Bienvenido Invierno

Hello,

Today I am writing my email in two parts, because I didn`t want Claudia´s baptism and my awesome new companion to have to split the glory.  So here is the "rest of the story" of my week.

Tuesday I got to go the Conce to pick up my new companion.  And my new companion is (drumroll please)..........  Hermana Snyder!!!!!

She totally rocks.  She is from California, but has been at BYU the past couple of years.  She´s twenty years old and the oldest of four kids, just like me!  She studied Spanish before her mission, including doing a study abroad in Spain, and so was in the advanced group in the MTC.  She doesn´t understand everything the Chileans say in their rapid, modified vocabulary, but she holds her own.  She is not afraid to talk to people and asks everybody for references!  It´s so great.  Also, two of her most favortie movies are The Princess Bride and Ever After.  Somehow I think we are going to get along!  (Trying to explain how hilarious the Princess Bride is to a latin companion is next to impossible, so I am glad that now at least any random quotes that slip out of me probably won´t get such strange looks out of my companion!)

Anyway, don`t have much more to say about this week except that today it started raining with a vengeance.  We bought heavy-duty rain capes to cover our backpacks and I think it was definitely a good investment.  Here there is a picture of us in our matching rain capes.  Hermana Phelps (who got one too, though she may not want to admit it) says we look like the Von Trapp Family Singers.  Hahaha.  She´s hilarious.

Your commitment this week:  My grandparents told me in their email this week that there has been a lot of talk lately in sacrament meetings about the importance of references in missionary work.  I want to second that thought.  Your commitment this week is to GIVE A MISSIONARY A REFERENCE!  You´ve got your lists, you´ve prayed and thought about it, and now it is time to ACT!  YOu will be blessed and so will THEY!

Love you all so very, very much!

Until next week.

Lovelovelovelovelove,

Herman

Claudia

This week our friend Claudia got baptized.  She is really awesome, and her conversion story is pretty short, but very miraculous.

Claudia has always been religious, her mother (who was absolutely amazing, from what Claudia tells us about her) having raised her as such.  About two months before we met her, Claudia began to pray that the Lord would be with her always, and she continued to pray for that.  For a while did not really receive answers, but she kept praying.

Claudia works every day, Monday through Friday, from 8:00 in the morning until about 6:00 in the evening, when she gets on a bus and goes to classes (she is studying to get a degree in differential learning) and does not arrive home until almost 11:00 at night.  In other words, she is hardly ever home.  One day she got off of work and was waiting for the bus to go to class when she got a phone call saying that classes were cancelled that day, so she ended up at home when she normally would not have been.  That was the day we came tracting up her street.  She let us in immediately, recognizing that we were the answer she had been praying for.

She started coming to church right away, but we weren`t really sure how we were ever going to be able to give her all the teachings she needed if we could only see her once a week.  So the Lord reached out His hand and worked another miracle.  Claudia has had chronic back and hip pain for a while now, and recently she was given licensia (I do not know how to describe that in English) for her pain and has not been required to go in to work for the past two weeks!  So when she went on licensia, we started visiting her almost every day and at the end of the second week, she got baptized.

Claudia is totally awesome.  She has so much faith and accepted all the teachings and the commandments without even flinching.  When we taught her about tithing, she said that she already had a testimony of it because her mother had always paid a tithe to her church as she was growing up and that her family had always been blessed by that sacrifice.  She is married and has four kids, two adult daughters, one teenage son, and one son who is about eight.  We have not had the opportunity to teach her family much, but I know her example and her faithfulness to her covenants will bless them all and someday their time will come too.

We have been so greatly blessed this past month to have these three baptisms.  I know it is not because of anything I or my companion can do, but simply that the Lord provided a means for these prepared people to be able to learn about and accept the restored Gospel.  What a wonderful gift!

Anyway, that is Claudia´s story!  She totally rocks and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know her.

Jorge

¡Hola Familia!

Another crazy week here in Chile has come to an end.  And the best thing ever - we had another baptism!

So like our first or second week together, Hermana Morán and I were out knocking doors one night and this guy opens the door and says that he can´t let us in right then, but that we should come back another time because he thought his brother might be interested in our church.  So we fixed an appointment, and when we went back, there was Jorge!

The first time we met him, we weren´t really sure about him.  He´s real timid and kind of "backwards," as my mom would say, and we weren´t sure if maybe he wasn´t using some kind of drugs.  But he accepted a baptismal date and said he would come to church.  And that Sunday, he came to all three hours of church!  It was totally awesome.

