I Touched A Drug Plane

Hello Family!

This week I feel like I have gotten a lot better at sign language.  I'm starting to practice at church this week, I'm teaching or translating all the classes.  It's like having a Spanish branch in your ward, but we have a deaf branch. We have a couple of converts and a few investigators that are completely deaf. It's really neat to work with them.  When I was little I thought that all deaf people could read and write.  But now I'm realizing that they never would have learned how to sound out words.  I've been learning sign language.  There is English sign language, there is Spanish sign language, and then there's Colombian Spanish sign language. They are all really different. 

I translated the Priesthood class this week for our deaf brothers, which was really awesome. It's very cool to get to know them, and understand what they feel like.  They are very sensitive to people.  They have very few people who listen or understand them, so they have very little communication with anyone.  A few years ago some missionaries took time to learn how to sign, and were able to speak to them. They baptized some of them.  Then they taught more of their friends, and now there is a deaf branch.  

This week we have been teaching a sister named Geditsa, She was a referral from a returned missionary.  She's the state boxer here.  She has had a lot problems with bad spirits that she thinks touches her during the day.  So we taught her about prayer and the power of the Holy Ghost.  This week she decided she would pray when she felt scared.  So when bad spirits came near her, or touched her, she would turn on the lights, say a prayer, and she felt the spirit, and her whole night changed.   She's been sleeping better, and doing all the good things she is supposed to do.  We are so excited for her.  She now has a testimony of prayer. She has accepted a baptismal date.  She's been reading the Book of Mormon, and this Sunday she is coming with us to church. 

In bigger news--this week there was a drug plane--A big drug lord loaded it up with drugs.  To disguise it, they spray painted "US Army" on the side of it, then they tried to send it out.  But as soon as it was up in the air, it was shot down and landed here in our area.  So our whole zone went out to see it, and took pictures.  It was pretty awesome.  We touched all the drug planes. 

I received a very cool thought from my Grandpa this week.  He was visiting my Aunt in Georgia.  He was talking about how the driving is different because there are no mountains to help orient you to where you are, there are just a lot of trees that line the roads and block your view.  In Idaho and Utah, there are no trees, so you can always see where you are going.  And there are big mountains to reference, so you always know where you are and where you're going.  But in the rest of the world, it is no-reference driving.  It's the same here in Valledupar.  There are a lot of trees, and you can only see 2 blocks in front of you, and no where else.  

It's just like this when we teach people about the gospel.  Most people live their lives only seeing a few blocks in front of them.  Most do not know where they came from, where they are, or where they're going. The only thing they have to help them is a good map or a good compass.  As missionaries, we have the responsibility to give them a good map and a working compass, so they can find the mountains and know where they should be going. We help them find a connection with Heavenly Father through prayer and scriptures. 

We always need to have our reference.  Sometimes we need to rely on the little things we have in front of us.  We need to always read our scriptures and pray daily, do the important things that keep us on the right path.  We need to watch every single step we take, if we want to end at the right destination--the Celestial Kingdom.  I hope each of you will think of someone you can refer to the missionaries this week.  

No, I didnt feel anything from the earthquake in Ecuador. I'm glad to hear Christian is ok.  Yes, I like being a Zone Leader.  I really love being able to help other missionaries. However, the thing I don't like is being in a trio. It's terrible for teaching.  Both of my companions are really great guys but teaching in three is just hard.  I could teach any lesson with a new missionary or a new priest or an old timer or whatever you want because it's just 2 and the person you're teaching.  But teaching in three is pretty rough.  I realize the Godhead is three and the First Presidency is three, but marriage is two, so...there's something to that.  Companionships should just be 2.  It's ok, everything works out in the end. : )

We talked to a couple of missionaries from the states this week and Wow, they are spoiled!!!  Freaking iPads and cars and smart phones... A mission there and a mission here is sooooooo different! 

I'm loving Valledupar.  I'm really glad I'm here.  Hope you guys are great. I tried to write more. Send me questions.  

Love you!

Elder Burk

My zone

The DRUG PLANE 

My zone in front of the "US Army" drug plane

Eating lunch with the zone at Monta Carga Cañandonga

Our house flooded, so that was fun

This week was pretty good. Kinda busy. We are starting to get to know the leaders a little bit better. We had a meeting with the bishop to get to know him a little bit and to talk about his vision for the ward. 

