Miracles! and Baptism?? What??

Hello everyone once again! It seems like a weekly thing now, but this week was awesome filled with many miracles!!

We had a crazy crazy week this last week. First of all, we had a baptism! Elvira got baptized on Saturday! It might have been the first time that a baptismal date got pushed forwards! She was so ready though and just is an amazing girl and just did so awesome! Her brother Ivaldo baptized her and it was very very spiritual. The whole family is now baptized and they are excited to go to the temple after a year! I am so pumped for them and I love that family so much! I am going to be so sad when I get transferred and have to leave them. Going to be a sad day.

We also starting teaching Astrid again and she's on a new baptismal date which we're super excited for! She's still doing awesome and is so sincere it's crazy! Love her as well. We started teaching a ton of new people this week which was super fun and got a bunch of new baptismal dates with the Draaibus family (they are awesome), Chiral (Has been smoking like crazy forever but really wants to change and has cut his smoking by 70% already which is sick!), Stefny (who is super smart and so sincere and really wants to find the truth. Pumped for her), and finally Michael. We had the best Restoration lessons with him ever that was just full of the Spirit! Marciano bore his testimony on the truthfulness of the Gospel and on how he got his answer. So cool! Then we all knelt down and Michael asked in his prayer if the message was true in the most sincere prayer I might have ever heard and after the prayer, he said "I feel different. I know that this message is true." WHAT?! So so awesome and he has a baptismal date as well. Super excited for him. They are all awesome and we're excited as well because Raisa is getting baptized this Saturday as well! Just everything is going so awesome and I love it here! The Spirit is so wonderful!

We also had a less active named Sister Ramlal come back to the church for the first time in years! We brought Sister Marlene the Relief Society president with us to the lesson and she shared her conversion story and worked miracles! So so excited to see her at church and Paramaribo South is just exploding with success! Absolutely love it here and wouldn't want to be anywhere else! This is basically home for me right now and I can't even imagine being anywhere else.

Sorry a bit of a shorter email today but I'm running out of time! I love you all and appreciate your prayers and love that you send my way! You all are the best! Have a wonderful week and think on Christ in all that you do. Find those miracles ever day because they are always there! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 Baptism! Edmund looks so fly! :) 

 Quite possibly the most beautiful tie that you've ever seen!

Het Priesterschap!

Hello everyone once again! I hope that everyone had a wonderful week and that you all were able to feel the Spirit! We had another great week here in Paramaribo South!

First of all, transfer calls were this last Saturday andddddddd...... I'm staying here with Elder Van Den Herik!!! Super pumped to stay here because I absolutely love it here! #Pararmaribosouthisthebest!

We had a really awesome week! Were able to see lots of miracles and the Lord truly did bless us in our missionary work this week. It was so cool! One sweet thing that happened this week is that the branch president called us saying that someone needed a blessing and it was a referral for us so we were super pumped about that and went and taught the family about the Priesthood and then we gave them a blessing and it was probably the strongest Spirit that I've ever felt in my life. Just so amazing and the whole family was in tears after it and then the parents also wanted blessings. So we went back later, had an awesome restoration lesson with them and were able to give the parents blessings of comfort and it was so spiritual. They really are wonderful. The mother then gave us a referral to her brother who we also we able to give a blessing to and we are now teaching all of these families and they're doing awesome. What a blessing it is to have the priesthood power and to use it to bless the lives of others. 

When we were heading down to teach them another time a guy called us over and asked us to stop and we talked to him and he said that he met with the missionaries about a year or two ago and really wants to meet with us again. So we went and saw him yesterday and after we said the opening prayer, this girl walked over and asked if she could join and then another guy asked if he could join as well and that lesson was just awesome! They all listened very attentively, felt the Spirit and want us to come back. So many miracles from this one family. So grateful for the Lord for blessing us with this!

Elvira and Raisa are progressing great, and Elvira is in Mosiah in the Book of Mormon! Just reading like crazy, marking her scriptures and she's understanding what she's reading! They're both getting baptized on April 30th and we are so excited for them! They've just changed so much and are living the gospel and it's been so fun to see the change in people as they accept the gospel. The gospel is the best!

I'm so grateful for the gospel that we have in the Earth today and for the Priesthood power. It really is amazing and can bring so many miracles. Only through the Lord's help was I able to give these blessings in all Dutch. I'm grateful for the Lord! He's helped me so much and I'm so grateful for him.

We were also able to do some service and there was so much stuff to throw away, but they didn't give us enough bags so we did the only logical thing: Dug a giant hole and buried it all. They have no idea I'm pretty sure but it was pretty effective it seemed like! It was either that or leave in above the ground so I think it was a good idea ;)

We also helped the Fiedkou family move as you can see in the pictures! That was crazy and there was a fridge lowered down from the balcony and I thought that we were all going to for sure fall in the trench but thankfully we didn't. Sad that they're gone and I'm going to miss them a lot. But life goes on.

That was our week here and I'm pumped to continue serving here in Paramaribo South! I know that transfer calls are inspired and that I'm here for a reason so I'll do my best to be a consecrated missionary and to serve with all my heart, might, mind and strength. I'm grateful for all of you and hope that you have an amazing week! You are all the best! Love you lots! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 Ivan (awesome member)

 Shoarma (not healthy but pretty tasty!)

