Sunday, April 29, 2018

Blacksands


Well this week was definitely a change of pace! Being in a new area is nice! We spend quite a bit more time in the area which is good. We've been seeing this one lady named Mamma Lina every single day this week and she got baptized this last Saturday! The ward is the biggest I've been in on my mission, not counting salt lake, and the members are all pretty awesome! People seem to love helping the missionaries and the Bishop does everything he can to help the ward. I'm pretty hyped to be working here. 

Some random highlights of the week:

-There is a port member family that we are working with a few of them speak french! I got to give the non member papa a blessing in french which was super cool!
- I also got to perform a baptism for the first time which was super cool too! All went well.
-One of Elder Hardy's recent converts named Thelma in the area also referred her friend to us so we just started the lessons with her! We are pretty sure she wants to get baptized and change her life around! Recent converts can be powerful examples to others. 
-I huge part of the neighborhood is getting bulldozed because a business man is building something we think. Some of our investigators unfortunately got displaced :( We found where they moved though. Its this random place on the side of a mountain which is pretty actually. 
-For my studies Ive been looking deeply into the old and new convent that Jesus Christ has made with his people. Its crazy how deep the symbolism gets. Its also crazy how much you can learn while comparing the Book of Mormon with the Bible. 

Bout it for this week! Ill be sure to write more next time. 

Love,
Elder Burbank

Pics:
Mama Lina's baptism
Random beach picture




Sunday, April 22, 2018

Bye Bye Mission Office


Found out transfers this week! Looks like my "travel elder" days are behind me! It's kind of a relief but at the same time kind of sad. I'm really going to miss the area we had. Elda LaMont, Child and I all had some pretty good memories. Some to be discussed after the mish haha. Now Ill be going to a new area and ward called Blacksands! I've heard that this ward is the most missionary minded in the mission so I'm really looking forward to working with lots of members! 

As for the week its been solid. Pday was Pday. 

Tuesday the highlight was seeing Glen and his family again. The lesson got super serious again and I kinda felt like we were chastising the family a little but they all seemed up to the challenge! This Sunday a few of the older boys all came to church too! My last Sunday in the Etas ward but we had a decent turnout with investigators!!! 

Wednesday we went out to a village next to the ocean and taught this Presbyterian lady named Sarah. Turns out she is super interested in learning about other religions but is solidly founded in hers. I wish I could keep teaching her but looks like I wont have that chance :(

Thursday I did an exchange in Blacksands with my previous companion Elder LaMont! Its was actually super legit! We taught a balanced mix of investigators, less actives and members and had a pretty cool miracle. One papa of a family that are almost all members finally softened his hard and is taking missionary lessons! He started following the commandments and is open to the missionary lessons. Elder LaMont said that he wouldn't even take a pamphlet before and now he basically wants to get baptized. It was a nice little sneak peak into the area that I am now in!! 

Friday the highlight was definitely a baptismal interview for this girl named Margret from Fiji! She speaks perfect English so we did the interview in English which was the first time on my mission doing one in English. It was super awkward at first. I kept throwing in Bislama words and couldn't get my point across haha. For some reason talking to strangers in English is just as hard as it was before the mission. Funny how that works. Anyway I found out that Margret's mother is from a village really really close to the village that I worked in for 3 weeks in Fiji! It was awesome to get to talk about Fiji again! She is just a super cool convert. 

Saturday was just a day full of lessons :). Nothing too out of the ordinary. We are really pushing the members to get them to take our investigators to church and it seems to be working! Like I said before we had about 4 investigators come to church finally. Twas a relief. 

That's about it for this week! 
Love,
Elder Burbank

Pics:

-Farewell to the Mahit family
-Elder Hardy
-There is something about kids and climbing in the islands haha. They can just fly up trees and ropes.
-Farewell to Grem and his family







Sunday, April 15, 2018

Another great week


Monday was another casual P-day. The assistants bought us some milkshakes for all the work we've been doing for them. There is this American diner called Jills and the milkshakes are pretty good actually. Monday night we had a powerful lesson with Glen and his family. They basically all admitted that they need to put in a lot more effort into studying the gospel and to coming to church. I was super disappointed when they all didn't come to church after promising us like 3 times that they'd come. Tis the missionary life. 

