Suriname Bound!

So I literally just found out about 20 minutes ago that I'm leaving Guyana and headed to Suriname! This is out of nowhere since transfers are suppossed to be next week! I'm in shock right now so this will be a short email since I have to go and pack. 

This really is such a shock and I guess I'll be speaking Dutch at the end of this week! Craziness!

One of our investigators got an answer to her prayer about the Book of Mormon and it really strengthened my testimony in it which was amazing. She was crying at the end of the lesson the Spirit was so strong. Probably the best lesson I've ever given and it was all because of the Spirit. Powerful powerful.

We had an amazing week and had 39 lessons which is like 12 more than average! So we had a huge success with that and I was really excited for this week but I'm leaving tonight so.... yeah. The worst part is that I don't get to say goodbye to anyone which I'm really sad about. But the Lord wants me in Suriname so I'll do my best to serve the people there.

I won't be able to send pictures today since I'm on a split right now in Rosignol and I literally have nothing so pictures will come next week. Keep me in your prayers because this is about to be crazy! I love you all and hope you all have great weeks.

--

~Elder Burr

He didn't send any pictures this week, but look what I got in the mail today ...

A missionary Christmas ornament for my tree.

Thanksgiving Time!

Hey everyone! Hope you all had great weeks last week because you all deserve it! Guyana is awesome sauce!

First of all, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! I know it's not til tomorrow, but you sure do know how to make this missionary feel special! I'm spoiled to have such good friends as all of you. You made me super happy though and truly brightened my birthday for sure!

Kinda a hard week this week because our investigators aren't progressing as well as we want them to but we are still working hard and doing our best to have them accept the gospel in their lives. We did have 2 investigators at church though which was AWESOME! Adrian and Ashley. They both stayed for all three hours too which is pretty much unheard of so we were pumped about that! There was an awesome lesson as well about the importance of the temple and wow that was amazing. I really felt the Spirit then

The trade-off on Tuesday was awesome. We had seven lessons that day which is a ton and an awesome lesson with a member that night. The member has been going through a lot lately and was kinda losing hope and we had an awesome lesson on God is our loving Heavenly Father and he and Jesus Christ know exactly what she is going through. Testifying of the Savior and his love is always so powerful. We actually made her cry the Spirit was so strong there. Just a wonderful lesson that truly helped her regain that hope and recognize God's love for her. God loves everyone and is always there for us and all that we need to do is turn to him. Not only just when the times are hard but especially when the times are good. We always need to give our thanks to Him. (Trade off was with Elder Horsely and Elder Hunt in New Amsterdam)

We had an awesome lesson with a less active family that has been going through some hard times. The father got back into drinking and the mother has no motivation to take her family and children to church. We were giving a lesson on the Plan of Salvation and then trying to get them to come back to church and I testified on the Atonement and the Spirit was super strong from that and then I got the impression to share 1 Nephi 3:7 and was able to testify that the Lord will never give us anything to do that we can't handle. He will always provide a way for us to do the things he wants us to. Just an awesome Spirit there. They weren't able to go to church on Sunday but we're really hoping they go next Sunday.

Thanksgiving was awesome! We went to the Avondetts place (the senior couple here) for dinner and man that was amazing. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pie, you name it. Such amazing food and such a great time with all the missionaries. That was a highlight for sure! I hope you all had wonderful thanksgivings as well because you all deserve it! I sure am thankful for each and every one of you!

One fun experience that happened was at night in kinda the ghetto area. I was riding along fine and all seemed well until I heard a crash and I stopped and looked back and Elder Hunt had accidentally crashed into another person who was NOT happy about it and actually kicked Elder Hunt because of it and then Elder Cook was able to get the guy away which was good. He was a little crazy and it was a huge overreaction but oh well. Kept us on our toes and no one was hurt so don't worry about it (even though I know my mom will. Love you!)

All is well here and we're still working hard each and every day. I love you all and hope you had great weeks! Thanks again for the birthday wishes! I'm spoiled for sure!

--

~Elder Burr

 Cool boat thing.

 Random Street

 Classic Elder Cook

 No bake cookies

 Thanksgiving awesomeness!

 Nice close up

 Elder Burr in their apartment.

 Puppies and a bird.

 The trio.  Elder Burr, Elder Cook, Elder Hunt

 Sweaty (or rainy) Elder Burr and Elder Hunt

 Teaching at President Kirton's house.

 New haircut

His apartment.

Good Things Are Happening!

