Lilian!!!!!

Hey everyone! Hoe gaat het met jullie? Leven is goed en onze Hemelse Vader is beter. Jullie zijn geweldig! Have fun google translating that! I hope you're all doing wonderful! Life is great! We had a super fun week as well!

We had a great week this week! We have a new investigator named Jimmy who is so awesome! He showed up at the Father's Day activity and at church and we were able to see him 3 times this week and he's the greatest! He can play piano and guitar by ear and already has "I Am a Child of God" pretty much down. Pretty awesome and he's reading out of the Book of Mormon and came to church on Sunday! So cool! He's super funny and is just a wonderful guy. Elder Van Den Herik had to fix a lot of bikes for the zone leaders this week which took up kind of a lot of time, but hey what can you do? So that went really well and he got them all fixed up! I also went on an exchange with Elder Hunt in his area on Friday and that was just awesome! Elder Hunt is a stud missionary and I learned a lot from him about listening to understand and on just being a consecrated missionary. He's awesome! We got three new investigators and they all seem pretty awesome which is so cool! Happy for them for sure. Definitely the highlight of the week was the baptism! Lilian got baptized and was so ready for it! She was literally jumping up and down when she passed the interview for it. The Spirit that was there at her baptism was just so amazing and sweet. She knows the covenant that she has made and is fully prepared to endure to the end. She has more faith than anyone I've met before. Love her! That was just so awesome!!!!! I can't explain it in this email, but she is just so wonderful. There was also branch conference for Paramaribo branch on Sunday and that was awesome! President Verwey is an awesome teacher and talked a lot about bringing the lost sheep back, on loving one another and how to react when situations are tough. Just a spiritual feast and it was a great Sunday! That was our week!

Seeing Lilian's faith has been so inspiring as well and it's made me think a lot on how I can improve my faith overall. Faith is so important and is the first principle of the Gospel! Without faith, who are we? As we strive to develop our faith and use it to bless the lives of others, the miracles will come!

Love you all and I hope that you have a sweet and fantabulous week! You all are the best! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 De Doopdienst! (The baptism service!)

 Lilian is the best!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all you wonderful fathers. I really do appreciate you all and especially my own Father. My dad is the best dad that I could ever ask for and has helped shape me into who I am today. He's awesome!

This week was pretty great! We ended up finally getting to go out on Thursday and beyond and that was so nice! I was going a little insane with being inside the whole time. but at least I had Ivaldo to keep me company! We taught a new person this week named Karishma and she's pretty cool! We invited her to invite her whole family to the next lesson so we're excited for that. She was cool because she basically contacted us and asked if we could come, and we were just like "yeah of course!" When people do that, it's pretty rare and awesome so we're very excited. Lilian is doing just wonderful! So so wonderful. She came to church again on Sunday and absolutely loved it! She's getting baptized this upcoming Saturday and is so excited! She has already invited a ton of people, including people that aren't members of the church and she wants to bring them to the church as well. We're about to get a ton of referrals from her and she is just so prepared! One thing that was so cool is that we had a lesson with her on Thursday about fasting and we talked about how she needs to fast for a purpose when she fasts and she asked if she could fast for her less-active son so that he could stop smoking and return to the church. Is that a righteous desire or what?! Of course we said yes and that that would be a great idea. But that wasn't all. She mentioned it with the relief society sisters and they all made a plan together to fast together for her son. It made Lilian cry and it was just so precious. The Christlike love that was there and the faith of the members and Lilian were so present. So awesome! We also had zone meeting on Saturday and the President and Sister Egbert were there! We talked about our Heavenly Father and man was that awesome! The overall impression that i got from the meeting was that I need to improve my relationship with my Heavenly Father and I'm so excited to do it! So that was just wonderful and I'm super excited to go teach the members about who God is! We also had interviews with President Egbert which are always wonderful and he just makes you feel wonderful and helps you through everything that you are going through. Love that man! Finally we had a super fun Father's Day activity that the Relief Society put on and it was super fun and a ton of father's came! The branch is doing well and the love is there! Great end of the week for sure.

I am also grateful for my Heavenly Father. Without Him, none of us would be here. Look around at the world around you and see the wonderful nature that is there and realize that it is our loving Heavenly Father that made this all possible. I love Him a lot. As we get a better relationship with Him, we become much happier people and can help others to have this same happiness!

Have a great week everyone and I love you all! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 Ivaldo dying his hair.  Pretty funny time!

 

 An awesome quote about our Heavenly Father.

Sweet Father's Day pillowcase that I got.  Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Fathers!!

Mosquitoes!

