Janurary is almost gone

Hello!

The parable was great Mom. Thank you for sending that to me.

And Dad, I bet your talk was great. You should send that to me too. Ryan I pray you win! And Sara, I really enjoy your letters. Don't forget to write me. Even if it is a small paragraph.

So this is my last week of the transfer. I have two transfers left or three months. President Holmes interviewed me this week and talked to me about trying to go 110 percent these last three months. And that's what I plan to do. My faith can grow a lot and my diligence can be refined. My Love for the Lord is really high, but can always be greater. Did I ever tell you I really love it here. I love serving these Michiganders!

My vision is to leave behind a legacy. A good one! One that leads an example for future missionaries. One that I will be proud of. And so I desire it. I and so it will be!

This week was another good week. We had the zone leaders texting us multiple times to encourage us to get standards of excellence this week so that we could get zone of excellence. We were short baptism dates and people at church in our area.

I am really loved. I see God's Hand in his work and I am so thankful for his guidance.

WE FOUND A TRAILER PARK! JACKPOT! WE ARE SO EXCITED! WE ALREADY HAVE FOUND TWO FAMILIES TO TEACH. THAT'S RIGHT, FAMILIES! Not single individuals. I never thought I would get warm fuzzies when entering a trailer park. Haha! It was so exciting. WE GOT 11 MEMBER PRESENTS. That's the most I have ever seen done by my companionship. The sign up sheet is really working. We just pass it around in Relief Society and Primary and if we have time the rest of the classes the last hour.

Let me tell you though. It is hard to have the whole ward on your mind and all your investigators. Trying to find good fellow-shippers for our investigators are not difficult, it's just remembering to make contact with them enough to have us and missionary work on their minds. We are insight hopefully and in-mind.

I am again testifying that I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it is the tool I should and do use most when I want my investigator to come closer to the Savior and have a broken heart and contrite spirit. SO READ IT!

That last part was a reminder for all of us! I get intense randomly!

Sister Bishop was great at following a prompting on Sunday. Sister Hall and Brother Hall were sad that they were not involved with their daughter-in-law's lessons. Sister Bishop came to Sister Hall not knowing this and asked her if we could see them every other week with Jessica. She almost was in tears, thanking Sister Bishop for saying that. She ran to go get her husband and they were so excited to get that moving. So we will teach Jessica one week at the Temples and one week at her in-laws. I hope Jessica is okay with the change. Seeing investigators the same time and place helps them get into a routine to expect and lean on. But change might be good.

I am so happy Sister Bishop is progressing! I am too and I love it!

If I train again that would be awesome!

We will Finish Strong!

Love You!

Sister Burnham

Buenos Dias!

I don't know how to explain to you the feeling in my heart right now. After reading your letters, and reading Elder Burnham's letter, then reading how the mission did this week, my heart is bursting. It feels on fire really! It feels like life has purpose and that I am a part of something bigger than all of us, yet we have a chance to put our two cents in. Wow, I am just so amazed. WYATT ... GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY AT AROUND 1:30. We had great testimonies shared by Wyatt's aunt and by Wyatt's mom. I am so proud of them. They ... really needed the opportunity to share their testimony. Bishop Hicken is so wonderful! He has so much he has to do, and yet he had found time to baptize Wyatt and confirm him. We got permission from President Holmes to do that. So we had lots of people that were not members there. Their whole family and extended family and his mom's Boss came. We had them write their thoughts on index cards again like I have done in the past. Everyone said that was a wonderful idea. I was so proud of the people who participated.
That's why I love baptisms. Testimonies bloom and grow at these things.

I have really been blessed with a great ward family and companion. We are happy to say we had four investigators at church. Amazing!

Oh man there is so much to tell you, I don't know how to get everything in and still try to give what I say justice. It was a great week.

Investigators we have are all at different levels which is a really hard thing.

Mary came to church. Sacrament meeting was about the Book of Mormon title page, and she opened up her own and followed along. ...

Jessica ...has an amazing boss named Brother Temple that is allowing us to teach her in his home every Friday.

We got a "less active" sister and her visiting teacher acquainted after a year of trying to get a hold of her.

So pretty much our members are really reaching out more to magnify their callings.

I just love this area! Faith! That is the word Pat said to me after the Baptism. He said it! Faith is the foundation.

We need to get to know a lot more of the members and we are passing out a sheet in church that helps members know when our lessons are for the week and they sign up for it. We have a potential amount of 13 members present to our investigator lessons. THIRTEEN! I have never thought that could happen in an area I was serving.

Finish Strong!

Love,

Sister Burnham

Awesome Week!

(I don't have any recent pictures of Sister Burnham so this one will have to do for now)

Dear family this week was awesome and I will try to write everything in it as possible. I am running out of time even now so I hope I get as much as possible.

Last week was a miracle week like always yet this week was a little different. It just felt like our faith took it up a notch and the investigators we are finding are continuing to be elect and ready to accept the Book of Mormon and a living Prophet. They are also seeing Jesus Christ teachings in the Book of Mormon which is what will bring them to know that this is His church.