This past week Elder Cook has been sick a few days so it's been kinda hard to go teaching but we were able to get some splits going with Clint, (Delon's brother) and I've done all the teaching lately. But I just realized this week after a lesson at a recent converts house of how much I love missionary work. I realized that I am happy all the time and truly looking forward to meeting with each and every person here. Just a realization that I came to that I was so happy all the time. My teaching has gotten so much better and I'm doing my best to teach with the Spirit every time because that's the only way that you can teach!

It rained most of Thursday and Friday which meant that we got soaked and mud everywhere! Hopefully it all comes out in the wash but my shirt had mud dots all over the back of it!

I accidentally made Elder Cook crash on Friday which wasn't good. He was tailgating me which I wasn't aware of and I swerved a bit to dodge a pothole and the back of my tire hit the front of his and he just went sideways and ate it. Whoops! No broken bones though, just a very dirty shirt and a few scrapes. I felt really bad about it though.

I had a really good lesson with two recent converts named Sheniah and Selena when I went teaching with Clint. I taught about the importance of repentance and how it is a gift from God and only possible because of Jesus Christ. Man when I was testifying of the Savior, the Spirit was so strong and they really seemed to get it. Just was an awesome lesson and the best one I think I've ever given. So wonderful.

I met with the branch presidency on Saturday while Elder Cook and Hunt stayed at home since E Cook was sick and we had PEC which was the first time they've had it in a few years! Great things are happening with this branch and I'm learning a lot on how to lead a branch and kinda be a bishop I guess! You have a lot of work and a LOT of responsibilities it's crazy! But PEC was awesome and we talked a lot about fellowshipping and inviting back less actives. Just overall unity in the branch and it was super exciting. Home teaching is getting started and the branch is doing great things! 

We had a really good lesson with a member (Rollins) who had a stroke early this year and he can't talk very well and doesn't have much control over his body but he's an amazing guy. We had a lesson on how God is Our Loving Heavenly Father and it was just amazing. I was able to testify to him that God loves him and knows exactly what he's going through and Rollins was able to talk to us and he said that he too knows that God loves him and has never forgotten him. Man that was an amazing Spirit there and just a really special moment for all of us. I know that God loves each and every one of his children and we are all worth everything to him.

Its been an awesome week! I hope you all have a great week as well!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 Elder Burr and a chick.

 A beautiful sunset.

 Elder Hunt, Elder Cook and Elder Burr in their apartment.

 Elder Hunt and Elder Burr.

The Fire Pepper

Hello all you wonderful people! I hope you all had wonderful weeks as always! Guyana is doing wonderful as well!

First of all, Shout out to my best friend Tyler Rossi who turned 19 this past week! Man is he old! I guess I'll be there shortly so I can't say that for too much longer. I hope you had a wonderful day!

This week was filled with craziness! One cool thing that I tried for the first time was seven curry which can I just say is Amazing!! SUper tasty stuff and I ate it on a lily pad which was pretty awesome if you ask me! 

Later that night at the same house the Sonia has us (Elder Cook and I) try something called a fire pepper. We were dumb enough to take her challenge of eating it and let me just say that the pepper is appropriately named.. Basically me and Elder Cook died for 15 minutes because it was the hottest thing I've had in my life. Like our faces turned red and my face started tingling it was so hot. That was some pain that I've never felt before. So guess what we're doing this next week? We're going to try the hottest pepper in Guyana called tiger-teeth or something like that. Yeah we'll need all your prayers for sure. We may not live to tell the tale... Kidding!

We had a mission-wide fast for President Egbert since he was having problems with his eye and let me just say that it worked. He testified that to us at zone conference this past Friday and got super emotional about it. It was super powerful. He's back now for good and still as amazing as always. Zone conference was AMAZING and it got me super motivated to help out the branch and to know what I need to do to help New Amsterdam grow! Wow the Spirit was super strong there. Amazing stuff.

On the way home from zone conference, it was a two hour drive to get back to New Amsterdam. And two hours is a pretty long time. One thing about Berbice is that there are no such thing as public restrooms to go in... So about an hour in I started to have to go and I thought I could make it all the back to New Amsterdam... Yeah that was a mistake. We were about 15 minute away and I was panicking because if I didn't get out of the car then and now, I was going to pee my pants and that wouldn't be cool! So we were crossing a bridge and I made Elder Horsely pull over and just ran out of the car and barely made it. And yeah I peed on a bridge... Not my best moment. Yep I'm a missionary and that was representing it well. Whoops! A little embarrassing to say the least.

