“Mountains and Mira Loma”
Monday, March 25, 2013
Hello Family, Friends, and Secret Admirers (jk)
First off, I did indeed get my Easter package and everyone loved their
candy! The Gomms say thanks y'all! (I am slowly converting them to the truth)
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| Ice House Lake |
Last P-day we
went to Ice House lake in the Sierras and had a picnic as a zone. It was
AWESOME! The area was beautiful, the company was excellent, and we even placed
a Book of Mormon with a man who was fishing. Sister Loli got to play in the
snow for the first time. We had a huge snowball fight and even built a missionary
snowman. The Doolittles, the Family we are staying with, drove us up there and
another member from the Cameron Park ward brought his 15 passenger van and
drove the Elders. We took Jody (the Doolittle's dog) too!
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| Me and our missionary snowman who happened to wear my name tag because I was the only one wearing a clippy tag instead of a magnetic one haha. |
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| Sister Hale and I with our awesome District Leader! |
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| The zone in front of the waterfall |
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| Me hugging a giant tree in the forest! |
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| The whole zone at the lake! |
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| Our Zone leaders truck |
We also pranked the Zone Leaders car. We covered it in chocolate. At least it tasted good!
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That night, we
went to "Mr. Ponderosa" at the high school. Two of the priests were
in it. It's basically a pageant, but for the boys, and it's a fundraiser for
Breast Cancer. We wanted to go and support our youth and they really wanted us
to come so we did. It was a hoot! The awesome thing was though, that as we
walked into the gym everyone was looking and pointing and the members were
waving. It was so good for the youth to see that the missionaries support them
and that we have FUN! They were pointing us out to their friends and both of
the Priests in the pageant were so glad we were there. The youth in this stake
are AMAZING!
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| At Mr. Panderosa, one of the boys did a Trombone jazz version of Carry on My Wayward son for his talent! |
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| One of the boys taught trick roping for his talent at Mr. Panderosa and then his friend ran out dressed as a cow with Cotton Eyed Joe playing over the speaker and he lassoed him. It was so funny! |
This week we have been continuing getting creative with our contacting.
When you become desperate enough for investigators, you begin to stalk (in a
very missionary like way) your part member families. The O family (because I
can't spell their last name) owns a little cafe called the Cafe Mira Loma. The
mom is less active and the dad isn't a member. After not being able to get a
hold of them on the phone, we decided we were just going to stop by for lunch.
We walked in and starting chatting with them. Thanks to these lovely things
called missionary tags, they knew who we were. We were able to set up a return
appointment with them and the food was great! We are going over to their house
for dinner on my birthday, so hopefully Sister Burchett will get a new
investigator to celebrate two decades of life.
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| The mural at Mira Loma Cafe. AKA the closest I will get to a beach on my mission. |
We enjoyed the food there so much that we drug our whole district and the
zone leaders there for lunch Thursday after district meeting. Talk about
flooding the place with missionaries! After lunch all the missionaries came to
our place to do service for the Doolittle’s neighbor. Our silly and
unsuspecting zone leaders left their proselyting clothes laying out in our
living room. A few days before they had toilet papered our car in the rain,
which made such a mess. Sister Loli and I sensed an opportune moment to prank
them back. Within a few minutes, each of the Elder's shirts was smelling lovely
and overbearingly like my perfume and there was a smashed hardboiled egg in
each of their pockets. When service was over, they went inside to change. We
heard some gasps and then fled as they took the smashed hardboiled eggs out of
their pockets and threw them at us. They couldn't really avoid smelling like a
woman for the rest of the day though! I'm sure their retaliation will be swift,
but transfers are coming soon and we wanted to go out with a bang.
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| Our poor TP-ed Car |
On that note, transfer call day is April 8th so
I won't have P-Day then but I will have it on Tuesday the
9th.
Wednesday some
recent converts took us to the buffet at Red Hawk Casino for dinner. The food
was great, but you should have seen the looks people gave us from the casino.
Utter astonishment haha! Hopefully some of them rethought their decision to
gamble!
This week we also went a visited the Hop’s, a less active/part member
family. They have 2 little girls. They married young after Sister Hop had their
first daughter and haven't really been to church sense. Sister Hop has a strong
testimony, but I think she is afraid to come to church because she thinks
people will judge her for her mistakes. Our goal is to help her understand that
A. that's what repentance and the atonement are for and B. everyone wants her
back and church because they love her and she doesn't have to be afraid that
people will judge her. We are coordinating with some other young families to
fellowship them. They really need some friends and who better to become life
long friends with than members of the church!
Last night we went to dinner in Polluck Pines, a little town up in the
mountains, for dinner with another part member family. They aren't in our area,
but the wife (a member) requested sisters to come and visit her because she is
from Australia, like sister Loli, and she felt like her husband (not a member)
would connect better with sisters than he had with the Elders. If a member in
your zone requests to be taught by sisters, the Zone leaders can give permission
for you to teach them. So we went to their house and had ribs and bread pudding
and chatted with them. It was a great visit and he really opened up to us. We
are going to try and get up there again before transfers. (I hate transfers by
the way. Just though y'all should know.) The best part was when we were leaving
and the wife said, "Thank you for bringing the spirit into my home."
Daphne came to church again yesterday and this time she stayed for most of
Sunday school before she had to leave to go run errands and take care of her
sick cat. She really enjoyed Sunday School and sang in sacrament meeting.
Normally she just reads along with the hymns but doesn't sing aloud but this week
she did! It sounds silly, but this is a milestone for her! She is really truly
progressing and that makes us SO happy! We are going to try and commit her to a
baptismal date this week and take her on a temple tour on Saturday.
This morning we found out that Sister Doolittle's daughter who just had
the baby is in the hospital. She drove herself to the ER and left her husband
and their little boy and the baby at home. They think she needs gall bladder
surgery (yuck). So Sister Doolittle is flying out to Minnesota
On Sunday we got to teach the Young Women about the Atonement. With the
new curriculum, we really aren't teaching a lesson as much as we are leading a
discussion. It was awesome! Come Follow Me is really preparing the youth to
missionaries, whether full time or as a member. It is inspired!
As Easter approaches, we should all remember the glorious gift that our
Heavenly Father gave us in the atonement of His Son. Everything we believe as
members of the church eventually comes back to the atonement, to the sacrifice
our Savior made for each and every one of us. He died so that we could be
forgiven and empowered and He lives to forgive and empower us each day of our
lives. I know the atonement is real, and I am so grateful for it in my life!
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Love,
Sister Burchett
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