TRAINING!! AGAIN

26 June 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 their mission. Your son will teach by both precept and example the conduct and skills that his companion needs to become an effective messenger of the truth.  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 appreciation for your fine son. We realize that your example, training and love have contributed in large measure to his success as a missionary.  Thank you for your continued support and for sustaining him through his earlier leadership roles.

Sincerely yours,

Robert M Haynie
President
California Los Angeles Mission

What's Up Homies?!!!!

Hope this week was great for you! 

We had an awesome one here! 

It was the last week of the transfer and it went well. 

For transfers we found out that I am....  

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

STAYING!! 

I'll still be in the same apartment, but there will be lots of changes. I'll be covering 2 Wards now...going from double covering an English Ward and a Tongan Ward to fully covering an  English Ward and a completely different Tongan Ward. Elder Cook is heading out. He is going up to the Santa Monica YSA. And I'll be training again! So my new companion is still unknown. I'll find out who he is at the trainer meeting. But this transfer should be super awesome! Training will be great and there will be lots of new work for us to do! Let'sss gooooo! 

As far as this week goes it was pretty great! I was down and out for the count early in the week. I was pretty sick, but it gave me lots of time to think. "Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done." So true!! I just thought about all the ways that I've seen Heavenly Father's hand in my life and it is way too many to count! It never ceases to amaze me how much our Heavenly Father loves all of us. 

"Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. 

 Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land."   ~Alma 26:35-36:

I also had lots of fun for p day doing some Xrays and an MRI on my wrists. For the MRI they gave me a shot of "contrasting fluid" to help make the MRI pick things up. I was really hoping that the contrasting fluid would be some neon green goo that'd make my veins all glow. But, to my great sadness... no glow.  maybe next time.

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

Pix...

The face of missionary who has 2! veins collapse during a very painful blood draw!!!!

All better...

 Being short has it's perks!!!

 The District...

WOWZA

This week was packed with stuff! 

We were running around all week.
 It was pretty entertaining! 

Let me fill ya in.

We started off the week with my physical therapy up in Santa Monica and wowza was it fun! When my wrists started hurting I had no idea it meant a physical therapist would twist, stretch, and crack my neck in so many ways. At one point I didn't know if he was doing physical therapy or putting me out of my misery all together by just breaking my neck right then and there. That man had joints in my body cracking that I didn't even know I had. And you better believe that I was sore the next day. :) Fun times. What was really fun tho was the drive up to Santa Monica and back. On the way there we stopped at a Wendy's and got lunch. We were sitting there staring out the window just watching crazy LA. It can be really entertaining sometimes. Then we saw a sweet Ferrari pull in and just chill at Wendy's. We were like woah, pretty cool pretty cool. Then a few minutes later a big passenger van pulls up. Elder Cook said, "Wow look at that huuuuge van!" Apparently Elder Cook hadn't ever seen a Mormon van before that. I told him it was probably a Mormon family on vacation. Half of me was joking and the other half thought it was totally true. Little to my surprise a family of twelve flooded out of the van and into Wendy's for a pit stop. They came inside and were like, "Hey Elders! How's it going?" I just looked at Elder Cook and said, "what'd I tell ya?" hahaha. We also saw another Ferrari on the way back. I love the souped up civics of Inglewood just as much as the next guy but it was fun to see some Ferraris again.

Ok here is a fun mission story for ya. I was on exchanges with Elder Cox who was in my MTC district and he is now serving in my first area so I was pretty excited! On the exchange we were in his car driving around and then he pulled over and said, "Hey I've got a bad headache and I'm not feeling so great. Do you think you could drive?" I said yeah and hopped in the driver seat and we took off again. We drove for a few more minutes and I thought Elder Cox was falling asleep because out of the corner of my eye I could see his head nodding. Then I looked over and realized that he wasn't falling asleep but he was doing everything possible to hold in an explosive barf. He reached to open the door but too little too late. Blahhhhhhh. All of the sudden the flood gates opened and throw up filled the floor of the car and completely soaked Elder Cox's lap. He looked over and said "well that's embarr- blahhhhhhh"... round 2... he cracked a smile and said, "Well, at least I feel better now!" I was dying! Both from the smell and from Elder Cox joking about it and having a good attitude about the whole thing. We quickly drove to the nearest self serve car wash and sprayed him off with the power washer the best we could. The looks we got were priceless.  

