Christmas Eve Miracle

Christmas was really good! For lunch we had tamales and a lot of really spicy beans and chicken. We spent the rest of the day visiting families in our ward.   This week is Hermana Dominguez last week so we are going to work really hard.   Then hopefully Friday, I am going to know if I'm staying here or if they are shutting down our area.

I'm kind of happy to be done with all the holiday stuff from last week.  It was getting a little crazy and busy. We had a lot of lessons though, so that was fun! I also got to help Hermana Dominguez dye and highlight a lady in our wards hair for service.  She also cut her hair, but I just did dishes while she did that. All the members here are super sweet, and I kept getting random presents from people I barely even know.

I think my favorite part of last week was the time I got to spend thinking about our Savior and his birth. Something that really hit me is that He truly did suffer for everything we have and will go through, and the amazing thing is He went through a lot of things just so that we would be able to learn and grow. I just think it's amazing that He came to the world knowing that He would have to suffer for all of the trials that we have to go through in order to help us become more like Him. I'm just so grateful for that.

This past week we had a really cool experience. The night before Christmas Eve Hermana Dominguez and I decided we needed to visit a less active girl in our ward.  Usually we don't leave the house until 12 because of studies and lunch, but for some reason Hermana Dominguez really felt like we needed to be there at 11.  We planned to visit her and then do the rest of our studies after, then that morning we got up and started studies, and I just had a really strong impression that sometime throughout the day we would find a young man that we needed to teach. We left to go visit the less active member at 11 and when we got there her older brother answered the door and turns out the girls was just about to go to work at 12, but she had enough time for a lesson.  We were able to share a lesson on the Sabbath day with her and her brother who turns out isn't a member, but wants to learn more about the gospel! It was really amazing because God guided us to exactly where we needed to be right when we needed to!

On Sunday we had a fireside that all the missionaries put on for our ward, so of course it was on missionary work. It was a little awkward because we were trying to teach them how it's our responsibility to teach the gospel and theirs to help with the social conversion, because it's really easy to smudge that line, but it ended up being really spiritual, then we ended it with Hna. Dominguez, me and another Hermana in the ward singing the efy version of I Know that My Redeemer Lives. We had barely practiced, and I was just kinda making up an alto part to it, and it actually turned out ok! So that's a miracle!

I hope you all have a really great week! Thanks for all you do and for all the gifts! I really loved all of them.  I love you!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne 

Merry Merry Christmas!

Hi!

I'm good! This week has been good. We've been able to find lots of new people to teach and have been dropping a lot of investigators. The problem is that we have people to teach, but none of them progress, or they stop answering so that's always fun! But it's all good! Saul is still progressing! He is really excited about learning more and just has a strong desire to know for himself if the church is true! 

This week we also had exchanges again, so I got to go visit people with Hermana Parker who is Hermana Child's comp. She's really awesome and taught me a lot about testifying right when we begin a contact. They just dropped or gave the elders all of their investigators this past week so we ended up doing some finding and found a few potentials.

On Friday we had a ward party! It was really really cool because I think there were more people at it then show up to our ward parties at home, which is amazing! The best part about it was probably that they had the primary children act out the nativity, and they had an actual sheep on stage with them! It was really funny because they had members singing these really beautiful solos during it, and all you could hear was a little black sheep bleating haha.

Saturday we did some more tracting. We actually ended up walking into a less active member from one of the English wards around here, and she let us share the Christmas message with her. It was really beautiful because after she said maybe this is a sign I need to start going back to church. 

It was also great because there aren't very many service opportunities here because most people just stay inside or work, but Hermana Domignuez prayed specifically for service opportunities, and God answered by placing about 7 different opportunities in our path. It just shows that when we pray for something good in order to help others God will provide. Then on Sunday, I decided to pray for us to find someone who was ready to be taught that would be a referral from a member. Later that night some sisters in another area texted us to tell us a member in their branch had a referral for us! Anyways God has definitely been blessing us with work here.

Yesterday, we found out how difficult it is to plan a fireside for your ward with 8 other missionaries, not very productive, luckily though in 2 weeks they will probably take out 2 sets. I'm just really grateful I only have to work things out with one companion usually rather than 9! Yesterday we also took some members out caroling with us to less actives in our ward. I think it was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had! There were about 10 of us, and it was so fun! We ended up getting in contact with a less active we had never even met. It was funny because she opened up the door and she was in a bath robe and had a towel in her hair, but by the end of it her and her little boy were smiling so big! It was so beautiful to see the joy that just simple acts like bringing members with us to go caroling can bring such joy into other people's lives. Also our members helped us find a potential investigator, and they wanted to keep going all night! It's seriously too bad we have a curfew. Anyways, we ended the night by going to visit a family who was supposed to come with, but never showed up, so we just rang their door and sang and then we went into their house and made hot chocolate and ate some Mexican pastries that our mission leader had brought! It was super fun!

This week I finished the little packet our mission president gave us to study about the Savior. I think my favorite thing that I learned from it is that what God promises will be fulfilled will be. During the Savior's ministry he taught the people how he was there to fulfill the prophecies of the prophets and scriptures. I especially love how that applies to us in little ways like when we feel peace that something is going to work out or we are promised something in a blessing we receive. We need to have faith that all things will be fulfilled. I really like how it talks about that in 3rd Nephi 1 when it talks about the Nephites waiting for the signs of the Savior's birth. Sometimes it takes time, but all that God promises us will be fulfilled as long as we do our part, I'm so grateful for the Gospel and the knowledge I have that Christ did live and still does live and that He provided the way for us to come to earth, learn, grow, and to become clean from all the mistakes we've made. I know he lives and loves us! I love you! And I hope you have a very merry Christmas!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Wishing for trailer parks and a new address

I like my new companion she's really nice .   Also she's a good missionary. The area is a little rough though. There are no trailer parks here, so that kind of stinks.  It is predominately white people, so the work here is a bit slow :P. Hopefully we can get some stuff going. It's just a little hard going from a really productive area that we've been working so hard to finally get going to an area where I basically have to start over! I am sure it will be good though.  On the bright side, we are in a ward and share it with 4 other sets of missionaries because they just combined our branch with the branch that was in the middle of Tucson so now it's the El Dorado ward :). We are the first Spanish ward in Tucson! Well at least recently.  We have 10 missionaries to one ward which is a lot, but probably next transfer 2 sets will be taken out, so I may only be here for a transfer, but we will see! I really love the ward a lot though and the missionaries I serve around are all super awesome.  I was already good friends with all of them before, so it's fun!

