Happiness is a choice!

Hello!

Well your emails always make me miss you guys even more!
Tell Darren happy late birthday for me! Thanks.

haha I wish I could see how big Ryan is! Tell Ryan I think it's awesome that he's doing track! That is so awesome! I miss them all SO much! man. Well, I only got a year left! Can you believe it! It's gonna be flying by! Good news is that I get to talk to you in like 2 months!!! yay :)

Well this week was really good. It was a slow week, but it was good.  We met with Pat P. and are getting everything ready for her baptism. We are so excited for it! It is Mar. 11. It's a Tuesday, which is unusual for a baptism, but it works for her! She's excited. We were able to see lots of less active members this week and it's been a rather slower week. We are looking for new investigators, and that is our focus this next week - to open our mouths and keep having faith. This week has reminded me of the scripture Ether 12:6. We receive a witness AFTER the trial of our faith. It has been definitely a faith tester this week. Faith is something that is so important to me, it's literally everything. It's the basis of our church, it's the ground we walk on to stand and climb higher.  My faith has been tested and strengthened throughout my whole mission, but really this week has tested my faith and my trust in God. I know that it is SO important to just trust in God.

The Sister Training Leaders gave us the challenge of reading the Book of Mormon in a week, I'll have you know that I accomplished it! Yes, it was HARD, but just like everything else in life, if it isn't hard, it's not worth it.  If we don't work in our missionary work, in our jobs, in our lives, it's not going to be worth it. It's not going to mean anything when it's over.  We don't learn unless it's hard. Sometimes it's easy, but the most rewarding experiences are when it's hard and we become humble and realize that we are nothing without the Lord's help!
Something I realized while reading the BOM in a week, is to have faith and trust in God. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and it's hard to trust in that sometimes, but it's true. That is what I have learned this week and continue to strengthen my testimony.

Sister Turner, Shurtleff, and I are doing so well! They are so funny! I love them both so much. I've learned so much from both of them.  From Sister Turner, I've learned diligence, to be proactive in my teaching, commitments and teaching ability. She's so awesome. I hope to become like her in some of those ways as a missionary. She's fantastic. Sister Shurtleff is so funny! She's a ball of sunshine and so positive and happy. She loves the Lord a lot. She loves people. I hope to become more like that! With these companions, I've learned that we all have different strengths and weaknesses. The Lord has called me, Lindsi Burr, to be a representative of the Lord, Jesus Christ, to bare witness of him in this doubting world.

I have it so good here! I have a great area, great companions, the Lord is on my side, what could be better? It has been a rough week, but I think all weeks are rough, that means growth. But the trick is to find the joy in the journey, Just as we have heard from our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. My grandpa has always said that happiness in a choice. IT'S SO TRUE! We choose our attitude and how we take everything that happens to us in our life. We are going to strive to get more new investigators this week. 

It's been real cold here too...not too fun. They have this thing called freezing rain! It's so cool! It's kind of like raining ice...it's crazy. Everything FREEZES! It's so cold. it's happening right now outside...the weather here scares me. ha! ahh. It's okay. The Lord won't let me die yet, I've got too many people to see and thing to do. I'm too important to die :) haha. just kidding. The Lord is on my side!

anways,
I love you guys and miss you SOOOOO much!!! I hope everything is going well! tell the little munchikins I said Hi, i love and miss them! and kooker!
I love you mama!

Love always,
Sister Burr

February Emails

2-24-14

We committed Pat P. for baptism this past week! March 11! It is a Tuesday, but that is the day that worked best for her. So it will be great! She kept saying she didn't feel ready. We all used The Book of Mormon to help her overcome that fear, because even if you don't feel ready, even if you believe that these things are true, the Lord will help you accomplish the things that we need if we follow Him and His commandments! It was awesome and so we will be working with her towards her baptismal date.  We also saw Ann C. and her husband Jaime C. We had a good lesson.  Jaime isn't a member. And he talked about how there is a God but yet it goes against all logic that there is a God. Then we saw Denise P. and she said the same thing. It goes against all logic that there is a God. They both had their reasons. I was, for a moment, discouraged about how much evil there is to make people believe that there isn't a God. It just doesn't make sense to me. All the things they were saying that were evidences that there weren't a God are exactly all the reasons that there IS a God. It just blows my mind. We tried our best to help them see the evidences of God, but all we could do was testify that we KNOW there is a God and ask them to pray if there is a God. So it was a challenging week, but a great week! We have had lots of fun and spiritual greatness in our companionship! Our unity has increased as well as our teaching ability!