As we continued to teach Jorge, it became clear that he was not a drug addict, just a little socially awkward.  But he was keeping his commitments and seemed to have a sincere desire to repent and prepare for baptism.

Not only did Jorge read his folletos, but he studied them.  He would take notes and look up words he doesn´t know and stuff.  For example, when we taught the Word of Wisdom (La Palabra de Sabiduría), we had left the folleto ahead of time and when we came to teach, he had written up a definition of the word "wisdom."

Jorge is totally flying through the Book of Mormon, and he is able to recall what he reads.  Last time we checked, he was about 80-90 pages in!  He really liked that Nephi never murmurs.

As we reviewed material and then as we helped him prepare for his baptismal interview, we would ask him questions and he would close his eyes and think about the answer and say, "Don´t tell me, don´t tell me!" until he could come up with the answer he was looking for.  He had really sought to learn and commit to memory the principles he was applying in his life.

His baptism was really special.  At the end of the service, he bore his testimony and said that he had really felt the Spirit as he read the Book of Mormon.  He also said that he felt that the gospel had filled an empty space he had had in his heart since his mother passed away when he was young.  Several ward members that attended commented on Sundayon how special it was, and everyone wants to take care of Jorge.  And the Elder´s Quorum President already wants to give him a calling!  And we also know that eventually he will come to realize that he should probably get a haircut.  :)

It has been really special to get to work with Jorge.  I know he will be an example for his family and that he will become a great leader in the Church.  I am so excited to get to watch him progress even more now that he has been baptized and confirmed.  We are crossing our fingers that he is able to go to the temple with the ward in July and prepare his mom´s name for baptisms for the dead.

Anyway, in other news - cambios today!  There´s a LOT going on in our house.  Hermana Miskin is leaving Libertador after a six-and-a-half-month stay (she has been in Libertador since the same cambio that I came to Chile), and Hermana Morán is leaving too.  They are both going to Conce - Chillancito and Hualqui, respectively.  Hermana Lovell is coming from Constitución to finish Hermana Phelps´s training and to take over Hermana Miskin´s role as Sister Training Leader.  (Hermana Lovell is awesome, so I´m excited to have her in the house!)  

As for me, I will be staying in Libertador and TRAINING!!!!  I am excited but a little bit scared, because this time is the first time I will be training on my own.  For the first time, I am the one who has to know how to navigate the sector.  I have to know all members and be able to work well with them.  And I have to be in charge of the phone (I do NOT like talking on the phone in Spanish, not at all, I just don´t understand anything people say and no matter what I always feel like they are mad at me because I don´t understand the subtle nuances in their voice or in their choice of words and there are no facial expressions to go off of).  I don´t have another trainer in my companionship to rely on, and I am not just finishing the training that someone else started.  It is defnintely exciting, but I know it is a huge task.  I hope I am equal to it.  I pray to love her and to be a good example and I pray that we can be able to work hard and work in unity.

And, for your commitment this week, let´s talk some more about the Book of Mormon!  KEEP READING!  I am attaching a schedule for those of you who want to "read along" with the Mission Chile Concepción.  If you don´t want to try to catch up to us, just start where we are (that´s what my trainee is going to have to do too, so you won´t be alone!)

Anyway, that´s all I have time for today.  I am so grateful for all of you - you are the best friends and family in the ENTIRE WORLD!!!!!

Next week I´ll tell all y´all about my awesome new "hija."

Lovelovelove,

Hermana B

Mini-Cambio, Guard Dogs, and a Monthiversary

This week was a pretty exciting one, as usual.  On Tuesday we had our first "real" mini-cambio, and as predicted by Hermana Miskin, it was a little merry-go-round of companionship swapping.  Hermana Miskin went to Coihueco to be with Hermana Chavez, and since Hermana Chavez´s companion, Hermana Taylor and Hermana Phelps both arrived in Chile this cambio and are still working on the Spanish thing, they couldn´t just be each other´s companions, so Hermana Morán and I split up as well.  I worked with Hermana Taylor in our sector and Hermana Morán went to work in the other sector in Libertador with Hermana Phelps.