Thanksgiving was insane. The El Rio sisters had 3 dinners to go to, then one of the recent converts here wanted Hermana Anderson to be here for her dinner also, so they tried to fit in 4 dinners.  It didn't happen though. Instead, I went with Hermana Flake to have dinner with the Gonzales family in El Rio while Hermana Dominguez and Hermana Anderson ate with Nery. I was happy about it though because I was really missing El Rio, so it was good to go back and visit 2 days after I got transferred out haha.

About the people I was teaching in El Rio, I think Juana is still on track to be baptized on the 18th of December which is super exciting, and I should be able to go to that! Then I'm not exactly sure about anyone else. Diana Cruz is still going to church which is good and in a few more Sundays she should be fully reactivated! We are going to start working with her sister who lives in my new area who is less active too, so that will be fun! I will check up on all the other people we were teaching when I see Hermana Flake in a few hours!

We have a few investigators here, although most of them aren't progressing which is rough. One of our investigators is from Africa, her name is Marie, she's super sweet and told us that she is going to read the whole Book of Mormon by the next time we come back.  She just wants us to give her a few weeks. So hopefully she does! We do have one investigator who we just started teaching this week. They had met her the week before, but we went to go teach her last Friday and we tried to share the restoration with her, but the whole entire time it just did not feel right to me or Hermana Dominguez, and I was really struggling with my Spanish. The only time it felt right was when Hermana Dominguez started talking about the importance of families and the plan of salvation in the middle. The lady we were teaching seemed sorta uncomfortable. But we finished the lesson and invited her to read Moroni 10. We realized afterwards that we should have taught the plan of salvation because we both felt prompted to, but we didn't want to confuse her.  We ended up going back apologizing, and giving her a plan of salvation pamphlet. We have another appointment with her tomorrow! Luckily although we make dumb mistakes God is still watching out for us and making sure that his children are taken care of although His servants are imperfect! Just knowing how much the spirit really guides us strengthens my testimony so much though! I don't know what I'd do without it!

Other than that, we are working on finding and getting members involved with less active work! Today I was thinking a lot about less active work during my studies while I was reading Luke 15 which is about the parable of the sheep, coin, and the the prodigal son.  I thought about how each parable represents a different reason people fall away from the church. But I love how President Hinckley taught that what recent converts and less actives need is a friend, a calling, and to be nourished by the word of God. This week we are going to work on inviting members to help us fellowship and reactive specific less actives in our ward, so that hopefully we can get them more involved. I am super excited!  Hopefully with lots of faith we will have a lot of success this transfer!

I really missed spending thanksgiving with you all! I really wish I could have been there! Oh well! It's ok at least I am only missing one Christmas at home! But I am really grateful to be here serving people.  It's hard at times, but God is guiding us so much and I've just learned to love so many people and have grown so much. I wouldn't replace it for anything!

My new address is : 1800 S Pantano Rd #2164, Tucson, AZ 85710. 

Anyways thanks for everything! I love you lots!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Transfers

Hi!!

I am doing awesome! I am a little sad because we have transfers tomorrow, and it's time for me to leave El Rio :(. It's really hard saying goodbye to so many people I know and love so much!! But change is good, and I am excited! I am going to be transferred to the eastern part of Tucson and will be with 4 other sets of missionaries in the El Dorado ward. Usually there are not that many sets of missionaries in a ward, but a lot is changing to prepare Tucson for a new temple, so they are changing around a bunch of stake boundaries. It's really exciting and a bit stressful though because we have way too many Spanish missionaries right now for the amount of areas we have! In a few months things will change because a huge group of Spanish missionaries is leaving in January!

I am getting a new companion tomorrow! Her name is Hermana Dominguez! She's super awesome, and I have already been on exchanges with her since she was my STL last transfer. Hermana Anderson and I are just switching places which doesn't usually happen. That also means that I will be companions with another STL this transfer which is great, because I will get to go on exchanges and spend time with a bunch of the hermanas in my Zone! Also Hermana Budge just got made into an STL, so that's exciting for her! Hermana Dominguez is super hard working and really great missionary, so I am sure we are going to have a great time together. I am a bit sad though because she leaves in January, so I get to kill her (send her home)! I am going to really miss Hermana Flake a lot, but that's ok because most likely we are still in the same district!

This week we have been doing a lot of finding and just kind of organizing everything before I leave and Hermana Flake takes over the area. This week we found 8 new investigators and we only were able to keep one because the rest were either English or in the biking elders area. That’s ok work is work and at least we are helping others out!

We have also found some really amazing families to teach these last couple of weeks, and it is really exciting because the Spirit has been really strong in all of our lessons. One of the families we are teaching is very strongly Pentecostal, but they've let us in a few times because we helped them clean out their house when they were moving in a few weeks ago on the way to try visiting some formers. It's crazy what just little acts of service do, because a few weeks later we were able to start teaching them a little bit. Then yesterday we taught them the restoration, and I don't think I have ever felt the Spirit so strongly during the restoration as it was yesterday in their home. It was really beautiful, and I was almost in tears. They all thought it was very beautiful and could feel the Spirit teaching them.  We invited them to pray to know if it is true and even the son who we thought wasn't really paying attention told us he would pray and knew that he would know it was true through the Holy Ghost which is awesome! Hopefully Hermana Flake and Hermana Anderson will be able to stop by tomorrow or Wednesday to see how it went!

Our other progressing investigator Juana who has a baptism date for the 18th of December was able to come to church yesterday! She really loved it and had a lot of good questions. We are also excited because she is starting to let us come and visit her during the weekdays rather just on Sundays. It's an answer to our prayers! We are super excited for her and her progress. I am super grateful I will be close enough to go to her baptism this coming month! We were also finally able to meet her son yesterday. She absolutely adores him and is always telling us how sweet and amazing he is, so it was good to finally meet him ourselves. He definitely radiates with the light of Christ, and I am super excited that they are going to be able to start teaching him. We don't know how interested he is right now, but hopefully as his mom gets closer to baptism he will be! I am really sad to be saying bye to Juana. She is just super amazing and so in tune with the Spirit. I don't think we go one lesson without one of us crying, because we feel it so strong. She's super sweet, and I will send a picture of her next week.  We are going over their tonight to say goodbye.