I remember when I first got to Tennessee, how President Irion gave us laminated Books of Mormon. I hadn't touched it until our Sister Training Leaders challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in a week! and I'm taking on that challenge! So I got out the Book of Mormon and I decided to take the challenge and Sister Turner had shared a story she got from her mom in a letter, about another sister missionary in a different mission. That she read the Book of Mormon and made very heart felt notes and just felt like she needed to do that. The story goes on to say that she lost the Book of Mormon and she was so heart broken, but months later, she received a letter thanking her for the Book of Mormon because it was so heartfelt written and it meant a lot to someone so she felt like it might mean a lot to her and that woman met with missionaries and got baptized because of it! It was the coolest story! So when I started reading the Book of Mormon for the week challenge, we were seeing a potential investigator yesterday and she told us that she didn't want to continue the lessons. I had the laminated Book of Mormon with me, it was all I had brought out from the car. I felt the prompting to give it to her. She needs it. So even though I had written heart felt notes like the story, I was sad to give up my Book of Mormon, but I got such a strong prompting, that it didn't matter. She needed it. So I gave it to her! It was a cool experience.

This week is a turn around one for me. I'm going to work on taking charge, because I'm not one to do that at ALL! so that is my goal this week. Just take charge in most things we do as a companionship and in teaching lessons!

It's been a great week!

Oh and the weather this past week has been AMAZING! in the 70's! that is what i'm taking about!!! :) haha. But it's supposed to get cold again..grr!

But that is basically all that happened this week. It was a long week..I'm grateful for Mondays :) haha. I love you so much and I miss you guys so much too!

I love you and I hope you guys have a great week!

Love always,

Sister Burr

Oh and thanks for the package! I loved it ;) Thank you so much!!

2-17-14

Hi Mommy!

We had a great week this week. We had transfers, which is sad to see Sister Hollis leave and Sister Cady! It was a hard transfer meeting! But a good thing is, is that we got Sister Shurtleff! She's from West Jordan, Utah and she's 20. She went to USU for 3 semesters and she's been out 10 months! She's SO great! I love her! She has such great qualities as a missionary and as a person! She will be so great for this area! The people already love her too! So that is great!

Well because of the snow storm, we had to cancel some plans and such. We weren't able to see our investigator his past week because of the snow, but she still came to church this last Sunday! So that was good. :) We are planning to commit her for baptism this week.  We also saw Sara H. and we saw The Collins. We saw lots of less active members this week, which was good.  We did great on asking for referrals this week, because we all aren't good at that...so we worked on it! And we went and saw this lady, Teresea, and she's Baptist, but we just talked with her and told her what we did and she said it made her day and we inspire her! So, it was good. We are hoping that she will be a new investigator, we asked her if she would be interested in learning more. She said maybe soon. So we are going to keep following up with her! She was great.  So we are going to be working with other potential investigators that we have, we have Rick and Travis, Dian S. and we are going to work on finding more people to teach!

Me and my companions are all getting along very well.  I have learned so much from Sister Turner and I have already learned a lot from Sister Shurtleff.  They are amazing people. 

Other than that, it's been a pretty standard week! I love the people here! There are 2 amazing families in the branch, the Critchleys and the Woods. They are just amazing people. I love them :) I love this area!  There are just amazing people in this area! I love it :) I've learned so much and grown sooo much! It's crazy to think I've been out 6 months. Let me just tell y'all. People say you get used to be tired as a missionary... NOT TRUE! Such a lie...haha :) I'm so tired. :) haha.

I hope y'all are doing well! I'm doing really well. I miss you so much and I love you even more! I can't wait to come home but I know this is where i'm supposed to be right now. I'm supposed to grow and help even more people come to know of the truth!

I hope y'all have a great week! I love y'all so much!

Love always,

Sister Burr

2-10-14

Hey mommy!

Well that was a short email...haha it's okay :) I am safe. It is cold out here, so I'm not exactly warm all the time, but I am warm enough :) I just love that you email me! 

I will be sure to send her an email. and tell Trent that I love him. I love all those little stinkers. But tell Trent that I love him so much.

We had a good week! Obviously with the baptism, it was a great service. I'm so proud of her, she was really nervous.  She was confirmed on Sunday and it was a good blessing.  We had another Investigator attend church, Pat P. This will be her 4th week in a row. They usually switch Sundays and go to her church. But she has been coming. It's awesome! We have tried to commit her for a date twice and she says she's not ready yet, but she's close. We invited her to the baptism and she said, "yes I should come so I can know what to expect for when I get baptized." So, that's pretty awesome. We have no doubts that we will help her acheive that.

