Hellooooooo!
We had a great week here in pv. It's been fun. We had zone conference which is always super great. And we were able to find some new people to work with so that's been awesome!
We had dinner with a really awesome sister from the ward and she has an amazing conversion story so I have to share it! She has been really athletic and very injury prone her whole life. When she was 5 years old she was sliding down a medal slide at a park and somewhere on the slide there was a sharp edge and it cut her finger right off. Her parents rushed her to the hospital and they were able to reattach her finger there. It's not perfectly normal now but it's pretty good for getting it sliced off and sewn back on.
Then when she was 10 she was competing in a BMX race and flew off the track. She face planted into and slid across cement until her entire face was just roadrash. That doesn't sound too enjoyable.
Then when she was 17 she was swinging at a park that had huge swings. She and her friends were trying to get as high as they could and then jump off. So she was swinging and when she was as high as she could go she jumped off. She flew so far that she flew over a wall and landed head first right on a cement walkway. She had a concussion that put her in a coma for 2 weeks. And she also broke her arm in multiple places and shattered her elbow. She said it took her a long time to recover from that one.
Then when she was 30 she was competing in triathlons so she was constantly training for those. One day when she was out riding her bycicle she was hit by a car and shattered her knee cap.
Then after she recovered from getting hit by a car she got into rock climbing. One day she was doing a climb in a slot canyon and she was doing it without any ropes. She got 50 feet up and then lost her grip. She fell down the canyon bouncing back and forth off the walls before slamming into the ground. She says she died three times from this accident. Once when a first responder was getting her stabilized and ready to be transported out of the canyon. She went unconscious and stopped breathing. A second time when they got her into a helicopter to get her to a hospital. She stopped breathing again and her heart stopped. Then the third time when she was in the hospital in the middle of a surgery her heart stopped again. But miraculously she came back all three times.
After this experience and all of her other accidents she had lots of questions. She wondered why she was able to survive her fall even though it was serious enough to make her 'die' three times. She also wondered what would have happened to her if she wouldn't have survived. Where would she have gone? A few months later once she had recovered for a little bit she started exploring churches and would always ask the people at the churches her questions. She said none of the answers she got seemed right to her and she just wasn't satisfied. Months later when she was at a physical therapy appointment she started talking to a lady there who is a member of our church! She said she felt really comfortable talking to her and sharing her experiences with her even though they weren't in a church setting. So she asked the sister the questions she had and the sister invited her to meet with the missionaries. So they all had a dinner together and afterwards she asked the missionaries her questions and they taught her the Plan of Salvation. She said it seemed really familiar to her. It all made sense and she felt like she already knew all the things that they were telling her she just hadn't ever heard it before. And the best part was that it answered all the questions she had and the answers just felt right. So she continued to meet with the missionaries and quickly gained a testimony of the Gospel and was baptized as quickly as she could. Now she is an awesome active member of the Church!
I just loved hearing her conversion story. And it was cool to hear how she was searching for the truth and knew it when she found it.
D&C 123:12 "For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it."
Have a great week!
-Elder Burgon
Pics :
-Look who I found at zone conference
-From Palos Verdes downtown LA looks like it's in the mountains. Kinda cool.
-We had a trunk or treat with our Korean Branch and had lots of fun. This was the view from inside the trunk.
-The view.
-Another cool view. You can see the coast from Santa Monica all the way down to pv.
-We found heaven. A hot churro in ice cream. Yummmmmmmmm
