Faith in Jesus Christ, not the outcome!

Hi guys! Wow! This week has been filled with many adventures! We started off our last week with a wonderful pday. We got to have a district pday and go to St. Michael's mount. It's a lovely attraction located in Penzance and lots of tourists go to it. I can see why now. It is a really pretty place!! It's got a big castle on it and gardens that we were able to go explore. We had some Cornish ice cream at a place there which was new for me and that was really good! The day was even better because the sun was shining and it was really warm. Cornwall overall is just a great place. The people are great, the area is great, and my love for it increases everyday! The work here is increasing immensely! Sister Hamann and I have set good goals for ourselves and we were able to accomplish many of them and found lots of people to teach. We had about three new investigators this past week and that was really exciting. I have found that my confidence has really increased and I'm getting to the point where I have been able to become better at bus contacting and just talking to people in general. I've talked to several people on the bus and had some really good gospel discussions. I know that the Lord has truly had his hand in the missionary work here in the Redruth area. I'm so grateful for the many things that I've learned this past week. My companion, Sister Hamann, is great. Her and I get along so well. I am so truly blessed to know someone such as her. I almost hope that I'm able to stay for another transfer with her because we work so well together. The unity that we have is undescribable. We still have to work at becoming better at teaching but we've learned to bounce off what each other person says and we have come to realize that we are feeling the spirit so strongly in the lessons we teach when we do this. I'd like to share one of the miracles I saw this week with my companion. Last Monday, after pday, we went knocking and strived to find those who were searching for the truth but knew not where to find it. We knocked on several doors on a street in a town called Threemilestone. We knocked on several doors but more often than not, many didn't want to listen to us. We decided to knock one last door before we were going to head to a member's home for a teach. A lady named Lydia answered the door and she had a big smile on her face. As we introduced ourselves to her, she exclaimed that she believed in Jesus Christ. We were amazed at her enthusiasm and as we got talking to her and introducing the Book of Mormon to her, she was so excited. She is now one of our investigators and we are really excited to be able to teach her this week sometime. She's amazing and we received a witness that God does truly prepare the hearts of his children and we need to be willing to seek diligently to find these people. That was just one out of the many miracles that we saw. If I were to write down all the miracles from this past week, this would become more like a novel :) Another quick story: One crazy day that we had was when we went finding. Sister Hamann and I had finished dinner and headed out to go to a lesson to a couple that we had met this past week. It was raining really hard however and the couple didn't show up. Standing under Sister Hamann's umbrella (I had left mine at the church), the two of us did our best not to get too wet. We decided to stick with our back-up plans and went to contact some potential investigators. They were about a mile or so away so we trekked up to where they lived and we came to find out that they weren't home. We didn't give up however and talked to people along the way and then went to visit some members at their home. The members (an older couple) lived a ways off from where we were so we decided we would walk with haste and see if we could visit them and leave them with a spiritual thought. Sister Hamann and I silently prayed that they would be home seeing that at this time, we were both drenched and the rain continued to come. We made our way over and as we reached their home, we were sad to see that the windows in the home were dark. Sister Hamann and I knocked on the door but no one was home. With heads hung low, we started to walk towards the flat. We weren't sure why we needed to go towards that way and felt that nothing good came out of us getting completely drenched. We changed our attitudes however and persistently kept going. We ended up running into a younger lady and got to teach her about the message we had. It was a good conversation and we came to understand that no effort is wasted. We might have just planted a small seed that could eventually grow into something spectacular. Sister Hamann and I did eventually make our way back to our flat and to pass time and to forget about being wet, we sang church songs and hymns all the way back which was really fun! It was an adventure that we can look back on :) I'm so grateful for the Lord and the tender mercies that He has shown us this week even though at times, we may not know the outcome right away. In the end, It's all about faith in Jesus Christ and not the outcome. He knows what he wants us to do and as long as we strive to be in tuned with the spirit and work hard, we can accomplish his work :)  Love you all!

Love,

Sister Burtis