HO HO HO🎅

I hope you all had a great Christmas! It really is the best time of the year and Christmas on the mission is the best!

This week was awesome! One night we were walking to dinner and we saw this thing in the sky. 

Apparently space x launched a satellite into space and this is what it left behind.

The rest of the week we were just doing a lot of Christmas stuff! On Christmas eve a family invited us over to dinner and they had all their family from Norway there! That was a lot of fun! They said in Norway they celebrate more on Christmas eve than on Christmas so they open all the presents and do the family parties on the 24th.

Then on Christmas we went to a members house to Skype and eat lunch. 

And then we bussed out to Downey to do dinner with a member from Elder Patrick's old area. 

Sharing the message of Christ is the best and doing it around Christmas time is even better! It's amazing how the world is a different place when we focus on Christ.

Have a great week and a happy new year!

-Elder Burgon

MELE KALIKIMAKA IS THE THING TO SAY...

...On a bright California Christmas day!

One week till Christmas friends and fam! I hope you all had a great week! 

To start off with a bit of a spiritual message I just want to share something I read this week. I was reading in President Hinkley's teachings of the presidents and it said something that I really like! It said, 

"As a missionary in England, Elder Hinckley worked hard to follow his parents’ counsel that 'a happy attitude and smiling countenance could boost one over any misfortune and that every individual was responsible for his or her own happiness.' He and his companions shook hands each morning and told each other, “Life is good.” Almost 70 years later, he suggested that a group of missionaries in the Philippines follow the same practice. “Yesterday was a great day in my life,” he told them. “Every day is a great day in my life. I hope every day is a great day in your lives—every one of you. I hope you can get ready to go in the morning and say, ‘Life is good. Let’s go out and have a good day.’ And when you come in at night, I hope you can say to one another, ‘It’s been a good day. We’ve had a good time. We’ve helped someone on the way.' Every day ought to be a good day.” 

I feel like that is very important! Having a happy attitude and a smiling countenance can make all the difference! With the knowledge that the gospel gives us and with faith in our Savior Jesus Christ we can overcome any misfortune or trial and be happy while we do so. 

This week was a great!!! I was able to go to the temple earlier in the week which is always great! 

I love the peace that comes from going to the temple. The spirit there is always so strong and every time I walk out of the temple I feel ten times better than I did when I went in. The craziness and stresses of the world seem to melt away while I'm in the temple.

Saturday I went on exchanges with my district leader, Elder Arce. That was fun because he is a Spanish Elder and we had a couple of appointments where I could only pick out words here and there. It was fun tho!

This week we also met with J__ who was the investigator that came to church last sunday. The lesson went really well, we taught about the Holy Ghost and the restoration and she is excited to keep learning the gospel! 

Saturday night we had our ward Christmas party and we grubbed!! 

It was combined with the Spanish ward again so we had food for days. We had ham, turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, and pie from the english ward. And we had Tamales, tortas, drinks and desserts from the Spanish ward. It was so good!

Another fun part of the week was when Elder Zabriski came back to LA. 

He served his mission here and was Elder Patrick's companion during his third transfer. So yesterday he came to church with us and actually went to our dinner appointment too. We also went to the other Wilshire elders apartment and took a picture with them because Elder Mizuno also used to be his companion.

Have a great week and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

-Elder Burgon

SoCal or SoHemisphere?

Merry Christmas!.. Almost. 

This week was so fun!

The fires have made life very entertaining and the smoke has made the sunsets and the moon look super cool! Plus this week has NOT felt like winter at all! It's been hot! It was like 85 degrees all week long. 

The fires haven't changed anything really for us yet but it's been crazy to see how many there have been and how they just keep burning! I think there have been 5 or 6 fires around here so far and all but one have been on the other side of the mountains so I think im safe. Earlier in the week the fires were lighting up the sky with a red glow so you could see the silhouette of the mountains and then a red sky. It was so cool looking! I should've snapped a picture but we were in a rush.

The Christmas devotional was another exciting part of the week. We got to watch a Christmas movie and listen to talks and eat tonnnnns of food! It was lots of fun and got me super pumped for Christmas!

