Rap Rappidie Rap Rap

Dad is a lot more righteous than me. He puts hymns as the subject of his email while I put Kanye West lyrics....but it’s applicable!!!

So my birthday came.  Also, Happy Birthday today Missy!!! It was sweet, on my birthday I got to go on splits with the ASL Elders again. It was really awesome because I just got to think about others, no one knew it was my birthday, I got a chance to be real low key.

But later that week, I went to a Chinese restaurant with my comp and some people were speaking Chinese next to me, so I go to start talking and something terrible happened......I didn’t make any sense!!!! NOOOO!!!! Too much English!! We are so busy so language study is almost nonexistent. But don’t worry, I signed up for Chinese at BYU, hopefully intermediate is not too hard.

But oh man, this week was crazy in the Zone!!!! So at the beginning of the week, we united in prayer and we asked the Lord what was his goal for us on Baptismal dates. Then, we went to work and the Zone caught on fire!! This week we set 15 new Baptismal dates as a Zone. Considering we had been setting 3 or 4 new ones the last few weeks, this was a huge miracle!! Everyone was just so happy doing the work. And I loved that because a lot of the times, we try to find fun somewhere else, but it’s when we are working and fulfilling our purpose as servants of God that we are most happy!! It was seriously one of the coolest things I have seen on my mission. The Lord preparing people...a lot of people!!

It has just been an awesome week. For the past 4 weeks we didn’t get any investigators to  hurch, and this week at the beginning of the Sacrament we couldn’t see any investigators, so we just sat with a  less- active we brought (don’t get me wrong, they are important too) but then when it was over, we saw our investigator Wilmer in the back!!! Best surprise!!

I think the mission has just been happier this week, President even texted us and threw a hashtag at the end of it!! I was rolling on the floor laughing. I am finally starting to get the feel for the area, it is hard to adjust to this kind of teaching style, but hey, I am getting to know the Bible a lot better.

It is also cool teaching people of all walks of life. So we teach the Heiss family and the Sneed family. When I walk into their houses, I feel like I am walking into Grandma Morgan’s house, I can’t believe they are not Mormon! I feel like I am teaching Grandma and Grandpa when we meet hah. BUT then you go to the top of our area, and it’s just a bunch of apartments in a rougher part of town. We were teaching a guy with a bunch of scars from bullets all along his arm named Ulysses the other day. It is cool seeing everyone’s different situation, but seeing their same desire to find peace and joy in life. We all have worries, the worries sources differ from person to person, but they are still there. And we have the ultimate source of joy, Christ and His Gospel!! So grateful for that.

I have been meeting a lot of people that have the desire to be a better man. Father figures and examples are pretty slim here. Just contacting teenagers on the street is so terrible, they are harder to love than Bible bashers sometimes. The statement is so true, that only the Gospel can save the world from the calamity of its own self destruction.

Well that was a weird not to end on, but I am about to be kicked off the computer.

Love you all! Thanks so much for the birthday box!!

Elder Burr!!

Spanish Splits

Spanish Splits Eats

photobombed

bull horns

I was attacked....by some idiot in the projects

So, this week was real awesome. I went on an exchange with an ASL Elder that was super fun. I am afraid that I will have a deaf child because now I am feeling the promptings to learn ASL. But we visited a guy that lived in Watts. That was a pretty wild place. A large part of the neighborhood is government projects. They are all yellow and look the same and just go on forever.

Work is actually pretty tough in English. People just keep shutting us down man, but hey, we gotta press on!!!

Something that the Lord has been helping with a ton lately is love. I think for a little bit back, I got into the motion of things. I was letting duty be my driving force for the small, boring tasks of missionary, and not love. NOW I am turning around trying to have love for others and love for the Savior drive me for everything, no matter how small or boring. As I have been praying for this, I can really feel a change. It is cool how that works. Oh man, I think about before mission, how spiritual progression and bettering myself did not even cross my mind. I am so grateful for the time I have had out here and how it has taught me that if I want to make my Father in Heaven happy and fulfill the Plan he has for me, I must strive everyday to be more like my Savior.

I loved President Eyring’s talk on how when he was collecting fast offerings, the guy was mean to him and he didn’t know what to do and he realized he needed the Holy Ghost!! That was exactly what I needed because as the days move on, the more and more I realize that I usually don’t know what to do! He invited us to pray for it every day, pray for that constant connection of revelation. And I have seen it lately and it works!!

