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