One scary thing that happened was that Elder Hunt got food poisoning and was shaking super bad on Saturday when we had a weird split thing going in Guyana. It was pretty scary and luckily President Egbert was there and he and one of the AP's gave him the most intense blessing I've ever heard. It was incredible. He told him that he WOULD be healed. And Elder Hunt was able to go to church the next day and is feeling pretty much back to normal again. The power of the Priesthood is real and that was a miracle for sure. Just plain amazing.

I had the opportunity to go on a split with a member of our branch named Clint yesterday and so I got to basically teach most of the lesson for the first time. We taught Sheniah (a recent convert) about the Atonement and I testified of the importance of it and how grateful I am for the ultimate expression of love that Jesus Christ did for us. He suffered for all of our sins and died for us so that was could be saved and live again. I felt the Spirit so strong then and Sheniah really seemed to understand the importance of what Christ did for us out of love. I'm trying my best to develop that love each and every day and to view everyone as Christ and God views them. Everyone is precious to them and they love each and every one of us no matter what we've done.

I hope we can all try to strive to develop a little more charity this week and view everyone as God does. I love you all and I hope you enjoy your week!

-- 

~Elder Burr

PS - Oh! One more thing! On Wednesday we got 12 new investigators in one day. That's right ONE DAY! It was pretty awesome. Good stuff!

 The Scripture Case!!!

 Elder Cook being a bunny

 Me and a bird (gotta have the animal picture)

 Seven Curry

 Eating the Fire Pepper

 Rain

 My human shield on my emergency bathroom break.  Yeah, I'm smooth!

Me and my nose.  People called me Rudolph all week ...

The Trio Returns!

Things are going well here in Guyana although they've been pretty crazy this past week!

This week has been pretty good. We got Elder Hunt on Thursday and we got a bike for him but it was broken so that whole night I ran to every appointment. Let's just say I was a little bit sweaty. If you saw the white guy in Guyana running with a bike everywhere in the Ghetto, yeah that was me. Then the next night his bike broke again so I ran again! And on Sunday it broke yet again... but we all walked that day. His bike is being pretty janky! We had an international day of service (Mormon helping hands) on Saturday where our branch did a blood drive so we were there most of the day.  It was a great success and we had some good contacts at it. We met temple workers from Brazil at it too which was crazy! They were visiting Guyana and wanted to find the missionaries so that they could go to church! They found us and they were super awesome people. Sunday there was a blackout from 8-6 so we were in the apartment with no AC and it got up to 90 in there... That was fun.... NOT! We weren't even really moving and we were still dripping sweat... Yeah it gets a bit hot here.

A mysterious thing happened Saturday morning when we were getting ready to go. Something wet started falling from the sky. It only lasted about 30 seconds but I'm pretty sure it's called rain. Haven't felt that for a while!

I gave my first baptism invitation and the people said yes in the first lesson! That was super cool and they are a great family. Slowly but surely I'm getting better at teaching and I'm relying on the Lord a lot in it and He's providing! 

Also last night was some Hindu holiday thing that we went to for a bit. Like a parade thing but it was pretty cool. It was hard to do much without bikes! 

On Wednesday we got 4 new investigators which was pretty much unheard of! Super excited about that and we're wishing the best for all of them. We want them to feel the same joy that we feel about the gospel of Jesus Christ. THe gospel is for everyone and we want everyone to receive it!

It was a good week and a bit crazy with figuring out how to fit three missionaries in the apartment but we're figuring it out. I hope you all had a great week! I love you all!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 International Day of Service Blood Drive.

Mormon Helping Hands

 Contacting people on the street. 

 More contacting. 

 Elder Hunt and Elder Burr 

 The blood drive.

 The volunteers and the missionaries.

 A  baby donkey. 

 90 degrees in their apartment.

 The Hindu Holiday Thing.

Alligator x2

Best title ever! Alligators are pretty cool! Hello everyone! Hope you all had wonderful weeks because I had a great one! 

So we got transfer calls on Saturday andddddd....... Me and Elder Cook are staying! But there's a catch. Elder Hunt from the MTC will be with us so I'll be in a trio yet again! Crazy huh? Didn't see that one coming at all. We're excited though and kinda freaking out because we're going to have to figure out how to fit another person in the house. It'll be crazy for sure but we're excited! Man it was a shock to us though. 

I had an amazing Spiritual experience this week which was so wonderful! I was on a trade-off with Elder Dulaki (our district leader) and we were visiting a part-member family. The family was having a hard time because one of their family members was doing a lot of bad things and just seemed to be lost. They were having a really hard time with her. I got the impression to share 3rd Nephi 17:4 which was the scripture that my sister chose our family to ponderize a few weeks ago. It reads: 4 But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them. 