This past transfer has been super awesome because I have been focusing a lot on learning how to recognize the Spirit and teaching more like the Savior taught. It's been really fun because right now we are working on using silence as a way to help our investigators feel the Spirit stronger along with asking inspired questions. It just kind of hit me this week that usually when Jesus is teaching someone and they ask Him a question He almost always responds with a question back. I love that, because it really gives the people you are teaching a chance to think and ponder for themselves. Today I was studying the story of the Samaritan Women at the well and how after she had met Christ she went to the city and called all of the people to come and see the Savior. My favorite part is in John 4:42 I think, where it says that they all knew for themselves that He was the Christ and not just because the women told them who is was. I really like that because it reminds me that I can teach people and answer their questions myself, but I can't gain a testimony for those I am teaching. That's their agency and they have to use it to come and know for themselves if it's true!

I am not sure what I am doing for Thanksgiving. Hermana Flake and Anderson have like 4 dinners to go to that day, but since I am leaving who knows! I wish I could be there with you all and to be completely honest I am a little worried to see how Hispanics do Thanksgiving haha, but I am sure it will be fine!

I love you all a lot! I hope you have a good week!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Lots of Miracles!

Hi!!  I am doing amazing! God has blessed us so incredibly this week, I just don't even know what to do to thank Him! I am just so grateful to be a missionary! :)

Today we are celebrating a bunch of missionaries in our zones birthdays that are last week and this week, so we are going to a trampoline park.  That should be fun. One of the missionaries Mom is paying for it which is really sweet of her since there are 20 of us!

This week we had a really amazing miracle. On Tuesday we were on exchanges.  Hermana Flake and Hermana Olivas were in our branch, El Rio.  I went to Los Reales with Hermana Ferwerda, so I wasn't actually there for the first part of it, but while Hermana Flake and Hermana Olivas were trying to visit one of our investigators this lady drove by and all Hermana Flake did was smile at her.   A few minutes later the lady turned around and drove up and asked if we read the Bible with people, and they said of course so they exchanged info and we went to visit her on Saturday. When we got there she was telling us all about what she believes and how she doesn't smoke, or drink, and how she just wants to be a really good person because she loves God so much. Before we even talked about baptism or invited her to join our church or anything like that, she told us that before she joins our church she wants to learn about it so that she can fit in and live the way she needs to. Hermana Flake and I were really surprised. She is already planning on joining the church without us even asking her! It was crazy, since we thought she just wanted to read with us! We taught her the first lesson and talked about how all the churches have parts of the truth, and she was telling us how she wants to find the one with all of it. We read James 1:5 with her, and she said I want to know which church to join! She applied the scripture to herself without us even prompting her. Then she was getting all choked up during the first vision. She felt like she related to Joseph Smith, and she is just so amazing! For some reason, I felt like we needed to talk to her about the Word of Wisdom, but I just kind of shrugged it off because I thought that was strange.

The next day, we went back and asked her about how her Book of Mormon reading went, and if she had the chance to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Then she told us how she has a confession to make and we got a little nervous, but all she said was that she was learning more about our church online and how she read that we can't drink coffee. She told us that she has an addiction to coffee, but how she was going to try to stop drinking it.  She just asked us to explain why we don't drink it. She told us how she gets why we don't smoke and drink, and how she wants to be really healthy and able to do a lot when she gets older, so we shared with her D &C 89 where it talks about the blessings of keeping the Word of Wisdom.  She said that's exactly what I want! I know I can stop drinking it, but it will just take some time. So turns out my prompting wasn't totally me being crazy, and we taught the Word of Wisdom any way! Then we also started teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and she told us how much she wants to learn all about it. Then we invited her to be baptized on the 18th of December! She said yes, and that she will do anything to join! She also shared with us how she used to never let people in to talk about religion, but how she feels like this is the time that she needs to join a church.

It was amazing because she was testifying to us about the truthfulness of the Gospel without us even having to teach her pretty much anything. God truly does prepare people to accept the Gospel. Teaching her has taught me that it's not all about what we do as missionaries or how amazing we are at preaching the Gospel, but how God is so loving and willing to trust people who don't deserve such incredible blessings, with His children who are ready and just waiting for the Gospel! Anyways we have just been so blessed that God's giving us such amazing opportunities!

We haven't really been able to see Oyuki and her family this week, because they were in Mexico. On Monday we had a really great lesson with them and with the member of our branch who referred them to us. Oyuki, her son Jose, and her daughter Zeydi are all scheduled to be baptized for December 5th, but we need to push it back a week since they couldn't come to church yesterday! We are excited for them, and hopefully their dad will start to be interested soon too!

Also good news! We've been teaching Naomi, that 9 year old girl I talk about a lot for a while now and we really want to extend a date to her, since she is ready to be baptized. The only problem is her Dad who isn't a member is really hesitant, but Hermana Flake was able to talk to him while we were on exchanges and he really opened up to her which is awesome! He told her that he would pray about if Naomi should be baptized right now, and also pray for himself to know if Joseph Smith is a prophet of God! We haven't been able to visit him since then, but we have an appointment tonight with them, so keep your fingers crossed!!

Another awesome thing is one of the less active recent converts of our branch that we have been teaching and has been progressing a lot finally came to church with her children yesterday! It was a miracle! I think it helped that Hermana Santa Cruz came with us to visit her on Wednesday and straight up told her she needs to come back to church and offered to help out with her children! It was great though!

Yesterday, Hermana Flake had to sub for our branch pianist in sacrament and in Primary, so we got to hangout in Primary all day! It was awesome.  Those little kids are some of my favorite people! I also sometimes forget how crazy they can get!  I have a lot of respect for the people in charge of taking care of all the junior primary kids now haha! Keep up the good work Mom!

So chances are that I am going to be transferred to a new area next week, but we will see something crazy might happen and I might stay here and Hermana Flake may leave. I honestly wouldn't mind staying though!

Anyways I love you so much! Thanks for your amazing example to me!! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Just Peachy!

I am doing really great! I feel totally recovered from my surgery which is great, but now I have a cold, so that is fun hahaha.

This week we extended a baptism date for December 5th with our investigator Oyuki. She is super awesome! We are teaching both her and her family, and they are so ready to embrace the Gospel. I will most likely be out of the area I am in by then, but hopefully I will be close enough to go to the baptism! Tonight we are planning on extending that same date to her children and hopefully her husband!

