The First Step is Prayer

This week, we found out that they cancelled the bus that picks up church members from La Playa to come to church.  So we have been working with the ward trying to figure out how we're going to help the people to be self sufficient, find a way to earn their own money, to come to church.  So the Bishop said we need to start doing more activities here in La Playa and have the rich people from the ward, come here to minister to these people and help them learn how to live the gospel.  So this week we had an activity about the Sabbath Day.  A couple of families from church came, and we met at a home of a family in la playa that has a bunch of houses inside.  We showed a video from Elder Holland.  We broke up into groups, quorums and organizations.  We had the presidents teach to their groups about the Sabbath day. It was pretty good.  We had like 40 people come.  That was pretty awesome.

This week we finally finished teaching one of our investigators, He's a less active that we found a couple of months ago.  He's been coming to church and reading his scriptures.  Sadly, his wife left him because she didn't want to have anything to do with the church.  So when he started getting active, he kept bugging her about it.  She didn't like it, so she left. Which was super sad.  But he's actually a lot happier now.  He's thinking about moving with his Mom so he can stay active.  I was so sad for him, but it's really awesome that he's putting the Lord first.

Last week we had a Family Home Evening with Joni Pono and Silvia.  We invited another family to come, and had a great night learning and talking about Family units.  We pulled out the Family Proclamation and we invited all of them to read a part of it.  We sang together and played a game.  It was a really good night.  Everyone enjoyed it.

Family Home Evening--on The Family Proclamation

Today we were reminded about the power of prayer.  It all happened while we were cleaning the house.  We have a sliding glass door that popped out of the track and we could not get it in.  It was extremely frustrating. We spent over an hour trying to fix it.  It was really hard.  We couldn't get it to pop into place.  I realized we were not going to be able to do it all by ourselves, we needed additional help.  So, I said to my companion, "Let's say a prayer!"  He thought I was crazy, and said what are you talking about?? But we knelt down and prayed...for the door.  We tried 5 more times, and finally, the door was back in place.  I remembered the stories you told me about when I was little, and we had the old white truck.  Every time it wouldn't start, you had me pray.  And as soon as I said the prayer, the truck would start, every. single. time.  So I told that to my companion.

I realized that when I was little, that it was so easy to ask for help, and know God would be there for us. I always knew he would answer my prayer.  I depended completely on God, and had childlike faith that he would help us solve the problem.  And he did.  When we get older, we try too hard to do things all by ourselves. That's the danger!  Sometimes we depend too much on our own strength.  There are times that we need to rely on God or we won't be able to get anything done.  It was a good reminder today, that The first step is prayer.  Once we call upon God for help, then we can do our best to accomplish the task.  He'll help us, and together, we'll get it done!

I hope you all have a good week.  Thank you for your letters, and all of your support.

Love you guys!
Elder Burk