Happy Halloween!

Hey everyone! Hope that you all have a great Halloween today! They don't have it here in Bonaire so we'll have to find some candy somewhere or something!

This week was a pretty crazy week... Hardly anything went to plan at all, It was a little rough, but what can you do? Not going to mention any numbers or anything, but let's just say that we had more flat tires than lessons this week. It was a struggle but we tried our hardest and that is all that the Lord can ask of us so we know that we are still being successful even if the numbers don't say so sometimes. We talked to some cool people this week and even though almost no one gave us their information this week, the few that did all seem pretty awesome and are all from the Netherlands! So that was a big miracle for sure! We had a really cool lesson with Sister Carti about the Plan of Salvation and it was just so great because her knowledge of the gospel is just so good and she just gets it. She's sharing the gospel with her husband as well and is seeing a change in him. She's awesome!! We also had a lesson with Omar where we talked about the importance of a testimony and he expressed his desire to continue to strengthen his testimony and wanted to find ways to continue to strengthen it. He's a good kid and we played some good basketball. He's a pretty gifted athlete and we had a good game of 2 on 2 going. Super fun to actually play some good basketball! Church went really well and the talks were on Family Home Evening and Home Teaching and they went super well! The Spirit was there and we were all spiritually uplifted. That was most of our week this week. Oh yeah! And this morning, we got up early and the 4 missionaries headed down to the national park and we all went and hiked up and watched the sun rise! Pretty sweet and it was gorgeous! That was a super good time! 

That was most of our week and we are excited to see many miracles this upcoming week! The harder the times get, the greater the miracles, so we're going to see some huge ones this week! One thing that I learned this week was the importance of accepting the Lord's timing in everything and recognizing the importance of patience. Oftentimes, we want people converted now and we don't see the eternal scheme of things. We read a lot in the scriptures about how people being converted to the church is comparable to harvesting fruit. What would happen though if we harvested the fruit when we never gave it a chance to grow. There's no point in harvesting seeds or plants that aren't ripe yet! Every little seed that we plant is important and every little increase to the plant that we make helps it get closer to getting ripe! We're planting lots of seeds and it's helping these fruits grow! Stay positive and happy though everything because no effort is wasted!

Love you all and hope that you have a great week! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 Sunrise!

 (I asked him about his tag saying Elder Christianson ... He said it's his Halloween Costume) 

 Yeah, it was sweet!

Zone Conference!

Hey everyone! Hope all is well and that you're getting excited about the Christmas season coming up! It's basically already here which is nuts! 2017 here we come!

We had a good week this past week! I'll write some highlights that we had! On Tuesday we had a super good lesson with Genesis (one of the members) about faith and she was really struggling but really opened up to us and let us know what was bothering her. It was really cool to see that trust and to be able to help someone who was down. Also on that day we saw Wing (an investigator) and had a really good lesson on the Restoration and he seemed pretty open and interested in the message! To cap that night, we finally saw the Albus family (the best members ever) and talked about God with them and it was so spiritual and crazy! They are just the best family ever and it was so good to have that lesson with them that was long delayed. Wednesday night I flew to Curacao to go on exchanges with the missionaries there. My passport is getting filled up little by little! Kinda fun to travel so much even though it takes a lot of time. Thursday we were with Elder Polanco and Elder Walton and it was great! Most of the day I was with Elder Walton and it was cool to see how much he had grow since the last time! Great missionary and we had a cool lesson with Sister Ester who fed us as well which was a bonus! Couldn't understand a lot of it, but I tried my best to speak with her and it was cool to try to speak Spanish there! That night I went with Elder Polanco and it was great as well! He's a stud missionary and just super humble and is going to do great things! Friday we had zone conference in Curacao and it was amazing! We talked about Our Purpose as missionaries and about Power and Authority and it was just so good! Learned a lot about how important it is to have faith and not doubt and it was just great overall. Elder Sheppard and I got to teach a little bit in it as well which went super well and the Spirit was there. We talked about the importance of not only preparing investigators, but preparing members for baptism so that we can have the best spiritual experience possible. Super cool. Saturday Elder Peterson (one of the assistants) came teaching with us for the day and we had such a good lesson with her on the Plan of Salvation. She's so awesome and the spirit was just so strong. We also had our interviews with President Egbert and those are always amazing. We talked a lot about the future of the branch and group here and it was great! Finally Sunday was awesome with church. Brother Mens gave the lesson in the second hour on obedience and did an amazing job. The Dutch group is just amazing! That was our week for the most part!