Hermana Taylor is pretty awesome.  She´s from Salt Lake and our mini-cambio just happened to land on her 20th birthday!  We had a good old time together with many interesting adventures.  For example, we were in the middle of teaching one lesson when suddenly the little three-year-old daughter throws up all over the floor.  The parents quickly cleaned up the mess and since I didn´t really know what else to do or say we just kept on going with the lesson.  I don´t know if that is a cultural faux pas or not, because I´m not Latin.  I don´t know what we would have done if Hermana Morán had been with me, except that I know she would at least have known what to say and not just sat there awkwardly trying to continue to teach about the restoration while they cleaned up puke.  Oh well.  But the highlight of my mini-cambio with Hermana Taylor was definitely when we were followed by about ten friendly neighborhood street dogs for about two miles.  It was a little annoying, but mostly humorous, having ten dogs follow us as we walked to our next appointment.  Someone even pulled their car over to ask us if everything was okay.  Hermana Taylor, not having much experience yet with Chilean street dogs, was totally exhilarated by it and kept taking pictures.  It was great.

In keeping with family tradition, I decided that I wanted to run a 5K on the Saturday before Mother´s Day in honor of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure that always takes place in Salt Lake City that weekend.  Hermana Morán was kind enough to agree to get up a little early and go with me on a longer run Saturday morning.  She even made us runner´s numbers with the number of days we had been in the mission.  We had a great time, and one of our friendly neighboorhood guard dogs decided to accompany us on the run.  He had a great time too, and though we made pretty good time, at least for me (9'16" per mile), he didn´t even seem to be running at all, just trotting along beside us with this grin on his face.  I´m sure he wants to find a cure for breast cancer too.

Yesterday marked eight months since I went into the MTC.  Crazy!  I wouldn´t say that the time has necessarily flown by, but it is strange to think that all that time is already gone!  I have been in Chile now for six months - half a year!  Totally absurd.

Also, yesterday was MOTHER´S DAY!  It was great because I got to talk with my family, but it was also great because I got to think about how awesome my moms are!  Thank you, moms, for everything you have done for me.  My Mom, Danielle, my Grandmas, Yvonne and Joan, Mom Cannon, "From" Larsen, and all you friends of mine who are incredible mothers and examples to me of raising Zion families.  I love you all and look up to you all so much.  Thank you for your examples, your love, your support, and for the sacrifices you have made on my behalf and on behalf of your other children.  Someday I want to be like you!

Remember last week how your commitment was to make a list of all those people you know and start praying for inspiration?  Well, this week your commitment is to select those names from off that list that have called your attention and DO SOMETHING about sharing the gospel with those people.  Invite them over for a Family Home Evening or a family dinner, invite them to church or a church activity, or invite them to hear a missionary lesson in your home.  If you need help or ideas for how best to go about this, call the local missionaries and they will help you!  And something else that you can do if you are nervous about it is PRACTICE!  Practice what you will say and how you will approach them with the invitation.  Do a role play with your spouse or your kids or a friend and smooth out all those wrinkles beforehand so that you feel comfortable and prepared when it comes time to invite your friends to hear about the gospel.  I promise that practicing helps - we do practices all the time and our lessons always go better because of it.

Also, if you want to read the Book of Mormon along with us, today we finished 2 Nephi.  I forgot the schedule again, but we have been reading an average of 3-4 chapters per day (we are scheduled to finish on June 28), so that should help keep y´all on track for this next week!

Gotta go now.  Love you all.  Be safe and happy and keep reading and praying.

Lovelovelove,

Hermana Burgess

Maria

This week was such a good week.  We had a BAPTISM!!!!  It was so very special.  Our dear friend, María Brígida Acuña Muñoz, was baptized on Saturday, May 4, and was confirmed the next day, Sunday, May 5.  She is a really special lady and she was so ready to receive the gospel.  Hermana Morán and I have felt so blessed to have been able to work with her.

Let´s go back to the beginning, A week or so before I was transferred to Libertador, Hermana Morán and Hermana England were out picking up investigators for church when it started to rain.  María was out in her garden and saw that Hermana Morán was in short sleeves without any jacket and was worried that she would be cold or get sick and offered to lend her a sweater.  Hermanas Morán and England declined the offer, but offered to come back another day and teach her about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They went back once and gave her a basic first lesson, which we call "La Visión para Bautizar."  She didn´t really listen, nor did she accept the invitation to baptism or to church, but did agree to read the pamphlet (folleto) about the Restoration.

