USA!! USA!! USA!!

I am so excited for the 4thof July!! The people in our neighborhood love shooting things off on a daily basis, so I am excited to see what they will do on the day they have to do it! We have to be in home by 6pm, so I am trying to convince my companion to climb onto the roof of our apartment and watch the fireworks!!

Tori! You are so fit! That is awesome! Way to run so hard! WHY DO I SOUND SO WEIRD RIGHT NOW!!

Wyatt is back, that is sick! Was he totally freaked out to give hugs? haha

So update! Samson and Tiffany finally got married officially! But they are stuck in China, but he is trying his best to go to a branch there. 

So we took our investigators Near, Bo Yi, Hao Han, and BoWen to a baptism this weekend. Two of them have dates for August. But Hao Han does not, and I asked him how he felt about the baptism and he said, “I feel like I should get baptized!”. His family is still pretty against it, but we just need to build up his faith!!

So we had a cool 21st contact. (we have to contact 20 people a day)  So we had 19, and we had set a goal to have a lesson on the streets, so we prayed that we would be guided to the person that would let us teach them, and it was like 8:45pm at that point. So we go out, and I stop this family, but they weren’t really that interested but we invited them to the Visitors Center. So we were heading around the block and a girl is behind us, and I was thinking, "We prayed to get a lesson and God heard my prayer, I think he will give me a lesson, why did I say the prayer if I don’t believe anything would happen." So I turn around and talk with her, and it was a normal contact, I was not really pushing anything that hard, and then she asks, "So what do you guys believe, give me the run down, I have time." It was an awesome testimony builder to me!

The Church is true, God guides this work. Every night I pray I know that I am nothing without the Lord, that he guides this work. I can’t believe he sends me to teach His children, I am so honored to serve him!!

Love you guys,

Elder Burr

Visitor Center with my boys

Kelp, water, and eggs given to us, or....

The Triple-Fat Burger

They got that right

Xiao Bo is great

Xiao Bo

Ninos and Jovenes

Guys! I am still in a Chinese area, I am sorry I have not sent a picture in a long time. These ghetto libraries are hard to work with!! But they are awesome, because people always randomly yell our profanities when their computer times runs out and they don't notice.

GO LA KINGS!!! Apparently they won the Stanly Cup, but everyone in LA is too wrapped up in themselves that no one really talked about it.......anyways thanks so much for the emails!! And the updates!! It is good to know that the ribbons we put in the cherry tree are still working. LA has some cool wild life, mainly possums, raccoons, and parrots. Yeah! Parrots! I want to capture one so bad!!

haha Amanda’s email today was awesome!! She is such a cool missionary. I literally talk about her in every street contact I make. She is so cool. But oh man I got distracted because I just realized the  lady next to me with rollers and forks in her hair has a dog sealed in some kind of grocery bag and its making noises and I don't know what to do!!!!! This is so sad..

Anyways, that is so cool that Wyatt is coming home. Tell him to write me something!! Words of wisdom, funny words in Finnish, whatever!! I need to hear from that ol' Clegg.

So I learned something really cool today. I was reading the talk in the Ensign about "Being Perfect in Christ" and it was such a blessing because I have been getting a little stressed. I feel like I am platto-ing on my mission, getting to comfortable, getting stuck in the routine!! I just want to reach that next level, that step closer to perfection, but I just can’t do it. But this talk helped me realize that we are all a work in progress. That being perfect does not mean that we never make mistakes or we never are lazy. It means that we are complete. A scriptures I really enjoy sharing is in 3 Nephi 12 and it is the last verse. It talks about how we should be perfect, like Jesus and the Father are perfect. BUT looking at the Chinese translation, it uses the word wan quan (which means complete) not the word wan mei de ( which means perfect) God wants us to become complete, he wants us to slowly acquire the things that will make us like Him and Jesus Christ one day. Right now we are in-complete. But every day we can add more things. We can learn to be more loving, more diligent, more Christ like. It’s not just flipping a switch and going from imperfect to perfect. It is a lifetime of adding on the things we are missing, until we reach that completed being. The person that Heavenly Father always intended us to be.

Love you guys so much!! My time is running out so no pictures this week, I will try next week for sure!!

Elder Burr

Week 40

So that picture with the rapper is doing funny things, little Latino kids are stopping and saying, “Hey, I saw you on Tyler's insta" haha super funny. But it also sparked Drew to email me, which I am super pumped about!!! I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I talked to him. 

Well USC, oh man, our ward is so small. It is really tough because our Sacrament Meeting is all in English, so a lot of our investigators just get nothing out of it, and I am dying because it is such good messages that the speakers share, but they just don’t get it. We are also feeling the pressures of time, because sometimes we don’t have that long with these investigators, a lot of them will leave in 3 or 4 months, sometimes even 2 months, sometimes even a couple weeks. It is hard just seeing people leave like that. But it makes it so every lesson counts. Crazy small ward though, like 15 or 20 people in Sacrament Meeting. And one time, they sent the High Councilors to speak at our Sacrament Meeting, and all the investigators spoke was Spanish, they had to have some guy translate for them! It was a mess. But hey!! The work goes on!!

