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