Hey hey everyone! Hoe gaat het met jullie? Hopelijkse jullie allemaal hadden een geweldige week afgelopen week! You all are awesome!

We had a pretty good week for half the week this week! Lilian is just doing wonderful and is progressing great towards her baptismal date on the 25th! She came to church again and is so prepared and so excited to endure to the end! We had some awesome lessons with her on enduring to the end, missionary work and teaching and learning and she's just so excited about the gospel! She's a joy for sure. We had a sweet family home evening with Broeder Marciano and his family on our characters and it was super fun. We drew pictures of eachother and wrote things that we admire about them. Pretty great and pretty hilarious at the same time. Good stuff! Those were the highlights for sure of the week and we also had some really good PEC and Coordination with the branch that was actually effective and focused on the needs of members. Pretty awesome stuff. The bad news of the week is that Elder Van Den Herik got another mosquito disease thing and was stuck inside for most of the week. So that majorly stunk but what can you do? Not much really! Keep on working hard and the Lord will provide a way. That was basically our week this week!

Being district leader has been fun since I get to hear how everyone's day has been and I also get to teach the missionaries every Tuesday. That part is scary since I feel so inadequate, but with the Lord's help I'm able to do it. 

One thing that I learned a lot about this week is living what you teach and how important that is. We need to live the gospel before we can preach the gospel, otherwise we cannot have the Spirit to be with us. As we turn to the Lord and ask him what we need to change about our lives, he will show us those things and we can become a little more like Jesus Christ each and every day. Our goal is one day to return to live with our Father in Heaven and it comes through living to gospel!

I hope that you all had a wonderful week and hopefully I have more to write this upcoming week! Jullie zijn de beste! Mi lobi yu! 

-- 

~Elder Burr

Check out this guy that we found in our apartment. Don't worry Calissa and Aunt Tina, it was dead. Ivaldo did put in on my head though which wasn't cool. Gigantic spider though!

What Else Could Go Wrong?

Hey everyone! Hope y'all are doing fantastic because you all are wonderful! Thanks for all the support and I hope you had an awesome week with many miracles!

The title of the email basically describes this week for us...Man oh man did we have a hard week this week. Was a big struggle since we barely got to do anything it felt like. Monday the landlords son came to try to get us hot water and that lasted from 6-9 which is our proselyting time on Monday. Elder Van Den Herik then went to take a shower and about 3 minutes into it, BOOM, all the power went out! He had soap all over his body which was pretty funny since we had no water but overall it wasn't good. Tuesday after district meeting, they came back over until 7 o'clock so we only got two lessons in since they were there the whole time. Wednesday we had weekly planning, PEC and Coordination which took most of our day so we only had one lesson. Thursday we were excited to have a nice full day and as we were heading to our first appointment, Elder Van Den Herik swerved around a hole and I was pretty close behind him, hit it and BANG, there went my back tire, completely flat. So we walked all the way to the bike store and then to the church and then again to the bike store because we forgot a part and there went most of our day. Friday, also excited to finally have a full day and we had one lesson and were heading to another and Elder Van Den Herik hit a bump and BANG, there went his front tire, flat. Are you serious??? Repeated that process again. Saturday we went and picked up Ivaldo for a mini mission again with us (going to be awesome) and had to get him all settled in and get him a bike and everything so that took a bunch of our day. And then Sunday we had to bike to our planning meeting at the other church which took almost two hours and that took up most of our day. Wow... So that was a little rough because we had less than half the lessons that we normally have, but what can you do? As the hymn says, "Let us all press on in the work of the Lord". Life goes on! We did have an awesome lesson with Astrid and Lilian though and they're both on a baptismal date again and both came to church! Lilian was such a miracle because she was experiencing a lot of opposition at work with the church and everything but she made the decision to not listen to them anymore and wants to get baptized! She is so pumped to do everything now, came to church, is reading every day and is giving everything to the Lord! She's wonderful!! Those were the highlights this week and we also had really good lessons with Marciano and his family who are just such great members! He's getting married super soon as well which is so awesome! So that's wonderful! The Lord is continuing to bless us with miracles and I know that he has prepared people for us and has given us so many miracles! We're super excited to have an awesome week this week and to teach lots of people! That was our week!

Overall the Lord truly did bless us with some amazing lessons and we'll keep on pushing forward and serving with our heart might mind and strength! The Lord is truly who is in charge and as we trust in the Lord and realize that everything is in his hands, the miracles will come and you'll be able to see why everything happens! Everything happens for a  reason and there are no coincidences. Trust in the Lord and he will do the rest! 

I love you all and I hope that you're all doing wonderful and still reading out of the Book of Mormon every day! Have a great week! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 Elder Burr

Elder Van Den Herik