So we had a lesson with this lady named Gloria. And we read scripture in Romans 8:16, about how we are children of God and we will be glorified together on high. And when I read it out loud and got to the Glorified part she started laughing and giggling and was like "aahhh that’s my name hahah. I love the scriptures!!" That was pretty funny. She does lots of stuff like that, like she cancelled our lesson because the weather outside was too nice and she just could not resist having a picnic outside, haha!

So Near and Bo Yi are progressing nicely to their baptism dates! Near will always go street contacting with us, he just loves it. He always gives us street contacting tips, like always stand at a 45 degree angle when you talk with them. He is the best, he will be a stake president in China one day for sure!! 

I am so pumped for the package you guys sent me!! I was so hungry hahaha the beef jerky hit the spot and the Bible is awesome. Finally I will learn how to bible-bash! JK it only brings the spirit of contention. Maybe I am too passive of a person, but I never seem to run into much negativity. But I guess sometimes, you just have to be firm with people PMG says; “this is eternal life here!! If the people you talk to don’t know it is this important, at least you do!" It is important and it is true and these people really are lacking it. This is something that I sometimes forget on my mission. 

Something else I noticed today that I really like about our church is that it preaches the true Gospel of Christ, not the soft stuff that all the other Bible studies and congregations teach. I hear every day, "I have Jesus in my heart, I am saved, I have faith" and what they don’t understand, is they can have more faith. They can come closer to Jesus and they can help save others!! All the time churches are teaching people that it’s all good and they are good where they are at and they have qualified for salvation, but it’s just a false peace of mind! I am so grateful for living Prophets and Priesthood leaders that tell me how I can be better. They tell me that God said, be perfect, and that I am not there yet. This is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s a Gospel of broken hearts and contrite spirits (because that’s what we need to grow) but it is also a gospel of infinite hope (because of the Atonement of Christ) 

I love you family!! Thanks so much for supporting me!

Elder Burr

LA LIVE

Apparently the Stanly Cup is going down here. Family!! If I try to convince you to come to LA and visit me, DON’T DO IT!! For some reason I am only now realizing how close you guys are to me and how easy it would be. But really, I am all good.

Oh NO!! So that rapper posted the photo of us together on Instagram and my companion flipped out. He didn't want to go to that store, he was fighting it, but I convinced him to go. And then at Zone training meeting, the Poly elders told us that it was on Instagram and he lost it!! He got so stressed that President would see it and send us home, that he broke out in cold sores!!  We have been doing a lot of relaxation exercises lately....

It is funny how the mission has made me so stressed, more stressed in my entire life, but also I have never felt close to God!! I love it. I am wrapped up in it every day. But don't get me wrong family, I can forget sometimes, I can let Satan get a hold of me. But whenever I share my testimony (just like I am doing with you guys now) I can feel His love and comfort around me. And that's what I want to share with you guys today. Also, that it is not just saying something that shares our testimonies, but it is also our actions! Who we are and how we represent ourselves is a testimony.

Family, I live in a very worldly place and a lot of kids here have been really messed up by it. These influences are terrible. We can ask a kid, “do you know who God is?" and he will say, ”Lil' Wayne is God!" Becky, Tina, and Mellissa, be strong! Don't let the influences of this world change who you are and what you want. That conference talk is so good. The Choice Generation (I think) it just talks about how our desires right now will shape the rest of our lives! Good or bad. Stand strong my little sisters!! Always be striving for things that will bring you closer to God. Always share your testimony through your examples. Be the one that says "No, I don't do this, it’s just not me." You girls are awesome! I know you are all doing awesome things in life right now. Keep it up!! And I promise you, as you do this, as you share the testimony you have in word and deed, you will feel Heavenly Father’s love for you!!

I don't know where that came from, super random. But really, the high schoolers here and the college students here, some of them make me sad, but some of them make me really happy!! They have good things in LA!

So I am staying in USC another 6 weeks with Elder Bria, I hope so bad that I can stay here for fall semester. That’s when things will get going. haha We almost had more non-members at church this Sunday and more than half the people at church spoke Chinese!! The Chinese people here are so hungry for this. I love telling people that they have a Heavenly Father and all these blessings come from knowing that. A lot of people are hesitant to talk to us because China has a ton of cults that steal people’s money and say they will be healed through karate and donations. A girl’s grandma was really effected by one of these cults and now she feels like she can’t trust any religion, she said "I have a boulder blocking me from connecting with God" and I know that Christ’s atonement can heal her!! Can lift this burden off her shoulders, free her from this pain. I can’t believe I have the chance to see that atonement in action. I hope I don't mess it up. I have no idea why God sends Elder Burr to teach his children.

Well, love you guys so much, have an awesome week!
Elder Burr

Have the Faith of a Blind Missionary

Hello family!! 

Sorry, I don't have a lot of time today. I was blessed with another companion that likes to wrestle so that threw off the groove of today. I am so grateful I had all sisters growing up, and I think God is rewarding me with these super aggressive comps. haha

But Elder Ballard came to the mission! It was the first time I got to shake an Apostle's hand. I just want to add my testimony that I know this Church is true. When Elder Ballard bore testimony of Christ, it was like all the air got sucked out of the room. I FELT that he knew. And that's what we want everyone to believe.

I love you all!!

Elder Burr

Elders of the USC Ward

I met a rapper, Tyler the Creator and gave him a pass along card. DON'T GOOGLE HIS MUSIC MELLISA, TINA, REBECCA!!