Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Gospel is the Greatest Treasure


Hello my dear family friends! What an eventful week once again. The
end of the last week, we traveled to Crawley and had our specialised
zone training with President Gubler, Sister Gubler, and the
assistants. It was a great training and the spirit was felt very
strongly. We talked about how we can be dedicated and give our time to
the Lord. The Lord has given us everything so we should do all that we
can to do our best. Something fun that we did as well was we practiced
finding approaches. The two assistants were roleplaying different
scenarios/people and each companionship needed to go up (in front of
all the missionaries-Super Scary!) and approach the "person" (who was
acted out by the assistant) and see if they would be willing to meet
with us. Sister Wang and I got up and it was pretty daunting, I won't
lie. No matter how long you've been out on your mission, you still
feel like you've only left the MTC at times and that's how Sister Wang
and I both felt. Luckily, the spirit guided us, calmed our nerves, and
despite a challenging roleplay that we were given, we felt good about
what we shared and felt we asked inspired questions to this "guy."
Afterwards, all of us missionaries would discuss what we could improve
on, what we did good, ect. It was a great exercise and it helped me to
learn a lot! That's what I love about these type of things....we come
together as missionaries-unified in one purpose to bring about the
Lord's work-and get to help each other to learn and grow. The rest of
the week consisted of some great miracles. We had met a mother last
week and she had us come back the next day. Her name is Lucy and she
is so nice. She has a young daughter, Vanessa, as well. The following
day, we knocked on the door and excitedly anticipated her opening the
door. She did and she said, "Come In!" (Words that I love to hear!).
We got to talk with her and get to know her better and then got to
teach her the restoration. This lady is actually from the Czech
Republic so we were able to get her a Book of Mormon in Czech and she
was really excited. As we got to share with her the message of the
restoration, I felt the spirit confirm to me that the lesson was going
well and that she too could feel the spirit. We got to set up a return
appointment and we are excited to continue to teach her! The week
continued and it consisted of a lot of finding but we found that as we
preserved and had faith, we would see more people who were interested.
At times it's hard because there are many who are atheists and have no
desire to know who God is but I've learned to love them no matter
what. I know that one more invitation from us is closer for them to
accept the Gospel than it would be if no one invited them. We ran into
a guy this past week who actually believed in God and was willing to
chat though he was not interested at all. At the end of our
conversation, he turned to me and asked me, "So are you Irish?" I had
to smile but also I had to make sure he asked what I thought he just
asked so I asked back, "Sorry, did you ask if I was Irish?" He
confirmed to me that this was what he had asked and I smiled and said
no. I gotta say that's the first time I've gotten that on my mission.
I'm not sure if some of the words to him came across as me having an
accent but if so, it must mean that I've been in England for a good
amount of time to start saying my words differently :) Oh the funny
moments! Something I loved about this week was we got a call from both
set of elders-the Chinese elders and the English elders with two
wonderful referrals. The Chinese elders told us about a lady named
Ruby who actually wanted to meet us sisters. The very same day, we got
to go to Ruby's and teach her the Restoration. She's amazing and is so
willing to find out for herself if the message is true. We are excited
to continue to teach her this week. The English elders had called us
as well and told us about a lady named Michelle. They thought it would
be easier for us if we could stop by so they gave us her address and
said that she was already expecting a visit from us. She was, in the
past a member, and she wanted to start returning back to church. We
knocked on Michelle's door, not sure what to expect, and an older 73
year old lady with big glasses and a big smile opened the door. She
let us in and we got talking to her. Oh how I adore this lady.
Michelle is one of the ladies who seems to be a 20 year old in a 73
year old body. She explained to us that she was listening to Mormon
tabernacle choir music and how much she loves it. She wanted to read
the Book of Mormon and she had already started the night before we
came. Sister Wang and I felt so blessed to have met her. As we got
discussing some of her questions, Michelle was explaining to us about
how small the print of the Book of Mormon was. I looked around and saw
what looked to be an iPad. I looked to her, pointed towards the iPad,
and asked, "Is this an IPad? If so, could I try to download an app for
you?" Michelle, with her gleeful and funny attitude said, "No it's a
kindle fire. If you could download the Book of Mormon, it would be a
Miracle!" Sister Wang and I laughed at Michelle's response. She's so
funny. I had her unlock it and within a matter of a seconds, we
searched in her search bar under the books that she could buy from
Amazon and sure enough, there was a Book of Mormon for free. She
clicked download and once it finished, we made the text size bigger
for Michelle so she could see. I just gotta say that when we did that,
Michelle's eyes widened and she looked as if she had received a £1,000
pounds! She said to us in exclamation, "Now would you look at that!
MIRACLE!" My heart immediately melted and I just felt such a strong
love for this lady. Wanting to change her life around, you can see
that already Michelle is exercising her faith in Jesus Christ.
Anything that we show to her about the gospel is treated as if she
were a little kid on Christmas Day receiving the best gift that she's
ever received. That to me is the definition of someone who treats the
Gospel as the greatest treasure. I know that a lot of my learning over
the course of my mission has come from the people I've met. I'm
grateful God placed Michelle in our path so I could learn from her. We
often will receive calls from Michelle explaining in excitement that
she just read a book about David O. Mackay or that she read her Book
of Mormon before she went to bed and prayed before going to bed. She
is such a doll and we love her for her great example to us. I hope
that as your week continues that you remember and hold dear to your
heart the little things that matter the most. I love you all! Have a
great week!
With love,
Sister Burtis

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