Since we're in a trio it's pretty easy to do divisions.  We've been trying to work with the youth and go on splits a lot with them. on sunday 

Our house flooded, so that was fun.  It rained a lot and we live on the second floor. The back patio had a little drain that was clogged and everything here is tile, so there's no escape for the water. The patio turned into a pool and it came through the house.  It made a pretty awesome slip in slide all throughout the house!

 This week we found a couple of new people that have potential. One sister, named Janet, was a contact that we had who lived next to a less active member.  When we were looking for his house, we knocked on the wrong door, and met her instead.  She accepted us to listen. It was pretty cool.  She pays a lot of attention to what we teach and really wants to learn.  We shared about the restoracion and invited her to read the Book of Mormon.  When we asked her why she accepted to read it she said, "So I can learn about the gospel and tell all those bozos that have it all wrong!" Ha, it was funny in Spanish... We are praying that she will remember to read and pray before the next visit.

We printed out a huge map of our area and we're putting colored pins on the wall to mark all the people we are teaching.  Now Elder Selman and I can get to know the area faster.  

I feel like we do a lot of errands and fill out a ton of forms and stuff.  Sadly, that means we don't proselyte quite as much.  So when we actually get to work, we really focus and work hard.  

We do a lot of stuff to help the other missionaries here, but the majority of that stuff is just problems that they have and that's not really stuff you want to hear about...

Here in Colombia the youth get into a ton of trouble because they grow up without some basic morals that we have given to us on a plate.  They get a bad example from their parents and don't understand how a family should work or the importance of education.  I have met several girls that have had babies at 15 years old.  Lots of kids that do drugs from a really young age.  Many start living with the opposite sex when they get tired of their parents and then end up ditching their spouse after they get bored.  There are some really sad situations and some really simple solutions. 

Being from Idaho we have a lot of these answers given to us on a platter.  Having things like the teachings of For the Strength for Youth can pretty much prevent any bad decision we can make.  The Strength of Youth is scripture. It is modern day commandments, spelled out in black and white.  Sometimes we just don't get that.  We are so lucky to have it. 

You've gotta help me with some questions here.  I'm sorry, the letters are getting kinda hard to write.  I feel like the whole personal time thing sort of disappeared this transfer.  I hope you're doing good. 

Love you!

Elder Burk

Futbol this week

Me cutting Elder Selman's hair on the roof of our house. 

----------------------------------

hey mason! now the man cave has just become the cave. because mom told me that it can be the "girl cave" so me mallory did the girl cave.  But then dad told us that it had to be just "the cave."  
Me and kyra made a play for activity days. We did the three little missionaries and the big bad person!  
Mom told me that you were a zone leader, what do you for that?????????????? I got to see a movie called the jungle book, it was awesome!!!!!  So, how are you??????? 

love 

biny anne

p.s.WRITE ME

Hey Brinley!  
That's awesome that you are using the cave!  It doesn't sound like Braden or Spencer are gonna use it.  What else do you do for activity days? Being a zone leader doesn't mean anything important.  It just means we do a couple of extra stuff during the week.  The Jungle Book movie sounds great!  This week it rained a lot and the back patio had a sock covering the drain so it got all filled up with water then filled our house with water so that was kinda different!  We had a pretty sweet slip-n-slide in the hallway when we got home! 
I hope you have a great week!  Thanks for writing to me. 
Mas

Wake up, Run and Sleep

Mason Burk and Brady Slack at Leaders Council

 This week was pretty crazy.  I feel like there’s just this constant cycle of wake up, run and sleep.  And as soon as you sleep, you wake up again.

Both of my companions are pretty awesome!  Sadly, we have to do a ton of administrative stuff--like making sure the new people are legal, changing the house certificates, doing inventories and checking to see if all of the missionaries are being obedient.  We also have to do 2 companionship exchanges every week.I feel like we barley proselyte.... blahhhh!

We went to Leader's Council this week and had a training about conversion.  It was all the way back in Barranquilla. We had to wake up at 1:00 in the morning to take a bus for 6 hours to get there. We did get to slept at the President’s house that night, which was great!  And we ate lasagna with him.  It was also the first time I’ve had a hot shower in 9 months!  

Life is just kinda busy.  I’m trying to write in my journal, but it’s just not working out that great.... I hope you are all doing great!

I love you!

Elder Burk

Elder Cardenas went home

Elder Cardenas is from Chile.  He was my first Zone Leader and then he was the Assistant to the President for pretty much the whole time I’ve been here.  *The week he got home, he got called as the Elders Quorum President--hahahahha!