Now on a more serious note. One night we were driving around after our appointment fell through and we felt like we should stop by G__. He is an investigator we have been working with for a few weeks now and it's been awesome. He had a really rough life in the past until he realized that the path he was on wasn't bringing him any happiness. He decided to completely turn his life around and head in a new direction. In our visit this week he talked a lot about the change that has taken place in his life. He can see that the more he focuses on the gospel the more light there is in his life. There is a great Mormon Message called 'Flecks of Gold' that talks about this and it's so cool to see it in action in G__'s life. It's amazing to see how much he has changed and it all happens just one little step at a time. Line upon line precept upon precept. The Gospel really is a gospel of change and it is such a blessing to be able to witness that change in others as a missionary!

Have a great week!

-Elder Burgon

pix:

Aliens...

The best Smoothie ever in front of a German book of mormon...

we found an octopus so we thought we were cool...

 selfie!!!

Mormon Night with the Dodgers

Just a few pics for this week...

Yeah It Feels Like Summer

Hello hello hello! 

Can you believe it's summer!? Geez! 

This week t'was a good one as always! It started off with a killer memorial day bbq with the Tongans. Like I've said before, they know how to party... and eat. They spent the entire day in a park and bbq-ed for breakfast lunch and dinner. We just stopped by and snagged some brunch. If you've never had the Tongan classic of spam sushi before I highly recommend it! So good! Then we had a super solid p day with the Spanish Hombres to the North. We went to the Alameda swap meet and dropped some dough on some Huaraches. They are super comfortable leather shoes that a member makes and sells for super cheap! Plus our mission president loves them so it was a done deal. Then we picked up some dough at Randy's doughnuts. They are soooo good! Plus from what everyone tells me that giant doughnut is pretty famous . 

When we were helping the ward out with some ministering on Tuesday we had a fun surprise lesson. The ward had a couple of people they wanted us to stop by and see so we were out and about tackling the list and we knocked on one door where a member was supposed to live. A lady answered the door and we asked if so and so still lived there and she said, "Nope! But we are doing a Bible study class right now do you want to come in?" Before I even had a chance to process what she said my companion was already in the house sitting on the couch with his Bible open and ready to go. He was excited to say the least. They were really friendly and had lots of questions so it was really cool! It also helped strengthen my testimony in the Book of Mormon and how important it is for clarifying doctrine that is a little more confusing in the Bible. The Book of Mormon and the Bible work so well together. It is the G R E A T E S T!  

Lately we've been doing a good amount of driving because of how big the Tongan ward is. Because of that Elder Cook and I like to listen to long talks as we drive. One day this week the talk of the day was 'Turn off the TV and get a life' by John Bytheway. It basically talks for over an hour about how bad TV and video games are and how we can be a lot more productive with our time. So we listened to that and by the end of the day it had Elder Cook and I both convinced that we will never watch TV or play video games ever again. Then we went to dinner with a member. We sat down and started talking. We asked what he did for work and he said, "I play video games for a living. Yesterday I played video games literally all day and into the night until 5:00 in the morning"... It took every ounce of strength I had to not just keel over dead right then and there. The irony of the situation was too real! I wasnt sure if I should take that as a sign and just hand him a copy of the talk or what I was supposed to do. It was just too funny!

Have a great week! 

-Elder Burgon 

See the shoes...and the spudnuts...and the huge donut?

 Fun pday at the "cave" minus the ocean