I love the gospel and it is so important to always keep on living the gospel. Don't ever be afraid to open your mouth because you never know who's live you will change forever! Keep on doing your best and relying on the Lord because that's what is important! You all are awesome! Love you all!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 I am so bad at taking pictures! I always forget! Sorry!

Bonaire Days

Hey everyone! Fawaka?! Haven't been able to say that for a while since I'm not in Suriname! Not going to lie, I do miss it! Hope that you all are doing great!

It's been a pretty good week this past week, a bit of a struggle, but we're working our hardest so we know that we're doing all that we can. We are now in a new contact area since we finished the last one and this one is very high Dutch population which has been very nice. So the majority of the people we talk to now are Dutch, now the hard part is having them listen to us at all since most of them just say, "not interested" and close the door. So it was hard having people to talk to and listen to us, but there were a few so we were greatly blessed because of that! The miracles still come and we're so grateful because of it.

Been a struggle since the two families that we were teaching, (Rosemary and Raul, and the Vos family) both dropped us... Pretty sad, but it's all in the Lord's hands and I'm sure that they will accept the gospel some day. We taught a new person named Marion yesterday and it was one of the best lessons that I've had here in Bonaire. It was really guided by the Spirit and he was a little against us at first, but by the end, he was pumped about the Book of Mormon and he said that he's really going to read and pray about it. He's searching for the truth which is so cool. Very excited for him and he's lived in the Netherlands his whole life and is now living here. Very exciting! Sister Noij just got put on the 21 Day Challenge as well and we are PUMPED for that because she's super excited! One thing that she said is that it has always been her dream that her husband could baptized her daughter. The sweetest desire ever and she has so much faith so I'm confident that miracles will come from it. 

That was most of our week and I've been studying a lot on faith lately and the importance of having true faith and it was really cool reading in Ether 12 about the many miracles that come from great faith. I've been really trying to help others grow their faith so that they can see the miracles and have also been attempting to develop it in myself. Faith is the first principle of the gospel and you act based on your faith. My faith has definitely grown this week and it's such a good attribute! As we do God's will, our faith will grow and it's as simple as that sometimes. Make sure that we are truly living the gospel and the faith will increase, often without us recognizing it. Faith leads to that action so more faith means more righteous actions. Keep on increasing that faith!

Love you all and I really appreciate the support and prayers. They are felt! Ik hou van jullie allemaal!

Jullie zijn geweldig! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

Me! Forgot to take pictures... Whoops!

Bonaire Days

Hey everyone! Hope that you all are doing awesome! Life is good, life is good.

We had a good week this past week overall. Not too much new things happened. We're still contacting lots of people here just trying to find the Dutch people and then the Dutch people that are willing to listen to us. Pretty fun stuff. We have a new family that we taught for the first time this past week! They are family Vos and are very good friends with members from Stasia (or however you spell it). They are super cool! They're very adamant that they are never going to convert, but hey, that's what everyone says at the start. The fact that they let us come over and said that we could come back is pretty big. We brought Sister Mens and Lilian with us to the lesson and Sister Mens killed it! Bore such a powerful testimony that this is the truth and answered every question that they had with no problem at all. Her testimony is so strong! Hard to imagine that she's only been a member for less than 3 months. Super cool. We taught our members more this week and they're all great as always and just such strong members. We had a good lesson with Sister Carti, a less active, and she came to conference and gained a strong testimony on reading the Book of Mormon every day. So she's read every day now, came to church again on Sunday and is loving the gospel. Big miracle there for sure. One sad thing that happened is that Raul and Rosemary (another family that we were teaching) dropped us on Saturday. Sister Noij came with us and it was a really good lesson, but at the end, they said that they didn't want to get the lessons anymore. Super sad just because we knew how much the gospel would bless their family and we wanted it so bad for them. One of these days in the future, they'll accept the gospel though but it was still a little sad. But the work goes on! No use in being down because that's not going to solve any problems, So we're still working hard and trying to find the people that are ready to accept the gospel. Overall it was a good week though!

I've studied a lot on charity lately and it's been cool to see the love that our Savior has for us. That love in undescribable and just infinite. As we look outwards instead of inwards and try to see others through God's eyes is where the true charity starts coming in. Keep on serving others and you'll have so much more happiness. Let us all press on! Love you all! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 Iguana friend

 Donkey friends

Some Elder named Elder Burr

Hurricane??? No Way!

Hey everyone! Hope that you all had an awesome week! We had a fun one here that was yet again, crazy!