Tuesday we attended specialized training. It was so good! Some things we were given were a case study and how that I absolute love. Its about sisters who help an area turn into a baptizing area. They worked with members. And the miracles came from little things the sisters made sure to do. We are trying to apply this. We are always giving thank you cards to our members. We are getting to know more and our faith in them, our love towards them increased so much over just a few hours. I mean that is how awesome the Holy Ghost works. Just in a moment of hours after discussing goals Sister Bishop and I were receiving referrals and getting calls back from potential inv.

Training meeting helped me look for spiritual gifts that are unique to me that I can consistently use in our lessons. I was able to go on exchanges with Sister Hoopes and Sister Thomas. They are in a tri-panionship in Saline. They came to Chelsea to serve with me for a day while Sister Bishop went to serve with Sister Vance in saline. They absolutely needed to be in Chelsea. They needed to serve and have the chance together to make out what their gifts and talents are as well. I made sure that I communicated very well, that we were together for a reason. That we needed to focus on some goals and be open with trying new things. They both were ready and willing to talk about and do anything I asked or suggested. It was cool to serve in a tri-panionship. I had never done it before. I actually felt them growing as missionaries over that exchange so much it's ridiculous!!!! Sister Hoopes is really good at stating her purpose and letting our inv know in a loving way what we expect from them. She is upfront with her question which can sometimes seem harsh or miss understood as unfriendly, just depends on the personality. We never had a problem though. She learned that she can give Sister Thomas has a whole lot more room to stretch herself, by not talking. Sister Hoopes said that if she could just learn to shut her mouth for Sister Thomas to speak, Sister Thomas would actually be able to find talents and gifts that we all know she has.

Anyways I learned a lot from them and made a goal myself to really recognize promptings in lessons. So cool to feel so much love for people. I was sad to say goodbye but I know they are going to be awesome and apply what we talked about.

We have awesome news! Wyatt is getting baptized 22nd on Jan. And then Heather is still on for the 28th of Jan. We are trying to get everything ready. I am so excited to see Wyatt baptized. My heart is bursting even as I talk about it. He is so ready, and this will bring the family so close! Pat is working on applying the atonement. He doesn't forgive himself very easily and so he has a lot of burdens he keeps on his shoulders. It has made him very humble though. Pat needs to really understand and apply how to properly repent. It will be good for him to listen to some conference talks we gave him about repentance. By the way we found his concerns finally while his wife wasn't home. I didn't have enough time to call a member, and luckily we had a tri-panionship so God knew we needed this time with him with out influence of wife or son.

Oh my goodness there is so much.

We went to a members dinner! The temples are great missionaries. They invited a woman who is related to a member family in the ward. She is working for Brother Temple. Anyways after eating his famous sandwiches we were able to teach them about following Christ and having a living Prophet on the earth today. Brother Temple flat out said that he knows she is going to join. He was very bold with her, which she is nice enough to deal with. She likes how we teach so we gained her as a new inv. The temples were great at bearing their testimonies and we are seeing them this week again. Its a miracle because we have been trying to teach Jessica for so long. She is the daughter in law, that's it!

Sister Dallaire has not been doing well, and her grandson is living with her, so she is excited to have him help her read every night. And she is hoping he will want to learn more too as we go visit her. POTENTIALS!!!!!! REFERRAL!

Tom is an investigator that almost dropped us because of temple stuff online. He saw I guess the ordinances from people who were excommunicated. Well, it frightened him and he called us and told us not to come back. Well, sister Burnham doesn't like to give up when the spirit tells you to go back. So we did! Long story short he is still investigating...FEW!

Jessie is another inv who the members are really fellow shipping. Jessie is 17 and is the only investigator that has been to the most member dinners. She just is lucky that way. It's nice that we get fed.

One more thing Becky is a new inv and we met with her and her son Colby last night. SHE LIKES THE BOOK OF MORMON! She thinks it is easier to read than the Bible and wants her son to read it. I tried to invite her to church or baptism but there was no time. We got there just enough to follow up answer questions and then say a opening and closing prayer. All of a sudden her family pops in and she tells us every Monday night is game night with her sister's family. SHE IS ALREADY DOING FHE! so cool right?

Anyways she has a concern about Churches saying that their church is the right one. Well, I know they do that, but it is awesome to know ahead of time that she is going to come to know Christ more by living the Gospel. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints lives the Gospel.

I am so full of more but I ran out of time! Love you and know that we will

Finish Strong!

Love,

Sister Burnham

Little Tribute

Today I was so excited to tell you about the wonderful miracles that happened this week. But first I want to pay tribute to Aunt Carol ( Sister Burnham's Great Aunt Carol passed away last Tuesday)
and share some memories I have of the Barnes family. There are not many but few that really have made a difference.

1) Uncle Jim dancing with me at Jenni's Wedding

2) Aunt Carol's voice sounding like grandma's

3) The house and spending lots of time upstairs

4) Preparing food in the kitchen, fruit pizza, olives, snacks. It seemed to be on Sundays!