This week we stressed out a bit because we had visited her almost every day, but then we were super late to our appointment on Friday.  I had accidentally told her that we were going to be there 30 minutes earlier than we had planned with them the night before and didn't realized it until it was already past that time, so she wasn't home when we got there. Then we weren't able to get in contact with her until Sunday morning. We almost had a heart attack because we knocked on her door and no one answered.  We didn't think that they heard because we could hear them.  I knocked louder and it took them a really long time to answer.  We almost gave up and thought they were no longer interested because we had tried calling and texting all weekend, but right when we were about to leave she answered and let us come in! Tonight we are going to teach them about baptism with the member who referred them to us, so hopefully it will go good!

Awkward story of the week. We were knocking in a trailer park where we have a few members living, and it was going super awesome. We had a bunch of lessons and actually got 2 new investigators which is super exciting! Anyways we went back to where we had parked and decided to knock one last door before we went to our appointment. We knock and this lady answers and gets all excited because she had been praying that the LDS missionaries would come back and teach her son.  He had been investigating for a year, then he got into some bad stuff and dropped them. Anyways we showed up, and she was super excited and her son comes out and we are like sweet we are going to teach him a lesson.  Then he started asking us if we were single and how old we are and we told him well we are missionaries we are fully dedicated to the Lord so that doesn't really matter.  We try to teach him, but all he was interested in doing was showing off to us. Finally, we are about to leave, and he turns to me says you're really attractive, you are a ten out of ten, as cute as a peach. I just blushed and said thanks we are late to an appointment bye! We did however convince him to go to church on Sunday! Also luckily for us, he's not hispanic so we get to pass him back to the YSA Elders! Anyways that was super awkward.

On a good note, we had Zone conference this week! It was really spiritual and awesome! President Passey gave a training on setting goals which was really good. He decided to lower the standards of excellence because no one has been hitting them, which I totally understand.   We are still going to go for the old ones, because Hermana Flake and I have been super close to hitting them each week and it's a good stretching goal for us. Then, Sister Passey gave one on how we need to keep our studies focused on our investigators. It was really awesome, because sometimes it is easy to spend half our studies on ourselves, and then other half focusing on those we teach, but ever since we've started focusing on those we are teaching more we've received a lot of revelation on what to teach out investigators. Now we are seeing even more blessings! There was even a moment when Hermana Flake and I had planned to teach one of our new investigators the plan of salvation, but we had both been studying Alma 7:10-13.  The whole time we both had been thinking of her and decided to change our lesson to that. It ended up being a really great lesson, and I even realized that last week I had felt prompted to read that with her, and had given it to her to read before out next visit. The Spirit was super strong!

At Zone Conference we also learned about teaching people, not lessons. I loved it because we had to do a role play which aren't my favorite, but during it I had an insight come to mind about one of our investigators.

Then the last part was my favorite, because we were able to watch the Christmas campaign that they are going to put out this year! It was really amazing! The Spirit was so strong! After, President gave us this 43 day challenge that gives us a bunch of scriptures to study about the Savior to prepare us for Christmas. I am really excited about this because I've been really wanting to strengthen my relationship with Him and this is a great way to do that!

We also did a musical number for it! It was really fun, because I joined last minute. We sang Hallelujah, but a different version where the lyrics are about Christ suffering, dying, and being resurrected. It's really beautiful and I tear up every time I hear it. Elder Gonzalez decided that on the last verse we should start out with one person singing and add another person to it each line. They decided that I should start it out! I was a bit nervous. It ended up going pretty good though especially since I just practiced a few times the morning of. Anyways it was a really beautiful musical number!

That's about it for this week!

I love you a bunch! Thanks for everything!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Priesthood Blessings are awesome!

I am doing really great! I have pretty much been pain free since I checked into the hospital on Wednesday night, so that's pretty awesome! I have just been pretty tired lately :). Friday night we went and had dinner and taught one lesson so nothing too intense. I got really antsy being at home though so Hermana Anderson and I  went and bought water and ice cream while we waited for our companions to get out of mlc.

The hospital wasn't too bad. My back hurt more than anything else, because hospital beds are super uncomfortable. Apparently it was a miracle that I was in very little pain because before the surgery the surgeon thought my appendix wasn't too bad, but they may as well take it out anyways. However after the surgery he told Hermana Flake that it was a miracle that I was in almost no pain, since it was much worse than they thought it was and that it was stuck or something like that.  I don’t know what that means. I know it was because I had gotten a priesthood blessing from the Elders earlier on Wednesday. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had, because in it I was promised that I would be able to go out and have the ability to teach a really spiritual lesson that night.  They also promised me that I would no longer be in pain. Right after the blessing Hermana Flake and I went to go teach one of our amazing investigators. Honestly I can't even remember what the lesson was about, but the Spirit was really strong and it was truly a blessing. By the end of the discussion, I felt terrible so we went back and I took a nap.  After sleeping for two hours, it was horrible, so I asked Hermana Flake to call Sister Passey.  She told me that I probably have appendicitis and to go to the hospital. I was freaking out, but by the time we got checked into the emergency room I felt totally fine almost no pain. After an ultrasound and CT scan, they determined it was appendicitis.   After the surgery I was in no pain. It was one of the most amazing miracles I have ever seen. My testimony of the power of priesthood blessings has grown so much this week. I am super grateful for worthy priesthood holders. 

I spent most of my time at the hospital looking at family history because I had nothing else to do. I also got to know President Passey and Sister Passey a lot better haha.  It turns out they lived in Belgium for a few years so we talked about that. Apparently I am their first appendicitis case so that's fun! Also the Hermana we were supposed to have dinner with Thursday night came and visited me which was super sweet of her :)

My Zone leaders are like the best missionaries eve!  On Friday night I was too tired to go get my prescription, so they went to Walgreens super late and got it for me while I slept. They also made us cookies, made Hermana Flake lunch while I was in the hospital, and not to mention the amazing blessing they gave me beforehand. Apparently the lady working the pharmacy was super confused when Elder Stidham walked up to pick up a prescription for Sarah Burgoyne and asked him what his relation was to me.  He told her we are friends....? Anyways they are basically the best! Also a bunch of other missionaries helped a lot to. I am so grateful to be serving around such amazing people!

For my pain they gave me Tylenol 3. I haven't taken much of it though because it makes me super loopy and I am not really in pain. The Zone leaders did forget to tell me not to take 2 of them unless the pain didn't stop with one, so everyone really enjoyed how confused I was at service Saturday morning. It was pretty funny haha. 

