This week was pretty good

Elder Burk, Elder Lund, and Elder Selman with their Zone in Valledupar

This week was pretty good.  It was so good to talk to you guys on Mother's Day! I hope you guys will start inviting people over on Sundays and to church. Always be looking for people you can invite.

This week we had a mission Leadership Conference.  Usually only the Zone Leaders attend, but this time it was for both the District Leaders and Zone Leaders.  I saw past companions and friends--Elder
Chaves and Elder Mejia, he's from Guatemala.  Elder Chaves told me that he has been struggling with 2 people we had found and taught when we were together in La Playa.  I had taught them all of the missionary lessons, and they had read the Book of Momron all the way to 3rd Nephi before I was transferred.  They were so close to being ready for baptism. They're only hold up was getting married. While we were at conference, I asked him how they were doing, and he pulled out the birth certificate of the spouse, Joel.  He and Sara haven't gotten married because they didn't have the correct paperwork notarized and couldn't get to the correct town to register so they could officially marry.  So I took a picture of the birth certificate.  Then I asked President if we could have his permission to stop at the town on our way home where the notary was, Bosconia. He said yes.

So after the conference, we got on the charter bus, and headed home.  Pretty soon we saw the right town where their paperwork needed to be submitted.  Normally the charter busses will not stop, but we went ahead and asked the bus driver if he would stop for us, and surprisingly, he said yes! So we got off and went into Bosconia to find the notary.  We ended up having to go to two notaries.  It was a small town that has never had or seen LDS missionaries there before.  So everyone was looking at us, wondering who these two white guys were walking around in shirt and ties.  Everyone seemed very cold.  Usually, when we walk through the streets of town, everyone waves and talks, if we say hi, they say hi back to us. But here we were not familiar or liked.  Thankfully, we found  the notary, found their name, got the paperwork notarized, then put it in an envelope, stamped it and sent it back to them.  Hopefully, now they can get married and baptized.  Everything seemed to fall into place. We were pretty excited about that!

This week one of the people we are teaching is named, Daria.  He is the less active that we contacted by Inspired hunger.  We were on our way to a FHE, and we felt hungry, so we stopped at a bread shop.  Elder Lund and I told our companion that we were having inspired hunger.  Elder Selman said that there was no such thing.  But we went there and started eating bread. Then Daria walked up to us and said he was an inactive member, and asked us if we could come to his home to visit him and teach his family.  So we did!  We found their house, we started teaching them, and it has been awesome. This week we taught them about the Restoration of the gospel and the Book of Mormon.  His wife has her own church, and was pretty skeptical about what we were all about, so she had looked up a lot of things about the church, and had questions.  We decided the best place to start was to teach her about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon.  Now she is doing great, learning so much, and interested in what we are teaching.

This week, Daria told us that since we have been coming to visit him, for the past two weeks, he has been making a lot of positive changes in his life.  He has stopped drinking coffee, tea, & alcohol, things he has been trying to do for a long time but has struggled to do successfully on his own.  As soon as we started teaching him, he said he finally had the strength to do it.  He said his wife has been  mad at him a lot.  But now is finally able to walking away from things he knows are bad.   Sunday was Stake conference and he came.  His wife was not able to come, but hopefully will soon.

We got transfers today.  Elder Lund is going to Soledad to be a Zone Leader.  He has served there before for a half transfer, just three weeks.  He is excited to go back. Elder Selman and I will be staying here together in Valledupar.

Look for people to teach, look for people you can invite to hear the gospel.  I hope you have a great week.

Love you guys!
Elder Burk

Elder  , Elder Burk, Elder Crozoo, Elder Selman, Elder Muroz Elder Puchoc

Look who I found, Elder Clinger!  The long lost brother Carl!
Tell Sis Clinger that he's on a mission. She'll be so happy.