5) I am sure they came to a dance performance or two.

6) How pretty she was in her dress at her daughters weddings.

These are just some I have remembered. It was wonderful to learn from their testimony.

This week we had found 4 new investigators. Tom, Shirley, Jerry, and Mark are all so different. My absolute favorite this week was how we had a goal to find three. My faith has grown to see how none of this was done by our own doing. God absolutely put them in our path. It is so cool to have seen this week take shape. Heather is on date to be baptized on Jan 28th. Wyatt is FINALLY getting baptized on the 22nd. His Mom has been planning it since yesterday. I hope and pray God will strengthen them these next few weeks.

I learned how grateful I am for the Church website. Heather has been progressing so much because of the movies and conference talks on the cites. She has started to, study, journal and I am praying that she comes to church these next few weeks.

Sister Bishop and I have been studying why we invite people to be baptized the first visit. We are still trying to rap our heads around it. I thought I knew why, but if I really did, I would be acting on it. So what I feel I need to do is act on faith and listen to the spirit and always be prepared to invite them, just in case the spirit dips his bucket in my spiritual well and wants to use me in that way.

This all started after we taught Mark with a member present, and it went well. Which means, we left him to expect more and the spirit was there. But we were thinking about why we didn't invite him to be baptized. We team taught the lesson better than we ever had in past lessons. We nailed the inspired questions and helped him understand the need for a prophet. It was cool to see him nod his head like missionaries do when they want to show interest even though they don't exactly know what you are saying. Missionaries think if you are nodding your head they won't be asked questions. Nodding your head is a definition of participation to a missionary. (Sister Burnham's theory)

We are trying to find out how to best be prepared each lesson to invite someone to be baptized and what the signs are from the spirit that we can look for to feel more confident in inviting them.

We also met with Tom. A Simple miracle was that after dinner at a members home the lesson they were coming to canceled. Sister Bishop thought of Tom and we decided he was the best back up plan. HE TOTALLY LOVED THE MEMBERS AND TOTALLY LIKES WHAT WE ARE TEACHING! He is vegan. No animals! He only has lots of wild deer roaming his property and 69 turkeys in nests in trees. Is is so passionate about them that he so prepared for the millennium its not even funny. I am so excited for him to see his potential as a Priesthood holder and a loving teacher of the Restored Gospel! He is so Awesome.

Sunday we had church and a baptism afterwards. pat and Wyatt attended and that's when Wyatt committed to being baptized.

By the way we have an amazing ward mission leader and his wife. They gave us a portable heater for us to borrow, because our heating is not yet fixed until today or tomorrow. It went from 64 to 70 very nicely. I am grateful for their charity!

I love this next week. We are trying our hardest to get members more involved. We are learning that Jesus Christ is so much helping inspire us and strengthens our faith in him each day.

Finish Strong!

Love,

Sister Burnham

Howdy

(Picture taken October 2010)

Wow, a lot happened to the family this week. It was awesome to read about how again my family is so wonderful and the best fit for me. I love being a Burnham! I stand proud when some one calls my name. "Sister Burnham, tell me about your self. Sister Burnham how are you. Sister Burnham thank you!" Being Sister Burnham is so cool!

Tuesday we went tracting near an investigators home. We had never been down that street so we decided it would be good. Met Becky who is a member of the Greek orthodox church. She joined as an adult with her kids. She researched it, and she finds it is some what close to whats she believes. We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and bore our testimony of its purpose. She committed to read some and talk to us about it. She also thanked us, because she was glad she finally understands how we are Christian. After I told her about Joseph Smith's vision it clicked for her. We have stopped by recently but she needs more time to read. We just don't want to lose her.

Friday we taught Jessie. She is at the point where she understands how important coming to know the Book of Mormon is true and gaining a testimony of the Restoration. She agreed to be baptised as she comes to know the truth. Great moment for a missionary and their investigators.

We went tracting the rest of the night for quite a long time. And we got into one door where this old woman let us in. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon and she agreed. She was hesitant, but we got her number to call her in the next week.

We spent New Year Eve Night with Sister Sibley a widow, but quite loving. Our goal was to memorize The Living Christ by the end of the year. So we recited that to her.

At church Sister Bishop and I spoke on goal setting and missionary work. Sister Bishop focused on desires, and I focused on becoming what we set our mind on. Goals help us focus our thoughts. Focusing our thoughts help us have clear direction and ultimately more faith in Christ and reach our potential.

I am getting overwhelmed this month because we have so many investigators that we see could get baptized this month if they decided to get "cracking" and read the Book of Mormon and go to church.

Finish Strong

Love Sister Burnham

Skype with Family

Skype from California and Michigan

Sister Burnham was able to call home on Christmas and while she was talking to her family in California us here in Michigan were able to join in on the conversation via Skype.

Sister Burnham had a lot to say and sounded so good! She is working hard in the bitter cold.

A little joke from Sister Burnham... "I have to go to "hell" and back to go to district meeting."

(Since the city of Hell, Michigan is in her area)