This is where I come in.  Hermana England went home, I got transferred to Libertador, and one day Hermana Morán suggested that we stop by to visit María. Her daughter answered the door and said that María was sick and couldn´t attend us, so we said we´d stop by again.  By the time we went back (on Friday, April 12), it had been a good week or so since Hermana England and Hermana Morán had visited her that first time.  We asked her how things went with reading the folleto and she said she hadn´t had a chance to read it yet and made a bunch of lame excuses for why she hadn´t read or prayed about the message that the Hermanas had shared.  The whole time she was making all these excuses, I was sitting there thinking, "This lady isn´t keeping her commitments.  She´s not interested.  We should get out of here and go find somebody who is ready."  And then something in the lesson changed.  Honest to goodness, I don´t remember what happened or why, but even though at the end of the lesson she still would not accept an invitation to baptism, she did commit to come to church and to read her folleto.

On Sunday (April 14) we went to pick her up for church and she had a cut on her knuckle on one of her fingers, which she said came from something that was sticking out when she went to close her gate.  She said that when it happened, she figured it was a punishment for not having read her folleto, so she decided she´d better read it.  Then she came to sacrament meeting and she loved it.  We had planned a little Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with a recent convert who lives just around the corner from María and with a less-active lady from the ward for later in the week.  We planned to follow-up on her experience from church and on her "lectura" in her folleto and to invite her again to baptism at the end of the lesson.  After we said the opening prayer, we started to ask her about church and her reading and it became clear immediately that she had prayed and received an answer and felt that the message of the restored gospel is true.  So before we even taught the lesson we invited her again to baptism, and before I even finished extending the invitation she had said, "Sí, sí, sí."  We asked her to start preparing for baptism on May 4 and she also accepted that invitation.

And she never stopped from then on.  She had received an answer and she was going to follow it.  It was really a miracle, because not only did she agree to live the commandments, she was already living them!  She always came to church and usually made sure that her recent convert neighbor, Carmen, came with her.

Though she did not have much support from her family, and her spouse even told her that he thought the whole thing was a little rushed, she always pushed right on ahead with her reading, praying, and Church assistance.  (Did I spell that word right?)  There wasn´t any teaching she didn´t accept without hesitation, even if she didn´t fully understand it.  And she still insists that 10% is not enough tithing, and even though we told her that she is to only pay 10% in tithing and then she can give as much as she wants in fast and other offerings, she still says she wants to pay more tithing than she should.  At first her Book of Mormon reading was slow, because she doesn´t have the right glasses and the print was small for her to read, but a member of the ward had an extra copy of one of those GIGANTIC triple combinations, and so she gave it to María, and since then she has been very consistent in her Book of Mormon study.

Her baptism on Saturday was very special, and we were blessed to have many members attend, along with another investigator of ours who brought a friend, and three women who attend our weekly English class.  After she was baptized, while we were in the bathroom with her as she changed into her dry clothes, she kept saying, "It changed my life.  It changed my life."  It was such a sacred moment.  After nearly six months in Chile without any baptisms and finally having one, I expected to feel more excitement and accomplishment, but really I just felt grateful that María had this opportunity.  I felt so blessed to have been allowed to participate in her conversion process.  She is not my convert.  Hermana Morán and I taught her some lessons and invited her to do things, but the conversion process took place between her and the Lord.  She understands that she made a sacred covenant to follow the Savior in every way possible for the rest of her life, and she is committed to it.  And at the end of the baptismal service, she got up at the pulpit and bore her testimony!  We were so proud of her.  We love her so much.

And her confirmation was also so special.  After having been given the gift of the Holy Ghost, Hermana Vergara, who was performing the ordinance, said very little in the blessing part of her confirmation.  But he did promise her that her example would lead her family to the waters of baptism, and who can ask for a better blessing than that?

I really cannot express how incredible María is.  I can´t wait to watch her as she grows in the gospel.  She is going to take this ward completely by storm!  I am so, so very grateful to know her. 

Speaking of baptisms, this week in a Zone Conference they gave us some statistics on missionary work that might shock you.  I know I was stunned.  When missionaries go out contacting, working door-to-door and in the streets, they are able to find ONE person out of every 784 (or so) contacts who is prepared to receive the gospel and who end up getting baptized.  1:784.  Not very good odds.  But when missionaries receive and contact referrals from members, ONE referral out of every FOURTEEN ends in baptism.  1:14!!!!!!  In Utah, missionary work is done mostly through referrals, and the missions in Salt Lake and Provo are some of the highest baptizing missions in the world!