Well, I am running out of time and I still haven’t written President (DARN YOU BYU classes!!) so gtg. Love you all! Thanks for the birthday wishes! Give me career suggestions!!

Elder Burr

I love you guys!

Family!!

I am so sorry that my last two letters have been so bad. I can’t remember if I have given you an update on my whole-new life so I will do that now....so I am serving in the North Torrance Stake. The Zone covers the whole Stake. So the cities in it are Gardena, Compton, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Lawndale, and Torrance. Our area is Lawndale. We had our first Sunday this week!! It’s pretty awesome to be in a ward that is a lot more similar to the ones I grew up in (real life grew up, not mission life) So, in the Zone we have an ASL District, a Spanish District, and an English District. It is also pretty weird serving around Sisters for the first time in my mission life....they scare me. But hey, two missionaries are from Indiana in the Zone and they know Braden’s dad (if his dad was a Stake President). But yeah, the area I am in is super diverse, my companion does a lot of Spanish contacting. I think I will start spending some time to practice Spanish. 

So my companion is Elder Larkin, he is from Layton Utah, he is super funny. I feel like I have been on an exchange for the past two weeks it has been so much fun with him. It is so easy to connect with people from America!!! He is 22 and went to West Point so we do a lot of pushups together. It’s funny because we both served together for a long time in International Zone because he was originally Farsi speaking. So both of us have taught non-Christians our entire mission and now we are Zone Leaders over people that teach hard-core Christians and Jehovah Witnesses and all that jazz and we don’t even know Chronicles from Corinthians so, it’s going to be an adventure. But I love the missionaries we serve so much, we are blessed with the most obedient Zone ever!!!

So, Isaac got baptized this Sunday!!! So his dad, Aisake Fukatamafi just barely re-activated, and Isaac, his 9-year old son started to go to Church with him. This was 5 months ago. And Isaac loved it and wanted to be baptized, and since he is over 8 we taught him!! It was the first kid I have ever taught on my mission and it was so much fun!! He really is the coolest little dude. He was so happy his dad got to baptize him too. Aisake, the father, got the Priesthood the Sunday of the baptism. It was just so powerful, Aisake was so overwhelmed the whole time. It made me pretty pumped to be a dad and baptize my kids and it made me so grateful that I had my father baptize me. That is such a big deal!! So many people don’t have that kind of thing in their home. It was awesome to see that. 

Oh man, I read Moms letter, that has got to be really tough. I am so happy though that Mom got to go back and spend time with PoPo. It was a huge blessing that I got to Skype with her last Christmas. I know that was a blessing from the Lord. Thanks Mom for writing that letter. I would like to echo Mom’s testimony and say that I know love lasts forever and that every single relationship we have in this mortal existence will continue in the next. We are all spirits that are millennia old and death is just the doorway we pass through to return to our Heavenly Home. One of my fondest memories of Grandma Morgan was when we sang her the song "Oh my Father" in the retirement home (and not because the black orderly came in and complimented our singing) but because of the Spirit I felt while singing it. The Spirit told me that day that I do have Heavenly Parents above waiting for me. I am so sad that we were never able to sing that song to PoPo, but I know that I will have a second chance. I know that to be true. Now, every time I sing the song, "Oh My Father" I think of the people that have passed on already, and I feel anticipation for the day I see all of them and our Heavenly Parents and our Savior Jesus Christ all together. I guess, what more could I ask for. 

Sorry that I got all weird, but hey, love you guys a lot!!! 

Elder Burr

Isaac & Aisake Fukatamafi

North Torrance Zone

3-30-2015

Sorry Family!! I dont have much time to write today. This Sunday, my good friend Xu Chen got baptized. Elder Zhang and I found him about 3 transfers ago. I remember how we met him was a miracle. He was a referrel from some Sisters, and we got a bad number from him, then we go to visit the address on the referrel and no one was there, we knock on the neighbors door and she says they all moved. well, later that week, we felt that we should give the door another chance. and BAM he was home ready to learn!! He really is one of the most innocent kind guys that I have met! He is awesome.

Also!! after 20 months in the chinese program I am being booted out. It was like my heart got ripped out when I got the call. I will be a Zone Leader in the Torrance North Area. ahh man, I am a little worried to go English, its a whole different ball game, but I trust in the leaders of the Church that they are called of God. Its a bummer to leave the program, Its hard to be away from it.

Ahh got to go family, love you so much!!

Elder Burr

Xu Chen

Good-bye to the Chinese District