Besides that we have had a really awesome week!  We had a really amazing lesson on Monday with one of our new investigators about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I could really feel the Holy Ghost guiding me during it to know what scriptures to share and what to commit her to do. I haven't felt the Spirit guide me so clearly on what to say as I did at that moment. Hermana Flake and I also had really great companionship unity during it!

We also had an amazing experience with another one of our new investigators on Saturday. She was really sick and needed to go to the hospital, but needed to wait until Monday for some reason. I really felt like we needed to talk about Priesthood blessings, which I had never really taught about before. It ended up being a really amazing lesson where we read with her 3 Nephi 17 about Jesus healing the Nephites. She loved it so much that she asked if we could read it again while we waited for the Elders to come and give her a blessing. I also got to share my experience from the priesthood blessing I got earlier that week before going to the hospital. She had so much faith and the Spirit was so strong during the lesson.

I am just so grateful for my Heavenly Father.  He really is our Father!  I know He is always taking care and watching out for us. I have learned so much about relying on Him these past few weeks, and I am so grateful for it! 

I love you lots! I hope you have a really great week!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Temple groundbreaking and transfers

I am doing really great!! Transfers were good! I am actually really happy about it. My new companion is awesome and really motivated to work. We have been finding a lot of new people to start teaching and it's just been really awesome.

On Tuesday, we got up and went to the transfer site to change companions. Sister Passey gave a really great talk on how being obedient allows us to be worthy of the Spirit.   After the meeting, I went on splits for a little while and then we went to the transfer site, and I met Hermana Flake and we were on our way. It was super fun!  We went to go visit one of the less active ladies in our branch who we had been inviting to fast to help her husband find a new job. It was super awesome because we got there, and I asked her if she was able to fast. She said yes and then went off on a story about how almost immediately after she had fasted for that her husband was able to find work! It was such an amazing miracle! Then we had dinner with our Branch President’s wife which was good like always.

Wednesday we had Zone meeting and did some training on keeping the Sabbath day holy and how to teach people about that. It was really great because our Zone Leaders have been trying to get us to speak in Spanish during all of our meetings.  We haven't been so good at it, but all of us were trying for the most part and I was able to answer a lot of questions in Spanish. It was really funny because I am pretty sure Elder Gonzalez and Elder Stidham didn't think I could say anything in Spanish. Usually, I had tried to avoid speaking it in front of them, so when I would answer questions they would get super excited when I said full sentences in Spanish. 

Then we got a lot of referrals for the English elders that night from knocking a trailer park. There was this one really awesome lady who wasn't at all interested in us beforehand, but we asked her if we could pray for her and she said of course and then afterwards she asked us a bunch about the Book of Mormon.  We were able to have a long discussion about it.   She said I wouldn't normally let strangers pray for me, but you two have really good spirits and I can feel that. It was a really cool experience. We set up an appointment for the elders to come and give her a priesthood blessing the next day. We also met this other teenage boy.  It was a really neat experience because you could tell he had been struggling with a lot, and we were able to bare testimony of the Atonement and we could see his faith in Christ increasing as we were speaking to him. It was awesome.  On the way out of that trailer park, we saw this boy sitting on the side of the road, and I felt prompted that we needed to talk to him.  We turned around and we talked to him about the Book of Mormon, and he told us how he had some cousins that had investigated and joined the church and how much they loved it.  He was super interested so we set up an appointment to see him the next day, but he lived in a different area so we had to refer him to some other Spanish elders in our Zone! But that's ok because at least God is trusting us enough to allow us the opportunity to plant seeds in people!

Then Thursday was awesome too. We did a little bit of knocking. We met some really interesting people of different faiths. There was one boy who just radiated light that we talked to. He was Muslim.  Just meeting someone with so much light in him makes me wish he could have the fullness of the Gospel in his life too. We also were able to meet with Ashley and her little brother (Ashley is the one with the baptism date for next month)

Saturday was the ground breaking for the temple, so we went to watch that at the stake center. It was really awesome because President Uchtdorf was there for it along with 2 members of the 70. They gave really good talks about how important it is for us to remember that our bodies are temples and to have a ground breaking for our hearts, to soften them and to change for the better. It was really great!

Yesterday was probably one of my favorite days, because we were finally able to get Ashley and her family to come to church because it was the primary program. Then our other investigator Naomi came with her dad who we are working on teaching as well!  It was really awesome and an answer to our prayers.

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An update on the 18 year old boy. When we contacted him, Hermana Budge wanted to give him to the English elders because he spoke English.  I had a feeling that we needed to hold on to his record and try him again, so I just didn't send the information. Then yesterday we went to go find him, but the address he gave us was wrong or we weren't listening right and turns out he doesn't even live in that apartment complex.  He hangs out around there a lot, so we knocked on the door and the people told us he doesn't live here, but pointed us to his aunt’s apartment where he goes sometimes. She answered the door and wasn't very happy to talk to us. She kept telling us she was Catholic and so was he so they weren't interested. Then Hermana Flake offered to pray for them and the aunt’s heart started to soften, so we said that we could leave our number for him so we gave her one of our Jesus cards with our number on the back.  The Hispanic Catholics love pictures of Jesus, so she thought it was the prettiest thing in the world.  We left 2 other ones just for her and she asked us which church we were from.  We explained about how we are LDS and she said she never heard of it, but she recognized Mormons and so I explained to her what the Book of Mormon was and you could see her countenance change. We were able to leave her with 2 Book of Mormons one is English that she was going to give her nephew and one is Spanish for her.

Anyways that's about it for this week.

Thanks for sending the pictures at the Fort Collins temple.  It looks gorgeous!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

A lesson in Repentance!

This week has been good.  Ashley, the 13 year old girl is still planning on getting baptized, but we may have to stop just teaching her and try to start teaching the whole family. Her mom won't give them rides to church which is rough, so we figure we need to reactivate her and then maybe we will be able to get Ashley baptized! Also, we will hopefully have another couple of dates by the end of this week! The 9 year old girl (Naomi)  we are teaching is progressing really well, and her dad who isn't a member is really warming up to us a lot since we found out he was trying to get her to get baptized Catholic, and we taught her a lesson on Priesthood authority. Today we are planning on having a family home evening with their whole family, so we will see what happens. Our goal is to get the father and maybe even the grandparents interested too, so we will see how that goes.  They've all investigated at one point or another because the uncle and the girl’s mom are both members. They all live in the same house. We also have another investigator named Patricia.  She is really sweet and half her family is LDS. Apparently her husband is too, but inactive and we didn't even know he was a member. We invited her to be baptized 2 weeks ago, and she is praying about it right now, so hopefully we will have a date with her by the end of the week!

