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