Fredi Torres

Fred Torres--I found him in La Playa, taught him almost all the lessons, and then he got baptized two weeks after I left...

------------

Hey Mom,  What was that quote that you always had about ‘Peace’ that was in the bathroom?  It said something like: Peace is not to be in loud places or with lots of noise, but to be in the middle of all these things and still have quiet in your haeart.  Something like that...will you please send it to me?

Valledupar

Familia Arrieta noche de hogar

Leaving La Playa this week was kinda bittersweet. I loved la playa!  I knew the whole area like the back of my hand. I had found every investigator we had and there were lots of people about to be baptized this next transfer. 

Buuuuut, on the other hand, I'm in Valledupar, in a trio with two white guys!!!!   Having a North American companion is super rare.  But to have two.... it's pretty awesome!  Elder Selman is from a hicktown outside of Logan, Utah and Elder Lund is from Provo, Utah.  Elder Selman is like Chase but a little more red on his neck. Ha.  Elder Lund is a little bit like Christian Larsen. It's fantastic!  They both work super hard and we laugh a lot.  In the apartment we try to talk in Spanish. But when somebody cracks a joke, it's almost always in English. 

We got here by bus and the trip took 6 hours. We left Tuesday morning and had to help a lot of missionarires get organized. Then Wednesday President flew in on a plane to have our monthly meeting with the zone leaders and stake president of Valledupar.  Elder Lund has been here for six weeks, so we tried to contribute but we hadn't even attended church yet.  It was pretty good.  Then president took us out to lunch and ice cream.  It was pretty awesome. 

General Conference--we always watch it in the stake center.  We went into the secretary's office to watch it in English on the computer while the rest of the stake was in the big room, Chapel.  It was pretty awesome.  I got a lot of answers to questions I had.  

We had 4 investigators attend but they were all deaf.  Apparently here in our ward it's like a deaf community.  All the deaf people who live in Valledupar assist our ward.  Like a Spanish ward but with sign language.  We have a couple of investigators who are deaf.  I'll write you more about this next week.  We teach the lessons in sign language.  It's pretty crazy.  Sign language is different in every country, so it's not even the sign language that they speak in the US.  I was surprised at how much I could communicate in the first lesson we taught.  I really felt the gift of tounges...(or maybe the gift of hands, haha).   

So Elder Selman and I are learning, and Elder Lund has kinda figured out enought to get us all around.  

Dad--I heard about Colombia's soccer team when we came here, but I didnt hear we lost.  That's kinda sad ; (  

I'm proud of Camille Satchwell going on a mission!!!  I also got a letter from Shaylee Nye.  She got her mission call this week to Philadelphia Pennsylvania!!!  That's pretty awesome!!

Love you hope you have a great week!

Elder Burk

Transfer! I'm headed to Valledupar

Family Home Evening with familia Blanco and familia Morelo

Last district meeting in La Playa

Hello Family, this week was pretty great. We have been working a lot with an investigator named Omar Morelo, he's 16 yrs old.  We found him 3 months ago when he was at his cousins house, who is a recent convert.  We were talking to people, and started talking to him.  We found his house, and we started teaching him and his whole family.  He's progressed a ton! He's read the Book of Mormon, he's come to church, and he was baptized this week.  That was pretty awesome.  

I conducted the baptism, since our ward mission leader was gone.  I also played all the hymns.  I took out my book of easy hymns and played for everyone while they sang.  I haven't played the piano in a long time, but it all came back to me.  Then I played a musical number of "When I am Baptized" and "I Feel My Savior's Love."  It was pretty cool.  We are so excited for him. We hope he gets on a mission.  It will change his whole life.  It was a pretty cool week.

Omar Morelo and his family at his baptism.

His family is also progressing, but he was so fast.  He's had problems in the past with bad stuff, used to be involved with not so great people, but when he found the gospel he has completely changed his life and is now super happy! He loves everything.  He wants to serve a mission. 

  

Omar Morelo with the Elders

The baptism was Saturday.  Our ward mission leader was out of town this week, so we had to put together the whole baptism by ourselves.  Normally, he does everything.  We went to fill the font, but we didn't have the keys, so we had to jump the little fence to turn on the water, and when I came back out, I ripped my pants.  Then we had to put together all the chairs.  The Bishop came late, so we started late.  His whole family came.  Lots of members came, we had lots of good ward support-like 30 people, including his Young Men's President.  We had asked him to baptize Omar.  He has known him since he was a little kid.  They were family friends.  So that was pretty awesome!  His family all loved it.

