TRAINING IS SOOO AWESOME!!!!

This week has been so much fun and training is the best! It's been a lot of fun to think back to when I was being trained and remember what I liked and what I'd do different and share all that with my trainee. Greenie fire is very real and so are the miracles that come with it! We've had one of the most successful finding weeks I've had yet on my mission! My trainee Elder Dehlin is super awesome! He is from Alpine Utah and is amazing at Ultimate Frisbee, basketball, and eating lots of food. The Samoans are going to love him!

The beginning of the week was exciting! On my way up to the temple to pick up Elder Dehlin, Bishop Bradley and I got in a little car accident. But because traffic on the 405 is always moving so slow it was just a little fender bender. Just enough to make sure I was awake. Then picking up Elder Dehlin was a lot of fun! I was super happy when I found out that he is really into sports. It's made morning exercise a lot of fun! We go to the church building every morning and play basketball and ping pong with some other elders and it's been great!

Early in the week I got to go on exchanges with my district leader and we joined in with a group of people in a badminton club and played with them and shared the gospel with them! I never knew badminton could get so intense!

While I was studying this week I read a really great conference talk that had an amazing quote from Elders Hales in it that I really like! It says,

 “When we choose to have faith, we are prepared to stand in the presence of God. … After the Savior’s Crucifixion, He appeared only to those ‘who had been faithful in the testimony of [Him] while they lived in mortality.’ [D&C 138:12.] Those ‘who rejected the testimonies … of the … prophets [could not] behold [the Savior’s] presence, nor look upon his face.’ [D&C 138:21.] … Our faith prepares us to be in the presence of the Lord.”

Faith really is important and it can really be a blessing in our lives. When we choose to have faith it can cast out our fears and we can be happier and have more peace in our lives.

Have a great week!!

-Elder Burgon  

PIX....

JUST FOR FUN...

TRAINING!

20 February 2018

Dear Brother and Sister Burgon,

Elder Eric Todd Burgon has been appointed as a trainer in the California Los Angeles Mission. No more important position exists than that of training a new missionary. New missionaries need to be properly taught immediately upon entering the mission field. Initial experiences truly influence the remainder of one’s mission. Your son will teach by both precept and example the attributes and skills that his companion will need to become an effective representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am confident that he will, with the help of the Lord, be very successful in his new calling.

Sister Haynie joins me in extending to you our sincere congratulations for having a son of such quality and our appreciation for having Elder Burgon in our mission. We know he will receive your continued support in his missionary service.

Sincerely yours, 

Robert M. Haynie
President
California Los Angeles Mission

JUST GOT THE NEWS...
ELDER BURGON IS TRAINING ELDER DEHLIN!!!!

TRANSFER NEWS....

Hello everyone!! 

Transfers are tomorrow and I got the news that I am training! I am super excited! I get to stay in the area and I'll find out who I am training tomorrow! Super sad I don't get to be companions with Elder Killian for another transfer. He is awesome! But I'm excited to meet my new trainee! Elder Killian is getting transfered to Lawndale. His new companion is a Chinese Elder, Elder Kao. Pretty exciting stuff. 

This past week was pretty fun! We did a lot of practices for our musical fireside. We performed Saturday and Sunday night and I got to be in the choir. It was a lot of fun! Today to celebrate after our performance President Galrath is having an all you can eat taco truck come to his house and we are doing a taco eating competition. It's going to be pretty awesome! I'll take pics. 

This week we also got to do some more service. We went up to the temple and did yard work on the temple grounds for a few hours. Its crazy how much work goes into keeping the temple grounds nice! 

Me and Elder Killian got to speak in church yesterday and it went really well! We got asked to speak on missionary work and in my talk I shared a scripture that I really like so I'll share it again. It's D&C 18: 15-17 it says, 

15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! 

16 And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me! 

17 Behold, you have my gospel before you, and my rock, and my salvation.

It's so true that your joy can be great when you share the gospel with others! Sharing the gospel is so much fun and helping others get the blessings that come from it is the best.  


Have a great week!! 