See where I´m going with this?  Here´s your commitment for the week:  Get out a piece of paper and write down EVERYONE you can think of who isn´t a member of the Church.  If you think you don´t know anyone, get out your phone and start going through your contacts, or open up your Facebook friends.  It doesn´t matter if you have tried to share with them before or if you think they won´t be interested. WRITE THEM DOWN ANYWAY!  This is the Lord´s work and this gospel is necessary for salvation and EVERYONE has their time.  For example, not long before we started teaching María, she wasn´t ready.  Hermana Miskin has been in Libertador for six months with four different companions, and she told us that before we started teaching María, she had probably knocked on her door at least once with each of her companions and been turned away.  So write down ALL those names.  And then think about those people.  Ponder about it, pray about it, and the Lord will let you know with whom it is time for you to share this glorious gospel message - this opportunity for salvation.  You can do it!!!!  So this week, start making that list.  Start praying and meditating over those names and when you´re ready, ask the missionaries and they can help you decide how to approach your friends and family with these glorious truths.

I love you all and thank you so much for your love, prayers, and support.

Have a wonderful week!

Lovelovelove,

Hermana Burgess

P.S.  We are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission!  I forgot to bring the schedule with me today, but next week I will post it for any of you who want to read along with us for your daily Book of Mormon study.  :)  Just be aware that by next week we´ll be into 2 Nephi somewhere - so you aren´t too far behind!

We Are in Chile Now, Po! (April 29, 2013)

THIS WEEK WAS TOTALLY CRAZY!!!!!!!!

Okay, maybe not the MOST crazy week of my whole mission (there have been some pretty crazy ones, so maybe we´ll have to take a poll or something and see where this one ranks), but nonetheless it has been pretty exciting.  And I have to say I feel like I have been officially inaugurated as a Chilean missionary!  Wahoo!

This Wednesday and Thursday was the Conference for New Missionaries, and Hermanas Morán and Phelps, being new missionaries, got to go.  They left early, early in the morning on Wednesday for Conce and because some of the sisters who work in the zones in Chillan live too far away to travel from their houses to Chillan in time to catch their 7:00 AM bus, we had an Hermana Sleepover in our house Tuesday night!  Hooray!  Hermana Tidwell, from Yungay, and Hermanas Taylor and Chavez from Coihueco came and stayed with us.  Of course it wasn´t really a real sleepover because we just planned like normal and then went to bed like normal, only there were just more Hermanas in the house and three of them had to sleep on the floor.  But it is always fun to get to see other Hermanas, no matter the circumstances.  After our companions left in the morning and Hermana Chavez (who came on the plane with me and Hermana Frandsen) had gone to meet her member-companion for the next two days, Hermana Miskin and I were left together as companions for two days, except in those hours when we were both able to find members to go out with us.  I liked working with Hermana Miskin a lot.  She is a very hard worker and loves being a missionary.  She has had some back problems as a result of a back surgery she got a year before her mission, and despite the fact that she is in almost constant pain she works like crazy and is such a good example to all the sisters in the mission.  One thing I really loved about working with her is her perspecitve.  We taught one lesson to this sweet old lady who listened to our message and everything but in the end would not accept the invitation to be baptized, nor to pray to see if it is something she should do, and so we left without having really accomplished anything.  Other missionaries might have been discouraged or felt like they had wasted time, but Hermana Miskin said as we were leaving the lesson, "Sometimes we just have to thank Heavenly Father for giving us opportunities to teach and to improve our teaching."  I really liked that.  And on top of it all, even if this sweet old lady was not ready to receive our message in this moment, we did fulfill our purpose as missionaries, as we invited her to come closer to Christ.  What a blessing to have that opportunity!

We worked the whole day Wednesday together, partly in our sector and partly in Hermana Miskin´s sector, and then Thursday we had members as our companions for about half the day and then our companions (finally) came home around 7 or 8 PM.  I missed Hermana Morán a lot while she was gone, but I remember how much I loved the conference for new missionaries and how much I learned and I am so looking forward to reviewing what she learned with her and trying to apply those principles in order to improve individually and as a companionship and to learn how to better bless the lives of the people who live in our sector.