So a hurricane apparently was supposed to hit us but it barely nicked us if anything. We got a few minutes of rain (maybe 5) and that was pretty much it. They made us stay in for safety though which was a good thought, but it wasn't really needed since that would be like the weakest rain that I've had on my mission so far. Pretty tame but we were almost in a hurricane which would've been pretty crazy! Aruba got hit a little bit in the coast and the power went out for a bit, but didn't get hit very hard and Curacao also hardly got hit at all. That was a big blessing though and we're all grateful that it did not hit us!

I'm staying in Bonaire which I figured, but I thought that there was a chance that I might go back to Suriname and that Elder Hardy would come here since he is in Guyana right now, but the Lord had other plans. Bonaire is great though and I do really love it here. Wonderful place to serve and I've learned and grown a LOT since I've been here. Things are going alright here. Kind of a tough week since we had the one day inside and conference took out a lot of proselyting, but it was good at the same time. Lots of contacting and trying to set up appointments, but every one of them fell through this week, so getting new investigators has been a bit of a struggle. We're trying our best though and that is all that the Lord can ask. We do have quite a few appointments set up with new people this week so we are very excited for that and are praying that they will go through! Elder Christianson is a stud and we've worked well together and have had no real problems at all. Great missionary and is super funny! Hilarious person haha. 

Conference was AMAZING! Such a spiritual feast and boost. There wasn't a single talk in any of the sessions that I didn't like. It was absolutely incredible! I really enjoyed the two talks about prayer because that helped me a lot to evaluate my prayers and to see what I could do better with them. It was an answer to my prayer and I can't wait to get the conference magazine now and to start studying it! Super excited. The whole conference was just incredible though and that final song on the last session was unreal! Let us all press on! One of the best songs that I've ever heard them sing I'm pretty sure! Conference is the best!!

We had a really cool experience this last week where we prayed to find an elect family as we went out to proselyte and a house went into my head that we should go contact. So we went to the house, and talked to the father that lives there and he already had a Book of Mormon from other missionaries and was willing to let us come back and share a lesson with his family. Huge miracle and testimony builder that there are people ready. I don't know if he will accept the gospel or not, but the Lord is preparing people and we are planting seeds with all of the people that we talk to. No effort that we make as missionaries is wasted, so we need to keep on working diligently and with exact obedience especially when the times are tough and it seems like no one wants to listen. There are always people ready and my testimony of that grew a lot this past week. Missionary work is the best!

God loves you all and Christ lives! Keep on reading the Book of Mormon every day! Love you all and have a great week! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

Island Hopping!

Hey everyone! Are you all as excited for Conference as I am?!?!?! It's coming up!!!! So that's what I'm looking forward to so much!!! Doing my best to prepare for it and I can't wait for all of the wonderful speakers and the Spirit that we will feel! So yeah haha conference is the best!

This last week was yet again, Crazy!!! Elder Sheppard and I were on exchanges with the other Elders in our zone this whole week in different islands! First we headed to Aruba with Elder Munoz and Sarmiento. They are awesome and I had the opportunity to teach one of their recent converts who's first language is Dutch! That was really fun to teach and I feel like I was able to help her understand better so that was really sweet. We then headed with Elder Polanco and Tanner and they are studs! So humble, obedient and diligent! Really good time with them and we had some service with them for their branch President and that was a lot of fun! There was a pretty decent sized snake there which was crazy but cool because they caught it and we got to feel the scales and everything. Lots of fun and I got to practice my Spanish a lot which was also fun. Spanish is hard after you've learned Dutch! Just a whole different way of thinking altogether! They are wonderful Elders though. After that we headed to Curacao and they had a baptism! And guess who I saw there...? Zuster Parker and Zuster Vernes (Suriname missionaries)!! They are serving in Curacao right now because immigration in Suriname has been difficult lately so that was a nice surprise. I got to ask some questions about Suriname and it was great to speak some Dutch with them. The baptism was great though (sadly not on the beach, but still great) and very spiritual. I got to work with Elder Walton while Elder Rios and Sheppard worked together. We had a good lesson though with a returned missionary and Elder Walton is a stud. I learned a lot from these missionaries and I hope that I was able to help them with some things. Finally got back to Bonaire on Saturday and we did some service for Sister Carti and she came to church on Sunday which was awesome! Later that day, we had a lesson with our investigators Raul and Rosemary and we brought Zuster Noij with us. That was a miracle! Zuster Noij shared her conversion story and it brought the Spirit so strong and Rosemary said that she was really interested in our message and that she would read and pray about it. In other words, we're pumped!!! Finally Sunday was just so awesome. Zuster Noij and President Albus gave talks and Zuster Noij shared about missionary work and about how fun it is to do member missionary work. One of the best talks that I've heard on my mission. She's so wonderful! President Albus also gave a great talk on being thankful and it was also great. Everything was just so awesome! Great week and it's good to be back in my area now.