Other news! We have transfers this week!! We got calls on Saturday morning while at service. Hermana Budge is going to New Mexico to serve with a Hermana from El Salvador.  My new companion is going to be Hermana Flake. I've heard she is really fun and bubbly.  She's a sister training leader, so I guess that means that we will be going on a lot of exchanges, but that should be fun! I will get to know a lot of people! I am super excited though!

We were super close to hitting standards this week, which is good! Also we had some really fun lessons with Naomi and her little sisters. This week the elders went with their uncle to go through the temple for the first time, so they left their car at their house to drive up all together.  Whenever missionaries happen upon another companionships car you obviously have to leave sticky notes or something all over it. However we didn't have any, so we asked the little girls if they did and they decided that we should probably just draw all over it with expo marker since it's a white truck. So they had a lot of fun with that, and we turned it into a great object lesson on repentance haha :).

Also the other day we were trying to drop by one of our former investigators, and when we were walking up the stairs to her apartment I saw this 18 year old guy sitting on the other stairs.  He was looking over at us, and I just had this feeling that we needed to go talk to him, but I was kinda scared.  However just as I was about to go up the stairs he called over to us and asked us to share with him what was in our "Bible."  We walked over to him and he puts his cigarette out and turns off his music then shakes both of our hands and asks to see one of our Book of Mormons.  He spoke English, and the ones we carry are in Spanish so we told him we can go get an English one for you.  He took one of them and just started reading the introduction. We were trying to explain to him what it was, but I was really surprised that he seemed pretty content to just read.  Once he was done, he was like that's nice thanks for letting me look at it.  Then he shook both of our hands again and said God bless you. We managed to ask him if he wanted us to send some missionaries over with an English Book of Mormon.  He agreed and showed us where he lived. It was really strange, because it's not often people ask to hear your message here. But definitely a blessing!

Also I was reading in 2 Nephi 33 this week and I love verse 10 and how it tells us 3 times to believe in Christ and how if we don't believe in the Book of Mormon to believe in Christ.  If we believe in Him we will know it is true, because it testifies of Christ and teaches us to do good. I love that. It's so silly to me that people don't want to accept the Book of Mormon because they think it is "of the devil". I mean all it teaches is good and it teaches you to believe in Christ. There is a really good institute talk that explains 10 reasons why to believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and one of the reasons is why in the world if the Book of Mormon was evil and that Joseph Smith just made it up would Satan tell him to testify of Jesus Christ and encourage people to believe in Him. That would literally make no sense. I just wish all people would give it a try, because if they just read it with real intent they would know that it's true.

I love you all a lot! I hope you have a good week! Thanks for everything!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

New Investigators!

Conference was great!  Some of my favorite talks were Elder Holland’s and President Eyring’s.

This week has been pretty good! We didn't have many lessons and we were driving back and forth a lot, but it was a good week! We managed to contact a lot of former investigators this week and set up appointments with them for this week! Only one of the people we got in contact with told us she wasn't interested so that was good! Also we have a goal for each companionship in our zone to get 3 new investigators each week and we've been trying, but haven't had much success until this week! We were lucky and tried a referral last Monday from a member of the bishopric in our branch.  We ended up teaching a lesson to them and setting up an appointment for this week! So just the first day of the week we got 2 new investigators!

Then last night we had dinner up in Marana, which is like 40 minutes away from us and only the elders go up there, but we tried one of our formers and she let us right in and we got to teach her and set up another appointment for next Thursday! I feel like we've been greatly blessed for our increased obedience and diligence!

We also went on exchanges again this past week. It was good. I was with the STL for our Zone and since she had been in our area before, we visited some of her recent converts and less actives she had worked with before. It was really good because we were able to figure out the needs of some of the people Hermana Budge and I were struggling with. We also had a lot of success. I felt like I grew a lot from that day! Also one of the ladies we usually teach in English even complimented me on how well my Spanish was getting. I think I finally realized I need to stop worrying about it and just kind of go for it, and usually it comes out better than what I expected! It was a really great day! I felt like we helped a lot of people. We saw a lot of miracles with some of the less actives and I was even able to contact one of the neighbors of one of our investigators who is always outside working on something, but I have been afraid to talk to!!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Harry Potter and missionary work?

So this week has been good! We are working pretty hard and seeing a little bit of progress, but not as much as we want. We are still really struggling to find new investigators. Our zone is doing this thing based off of Harry Potter and house points where each area is a different house and since we have the Zone leaders in our branch and all of us have a great obsession with Harry Potter/ we all have some sort of Gryffindor apparel with us we are Gryffindor :). The Problem is that we earn points according to how well we do at meeting the standards of excellence which includes getting 3 new investigators each week. Our area has been a bit slow investigator wise lately, so we are losing and somehow Hufflepuff is way ahead of everyone, but we are trying.

This week we went through a lot of our former investigators and tried visiting them. No one was really interested, but at least we tried! We have also been trying to visit all of the less actives especially the ones we don't know up north in Oro Valley and Marana. We haven't been able to meet with anyone yet, but the active members of the ward are getting really excited about it so that's good! We are probably going to try again later this week!

We also did some knocking on Saturday.  We weren't able to really have many lessons, but we met some people who might be interested, so that's something! One lady we went to came out to talk to us for a while.  She was super nice, and we talked about how her son is living in Colorado Springs. She talked to us a lot about how our missionary work is going and how hard it is to find nice people here who are willing to listen. Apparently her daughter is friends with a family in our branch! Then we went to another house across the street and a teenage girl answered.  I kinda went off and recited the whole first lesson to her. I'm not so sure how interested she was, but she said that she would talk to her mom about it.  I know that at least I was following the promptings of the Spirit. I feel really lucky because there are a lot of moments where we go visit someone, and they ask us a specific question.  I always can think of a quote that I just read that answers it perfectly.  That's been happening a lot lately. I guess that's just part of the blessings that come from meaningful daily personal study!

