July. The summer months are passing by quickly and threatening to take
away the hot weather that my companions and I have been enjoying this
past week. The life of a tri is a fun one! Sister Fromgren, Sister
Wang, and I are all enjoying it. It's funny to see members or
sometimes even people on the streets who know missionaries look at us
in confusion and then ask why there are three of us. I sometimes
respond, "In the mouth of two or THREE witnesses shall every word be
established." (2 Corinthians 13:1) This brings us a smile to their
faces and then we explain to them our situation of how Sister Wang and
I will be moving to Brighton soon so our tri is, unfortunately,
temporary. I love the life of a tri though. We all help each other,
lift each other up, feel more confident on the streets-knowing that we
have an even greater support when bearing testimony, ect. We were able
to be a part of many miracles this week and I'm grateful to be able to
receive more and more witnesses of how God is truly hastening his
work. Our first miracle, happened after Preparation Day. The three of
us were walking to go and contact a less-active at her home. We
knocked several times but no answer. After several attempts, Sister
Fromgren and Sister Wang turned around and were walking back towards
the street. For myself, I was following behind them. Sister Fromgren
got talking to a lady on the street and Sister Wang joined them and I
was about to do the same when the less-active lady suddenly opened her
door. So there we were, two of us talking to the lady on the street,
and the other talking to the less-active. The awkward moment happened
though when this lady I was talking to said we could come in and teach
her. I looked back to my friends and saw they were still talking to
the lady of the street. I excused myself for a moment and helped them
finish testifying and finding out if this lady was interested. She
wasn't too keen on giving out her number or address but she was
willing to look more into our website to see what we were about. After
that, I informed my two fellow companions that we had a lesson to
teach. As we approached Georgina (the less-active that I was talking
to), she let us in. We were able to testify to her about the
importance of prayer and reading the Book of Mormon and the spirit was
felt very strongly. Towards the end of the lesson, Georgina simply
said, "I know I need to start coming back to church. Just before you
knocked on my door, I was watching TV and something about the church
came up and the thought crossed my mind that I really needed to come
back, and then suddenly you knocked on my door." I know that's truly
not a coincidence given from our Heavenly Father. I love being able to
be an instrument in His hands and to go where He'd have me go to help
His children. The rest of the week consisted of an amazing zone
conference (the first one that Sister Wang went to). Sister Wang loved
it and as did I. We discussed the importance of being accountable to
the Lord each night as we reflected what we did to serve Him that day.
We were reminded the importance of setting goals and how when we set
those goals, we should covenant to the Lord that we will do them and
then account that evening with the Lord on how we did. I was able to
go on my second to last exchange with the Mitcham sisters and that
went great. I love being to help set goals with the different sisters
and them helping me to learn and grow. Sister Lulab, Sister Wang, and
I were on the exchange together and as we got knocking doors and
teaching, we were able to meet many people who seemed so close to
being interested but said no in the end. As we walked down a street
towards our bus, we saw a delivery guy standing by his bike. We
approached him and introduced ourselves. At first, he simply said that
he was completely atheist. Something that I learned though over the
course of my mission and from reading the Preach My Gospel manual is
that when we testify, the spirit can testify to them more that what we
say is true. We testified to how we came to know God for ourselves and
he continued to listen. In the end, he ended up wanting a Book of
Mormon and we were able to set a return appointment. What a miracle!
Another fun thing that the three of us got to do while being on the
exchange is going to do service for our recent convert, Sally. Sally
was holding some big party for her birthday but needed help to prepare
the food. She had us first cut potatoes and then she asked us to
cut....onions. Onions and I don't get along too well because you know
what happens when you cut too many onions. Something that was really
funny though was that Sally told us that she heard if we put spoons in
our mouth while chopping onions, we won't cry as much. We tried it and
I think it worked? It didn't mean though that I didn't cry. I still
had some tears running down my face after chopping two or three
onions. It was quite funny to see all three of us sisters chopping
onions with spoons in our mouth. I look forward to the many adventures
in the coming weeks. It won't be easy to leave Clapham and I will miss
many of the people that I've been able to meet while serving here but
I trust that God has a great plan in store. Have a wonderful week!
Love you all!
Love,
Sister Burtis
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