Tuesday we had like a 2 hour Q n A sesh. in a small little village with people from Tanna. They wouldn't stop asking questions about our church. I felt like we got our point across really well. The spirit was strong. 

Wednesday we spent a while just trying to see a bunch of random investigators next to that same tanna village but nobody was home! We had a bunch of random kids following us around to try and find people but literally nobody was home. To subside our frustration one of the kids ran up a coconut tree and probably gave us one of the best coconuts I've ever tasted. Twas nice :). We also found a part member family while we were just exploring in the bush. Only 1 dude named Kal is a member and everyone else are non members. No one in the ward knew about them till now and they all would like to come to church.

Thursday we found another family from Tongoa. Started teaching them about the Book of Mormon but most of them cant read without glasses! Elder Child and I figured we could just buy some and give some to them. 

Friday we saw Kal again with his Dad, James. James seems to be the only non member in the family that wants to learn more but hes solid! 

Saturday we went to Elder Kennedys and Elder Gauldens baptism! We also invited a random lady from the flight agency to go to the baptism and she came! 

Alright I'm running out of time already so I just wanna say that I'm happy to be on a mission! Ive been learning so much over these last 20ish months! This is definitely the hardest thing Ive ever done in my life but nothing could ever replace the experiences that I'm having. I know Jesus Christ leads us in this work and I'm happy to be the instrument in his hands! Have a great week everyone.

Love,
Elder Burbank



Sunday, April 8, 2018

Conference week


Pretty good week. General Conference was good as always! This
conference didn't really resonate with me as the other generals
conferences though for some reason, I think part of the reason was
because I had seen all the new announcements on LDS.org before I
watched it and we had to watch it in Bislama too. Lets just the the
translation in Bislama is....interesting. Not that I don't like Bislama
its just that the language isn't really capable of capturing general
authorities talks haha.

As for the week it was solid. We had an awesome family home evening
with the Hilliman family. The guy standing to the left of me in the
picture just left to the MTC last Wednesday. We will be picking him up
in like 2 weeks cause hes serving in Vanuatu :)

Tuesday we had zone conference. Elda Child and I gave our zone
training and we thought it went well. We talked about being full
purpose missionaries. For the zone activity half of us just ended up
playing basketball in the rain barefoot haha. It got a little crazy.

Wednesday we finished up zone conference. It was kinda sad cause
president had to start training us on how we are going to transition
to the new mission president! I cant believe President is going to be
leaving in July! Ive spent my whole mission with him and now I wont
get to go home with him as my mission president :(

Thursday we found and helped this lady, Florita, make some simboro. We
talked to her about the Book of Mormon while we made it. We
essentially spent the rest of the day just talking about prophets and
inviting people to conference.

Friday we had some office meeting and planning etc etc. We also picked
up a returning ni-van who served in the Philippines. He got released
but we took him out to teach one last lesson before he flew out to
Tanna Saturday morning.

Saturday and Sunday we watched conference and spent a decent amount of
time in the area given our circumstances. One of our new investigators
who we haven't even taught yet came to conference but we didn't see her
till it was over! We felt super bad. She got lost in the crowd of
people she didn't know. My favorite talk from conference was probably
Elder Bednars about meekness. Some really good insite. Never really
thought about what it meant to be meek before his talk.

That's it for this week!

Love,

Elder Burbank







Time flys - Happy Easter


Somehow it's the forth week in the transfer already. Time is just getting faster and faster. Only 5 months left in the mish! 

This week was solid, Last Monday we had a family home evening with a less active, partial member family. The whole time they were making jokes about how they should come back to church. The husband kept joking how he should get baptized too but nothing ever happens! Only their 13 year old son comes to church haha. We'll keep working with them. 

Tuesday we set a baptismal date with our investigator Zackaya! He's one of Jonathans (our recent convert) friends! Same kinda situation and he want to change his life around a bit! We also had to tell this one lady straight at the flight agency that missionaries cannot in fact have girl friends haha. This lady was slipping Elda Child some notes every time we came into their office to book flights.