 Helping the Fiedkous' move 

 More moving

 My new scriptures!

 Good-bye Zuster Walsh and Zuster Ibraheim (probably spelled that wrong).  You will be missed!

Families Can Be Together Forever!

Hey everyone! Hope that you all had stupendous weeks and that you saw many blessings in your lives! I sure saw many miracles and had a super awesome week this past week!

One of the best parts of the week was teaching Edmund's (our recent convert) daughter(Elvira) and seeing how sincere she is and how bad she wants to get baptized and live with her father again. She's currently living with her aunt but wants to live with her father and they're planning on doing some legal stuff this week to have it so that she can live with her father. Very very cool and she's reading every day and is in Jacob right now and is getting baptized on April 30th! Super exciting and she's doing so great.Edmund and his family are already planning on going to the temple next year so they can be sealed for time and all eternity as a family! What a blessing it is to have the temple and to be able to stay with our families forever! I sure do love my family so so much and am so blessed to have them by my side. They are so supportive and I can't express how grateful I am for them!

 Also her friend named Raisa is also progressing super well and is also getting baptized on the 30th which we are so excited for! It's going to be a great day!

We also found another cool family this past week and had an awesome restoration lesson with them and they were so into it and super excited to hear all about it so we're excited to see their progression and hopefully they can make the steps to be baptized! 

Another highlight was an exchange with Elder Hunt that I was able to go on! It was super fun to serve again with him and to see how much we've both grown! He's super good at Dutch and such a great missionary! Hopefully I get to serve with him someday! That was a great exchange and we were able to see the miracles (and the sunburn) in his area. Great time!

We were also able to do service for some investigators this week and to build up our relationship so we're hoping that great things and miracles happen because of it! Much of the branch was gone this week going to the temple but they're coming back soon which is exciting! They did over 300 baptisms for the dead which is such a miracle as well! Temples are amazing and I can't wait to go again after my mission! 

Learned a lot about sincere prayer this past week and was able to strengthen my testimony in it and also to make my prayers stronger. What a blessing it is that we can talk to our Heavenly Father and that he can communicate back with us through the Holy Ghost. Prayer really is so important and I want it to become a driving factor in my missionary work. Something that Elder Hood told me was to let prayer rule my mission. I'm taking it to heart and hoping to see the results. Great week here and I am loving Suriname! Best place ever and I just love every single day! 

That was my week and I hope you all have a great week and come closer to our Heavenly Father! That's everyone's goal so that we can return to live with him one day! You all are the best and I love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I really do appreciate it so much! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 The view from my study desk.

Me!

Forgot to take very many pictures this week!

My bad!

General Conference!

Hey everyone! Hoe gaat het met jullie? Hoe was conferentie? Hope you all had a great week and learned a ton from conference this last week because I sure did! 

We had a hectic week since we were preparing to move so we cleaned like crazy this week and didn't get as much time as I would've liked to proselyte but it was ok. The new apartment is a lot smaller but it'll be good. Elder Van Den Herik really likes it which is important. Ivaldo ended his mini mission yesterday which was a little sad. Going to miss that future missionary. I definitely learned a ton from him and I hope that we were able to help him out a little bit as well. He did a wonderful job and bears a powerful testimony. I love that kid! Probably the most spiritual moment of the week was when Ivaldo gave a family a baptismal date and they accepted! The Spirit was so strong and it was a great moment for Ivaldo and it just made him feel so great! Just was a wonderful experience and I'll miss having him around all the time. The favorite phrase of the week was definitely "jij bent gek!" (you are crazy) and we had a ton of funny and very spiritual moments with him. He has a bright future for sure and will play a big role in the growth of the church here in Suriname.

Two of our long time investigators are also making great progress now and it's been so cool to see! They are reading from the Book of Mormon now more often and are making a sincere desire and attempt to change. Cool to see the role that the Book of Mormon plays in people's lives and the chance that everyone has to change.

Man was conference amazing or what?!?! So man great talks and great speakers in general! Just a tsunami of the spirit and a great time for me to self evaluate myself and see what I need to improve on (which is a LOT! But thats the joy of the gospel and the atonement; the ability to always change and improve).  I loved the quote about how the atonement is used for repentance and also for forgiving. And with forgiving, sometimes you have to forgive yourself. That's one thing that's hard for me, forgiving myself, so that was super good for me of how I can better use the Atonement in my life and continually improve myself. I also loved Jeffrey R Holland saying that all the Lord requires of us is to try and to have the desire to do good. Sometimes I feel like Nephi and just think that I make so many mistakes and how could the Lord ever accept me and this was just such a comfort for me. I cannot wait to read all the talks again and study them! Super excited for that! Conference was such a  blast with all the missionaries here and I love Suriname! If any of you want to see what conference is and is all about then you can go to lds.org to find the talks given. The prophet of God spoke to us and I truly know that he is called of God. What a wonderful experience and blessing that we have to have a prophet on the Earth today!

Love you all and hope that you have a great week and check out general conference because it was the best! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 New Apartment

(Elder Van Den Herik)

 Sweet hike today to Brownsberg Nature Park

Elder Burr and Elder Lewis

 Elder Burr!