I was able to share how no one is ever really lost. God always knows where each of us are and all he wants is for us to come back to him. You can never give up on anyone because no one is lost to God. He will never give up on us. That seemed to make a big impact on the family and it was a really cool experience for me and a testimony builder.

Fast Sunday was also something that was great! First of all, fasting in the Caribbean is super hard because you sweat so much and lose all the water that is inside you. So you basically die of thirst by the end of it but I've made it through two already so I can handle anything. The testimony meeting on Sunday was AMAZING! The members bore such sweet and wonderful testimonies and the Spirit was so strong in the meeting. They spoke of love for one another and how we can all beat Satan. It was amazing and I was grateful to be there. The members are so great here! I'm excited to spend more time with them! 

Now to the alligators. Me and Elder Cook and riding up to a member's house and see something on the road ahead of us. We come up to it and see that it is an alligator that very recently died because it got stabbed in the head. We were close to the member's house so naturally, we pick up the alligator and ride over. Now imagine that. Two white guys in Guyana riding a bike and holding a dead alligator passing a bunch of people. There will be legends told about us for sure. We put the alligator in a bag and it now resides in our freezer and we're planning on cooking it at some point! The very next night we were headed to another appointment and we see another alligator that is on it's way out but still alive. So yet again we pick it up and examine it. It was still kinda alive so it was weird to feel the tension of it. You can just imagine it. That one is sadly not in our freezer but it was cool nonetheless. 

That is all for this week and I'm excited to stay in Guyana for a little longer! I love the Lord and I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I love you all!

--

~Elder Burr

 The alligator.

 The beautiful sky.

 A weird bird.

 Elder Burr in a random, unfinished house.

Are you from Utah?

Hello all once again! And Happy Halloween! I can't believe that it's already Halloween! Man time flies when you're working hard! This Saturday we find out about our transfers and it's come up so fast! Craziness!

Yet another wonderful week filled with miracles and great times!

One amazing thing that happened was that we got a call from a member who said that she had a friend who wanted to be baptized and is already going to church! That's pretty much unheard of! We had to explain that we need to teach the lessons first! Her name is Oniqua and we got the chance to start teaching her and it's been wonderful! She's so receptive to our message and really wants to be better. That was like the coolest thing ever!

For the title of the email, we were visiting an inactive family and then we see a white guy going for a run. It was the weirdest thing ever because you don't see many white people here! As he passed us, all he said was, "Utah?" And me and Elder Cook got offended and proudly announced California and Colorado! The stereotype is true that all Mormons are from Utah. Oh well! It was pretty funny though.

One cool thing that happened this week were blessings! Me and Elder Cook gave 6 blessings this week so we've really gotten a chance to use our priesthood! It's amazing to see the faith of the people as we give them and it's truly God who's doing the work through their faith. What a blessing the Priesthood is!

On Sunday two of our investigators came to church!! Shabana and Ashley! We had to put in a LOT of effort to get them there but they came and it made us so happy! We were having a hard time getting investigators to church so this was an answer to our prayers for sure. They said that they enjoyed church and will think about coming next week. But we'll make sure they come. Once they start coming to church, they progress so fast and it's amazing to see the change it has on people's lives.

Fun fact that I found out yesterday. Shabana (a 12 year old girl that's one of our investigators) has the same birthday as me! December 1st! That's the best day ever in my opinion but I may be a little biased ;)

Also, it was Elder Cook's birthday on Sunday and I made him a cake. It turned out great although the frosting was super runny (pictures later). He had a great day though and he's 20 now! Not a teenager anymore!

One fun thing that happened was that we were going to visit a less active family and the husband was SOOO drunk it was insane. Flopping all over the ground and everything. We were teaching his wife and he stumbled over and said, "You wanna fight??" and Elder Cook just said, 'sure" and didn't do anything. Well the drunk guy then said, "babe, get me my cutlass" and he promptly walked straight into a pole and fell to the ground. Then in the closing prayer we hear, "Whose bikes are these?!" and after the prayer he has on my helmet and is walking into a bush. Funniest thing ever that was also really sad because it's a sign of what alcohol does to you. We're going to try to get him off of it so hopefully that happens. Alcohol is bad news and I've really seen what it does to people here. Bad stuff.

It's been a great week though and we find out about transfers on Saturday! Exciting stuff! I'm super anxious and I don't know if I want to go to Suriname or stay in Guyana for another transfer! It's up to the Lord though because he knows best.

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers and I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

--

~Elder Burr

 Sweaty Elder Burr

 A beautiful sunset.

 Some pictures of Guyana.

 The first time he has worn gel in his hair.

The best cake you've ever seen!