Saturday and Sunday were the BEST! On Saturday we spent the whole day just finding because we haven't been able to find anyone lately. So we just walked around our area just talking to everyone we could and it was entertaining to say the least! We met this guys who was crazzzzzzy! Elder Patrick couldn't pass up the photo op so we got this gem 

And then we saw a house that had lots of really cool Christmas decorations so we went up and knocked on their door. We started talking with them and it turned out to be a grandma and her grandson and the grandma eventually let us know that her grandson was a baseball prodigy so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to play a little baseball. So we played catch for a little bit and he pitched and he turned out to be super good! I took a pic just in case he becomes a huge MLB player someday. 

Then we found a cool mural so once again we had to take pics.

Then after all that we had dinner with bro Vasquez who feeds us every Saturday. 

Then on Sunday it was awesome! We had TWO people just show up to church and want to meet with us! And one of them has a sister that just got back from a mission in Mexico that's teaching her about the church so that's going to be an awesome help!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

☀️ 🎄 🕠

Hello y'all! 

I love Christmas time! I hear Utah got some snow recently but out here it's still 75° and sunny  They really mean it when they say the weather never changes here. Its so nice!

This week was fun! Elder Patrick is hilarious so I was well entertained this week. He wants to be a rapper after the mission so we will be walking down the street and he will hum a hymn and then all of the sudden break out into rap  Plus he is super good missionary too so this week was fun. He is from Texas and has been out on his mission for 16 months.

Last p day when me and Elder Burns were still together we went to a store that sells just hot sauce. It was pretty cool they let us test the sauces and they were Hot! I wouldn't recommend eating hot sauce on an empty stomach tho. It didn't feel great. The rest of the week has been pretty normal. Elder Patrick and I have been getting up at 5:30 every morning and going running. It's been lots of fun and the days feel a lot longer with that extra hour in the morning. On Saturday we spent a couple hours on trains and busses to go to and from a baptism in Elder Patrick's last area. One of his investigators that he'd been teaching got baptised so that was fun to go see. And then yesterday was great! We went over to the Lewis's house and ate dinner and watched the Christmas Devotional which was so good! I loved it!

Throughout the week I've been challenging lots of people to do the light the world initiative and it's been really cool to think about Jesus Christ's amazing example of service. Throughout his life he served everyone around him and in order for us to become like him we need to serve others too. It's amazing how when we serve others we developed greater charity and love for others and become a better and happier person because of it. When we serve others we are blessed in so many ways. I love our fathers plan for us and know that it truly is a plan of happiness!

Have a great week!
-Elder Burgon

pix: The Wilshire elders with Emiliano who leaves for his mission tomorrow, Me and Elder Patrick with a mini Christmas tree, and the Zone

🍗 🍽️ 🍖

Hello everyone! 

How was Thanksgiving? I'm still stuffed!!! We've had four Thanksgiving sized dinners in row!  

This week was the last week of the transfer and it was a great one. There were a bunch of fun things that happened this week!

For Thanksgiving our ward mission leader had us over for dinner and fed us tonnns of food! It was some good grub for sure. Plus they gave us lots of leftovers which made lunch on Friday like round two of Thanksgiving  Then Friday night Elder Burns' aunt and uncle were in LA on vacation so they got permission from president Haynie to take us out to dinner. They took us to an awesome restaurant in Koreatown and stuffed us again! On Saturday the V__ family had us over for dinner and they had lots of Thanksgiving leftovers so we had Thanksgiving all over again! It was soooo great! Yesterday E__, a priest from the Wilshire ward, had his farewell and after church they had a huge dinner for everyone that came. The theme of the meal was Thanksgiving dinners from around the world so they had Mexican food, Armanian food, and Thai food! So I can definitely say that I've been fed very well this week!!

As far as the work goes it was a bit slower than normal. We actually lost a lot of investigators. One of our investigators we had a lesson planned for Friday and when we went to his house there was a crew of people there and they told us he got arrested and was in jail now... Eeeek. 