Today I got a call today from the Mission President That I am going to get transferred tomorrow.  I am getting transferred to Valledupar.  I will be working with Elder Sellman.  He's been in the office  as the Assistant for the last 6 months, now we will serve together as Zone Leaders.  He's from Logan, Utah.  I'm a little nervous but excited at the same time.

Mason is being transferred!  

I am super sad to leave this area.  I love this area.  It's so great. The ward is super strong.  The people in La Playa are so humble.  There a lot of people to teach.  There are lots of stuff to do. It's been awesome.  I hope Elder Chaves and his new companion love it as much as I did.  His new companion is Elder Monquilla, I knew him in my last area.  He's going to be the district leader here.  

It's going to be pretty awesome.  I'm excited! 

His new area is Valledupar, he'll be a zone leader with Elder Selman

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

Knowledge vs Wisdom

I hope you read the Strength of Youth Pamphlet .  I’ve been teaching it a lot, to the youth.  It’s super important!  I didn’t really understand it all before I left on my mission.  But now I can see how amazing it is.  I hope more youth will read it and really understand how important its teachings are. The more you try to be the person you know you could be, the farther you will progress.  

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ, we always “know” the answers—you know that the Sabbath day is the day of rest. You know what the Strength of Youth pamphlet says, but we don’t always live it.  Most of the time, we live under our potential.  We think that we’re doing good, but we don’t have it figured out yet.  The difference between knowledge and wisdom, is that wisdom has an application.  Knowledge is just the stuff you know.  But, Wisdom is when you actually live it. It’s a really big difference. You have to act!

The Strength of Youth pamphlet has all the things you should act, do, as you live it, you will have a happy life.  When you don’t live it, you’ll have problems and you’ll know that something is not right.  It’s scripture just like the Book of Mormon and the Bible.  You have to follow it. You'll never regret it. 

Jon Mariaga is one of the members in the playa. 

He's super cool and served his mission in Bogota.

This week was pretty good.  We are working with Omar Morleno, one of the youth we found.  He’s a cousin of a recent convert.  We met him a long time ago, but then we ran into him again.  Now we are teaching his whole family!  He’s progressing really fast.  He’s getting baptized in a couple of weeks. 

In a lesson he broke down and told us that in December he stopped smoking, stopped drugs, and then found us.  He said that in the time we have been with him, he has really changed a lot.  His family is all Christian.  We can all see the difference in his countenance. He is reading a ton in the Book of Mormon, he loves all of the things in the church.  He’s been coming to all of the youth activities and making a lot of friends.  He’s now just working to get ready for his baptism.  We are super excited for him!

Yesterday we had a good experience with Luis Barassa.  He’s a great help to us.  He’s in our ward at church and comes from a really big family—20 or 30 people.  He spends a lot of time working with us, and comes with us to visit people.  He wants to get ready to go on a mission.  As we were walking down the street one day, he pointed to a house and said, “I think the missionaries used to be teaching someone here.”  So I looked at my companion and him and thought, you’re both pretty new, still in training, so why don’t you two talk to someone here!  They were both too scared, so I walked up and began talking to someone at the house.  We didn’t know if he was a member, or if he had just met missionaries, but he said, “I’m actually a member of your church.  I would love it if you can all come back tomorrow.”  We’re headed over there today.  We’re really excited to meet him.

 

Kent R. and Marilyn M. Searle from Burley Idaho

We have interviews this week with the Mission President.  We actually meet with President Searle, then the assistants, then with President’s wife, Sister Searle.  With the assistants, we do a practice and learn a lesson from them.  We are excited for that, it’s going to be awesome!

Missionaries in the district playing futbol

We played a great soccer game this week with the other missionaries.  I’m feeling much better physically.  My last companions didn’t like to get up to exercise.  I had to drag them out of bed everyday, because they didn’t want to leave the house.  But my companion right now is pretty new, so I just tell him we’re getting up to exercise and he does it.  He doesn’t love it, but he’ll go running with me, do some pushups, and we’re feeling really good!  I can tell the difference in how I feel when we meet with the other Elders and play a good game of soccer.  

I hope you are all doing great.  Have a great Easter!

Thank you for all your letters and support. 

I love you all,

Elder Burk

Tallest building in Barranquila