Monday, November 9, 2015

Why the fireworks?

What a busy week! Sister Hamann and I were traveling a lot this week. We first started off our week by traveling to Exeter on a train and we got to explore the city for a bit since it was our pday. Exeter is a huge city and is much different from Redruth. Sister Hamann and I searched everywhere for winter boots and seemed to have no luck. We just couldn't seem to find out where the boots shops were or they just seemed too expensive. We determined that shoe shopping wasn't our favorite ;) After shopping in Exeter, we traveled with our Zone Leaders to Redding because we had MLC the next day. The Mission Leadership Conference was really good. President Gubler and Sister Gubler did a presentation and then we got to council together on what the next step in the missionary work is and how we can become even more consecrated. After the conference, we traveled back to our area. Sister Hamann and I got to stay overnight in our flat and the very next morning, we traveled to Plymouth for our District Zone Conference. Sister Hamann and I got to present some of the things that we learned in MLC to the district leaders and that went really good. Now it doesn't end just there. We got to travel to Exeter again after DLC because we needed to stay with the Exeter Sisters and then travel to zone conference which is in Poole. Zone Conference was great. We had 3 zones out of the 9 come together and we got to be taught by President Gubler, Sister Gubler, and the assistants. During lunch, some of the members from the Poole zone prepared us a crazy good England type thanksgiving meal. Turkey, stuffing, beans, corn, yorkshire puddings, pecan pie, etc. It was great! One crazy thing that happened was that my companion, Sister Hamann and I, got to sing a duet in front of everyone during Zone Conference. We were both shaking and it was rough at first but we warmed up eventually and were able to make it through the song and I think it turned out pretty well. We sang, Hymn #129, "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" Lots of missionaries came up afterwards and thanked us for singing that song. It was a neat experience. I guess it showed me that I can do anything If I can sing in front of more than 60 missionaries :) Overall, we had lots of travels this past week. When it came time for us to come back and work in our area, we were so happy and so relieved to be able to see our friends. The people we are teaching are doing good. The two main people that we are working with are Geoffry and Robert. Both of them come out to activities and to church. Working with the people of England is wonderful! Something that was exciting is that we got to see lots of fireworks. There was fireworks for Halloween, for guy forks holiday, and for Remembrance Day. That was fun to see. This past week we saw such an incredible miracle. It happened when we went to go meet one of our potential investigator friends When we arrived at her home, she didn't quite remember meeting us but she invited us in anyway. As she kept talking, she started to remember meeting us on the street so that was a relief. Anyhow, this friend loves to talk and she kept mentioning this video about Jesus that she absolutely loves that she never lets anybody borrow or take out of her house. She watches it all the time, and it is a tradition in her home to watch the video every Christmas Eve. We were being supportive and still trying to teach her the restoration lesson at the same time. Eventually her enthusiasm overtook her and she left the room to show us this video. We were slightly unsure about this video seeing that it came from her preacher in the Catholic congregation she used to attend and slightly worried that it would be a strange and sad story about Jesus Christ with a catholic twist or something. We had the shock of our lives, however, when she walked back in holding a 'Finding Faith in Christ' video. We had to make sure it was the same one we used in our church and sure enough, as we flipped over the video case, the words on the bottom clearly said: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. With haste, we pulled off our badges to show her that our church was the very same one that produced the video she held in her hand. It was incredible! We are now teaching this friend and she is doing well! My companion and I have been able to experience so many tender mercies and miracles of the Lord in this work and it seems to never cease! I love you all! Hope you have a wonderful and magical week!
Love,
Sister Burtis
P.S. Ponderized Scripture for the week is Alma 29:1.  



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