Elder Burr- Spreading Hope in the Heat: 12 Days Til Trinidad!!!

Hey everyone! Fawaka!! Hoe gaat het? Things are going great here still! Busy busy busy all the time and I'll do my best to share some of the best moments from this past week!

So first of all, I have to say that volleyball has gotten super fun here! I've taught them all how to actually play and we've had some great, competitive games where we get some good rallies going and three hits per side every time! I love it! They definitely still need some work but I'm impressed with how fast they've learned. Volleyball is always fun.

I heard that I missed the best BYU football game of all time on Saturday! Are you serious?! A hail mary on the final play of the game?! How do I miss that?!?!? But I'm glad they won and it's the talk of the MTC right now. Super excited for them!

Going back to my week though, we got a third investigator on Thursday (we now teach Evine, Julio and Jerry), so now we teach three lessons every day which is insane! In all of our study time it's just preparing lessons because we have so many. I'm too the point now though where the lessons don't take too much time to prepare because I don't teach with notes anymore! All i have written down are Scriptures and main ideas to say and the rest I can speak now without having to write it all down. Crazy awesome and I've definitely been blessed because there's no way that I would've ever been able to communicate in Dutch with just 4 weeks of learning it. The gave van taalen (gift of tongues) is real and I have definitely been blessed with it.

We were having a hard time connecting with Evine and had taught all of the lessons we could and we had nothing left really to teach so we went in to teach her on Friday with basically no plans and we just prayed that we would know what to say. And man oh man, that was the best lesson we've ever taught. We talked about the Holy Ghost and what it feels like and what it means to us and the Spirit was so strong. We weren't really the ones teaching the lesson. The Holy Ghost was the teacher. Evine, (our teacher) came up to us afterwards and told us that it was an amazing lesson and one of the best she's ever heard. Wow that felt so good. The rest of the lessons were great with her and yesterday we committed her to baptism! Even though it wasn't really real, it felt so amazing to help her come to the decision to be baptized and it was a very spiritual experience.

Sunday was fast Sunday and we had mission conference in the morning which was great! Our MTC presidency spoke to us and we learned that we need to express our love for God more and also learned the value of bearing testimony frequently. Great talks and a great Spirit. In sacrament meeting was a testimony meeting and it was a testimony builder for me to hear all of the wonderful and personal testimonies that each missionary had. Even though I didn't get the opportunity to bear my testimony myself, I was thinking about it a lot and got to bear it for my district members which was great! Also that night we saw an elder and he was 7' 2"!! The tallest person I think I've ever seen before and it's hilarious because his companion is like 5'6". He looks like a giant compared to everyone but he seems like a really great guy. Pretty much all of the missionaries are. Also on Sunday we took pictures with the Dutchies at the temple which was fun as well. That night we listened to a talk by Elder Holland about opening your mouth and man did that change my perspective on how I should preach. Super powerful and I don't think I'm really afraid anymore to open my mouth out in the field.

Also, we leave in 12 days!!!!! Crazy crazy crazy!!! I'm so excited to get out and serve but I still know that I have so much to learn. I'll do my best to listen to the Spirit and do my best in helping those around me! I want to develop Christ-like love for everyone and I strive to do better each and every day.

Those are the main highlights of the week and don't worry I'll put up my pictures in another email in a few minutes. Thanks for all of your prayers and continues support! I love you all and keep you in my prayers as well! You're the best!

~Elder Burr