“I cried for like 5 seconds…”
Monday July 29, 2013
It's true! I did! It's a
miracle! I DO have a soul and I am a girl. I was starting to wonder. It had
been a while since I cried. What brought it on? Well, stay tuned and find out.
They were happy tears, so don't fret!
This week has been amazing!
Where do I begin? Well, as Maria says in the Sound of Music, let's start at the
very beginning, a very good place to start.
La Sierra, as I have said
before, has struggled for a while. It was a little neglected by past
missionaries and many of those missionaries burned bridges with the ward
members, making them not super trusting of the missionaries and not very
willing as a whole to make a lot of effort in the work of salvation. So, enter
Sisters Burchett and Vaughan with a smile and joke or two and lots of love
ready to be given. We have been slaving away and loving it. Whatever the ward
asks, we do it and we go above and beyond. You want us to visit less actives?
Ok, we'll see every one on the ward list. You want us to contact a few
referrals for you? We'll report back with a detailed explanation of everyone's
situations and needs and a plan for how we can help you to help them. Even
sickness won't stop us!
 |
| Sister Vaughan and I inhaling steam with essential oils so we could breathe. We felt so silly. |
We've had colds the past two
weeks and so finally after being so sick we got blessings. We called a member
of our bishopric, Brother Blues Clues and he came and gave us blessings and he
and his wife brought us groceries and soup and it was just the nicest thing
people had done for us in a while and it made us feel so loved and appreciated.
Then on Sunday, Bishop Wiggles got up and told the ward what a great job we
were doing and how grateful he was for us. Then he said, "Even though
they've been sick, they have been out spreading their germs...I mean the
gospel." (He's a doctor and Brother Blues Clues is a heart surgeon hence
they are big on health and have been watching our symptoms and feeding us
endless supplies of Gatorade.) He then challenged everyone in the ward to, when
they have us over for dinner, set up a time to go out and work with us. It just
filled me with joy because it showed that he trusts us and that he wants the
rest of the ward to trust us too. It's a miracle. When we give all of our
efforts to the Lord, He will bless them and sanctify them and help us succeed.
And loving people is powerful. Everybody needs love.
 |
| We accidentally broke one of the mirrors in our apartment. Bad luck? Not for missionaries! |
On Wednesday our Zone Leaders
called us and challenged everyone in the zone to find a new investigator that
day and call it in as a miracle. We took the challenge and after much prayer
and a lot of faith exercised we added 3 new investigators! We found the Muppet
family. Kermit, the husband, was raised Catholic, and his wife, Miss Piggy, was
raised 7th day Adventist but neither of them practice now. Their daughter
passed away in the last year in a car accident and they have two other girls
living at home, one of which is getting married in a few months. We talked with
them about the Plan of Salvation and challenged them to read the Book of
Mormon. They accepted and we are going back this week. We also added another
new investigator on Friday when we were visiting his mom who is a less active
member in the ward. When we take care of the people we have, God will give us
more.
Fun story: We met a less active
sister this week who raises piranhas for a living. Yep. Piranhas. The flesh
eating fish. She has like 200. It was awesome.
Faith building story: We met
another less active sister who is from Fiji
 |
| Sinbad's Baptism! |
And now, for the reason I cried
for 5 seconds. On Saturday, Sinbad got baptized and I got to go back for the
baptism! It was amazing to see him so happy and to see all the people there
supporting him, and to see his family so happy and so filled with the spirit.
When he saw me, he hugged me so tight! And I didn't even care. Is that
apostate? I think not, because Jesus would have hugged him back too. :) When he
came out of the water, there were tears in his eyes and in his wife's eyes and
my heart was filled with pure happiness. The missionaries in the area now asked
me to come up and bear my testimony and as I stood there and looked at that
family that I adore with all my heart, I cried for 5 seconds as I said,
"The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about families, and I love this
family." Then I got a grip and bore my testimony and it was the sweetest
experience. There are a lot of hard days, but no effort is wasted. Soon, Sinbad
will receive the priesthood and they will have a priesthood holder in their home.
We referred Sinbad's mom to the missionaries in San Jose
That's it for this week.
Miracles happen and the gospel is true. I hit 7 months on Friday. How did that
happen?! It's going too fast.
Love y'all!
Sister Burchett
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