Arizona is
great! I really love it here! There are a lot of storms right now. We ended up
getting stuck at one of our investigators houses, because the street was a
river and it was raining super hard for about an hour! There have also been a
lot of lightning storms lately. I love how people think it won't rain in Tucson. Haha that's funny! It rains a lot and hard.
This week has
been really neat! We've had a lot of blessings come our way. I don’t have as
many stories to write about this week so this will probably be a little shorter
than usual, but lots of blessings! Monday was great! It's crazy how weeks just
fly by here. I seriously can't believe it is already P-day, but anyways Monday
we went and played sports (sat around) after emails, and then we all went to go
get Jamba Juice because we get half off here. Then the elders wanted pizza and
out of nowhere Elder Gonzalez said, ok let’s go! I'll pay! He paid for us, and
the 2 other elders to go get pizza! So that was fun! Then we went to FHE with
this inactive family in our ward and the family I mentioned last week who have
both the YW president and YM president and Relief Society president in it. It
was a really good lesson! We talked about the talk, Forget Me Not by President Uchtdorf. I love it and really suggest reading it!
Tuesday we
went with the elders and helped paint another one of the inactives in our ward’s
house. It was fun! The blessings started coming that day. While we were
painting, the Gospel Principles teacher in our ward called us and gave us a
referral. That was super exciting! We
went by their house later that day and tried to visit, but only her son and
daughter were home so we decided to try again Wednesday. Then, we went to Mutual
to try and get to know the young women better. We also went to go talk to the
Branch President about what we could do for the branch. The funny thing is
beforehand we got this vibe that the Branch president didn't like us, but ever
since we asked him if we could meet with him and since meeting with him, he was
been really friendly to us. That's a blessing! Then one of the counselors in
the bishopric came up to us and asked us if we would go with him on Saturday to
visit one of his students who used to be an investigator. The funny thing is all of the actives that
have been giving us referrals are the ones we haven't been visiting. We've been
trying really hard to go visit other members of the ward especially actives so
we can get to know the branch better. The
ones we haven't really visited are all of a sudden super friendly to us too!
It's kinda crazy!
Wednesday we
stopped by the referrals house and she told us to come by later, because she
was making cheesecake and so we set up an appointment with her for 7. Then we
went and picked up dinner from the Lopez family who had left it at the Branch
Presidents wife's house because they weren't going to be home. We went and took it to the Elders. I got to
try Pasole which is basically spine meat soup. It actually tasted really good!
Then we rushed over to go meet our new investigator. She is really sweet and she seems pretty
interested. We only got to meet with her for 10 minutes though. In that time, we learned she has 6 children
and we got to meet 3 of them! We are really excited, and although we didn't
teach a lesson the Spirit was definitely there! That night, this cousin of one
of the less actives we have been trying to get in contact with texted us and
asked us to come over. This was
exciting, because we have been praying for that family. We set up an
appointment with her for the next day.
Thursday, we
had zone conference which was really neat. I learned a lot of new stuff about
teaching with the Book of Mormon and having an effective personal study. It was
really helpful. Then we tried to go visit the cousin of that one family, but
realized we didn't have her address and her phone broke so we couldn't reach
her and no one else had her information.
Finally we found it in her progress record, and we were about 2 hours
late to visit her. She was really disappointed
that we were different missionaries than before, but she invited us to come
back the next day. That night we went over to one of my favorite families
houses and had dinner with the Elders in our area.
Friday we
studied a lot. I was getting super anxious to go out, so it
was such a blessing to finally get out of the apartment. We went to go visit the cousin who we found
out isn't a member and it was really interesting.... she opened up really fast
to us, but she didn't seem especially interested in the gospel. At the end of
our visit, she asked us if we could feel the evil spirits in her house and both
me and Hermana Budge are like no? She kept going off about how her 2 year old
daughter sometimes talks to them. We were thinking she's two. She is probably
talking to herself. Anyways she asked us to bless her house. Hermana Budge
didn't want to do it, so I ended up praying for her house. That was kind of a
funny experience.
Then we went
to the Santa Cruzes for dinner. Hermana Santa Cruz had bought me a really cute
blue, black, and gray skirt from Costco, so I was pretty excited about that.
While we were there, we got to burn Hermana Budge's skirt to mark a year of her
being on her mission. I played frisbee
with their dog the whole time. Then we hung back to talk to Hermana Santa Cruz
when the Elders left. When we finally left, we were driving down the street and
saw the elders parked off to the side and turns out they had been waiting for
us and wanted us to come with them, so they could visit some of the single
mothers in our branch. So we went to go visit an inactive lady who just moved
here who had known Elder Gonzalez from when he was serving in the branch she
had just moved in. We were talking to her when her sister showed up, and the
Elders ended up teaching her a lesson and got her information for the Hermanas
who are over her area. Now both her
sisters are taking the discussions! We also got to visit with a few other
families. We were also fasting that day to get more referrals and to be able to
start teaching this 9 yr old that I mentioned in previous letters.
Saturday we
did weekly planning and tried to visit the student of one of the councilors in
the bishopric, but his wife wasn't home so we will try again Wednesday. Then
the hermano we were with asked us if we would go visit his family who is part
member and his wife who he is separated from. So we got 1 more referral!
Sunday turned
out even better! Originally we didn't have dinner plans for that night, but
when president figured this out he called up his Mom and asked her to feed us. We had a really great dinner with them. I got
to try menudo (cow stomach soup) which isn't too bad if you just swallow the
meet whole and don't chew haha. We had a really great lesson with them. I love
their family. They have the cutest 2
year old daughter, and she likes to give me high-fives all the time. Then at
church we got one more referral from the same hermana who gave us one earlier
this week, so we are going to go with her to visit her tonight. She also asked
us what days she could go with us to teach people, and so we discussed all of
the people who need to be visited in the branch and planned pretty much a whole
day to go and visit them with her! Also this week we have dinners every single
day!
Anyways
something that really hit me this week is happiness is all about perspective. We
have to choose to be happy no matter what happens. I've realized that I have
never really had a bad day on my mission, because I just choose every day to be
happy no matter what happens. My companion
and I try to always have fun while we work, and not worry too much if things
don't go how we want it to. It's blessed
us so much!
Oh also I
love this talk by Neal A Maxwelll from the Priesthood session in 1986. It talks
a little about how Jesus didn't just start out knowing everything perfectly and
how he learned step by step, just like we need to. Perfection takes work and
none of us need to be perfect right now, we just need to work on it. He had to
learn how to succor His people like it says in Alma 7:12. We can learn to be
like him step by step. I am so grateful for the Gospel. It just make so much
sense. I wish that all people could just realize that! Anyways love you!
Love,
Hermana Burgoyne
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