One miracle that did happen this week is the girl who we set a baptismal date with last week has an older sister who is less active along with all of their family besides their dad who isn't a member. Anyways we've been wanting to start involving the whole family in lessons again, so that they can all be active again.  However, the older sister is never home or just uninterested.  When we went to visit them this past Wednesday night she was there and asking about fasting.  She even stayed for the lesson! It was super exciting because apparently she used to sit in on the lessons, but hasn't since I have gotten here! She told us that she misses going to church and wants to start going again, so we got to talk to her a bit about that.

We have also been blessed with a lot of meals lately! Apparently there is a set of 5 families in our branch who want to feed us all on the same day every single week which is insane.  It is kinda a problem because it means we won't be able to meet with all of the members who want to feed us besides them, so the sisters in charge of our food calendar are trying to figure out what to do about that!

This week I have been studying a lot about recognizing the Spirit, I really really like that section with the chart of scriptures that helps you identify how to recognize when the Holy Ghost is speaking to you, and I have been copying it down and reading all of the scriptures that go with it so that I can hang it up on my wall. I learned a lot from it this past week! I really like how it talks about when we are obedient we are able to have success and become better at different skills. I have found this especially true when it comes to learning Spanish! Recently it has become a lot easier to understand and speak to people because I’m constantly striving to have the spirit with me to teach me!

Not much else has happened this week beside the usual stuff.  Yesterday was the homecoming talk for the son of a sister in our relief society presidency. It was a really good talk and although I didn't understand all of it, I could feel the Spirit really strong. Just seeing his example really motivated me to try even harder and reminded me what it really means to be a servant of the Lord. I am super excited that right now I have the opportunity to be a missionary. It reminded me of why I am here serving to begin with! That scripture in D&C 4 about serving God with all your heart has been going through my mind all week. I really hope to be able to give my whole heart to this work! I only have 18 months as a missionary and I am almost done with 4 of them! It's crazy how fast it goes, so I better use my time here well!

I love you all and hope you are having a good week!!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

Temple trip

Our temple trip was great! The Gila Valley temple is so pretty and it was definitely a neat experience! On Tuesday we got up a little early and headed up to the temple around 8.  It’s a 2 hour drive there, but it was really pretty and worth it! Once we got there, we stopped and had lunch at this Hawaiian grill that gives missionaries a discount. Then we went and attended our session. It was mostly just our zone and a few other older couples. Afterwards we took some zone pictures that I will get to you eventually since they're all on Elder Stidham's camera.  So it may be a while. Then after we drove back and spent the rest of our day doing what we normally do!

Wednesday we had district meeting which was good. Our district leader asked me to give a short training on temples. I just talked about how important it is to get our recent converts focused on going to the temples and not to let investigators get the idea that baptism is the stopping point. I think it went pretty well.   I was really grateful for the chance to bear my testimony on the importance of temples, because that's something really important to me. I am just so grateful for temples because the veil is so thin there, and it's so easy to feel God's love for all of his children there. I always feel healed from all of my worries every time I go there.

So funny story! Every week we have to set goals to accomplish throughout the week and so this week because we hadn't done so well the week before in visiting enough less actives/ recent converts we set our goal a little lower than usual.  We also figured that since we would be at the temple all day Tuesday we wouldn't be able to get as much done, but this week was crazy and somehow we managed to have 11 visits with them which is more than what our highest goal has been since I got here! 

This week we also got to go knocking again which was not as effective as it was last time, but it wasn't bad. One of the last houses we knocked on we waited for about 5 minutes at the door, because this lady kept yelling from inside that she was coming.  When she finally opened the door she was really excited to see us.  She didn't have time for a lesson right then, but she invited us to come over the next night to visit her.  She also told us that we should go visit her neighbors because they were super nice people. It was a bit surprising, but we were happy about it. Sadly her neighbor wasn't home, but that leads to another story. The next night we went back at the time she had asked us to come.  We had tried to call her beforehand, but her phone wasn't working, and sadly she wasn't home.  However, as we were leaving we ran into her neighbor and started talking to him. He was really drunk. It took me a few minutes to realize it, but then he started asking us if we were twins and telling us about how he would throw Holy water on her house sometimes because she has a lot of struggles and needs some help from God.  He went off about how he is no angel, but he tries to be or something like that anyways it was kinda funny.  From the sound of it, she could really use the Gospel in her life, so we are going to try visiting her again tonight.

We also got to visit with one of our new investigators. We're really excited about her. It turns out that half her family is Catholic and the other half is LDS including her husband who is just like super inactive and now going to another church.  She seems like she will be good to teach because she has a lot of questions which means she's thinking and genuinely wants to find out for herself.

This week our ward mission leader also encouraged us to start using the talk the Sabbath is a Delight to teach our less actives the importance of the Sabbath day.  It was cool because I had read that talk a few weeks ago and had tried to do the same thing. We've been using that a lot lately though. There is one less active who has a really strong testimony of the Gospel, but she works on Sunday.   Sometimes we get scared about being super bold with them, but for some reason we decided that we needed to watch that talk with her. The Spirit was super strong and we were able to talk to her and encourage her to keep the Sabbath day Holy and try to find a new job. She had told us she had been and hadn't found one yet.  I just got this really strong prompting that I should ask her if she had tried fasting about it. She said she hadn't and that she would try it. We haven't gone back to see her yet since then, but I know that with that act of faith God will help her find a new job especially since she is trying to keep His commandments.

Some more good news! I finally got to extend a baptismal date to the 12 year old girl we've been working with! We set it for October 17 the same day as the Tucson temple ground breaking! I am super excited for her! She seemed nervous and unsure if she's ready, but we promised her that we will make sure that she is! It was actually super cool because the day we were planning on visiting her I had spent my whole hour of studying reading my patriarchal blessing.  I didn't think that I would be able got gain revelation of what to teach others from it, but something just really hit me in it.  I was prompted that we needed to change our lesson plan from talking about temples and families, and instead talk about the Savior and how much he loves us using the scripture in 1 Nephi 21:15-16 and talking about how He suffered for us and will never forget us because we are inscribed on his palms.  He kept those scars to remind us that He died for us and to show He knows us each individually. It turned out being the perfect lesson. God has definitely been guiding me every single day. 

That's about all that happened this week!

Love you!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

I got to drive!