Man I have totally been able to see as well the importance on helping others and looking outwards. My testimony grew a lot on looking outwards this week as I looked outwards at the missionaries in my zone on exchanges. Super fun to serve them and to try to help them in their missionary work. Great experience and I learned how much more fun it is to focus on others than yourself. Keep on looking on what you can do to help someone's day and you will be so happy by doing it! One thing that I have been doing is praying every night to be the answer to someone's prayer the next day. The miracles have been so cool with that and has brought me so much happiness! I recommend it! Thanks for all that you do! Have a great week! Que pasa bon semana! Lobi!

--

~Elder Burr

 So ... we were still hungry after eating and had some more rice, so our brilliant idea was to put peanut butter, jam, caramel, sprinkles and whipped cream on top.  Tasted about as good as it looks.  Not great!

The Tour!!!

Hey everyone! Apparently I forgot to send out a group email this last week! Whoops! My fault! Hopefully the pictures of this one makes up for it. As you can see, this place is beautiful, especially the water! Yet we cannot go in it... The struggle is real!

We had a crazy week! Monday we completely rearranged the apartment and cleaned up a TON (my mom would be proud of us ;) ), so that took up a ton of time but it was well worth it and the apartment looks way better now. Tuesday was AWESOME! The Albus's took us on an island tour with President and Sister Egbert and it was so cool! We got to learn a lot about the history of the island and also see the absolutely gorgeous water all over the place. Man Bonaire has amazing water! One day after my mission, I want to come back and dive here since it has some of the best diving in the world! The tour was super fun and it was great to spend some time with the Egberts! Wednesday, one spiritual experience that we had was with Sister Noij. We went over and talked about the first vision with her and man it was awesome. We asked her what she learned about God from the first vision and she immediately said like 5 things that she learned there. Her favorite though was the fact that no matter what darkness we may experience or when the times are hard, God will always overcome Satan. She said that that was super important for her and it gave her a lot of strength. It was really cool and Sister Noij is so wonderful and just the most charitable person ever! The members here are awesome!! We also had a sweet lesson with Sister Carti where we talked about God and were able to hear her testimony about why she believes in him and her conversion story. She has also been working on her husband who is not a member and he doesn't smoke or drink at all anymore which is a huge miracle! It was sweet. Friday was intense! We had the craziest service project ever where we had a 10 hour service project for the Albus family in taking down this giant shed and just cleaning everything. It was insane and also crazy hot! We actually went back on Saturday morning and finished it for them and I can say that that was the most insane service project that I've ever had. So worth it though because the Albus's were so happy and grateful and we're hoping to have a lesson with them soon. They are literally like the most busy people on the entire island and meeting with them is pretty tough! Super fun though and well worth it. Also on Saturday as we're taking stuff to the dump, we get a call from President Egbert saying that Elder Lewis needs to go back to Suriname and Elder Christianson is coming here to Bonaire since Elder Christianson was having trouble getting his visa for Suriname and the area presidency told President Egbert that he needed to leave! So I'm getting a new companion tomorrow. Crazy! I'll miss Elder Lewis a lot and I've learned so much from him but I'm also excited to serve with Elder Christianson as well. He's a stud. We'll work some miracles here! We also had a sweet lesson with Omar that night and talked to him about being a "mighty man in the Lord". He's a stud and I love that kid a lot! That was most of the highlights of this week and Elder Lewis is leaving tonight. Super fast but then again, this is a crazy mission!

I learned a lot this week about how important it is to be humble and to always look outwards instead of inwards and to truly look at others more than myself.  It was super humbling but so so good and exactly what I needed. It's amazing how the Lord can tell you exactly what you need to do better and how perfect it is and how much you can still improve. I have a long ways to still improve but one of the joys about the gospel is the fact that we get to improve each and every day! So grateful for that! Ether 12:27 is wonderful and it's so cool that we are all given weaknesses to be humble. Pride is the cause of spiritual destruction and it's so important to eliminate that from our lives. Something cool that I was thinking about this week.

I love you all and I hope that you are all doing great and changing people's lives each and every day. Don't forget to read those scriptures every day and to continually have spiritual experiences! Have a great week! Lobi!

-- 

~Elder Burr

 The Suriname group at the Missionary Leadership Conference

 Bonaire Island Tour

 President and Sister Egbert, Parker, Elder Lewis, Elder Galke & Elder Sheppard

 Elder Burr & Elder Lewis

 flamingos

 Sunsets

 Service

PS - This picture came to me on Sunday morning via email with the following note: Just had church with your son!  I always loved pictures of my son while serving! He is great!