Sister Burnham: "All Saints Day"

Family and Friends!!

Happy Halloween, All Saints Day and my 16th month mark!! Wow, time to celebrate!! And we did! We had yema cake (this really good cheese spongey cake) with the other sisters, early curfew, hair mustaches and talking to people at the cemetery. All Saint's Day is a lot bigger than Halloween here; everyone and I mean EVERYONE goes to the cemetery and hang out there all day. So what did we do that day, go to the cemetery and talk to people. It was great talking about the plan of salvation and competing with other churches and their pamphlets. But in all reality, I think our message is more beautiful and true :)

This week was pretty normal, lots of really good meetings but before that we've been able to find some great new investigators. Like this family, Marissa and Ariel (yes, that's the guy's name)...but they are great! I actually have known Marissa ever since I've been here, she's Gregorio's friend and we always meet to teach her, but we always missed her and then she moved back to their province. BUT they came back and we saw them the other day and we're able to teach her and her husband. They listen so intently and brother is really just searching for the truth. He reads the Bible and what not but just has a lot of questions about what is really true, he's searching and I like that, because they have a desire. Like Nephi, he had a desire to know the things that his father knew and that desire led him to pray, ponder and search. Investigators with the same desire do the same thing :) So keep them in your prayers, we're working on completing families, so far we now have four that we are working on...I probably won't be here for their baptism but that's okay, it's not about that. It's about their conversion and I'm blessed enough to be a part of their lives to help them towards that :) That's the best part anyways :)

We were visited by Elder Robbins in the seventy this past week and oh my, it was SO GOOD!! I love meetings in the mission! I think I'll miss the kind of meetings we have. Elder Oaks also is in the Philippines and did a special broadcast too yesterday...it was great to hear his counsel, especially for the Filipino people. Anyway, Elder Robbins talked about Nephi as well and Laman and Lemuel. And how they were both in the same situation, but had different outlooks. Nephi was looking for happiness and he found it. Laman and Lemuel were looking for negativism and misery and they found it, all because of the way they used their agency. He then later talked about this list; a list that leads to destruction. It's doing things that give up your agency and then Satan has complete control. Things like...flee, hide, excuses, self-justify, rationalize, rebellious, ignorance, procrastination, avoidance, murmuring, self-pity, blame, lie, fear, and giving up. Laman and Lemuel had the agency to choose to be those things and by doing so they gave up their agency and that led to destruction. 100% agency and 100% responsibility...I just share it to you to encourage you to not go to the list. Be champions like Nephi who never went to the list instead of the losers like Laman and Lemuel were, who were always using the list. I'm working on cutting it out of my life and I hope you will too.

Well, two months and counting...it's really coming but I'm excited to see you all. I've missed you and I still miss you. But the mission has really shaped me into who I I'm meant to be and who I need to be. Mahal ko kayo and have a great week!

Love, Sister Burnham