The really craziest thing that happened this week also happened when I was with Hermana Miskin.  After sending our companions off to the bus station, we had another hour left before it was time to get up, so we went back to bed and then started our day as normal.  We went to the cancha for exercises, where I run and she does this awesome super-fast powerwalk with weights on her wrists because her back cannot support her running.  Anyway, always when we are in the cancha various people pass through on their way to work or other daily activities, one man always joins us in his morning run, and usually we are greeted by a variety of stray animals.  I don´t think I have said much in my emails about dogs here in Chile, but there are about a thousand of them on every street corner.  It appears that there are either no laws governing the pet population here, or that they are not very strictly enforced or something, because stray dogs are 1 peso per dozen. (Just for reference, 1,000 pesos = $2, so 1 peso per dozen dogs is like, a lot of dogs!)  Anyway, we are always being greeted by stray dogs and so having them in the cancha while we are exercising is really no big deal.  Anyway, this particular morning as I was running my laps a group of about five dogs came into the cancha, followed by the woman who wanders around with them.  I do not know her well, but she walks with a large staff that has feathers or something tied around the top and I am not sure whether or not she has a place to live because I have only ever seen her in the cancha.  As I ran past her and her dogs, she greeted me and I greeted her and the dogs went merrily on their way across the cancha.  As I completed the lap and came around again, they were still working their way towards the exit on the other side of the field.  As I came toward them one of the dogs suddenly tensed up, growled, and ran toward me and bit my upper thigh.  I shouted "Aaah!" and the woman yelled, "¡Sale!" at the dog, which means, "Leave!" and he retreated and they left the cancha.  I was a little startled a having been bitten by a dog, but I was pretty sure he hadn´t broken the skin, so I just kept on running.  I finished my laps and as we were walking back to the house I told Hermana Miskin what had happened, and she said she saw something happen and heard me yell but as I didn´t stop running she assumed everything was okay.

When we got back to the house, I pulled up my garments and found that he had indeed broken the skin, but just a tiny bit.  There was a big oval bruise with three or four small scratches in the skin and just a tiny bit of blood.  Hermana Miskin got out the mission instruction booklet to look for the instructions on dog bites.  It says that we are supposed to watch the dog for ten days and see if it acts normal or if it gets sick and or dies.  We are not sure how we would bring that about, as it was dark and I was bitten by a random stray dog that I am not sure I would be able to recognize even if I was able to find it again.  So we decided to go to the doctor´s office.

Nearby where we live in Chillán there is a consultorio that everyone always talks about because it is across the street from the Church, so we went there.  Healthcare is socialized here in Chile, so there is a lot of waiting in line in a clinic like that.  But luckily a woman from our ward works there and saw us in the lobby and after finding out what happened, I think she was able to expedite the process a bit for us.  I got sent to see the medic, who gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and I think some kind of pain medicine, and who order the rabies and tetanus vaccination series.  Wahoo!  Next they sent us to the pharmacy for my prescriptions, then to the vaccination lab, and finally to "curación," where they cleaned and bandaged the bite.  (There is another part of this story that I do not have time for now, but which I will add at a later date if you will all help me to remember our adventure in the office of the podologa....)

I had to go back on Friday for another curación and I´m going again today for another follow-up, and then my rabies series continues every 6 days or so for five appointments.  Yipee.

But here is the best part (besides the fact that I got bit by a dog, which is just hilarious to me) - after we were all done at the clinic, we went to the front desk to ask them where we needed to go to pay and they just looked at us like we were crazy.  ALL my medical care was TOTALLY FREE.  How cool is that?  I don´t even pay taxes here and they still let me partake of government-funded healthcare.  Chile is so awesome.

And for anyone who was wondering, getting bit by the dog is really what I consider to be my official inauguartion as a Chilean missionary.  I just think probably there are very few missionaries who get out of here without some kind of a strange animal encounter.  I´m glad I´ve had mine.  And don´t worry - this time we took pictures!

In other news, yesterday in Sunday School we talked about the Abrahamic Covenant, and all those blessings which are promised to the House of Israel.  I totally love learning about this and talking about it, because I just feel Heavenly Father´s love so much when I think about the promises He has made with His children, and the fact that we can inherit ALL that He has.  It made me remember more the significance and the importance of my work as a missionary.

Which leads us to your commitment for this week:  Keep on reading that Book of Mormon!  EVERY DAY!  And in your Book of Mormon study, I want you to watch for those references to the House of Israel and the promised blessings for those who are faithful to their covenant lineage.  Lehi and his descendents, being literal descendents of Joseph and covenant lineage through their baptismal covenants, are included in this great promise and it is talked about constantly in the Book of Mormon.  Starting in 1 Nephi 2:20, it says, "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands."  And this type of promise is repeated over and over.  It´s a super fun activity to look them all up!

Anyway, I love you all and I am sorry that now it is time to go and I cannot share more of my crazy and awesome and special experiences with you.  But thank you as always for your love and prayers and for your support.

I love you all so very much.  Know that I know that this gospel is true!

Lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove,

Hermana "Dog-Bite" Burgess