Yesterday we got our transfer calls and I'm staying in Wilshire! Elder Burns got called to be a district leader down in Carson so he is packing up and moving out. My new companion is Elder Patrick who was actually Elder Burns MTC companion way back when so thats pretty cool! I'm excited and definitely pumped to build the teaching pool back up!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

Thanksgiving day in LA

Thanksgiving day in LA

Thanksgiving Day District Meeting in LA

Riding the bus on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving feast round 1 and leftovers for the next day!!!

E. Burns uncle and cousins 

Thanksgiving feast in Koreatown

A few spiritual thoughts for the week!!!

😁 🦃 📅

Hey friends n fam! It's Monday already!? Wowza where did the week go? This week was great and went by super fast!

Some of the highlights of the week were dinners with members. We went to dinner with a recent convert who is a music producer and it was super cool. He took us to an awesome BBQ place and told us all about his job and making music! It was awesome! He said he's produced music with the group The Kooks so you'll have to look them up for me and see if they're good  Another member we ate with this week is a movie producer so he took us to get Sushi and told us all about making movies! They were some fun dinners for sure!

Yesterday was great! N__ was confirmed in sacrament meeting and she brought her boyfriend to church. We've started meeting with him now and he said he wants to be Baptised too! Wahooooo! Another great part of the week was zone conference. We had lots of trainings on what to do if there are earthquakes, fires, and nuclear attacks  Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come 

A cool thought I found this week was given by Jean Bingham in the October 2016 woman's conference. In it she said, "Our obligation and privilege is to embrace improvement in everyone as we strive to become more like our savior, Jesus Christ." It just made me think about how everyone that has ever been on earth chose to follow our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and that we all came with the goal of returning to live with them again. Some people just don't remember that. That's why it's our obligation and privilege to help everyone we can remember their purpose here on earth, come unto Christ, and eventually return to live with our Heavenly Father. That's what the gospel is all about and that's why it's so important to share it with others!

Have a great week and a great Thanksgiving!

-Elder Burgon

⬇️ 🌊 ⬆️

Helllllllooooooooo! 

Hope you all had an awesome week! 

Me and Elder Burns had about as good of a week as you can have as missionaries! It was full of awesome lessons with our investigators, we met a lot of awesome people, and best of all N__ was Baptized!

This week was great! I went on exchanges twice this week. Once with the zone leaders and the other time with the district leader. Exchanges are tons of fun so doing it twice in one week was a party! 

On Thursday we met with N__ and went up to the Temple and did a tour of the visitors center. We talked about temples and how amazing and important they are and it went really well! She said she is excited to go do baptisms for the dead as soon as she is Baptized and confirmed!

Now for the best part of the week... Sunday! Yesterday was the craziest but the best Sunday ever! N__'s baptism was at 5:00p so we were getting everything all setup for that throughout the day. We had meetings in the morning until church started at 10:30a and it was also the primary sacrament meeting program. In order to get enough primary kids together to put on a program our ward had to combine with the Spanish ward. Because of that the church schedule was a little backwards and we had sacrament meeting last. So first we had sunday school and then Elder Burns and I taught in elders quorum then we had the primary program. It was super unique and cool! Most of the kids in the program were from the Spanish ward because our primary is so small but what made it really cool was that most of the kids knew Spanish AND English! So they would get up and say their part in Spanish and then say the same thing in English. They were so little and they could already speak two languages! I thought that was really cool! After church we ran back to the apartment and ate some lunch and then ran right back to the church to get ready for N____'S BAPTISM! 

N__'s Baptism was the coolest experience ever! She invited all of her family and some of her friends and the baptism went so well! N__'s parents only speak Spanish so we did it a lot like the primary program. We would say everything in English and then the Spanish missionaries would say it in Spanish. The spirit was so strong and N__'s parents were very interested! We are definitely going to have the Spanish missionaries go and meet with them! N__ was Baptized and everything went so great! It was super amazing and so great to be able to help someone enter the gate on the straight and narrow path! 

I love sharing the blessings that come from the Gospel! 

Have a great week! 

-Elder Burgon

Pix:
Nancy's Baptism

 New Series...Food of the Week!

 Another New Series...Awesome Cars of LA

 Beauty of California

🎃 🚘 🌊

Hello everyone! Can you believe it's already November 6th?! 