We had Zone Conference this past week and it was a good meeting. I learned some things that can really help me strengthen my weaknesses and improve myself personally.

We also had the Lanes come to church and they haven't been to church for months! We were SO happy about that! We have been working hard with them! We hope that they are here to stay and we're helping them come back! It is a great work to help people come back into the church.

Me, Sister Turner, and Sister Hollis are doing great! We get along really well with each other. We are both sad to loose Sister Hollis. She is going home and tranfers are this Wednesday! We love her a lot. I know she's gonna do great things when she gets home. Me and Sister Turner are excited to receive a new companion, I love Sister Turner a lot. She is so determined and gets things done. She's so great. I love her.

This week we are mostly going to work on finding new investigators. Teach when you find, find when you teach. We haven't been great at asking for referrals, so we have goals for asking everyone for referrals and working on OYM every day.

I am happy here in Rockwood. It is a wonderful branch. I love working with these people. There are great people out here. Other than that, it's been just the same work out here. We hope to find new people to teach and to find those that are searching!

I hope y'all are doing well. I miss y'all SO much. I can't even explain it to you more! I love y'all so much! thank you for being such a great support and family to me! Y'all me the world to me!

Love always,

Sister Burr :)

me, Denise, Sister Hollis, Sister Turner

Sister Turner, Jeannie, Me, Sister Hollis

Jeannie's baptism :)

Jeannie and Brother Woods. (they aren't together. just in case you were wondering. He baptized her)

2-3-14

Well hello y'all! :) 

Oh my goodness! I am sad I can't be there to be a part of the kids lives...but I will be home in like year! Can you believe i've been out for 6 months almost??? Yeah it's crazy. Well I'm sooo glad you're done with school! That is sooo awesome!! I can't believe it :) I'm so proud of you Momma! I can't believe my baby brother is turning 11 this week! Give him a hug and a kiss for me okay? I sent him a card, I hope it got there. I love all y'all so much!!

Well! This was an exciting week! We had a great week! We have been working with Jeannie a lot this past week, and she had her interview this past week. We know she's ready.  She's so great! We think that she would make such a cool Relief Society President! But baby steps, as always! Then we saw another investigator this week, Pat P. We taught the Plan of Salvation, and we invited her to be baptized, but she declined. She didn't feel ready.  She does need some time, but we aren't going to give up on her.  We saw some less active members.  Because of the snow storm we had this week, that definitely cut into our plans, but we still had a good week. 

We are soo excited for Jeannie to be baptized this next saturday! It will be great. 

Of course we had the great opportunity to hear from Elder Perry.  What a amazing example he is! I think everyone was talking about how enthusiastic he was! He was bouncing off the walls! And it was great!! I really got a lot of things from the Elder Perry meeting.  He talked a lot about personal example, which I needed to hear for sure! And that was said again and again in church yesterday.  Heavenly Father is watching over me.  I cried like a baby yesterday, I just felt the Lord's love and that I do make a difference out here, which can be hard to see sometimes, because I am so self-critical and it is definitely something I am working on.

Me, Sister Hollis, and Sister Turner are doing great! They are such great companions, I love them a lot.  They are helping me grow in my weaker areas such as OYM and taking initiative with everyone.  I am definitely working on it. The Lord always, always, hears our prayers and I have received that witness time and time again this weekend.  I am sad to see Sister Hollis leave. She is a special missionary and person. I have LOVED serving with her. And Sister Turner is so great too! I look up to her a lot.

As for me, I am just working on my weaknesses and I have come to a conclusion that it isn't about how many baptisms we have, although that is important, but that we are hear to bringing people to Christ and bring this restored message to all and to help those who have lost their way from the light, to come back and see the sweet peace and comfort they once knew. That this message is for EVERYONE. Whether they be a active member, less active, a missionary, or non-member. God loves ALL his children. 

Other Than that...it's been normal! haha I love it out here! It's blessed my life so much and I continue to grow and progress. It's a process, which is hard for me, because I want it done now! I know I'm a patient person..but man being on a mission REALLY tests your patience! I've grown so much more patience!

Well I hope y'all have a great week! I miss all y'all so much!!

Love always,

Sister Burr

I haven't held a snake in a while! We also saw some prairie dogs that an investigator had as pets! haha.