Snippets and Bits

Elder Burton focused on sending many people an individual letter this week, so we just have some snippets and bits to share with the world . . . (You'll notice that his use of exclamation points is skyrocketing -- must be in the missionary spirit!!)

So the big news this week is that I am training!!! AHHHH!!!! Yep. I am receiving a new missionary, fresh from the MTC. Exactly 1 week after finishing my training period myself. You'll understand that a little better once you get out on your mission as well, but this...is actually a really big deal. He likely wont speak German, will have no idea how to be a missionary and...yeah. Look to me for everything. Egad.

Other news: we met a really golden investigator this week, through a member actually. Her name is Rachel, well, her western name anyway. She is from India, doesn't speak German, and came to Church with her friend Juilia, who also speaks no German, but is a member! So I translated for them both, and taught her some, and she is coming to our Halloween party on Friday! Yay!

Um...yeah. That's all I can think of. This week will be slow, staying in a place called Braunschweig until Thursday so I can have a companion, then going to Berlin to get my new companion, then Halloween on Friday...and then its Monday again! Sorta.

Until next week!

I wish I could tell you of grand success and many baptisms, but in all honesty, we have had none. We had an amazing week, high numbers, several huge miracles, but...no baptism commitments. It is okay. At some point in the scriptures it says ''That one soul might be saved'' and that has kind of become my motto. The whole mission has a goal of 125 baptisms in October, November, and December, and I really hope to contribute...but It will be hard while training at the same time and still learning myself and...yeah.

Luckily, my German is actually at a comfortable level. It has been hard, more then an hour of Language study a day, lots of embarrassing moments, and several doctrinal mistakes.  (Jesus killed for us...) But the members of our ward at least are really impressed. They tell me I am ready to train, and that really boosts my confidence. 

To Jason and Samantha:

So, first off, Congratulations on the Big News!! I still think its really really cool!
And sad that I won't be there...  (Baby Boy Burton is due in mid-March)

2nd, thanks for the help on the Ukulele stuff. a less active we work with is actually a guitar teacher here, so I will ask him where a good music or pawn shop would be...cheaper then shipping one.

3rd, I am out of time again. I sent long emails to mom and dad and Luke, so I figured I could either send a short hasty email to each one of you, or one to both, and do longer emails next week. I promise that you are FIRST on my priority list!

Love you both!! Elder Burton

P.S., The Baby does, indeed look like Uncle Thomas. Lucky baby. He got the attractive genes in the family.  

Hey Dad!

So a couple of the experiences that I had that I might interested you....

I did see the outside of the Airbus Factory in Hamburg while I was there. Drove by. For like half an hour. IT is HUGE!! They had some of their latest, greatest, biggest models on display too. Those are some freakin big airplanes. 

We also had a hurricane blow in from England...so cold! Dropped down to like 8 Grad Celsius for a day. That sucked. Pulled out my jacket from Alaska and stuff. 

I am also becoming a trainer! I dont know exactly how the system worked when you were on you mission, slightly after the dinosaurs, but yeah...It also doesnt help that in Kassel there are just us 2 missionaries, so far away from everyone else. 

Speaking of which, I have learned a little more. It turns out, that in our mission at least, there are now 4 to 6 missionaries in a town our size usually. In fact, Braunschweig, which is the exact same size, has 4 Elders. And Zwickau, again about the same, 2 ELders and 2 Sisters. And Kassel, actually, 3 years ago had 4 Elders AND 2 sisters. There just wasnt any success, so they pulled 3 companionships out. Hopefully one day they can open the other two areas back up. 

I dont have a lot to say actually...just thanks. Thanks for teaching me to be fairly good with my hands. Thanks for teaching me to work fairly hard, and to play harder. Thanks for teaching me that when something needs to get done, we just do it. And thanks for being my Dad.

You say that you talk about me a lot, well I talk a lot about you too. I talk to Sister Renkewitz about airline stuff..she was a flight attendend for Lufthansa..I talk to Francis about Italy--he moved here from there--I talk to Brother Egly about old Mission stuff...yeah. Thanks for being a good teacher. 

 

Pictures, Pictures and More Pictures!

So, I know you all want to hear more and more and more. But you also want pictures. So, this week, instead of a long email, I am just gunna do pictures, because they take a while. Next week, I will do a medium length email to each individual in the family, instead of a blog email. How does that sound?

Oops!

So I was planning this week on sending a short, individual email to each and every member of the clan...but I will do that next week. I am having a little...digestion trouble....right now from too much cheap lebkuchen, and I only have limited time.

Some short things:

This transfer is actually 7 weeks, not 6, for some reason. We will receive transfer calls not this coming Saturday, but the next. The 25th of October that is. No guarantees, but Elder Poch will most likely leave. He has been in Kassel for 6 months, so...yeah.

I did get the opportunity to see a bunch of the missionaries from my MTC group in Hanover this last week, and it was awesome to see how much each and everyone of us has grown so much, and learned so much, over the past 2 plus months. 11 weeks actually. It made me wonder how different we are all going to be in 20 months--the end that is. hmm...strange to think about.

I did have a scary-Jason moment this week. We were blowing up balloons for a talk Elder Poch and I gave at our Zone Training Meeting in Hanover--don't ask--and because of my amazing trombone-player lungs, I over blew, and it popped. The Rubber hit me in my right eye, and a bunch of powder too, and i turned all glowing red and all the blood vessels broke and I had a black spot in my vision and everything. Sound familiar Jason?

So yeah, we went to the Pharmacy--which basically acts as a doctor here--and got some eye drops, and in 3 days it was all basically gone. I still have the black spot occasionally reappear--it happened last Wednesday--but Elder Poch and I are pretty sure it is just trauma. if it still is happening next week, I might start worrying about it.