-Elder Burgon 

BONUS FEATURE: At a dinner appointment... Hello Fam!!!

Mama's Note: Thank you kind members for 1. feeding the missionaries 2. loving them and 3. sending us pics & a video!!!

FLYING

This week flew by so fast! 

I can't believe it's already p-day again that just blows my mind. 

It was another good week! 

Last p day we went to the Korean Bell of Friendship and checked out the cool views. And because time is flying by so fast we took a picture of us actually flying. 

We had some fun service projects we got to do this week. For one of them we went to a members house in the Lomita ward and helped him install an internet cable in his apartment. He has lots of health issues that make it so he can't do typical jobs for work so he is going to start writing books instead. But in order to install the cable we had to move all his furniture and stuff out of the way, install the cable, and then move everything back into place. As a hobby he makes medieval armor so there were cool swords and tools all over the place. And as we worked he told us crazy stories about when he served a mission in Costa Rica. It was a lot of fun! Another service project we got to do this week we inherited from some other elders that scheduled two service projects at the same time but it was super cool. This member really likes guitars so he has a guitar and amp collection that we got to help move. We helped him move all of his stuff from a storage building into his office building where he is going to make a big man cave. 

So those were some pretty fun service projects but this week we also had zone conference which was a blast! And yesterday I went on exchanges with Elder Seipel who is a Korean missionary so we went to the Korean branch for church. That was cool! They just had sacrament meeting in a relief society room and only needed one sacrament tray.

This week for studies I read thru 3rd Nephi and chapter 11 is one of my favorite chapters in the book of Mormon for sure. I really like verses 15-17 that say, 

15 And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.
16 And when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying:
17 Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him.

I think it's cool that there was an entire multitude of people but Jesus let each individual person feel the prints in his hands and feet. I think that shows just how much Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father love us and know us individually.

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon 

Pics:

FLYING...

KOREAN BELL OF FRIENDSHIP...

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...

WEEK FULL OF FUN!!!!!

This was an eventful week!! 

So much is happening right now in the CLAM and it's been awesome!! 

We started off the week with a super cool service project. There was a member in the San Pedro ward that asked for help so we got a lot of missionaries together and went to help him. They own a property that they rent to businesses and one business that was there in the past built a rinky dink car shop. The member wanted to tear it down so he could rent the property to new people so he asked us to help. He gave us a bunch of sledgehammers and told us to go at it and boy did we go at it! It was pretty awesome! 


On Wednesday we found out that our mission will be effected by the changes that are being made by the Church to some missions throughout the world. On July 1st the southern part of our mission (my current area) will become a part of the Long Beach Mission and all the missionaries serving in those areas at the time will be moved over to the long Beach Mission. The CLAM will take in some stakes in the north eastern part of Los Angeles. It should be pretty fun to see how it all turns out!

Later in the week we went up to the visitor center and everyone got smartphones! The missionaries coming out now will be bringing their smartphones from home instead of tablets. Pretty crazy! 

Yesterday Elder Killian and I had a really cool experience. We did our daily planning and had our plans all done and then I just had a thought that we should go visit sister J__, an inactive member that we found a couple of weeks ago. We put it in the plans and then went on with our day. When it got to that time of the day we went over to her house and knocked on the door and the husband who is normally pretty against the church answered the door. He was busy watching the super bowl but luckily enough he let us come in. We went inside and found out that the family had just been in a big fight and everything was pretty tense. Nobody was really talking and everyone was upset. Sister J__ was the only one that wanted to talk to us so we shared a spiritual message with her and she just started crying and said that Heavenly Father sent us to her right when she needed it most. She convinced her family to come into the room and we were able to talk to all of them and eventually they all wanted to get a blessing. So we were able to give them all blessings and afterwards they were all friends again and were happy and talking to each other. They said they felt like our Heavenly Father sent us to them to help them at that time. It was incredible to see how our Heavenly Father knows us all so well and will use others to help us. The Priesthood is used to bless others and it was amazing to see it bless this family. 

Have a great week!
-Elder Burgon

Pics:

Current Missionary Accommodations
(sooo much better than the "Crusty Crab")