This past week was a pretty fun one. Halloween was awesome! The ward did a chili cook-off and a trunk-or-treat so we went and enjoyed some chili and tried to get lots of investigators to come. Then we had to be in our apartments by 6:00p so the day felt super short. Halloween is different in California! It was warm and nobody trick or treats  At least in my area there were no trick-or-treaters. It was weird compared to Utah Halloweens where there are tons of kids in costumes running around the neighborhood. 

Last p-day a lot of other elders and I did a really fun activity. We went to the Peterson Auto Museum and it was super cool! There were tons of cool cars there and the best part was that we were allowed to take pictures so I took tons! 

The rest of the week was pretty normal but for some reason, we met a ton of people throughout the week who were interested in learning. We normally meet a lot of people but for some reason this week it seemed like everyone wanted to talk with us! Everyday people were stopping us and getting really excited to learn about what we believe. More investigators wahoo! There was this one guy we ran into outside of the post office who had lots of questions! We talked with him for over an hour and he was very interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he was really excited to read it! Stuff like that happened all week! It was tons of fun!

We met with N__ again a couple of times during the week and holy cow she is ready to be Baptized! Less than a week away now! God is definitely preparing people to hear the Gospel! I am so grateful for the Gospel in my life and seeing the joy that it brings to others is the best thing ever!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon 

🔥 ➡️ ❄️ ... °||||° 🏈

Interpretation: "The weather went from HOT to COLD and there was a football player who showed up in a JEEP"

Hello everyone! Happy Halloween! and shout out to my Dad...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! 

I hope you had a great week! My week started off super hot but by the end of the week it actually got chilly. It's almost sweater weather time wahooooo!

I want to start off by sharing a scripture, it's 1 Nephi 15: 24 where Nephi is explaining to Laman and Lemuel what the iron rod represents. He says, 

"And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction." 

And then in 2 Nephi 32: 3 it says, 

''feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do." 

These scriptures just reminded me how important it is to study the scriptures and apply them into our lives. I love how it says that the fiery darts of the adversary of the adversary won't overpower us unto blindness if we hold to the rod and listen to the word of God. 

This week there was some exciting stuff that happened! Yesterday we found another awesome investigator! We were actually waiting for the bus to head up to his apartment when a guy in a jeep that was driving by rolled down his window and was like, "hey are you guys from Utah?" I was like, "yeah I am" and he said, "Awesome! Stay there for a second!" A couple of minutes later he came back and told us to hop in and that'd he drive us wherever we were going. We thought it was like a member who saw us and was just offering a ride so we hopped on in. But it turned out to be a running back for the U and he said he was just looking out for his Utah boyz. :) He said his name was L___ and that he graduated last year and that he recognized us because a lot of his friends back in Utah were LDS. That was super cool! 

But anyway, about our new investigator. Lucky dropped us off at his apartment and his name is J___, he said that he hasn't been religious his whole life but in the past couple of years he has investigated just about every religion he can think of. He said, "everything from Catholicism to Buddhism and from Judaism to Shintoism." But he says that none of them have clicked with him. He is just trying to find a religion that can help him be the best person he can be and none of them have motivated or helped him to do that. But then he was studying at a school in England and said that some classmates in his dorm introduced him to our church and then when he got back to America he researched it a lot. He went to the visitor center just a little while ago and loved it. Thats when he decided to start meeting with us. So we met with him yesterday and by the end of the lesson he said he felt like something clicked. He loved that the Gospel is a gospel of action and change and not just all talk. He even said that he wants to be Baptised if he comes to know that the Book of Mormon is True! :) 

It was amazing to see how the experiences in his life have prepared him to hear the gospel! It's amazing how God is preparing people! 

N___ is still preparing to be baptized and is doing great! 

I'm loving it out here and sharing the Gospel is 

the best thing in the world!!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon
Pix:

*take the Book of Mormon*

Creepy face painted on a wall in an alley that had a light just for it

SUSHI!!!!!!!

cooking "chicken"

Tour de l'appartment...

Guess which bed is E. Burg's...clue: He is an extreme neat freak!!!

That's all from the tour-de l'appartment that I dare share...
#humbling #makingthemostofit #missionadventures