Oh, did you know that you can get callouses on your knees from kneeling to pray? Yep.

Oh, and thank you for the back-roller. It helps SOOOO much. It is getting better, though this week was still rough. Hopefully it will ever get better, like in crescendo, as we in the Berlin mission say.

Oh, and I finally learned how to roll my Rs like a German. It sounds a lot like the wookie noise actually. It only took 11 weeks in German. Furchtbar.

Oh, and I can't load any pictures this week--I don't have my cord--but I promise next week I will do lots. Like, a lot. I promise.

Oh, and also, this week I get to go to Hamburg!! I will take lots of pictures, and tell you all about it next week.

Oh, and it is getting cold here. Really cold. I don't like it. And it gets dark at 7:00 already. Why is it so cold already?? As for the Christmas box...yeah, no root beer extract. Thank you. I still haven't used the stuff I have. I might give away a couple...but that is alright. Thank you!

That's all I have today...if you'd like, a really really good talk I listened to this week was ''The Doctrine of Christ'' by Elder D. Todd Christopherson. Neal A Maxwell is also amazing, I have listened to a lot of his talks recently.

Gotta go, Love you all!! I'll send you more specific emails next week...don't let me forget!! Tchüß! -_Elder Burton

General Conference in Germany

So, as I am sure you are aware, the highlight of this week was general conference. I figured, for my weekly letter, I could share with you some of my notes from that occasion, and a quick thought or two about them:

Elder Jeffery R Holland:
''We are always expected to help ourselves, and to lend hand to those in need as well.''
''Go About Doing Good.'' Elder Poch and I need to find more service projects.

Elder Niel L Anderson:
''Spiritual questions deserve spiritual answers--from God.''
We are here to answer peoples questions--and to help them seek those answers from God.

Elder Dallin H Oaks:
Staying firm in the faith is not bigotry. Be kind, be courteous, and loving. But do not back down from that which is ordained of God for the fear of man.
Where can I strengthen my faith, and my resolve? How can I continue to do that in a loving way?

President Thomas S Monson:
''A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.''
Am I following my purpose to the best of my ability?

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf:
The Beginning of Wisdom: ''Lord, is it I?''
Where must I improve myself? What can I do this week, today, right now to make myself a better disciple of the Lord?''

Something else I learned that was not actually said to us, was the idea that we do indeed still offer sacrifices to the Lord. An investigator asked, that if we were the true church of God, why we don't have Levites that offer up burnt sacrifices like in times of old? I realized during one of the talks on the Aaronic Priesthood, that the Sacrament is the continuation of this tradition of sacrifices in our day. The calf was already slaughtered, Christ has offered the ultimate sacrifice. Instead of looking forward to the Atonement as the Levites did though, we are remembering it. Honoring it. Interesting.

Now, other stuffs that happened this week:

This week we spent a day traveling all over Hessen. We visited the cities\towns of Eschwege, Sontra, Bebra, and Rotenburg on der Fulda. Lots of fun! We didn't get a lot accomplished, but we saw a lot of our area that neither of us had seen before, and visited some members that we needed to visit. All good.

I also had the first opportunity to lead my area this week! What I mean is, we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders, so Elder Poch went to Hanover for 2 days. The other Zone Leader and I stayed in Kassel, where I decided where we went, how we got there, and what we did for 2 days. It was way fun! Also a lot of work, and stressful, but I did not get us lost, and we even were early for 1 appointment!! Cool!

In connection to that, I am now on permanent phone duty. I.E., I always have the cell phone with me. It is a little stressful too, but few things are more fun than looking back on a conversation you just had in a foreign language and realizing it really isnt too foreign at all.

Again in connection to that, Did I mention that I can speak German?? We got a new Gemeinde Missions Leiter this week--Ward Mission Leader--and he complemented my German a lot. He said that most missionaries are out from 4 to 6 months before they speak like me. Which is fantastic. I have been out for 2. Now I just need to stay ahead of the game.

Oh yeah, quick explanation of conference. I have seen all but the Sunday night session. We watched the 2 morning sessions live, Saturday evening and Sunday evening in the church building. We watched the other sessions together as a ward on a projector Sunday morning and afternoon, instead of Church. It was a lot of fun!!

Elder Poch and I did actually watch them all in English, because there are 2 new members of our ward who don't speak German! Francis, who moved here from Mantova, Italy--do you know it Dad?--and Julia who moved here from BYU, but is originally from the Ukraine. She reaaaaaly didn't like the one Russian member of our ward, for obvious reasons......but that's ok. She will live.

And about the back roller....I really don't know where I would buy one here, so if you could ship that, it would be wonderful. Sorry about the trouble.

Well...that's all I got. My foot is doing much better, rolling it on frozen water bottles is great. Have I ever told you how much I love bubbly water?

How, and this week I get to go to Hanover again, and next week I will probably spend a day in Hamburg, and may a night in Stade, a town close by. Elder Poch has a leadership training meeting in Hamburg, and it is zone training meeting in Hanover.

I am starting to think of sending a package home, with some cool old books I have found, some chocolate, and maybe some christmas stuff for ya'll...Mom: let me know if you want me to send home Christmas ornaments. I know that sounds cray-cray this early, but the Germans are obsessed with Christmas, so they are already selling stuff for it. Weird.

Oh, and I would not be surprised to see Justiz there! He loves Choir, and the time is right! I though he was going to the Mexico MTC, but I could easily be wrong.

Ich wünsche ihnen alles gute und frieden in alles dass sie tun. Tchüss! Love You! --Elder Burton