friday, but we kind offound out on short notice. We knew that there would be 

a practice that day, but we didn't know at what time. On Friday morning at 7:00 we get a text saying that 

the practice is at 7:30, and we are about an hour away and were not ready to leave at that time. We ended 

up getting there at 9:00. It wasn't too bad, because they didn't end up starting until around 8:30.

 

We had two baptisms this weekend!  Karen and Kateryn. They are two young ladies who live in La Divina 

(ourother area)  Kateryn is the daughter of Pino and Sonia who are also some of our investigators. They 

want to bebaptized as well, but they need to get married first.  Karen I believe has other family members 

who are members ofthe church. She used to live in Spain.  They are both really great people, and I am glad 

 that we could baptize them this weekend. I was able to perform the ordinance for Kateryn. 

 

Yesterday we had the activity at the temple, and it was really good!  We got to hear some testimonies of 

some recent converts and I got to sing a solo!  I sang the same song for the multizone meeting, but made 

it more of a quartet.  Super fun. 

 

Right now I´m in Tegucigalpa. We had to go to the office again because Elder Solano had to go do something

with his Honduran residency.  I just kind of hung out at the office and went and got lunch with Elder Meads 

(the financial secretary).  We went to a mall food court. It was kind of weird to be in a big mall walking around. 

I felt like I was back in the states.  I had a real cheeseburger haha! 

 

Another Good week here in Zambrano. I can´t believe that its already June!

 

-Elder Burnham

 

 

 

 

Lots of Singing

Tomorrow I will have 6 months in the mission. What?  Anyway, another good week here in Zambrano.

Last Monday, we had a fake P-day, because we went to the temple on Thursday.  We pretty much just
wrote emails and then got smoothies, then went back to work.

Word gets around that I like to sing, so I get requested to sing musical numbers/participate in choirs
for various activities.  We had a multizone conference in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday, and I ended up
singing a solo (Abide with Me tis Eventide).  It was a super great conference, and the last conference
with President Fortuna.

We also had a Branch Conference on Sunday, and I sang in the choir.  We sang come Thou Fount in
Spanish, but then some of us sang the second verse in English.  Then last night, the assistants called
me and want me to sing for a mission activity that we will have at the temple on Sunday. So we have
to go to Tegucigalpa tomorrow for a choir practice.  Fun Stuff!

We had a temple trip on Thursday, and it was really great. I did the session in Spanish this time, and
felt that I could pretty much understand everything haha.  There is always such an incredible spirit
there.
 

We also had a fun incident this week. Our electricity and water got cut out because nobody paid the
bill in 4 MONTHS. Elder Solano and I were completely unaware of this and came home to find a bill
on our door, with no power!  Don´t worry, we only went one day without power,  We sorted it out
the next day. We will make sure to be more on top of that! haha.

I got grandma's package!!!!!!!!!!!  I am pretty sure that got here in about two weeks, but the office is
a little unorganized and it didn't reach me for a month and a half.  But I got it!  Thank you grandma! 
hint hint..   She sent me these really good trail mix bags from Target called Archer Farms... hint hint

Also, thanks for the Maker Faire pics!

We have a lot of investigators, that I don´t really have time to write about them.  We should have
some baptisms this Saturday though!  

Have a great week!  

 Elder Burnham