I am doing really great! We went to a party at one of the member’s house for dinner on Monday, and I sat by a lady in our ward whose husband is in the bishopric. Turns out she went to BYU and majored in Human Development hoping to go into occupational therapy, but changed her mind.  That was pretty cool since that's what I have been wanting to do! Also, she's like super pregnant and I think her baby was due like 2 weeks ago. While we were eating she leaned over to me and told me that she was having contractions, but she didn’t want to tell anyone because it may be a false alarm. And I'm like oh good if she ends up having it tonight then I will be the first one who knew she would. However, she still hasn't had it haha.

We started doing all our planning on our ipads this week. It's been really crazy and confusing, but I am sure it will be fine in a few weeks! We just have to spend a lot of time putting old information onto it for the future missionaries!

Thursday was really fun! On Wednesday night we exchanged companions, so I ended up going with Sister Anderson. She's super fun! I was really nervous, because I would be taking over Hermana Budges and my area for the first time.  This meant I'd have to pretty much decide everything we were doing that day and try to talk to people in Spanish more! It also meant that I finally got to drive! I’ve missed driving! It turned out being a really cool spiritual experience! We weren't really able to visit many of the less actives that we had wanted to, but instead we got to go knocking a lot! I was super excited! We ended up placing 4 Book of Mormons most of which were in English, but it was still really neat. I like how within just a 3 minute visit with someone we are able to discern some of their needs and share something about the gospel that applies to them. We went to one lady’s house and started talking about the restoration.  She wasn't super interested, but as we were about to leave she told us that she was Native American.  We ended up talking to her about the Book of Mormon and how it is a history of her people. The Spirit was super strong and her eyes lit up when we talked about it. She wasn't really interested in our message, but she was really excited about the Book of Mormon we gave her!

That day we also got to teach one of our referrals for the first time! It was a bit of a struggle, but the spirit was still there.  We were able to set up an appointment for next week. She's been to church a few times before and seems really excited about it! It was really great after so much time of not really having many investigators that we finally found someone who is interested! Hopefully it works out! It was a really really great day! I think it was because I stepped out of my comfort zone a lot.  I just need to remember that the Savior is on my side and not to fear!

Also we were able to meet with one of our eternigators, (eternal investigators) and finally got her to agree that next time we see her she would make up her mind about being baptized! She's a really sweet girl, and we keep going back because her family is less active, but she's really afraid to commit so hopefully, we can set a baptism date with her this week!

Friday we did our weekly planning and updated the area book almost all day until dinner time. Then, we went with the Elders to practice a musical number we wanted to do for our branch party on Saturday. We ended up just going back home and doing language study after that because our 8 pm appointment fell through. But that's ok!

Saturday was a big service project that we did for half the day with a bunch of other missionaries and people in the community.  That night we had the branch party which was good, but they forgot about our musical number so that was sad, oh well!

Sunday was cool! We had felt a prompting to visit a lady in our branch who is preparing to get sealed with her family in the temple this December. When we got there she told us she was having a lot of family problems and seemed really distraught, however by the end of our visit she seemed totally happy and hopeful again! It's really cool to see the difference just a little bit of time and following a little prompting can make in someone’s life! I am always so grateful to be an instrument in God's hands!

Oh also we go to the temple tomorrow! I am super excited!!! 2 months is way too long to wait!!

Also for some good conference talks to read this week I suggest President Uchtdorfs, and Elder Hollands from the Sunday morning session of last general conference! They are really cool! I love how Elder Holland’s story really puts into perspective what life would be like without the Atonement! I really love it!

Love you!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne

They came to church!

We actually have had some success this week! We went to visit our one progressing investigator this week the little 9 year old girl. She's doing great and finally had her prayers answered about the Book of Mormon being true! So that's super exciting! We went over 4 times this week to see her and her family. Last week her step mom who is inactive came to church. This week we went over on Saturday to see if they'd come, and we accidentally interrupted their parents surprising them with new bike.  Luckily, they were happy we were there. We managed to get the whole family to commit to going to church before they got too distracted. 

We also got to visit a lady who has been too busy to see us, but finally she let us in on Tuesday! Apparently she has been inactive for 7 years and has a really strong testimony but work has been keeping her away. That's a big struggle here especially since lots of the people don't have green cards and take whatever work they can get. Anyways she ended up being super friendly and invited us over again on Thursday, so we got to see her twice!

I told Sister Budge that I really felt like we needed to try to visit the Relief Society president, because we hadn't yet.  We didn't know her trailer number, but Sister Budge guessed and it turned out right! Not just that but turns out she had been hoping we'd come by, so she could give us a list of all the less actives who need visiting teachers. It was such a cool experience. God was definitely guiding us in that moment.

This week we also went over to see one of the recent converts who has been inactive. We told her how no one had been in gospel principles 2 weeks ago.  She felt bad and decided to go. She also asked to feed us dinner. She runs a 24 hour day care at her house so we were kinda surprised because it's sometimes wild there. But she invited us over, dinner ended up being at 2 in the afternoon which was strange for us, but it was really good! We were able to share a lesson and the video, “He Lives.”  We finished by testifying of the Book of Mormon and inviting them to church on Sunday. It was a really neat experience. 

We also went to go visit a less active who moved in a month ago and we invited her to come to church. It was amazing because she told us that she felt like her family really needed to go back to church right now, so she would try. She's a really awesome lady who has gone through so much and so it was great hearing her wanting to put her faith in action.

Then the very best part of the week was when we went to church, and all of the people we had invited and committed to coming to church showed up! Even the other lady who works at the day care that we don't really know came! It was a miracle because we were so used to them saying they'd come but not actually come! It was a great blessing! We ended up having 3 less active ladies and their children and two nonmembers not counting the little girl who is our investigator there! It was awesome!

Anyways this week I have been reading a lot of scriptures on having peace through trials. I love section 122 of D&C. We actually shared this with one of our less actives, and it really helped her. I just love it because no matter what happens, it's all for our good!

I also love the part in 1 Nephi where Lamen and Lemuel are complaining because they don't understand their father’s vision, and Nephi is just like, well did you ask God? And they say no, and he goes off about how we can't receive knowledge from God, if we don't ask him! If we do ask, he will answer! It kinda goes along with D & C 6: 23-24, 36-37 about how when we do get an answer from God we need to stop doubting and trust it. He is the surest foundation we have, so obviously any answer from Him is a guarantee! We need to trust Him! "Doubt not, fear not."

Sounds like you have been having a really awesome week! Thanks for all of the support! I hope you have a good week!

Love,

Hermana Burgoyne