Wednesday we finally met with this investigator named Phillip Noklam. Hes one of the dudes we found contacting with president when Elda LaMont lost his planner. By backtracking a bit we ran into him and thought it was meant to be! Turns out hes actually pretty interested in learning about other religions I think. 

Thursday was quite the unproductive day. We took some missionaries to and from the airport like normal but didn't really get out to the area. We did get to talk to some random people at the airport though! Met this lady from Virginia and another from Poland and some other people from France. Perk of being a missionary: you get to talk to everyone from around the world! 

Friday we met with this random papa from the SDA church again. We don't actually know his name but he freaks out in joy every time we come it seems haha. He's been studying the Book of Mormon like crazy! He made so many connections to the Bible it was insane. Elda Child and I also spent a good while to prepare a training for zone conference next week. A ton of missionary comps are doing the trainings this time round. 

Saturday we saw Angelina again and her parents newly born baby boy! They still haven't named him yet haha. She seems to be getting ready for her baptism. We saw a bunch of other people too. We kinda had a Book of Mormon theme going on with all the lessons we taught. It was pretty solid. A nice busy day :) 

Sunday not a single one of our investigators with a baptismal date came to church! They all promised so it was quite disappointing. As for the rest of the day we went out with a member, Adam Hilliman. He leaves to the MTC in 3 days and will be serving in the VPVM! The same member we go on splits with will be getting picked up from us at the airport when he arrives as a set apart missionary haha. Maybe one of us could train him. Anyway that's about it for this week!

Avec amour,
Elder Burbank
Have a good Easter everyone!



From Vanuatu this Week


Last pday was just like the rest except we picked up all the New Cal zone leaders and STL's for mission wide MLC. Its been a good week to see them all again. I think I'll be going to Alberta after the mission cause Elder Secretan and I need to go fishing haha. 

Tuesday we picked up the rest of the the leaders around the mission and booked a ton of flights for upcoming zone conferences and what not. Just a simple office day. 

Wednesday we took all the leaders to presidents house then had a good amount of time in the area. Saw Angelina again. Going to have to push her date till April 14th cause she hasn't been reading! We also met this really cool family from Tongoa. Elda Child just walked up and started shredding their dry coconuts and they all thought he was from Vanuatu cause he knew how to do it haha. We also taught this mami named one eyed marie. She was suuper nice to us. She told us next time that we'd make simboro together. 

Thursday we got to go to a bit of MLC, the dinner out and the talent show. Twas cool.

Friday was another super long day. Up at 3:30am to get all the New Cal people checked in a 4:30am. We also got news of an emergency transfer so we had to make a bunch of last second flights. Also we had to do a couple baptismal interviews all over the place. For one we had to climb of this big hill covered in mud. My shoe was more mud than shoe afterwards haha. 

Saturday we saw Priscilla again for the first time in forever. She said she's at a pivotal moment in her life. Doesn't know if she should be baptized Seventh day Adventist to follow her Mom or baptized Mormon to follow her dad's side of the family. She really like learning with us but she just doesn't know enough yet to make her decision. We also found another family from Tanna who proceeded to rail on Joseph Smith a bit. It took me off guard how much they actually knew about him. I'm pretty sure we answered all their questions well enough. At this point on my mission I've heard so many of the same questions they I think I got some clear answers down :) 

Sunday we went out to find a bunch of referrals without much success. We didn't stumble upon a bunch of SDA members that wanted to talk to us though. They proceeded to indoctrinate us in their church :). I think they were a little taken off guard to see how many of the same things we believed in as well. They kinda came off like they didn't think us 2 young little white kids knew anything about the Bible. To add they recommended we read a book called "secret terrorist". Maybe its worth the read? I do genuinely like learning about other religions. My mission so far has shown me how diverse the beliefs actually get but I don't think I can read other churches material on the mish haha. Bout it for this week! 

Love,
Elder Burbank

Actually took pictures this week!
    
-MLC
-Little baby named Kennedy 0_0
also severed in this mission baptized the girl on the left side of the photo. Crazy.

-Bush walk
-Angelina on the right with a bunch of kids from the "Mahit" family. Elder Child's older brother who