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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

🚘 💥 🚗 ＝ 🚌

Que Pasa Calabasa? 

Can't believe how fast this week blew by! It was a very good and a very unique week.

We started the week off by packing up all of our stuff and moving to our new apartment on Tuesday. We spent a lot of the day with the new elders in the area because they helped us move our stuff with their car. And because we didn't know how the ward was devided yet so we all just worked together. After we got everything moved and did some work it was time to head to our dinner appointment so we all piled in the car and drove to dinner. On our way there a truck ran a red light and completely wrecked us. It was crazy! The truck hit the front driver's side of the car and spun us around. Luckily everyone was safe. It made for a crazy night!! 

The rest of the week we have just been walking or riding the bus around going to appointments. Oh and we've continued to meet with our awesome investigator, N_____,  that we found last week and it's gone great! We found out that she actually found us on snap chat. Apparently the church is doing ads on social media right now and she saw one and used it to contact us. Pretty exciting! We did a church tour with her on Friday and she came to church yesterday and she committed to be Baptized and set a date!!

It's so much fun to be out sharing the gospel!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

pix: 

Staples Center

Our car after the accident

Like marshmallows in a microwave...the airbags exploded
{from mom...injuries: the airbag exploded next to his head so he had ringing in his ear, but it is fine now and one of the Elders has a pretty bad sprained wrist other than that everyone is ok.
Prayers work! Miracles happen!!!!}

The other guys truck

Bonus from riding on a bus...able to spot a Ferrari

the comp and a cat

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!

WHAT A GREAT WEEK!

Hello!! 

Happy Monday!! Hope you all had a great week! My week was very exciting and a lot of new stuff is happening!

To start off with a spiritual thought I found a scripture in my personal study that is awesome! It's been a great one to share with members encouraging them to share the gospel and it's a great missionary scripture as well. It's 1 Nephi 13:37 -

"And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost; and if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be."

This week we found an awesome investigator! She was raised without a religion but now she is really wanting to learn about Christ and she wants to become religious. She started off by going to a Christian church and then she heard about Mormon missionaries and how we come and talk to people about Christ and she was super excited! So she went to Mormon.org and requested a Book of Mormon and for the missionaries to come by! So that's how we found her! We went over and taught about the restoration and she loved it! The entire time she was saying she was super excited about what she was hearing and that she just felt really happy! We are meeting with her again this week and doing a tour of the church building! 

On Thursday me and Elder Burns got to do a really fun service project! In the morning a member called us and said he needed help "moving stuff." So we were all for it and went over in the afternoon to help him out. When we got there we found out it was less moving stuff and more getting rid of bed bugs!! Hopefully we didn't take any home with us... eeek! It was crazy the members house was filled with these nasty bugs so we helped them move all of their mattresses and box springs out into their backyard and then we burned everything. Somehow the cops weren't called on us even though there was a ton of smoke! 

Tomorrow I will have been here a whole transfer I can't believe it! Yesterday I had transfer calls and I'm getting transfered!... well kinda. Me and my companion are staying together and we will still be in the same ward but we are moving to a new apartment. They cut our area in half so now there will be two sets of missionaries in our ward. We are moving to a new apartment that is still in our ward boundaries but now we only cover half the ward. We are also losing our car and now I'm either going to be walking or on a bike which I think will be fun! 

Have a great week! 

-Elder Burgon

WEEK OF CONFERENCES

Hello again! 

This past week was a unique one, we really only had two days to do any work because of all the meetings we had. This week I went to new missionary orientation number two, zone conference, stake conference, and last weekend was general conference. It felt like we had a big meeting almost everyday. I loved it! It reminded me of my first week being out here because of all the meetings we had back then too. It was great! 

All the meeting have been awesome!! Elder Arnold came and did our zone conference and stake conference. He is super cool and gave us a lot of things we can do to be more efficient missionaries. He promised us if we kneel down to pray at the end of lessons with all our investigators that the number of baptisms in our mission will increase significantly! I thought that was a pretty cool promise and im definentely going to try it out. 

This week has been a spiritual high from all the meetings. It was so great to be able to strengthen my testimony and continue to learn how blessed we are to have the gospel in our lives.

Sorry, super short email this week I'm short on time. Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

PICS.... 
Let's play a little game I like to call...I Spy Elder Burgon :) GOOD LUCK!!!!

Did you find him?

Little easier in this one?

Ahhh...there he is!!!

Thanks for playing!!!

Where some want to be...

Where I want to be!

MUY BUENA SEMANA

VERY GOOD WEEK

Hola mi amigos! Los Angeles is still treating me great! I keep expecting the weather to get cooler now that its fall but we just keep staying in the 70s and 80s  I definently can't complain. This week was another great one! Me and Elder Burns were able to find a lot of new investigators, general conference was AWESOME, and we had some very fun experiences throughout the week. 

On Tuesday me and Elder Burns had a fun experience with one of the many crazy people here in LA. We were walking around a neighborhood visiting members and referrals when a homeless dude walked up to us and gave us a rose. At first we were just like "oh hey thank you!" and kept walking. But then he just kept walking along with us. He was acting really funny and no matter how hard we tried we couldn't get him to leave us alone . After he followed us for a couple blocks we decided we should probably head back to the car and go somewhere else so we started heading in that direction. He kepy following us and eventually he got really angry that we weren't going to give him any money or give him a cigarette ( he asked probably 100 times ) and then he started freaking out. He starting throwing pinecones at us and screaming and rolling around on the ground so me and Elder Burns just took off and ran back to the car. Hahaha it was definently a unique experience. There's always something keeping me on my toes here.

But the rest of the week we just kept finding really cool people that are interested in learning more about the Gospel. It was a lot of fun! One person that we found was really happy to see us and absolutely loves the Church! His name is H______ and he is from Mexico and has been living in LA for just a few years. While he was down in mexico he said that he was doing a fundraiser to buy shoes for some orphans. While he was doing it he ran into an LDS bishop who ended up helping him raise a lot of the money he needed. So he said he is very greatful for the Church and would be very happy if we came to his house sometime. Unfortunately he lives outside of the mission so we have to refer him to someone else. But we kept finding super cool people like that all week. It has been awesome! 

These past few days have been so great because of General Conference. General Conference was the best! One of my favorite talks was from President Uchtdorf in the priesthood session. In it he said something that I feel is really important right now with how crazy the world is. He said, "It is up to us to be in the right place to see and feel the divine light and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even when night has fallen and the world seems dark, we can choose to walk in Christ’s light, keep His commandments, and courageously testify of His reality and His greatness." I know that even in this crazy world we can still find peace and happiness as we come unto Christ.

Have an amazing week!!

-Elder Burgon

Oh and our appartment was taken over by some crazy looking spiders. So if anyone knows what kind of spider this is feel free to let me know.