We received this 10/20/08

It was another amazing week here! First off, on Wednesday night we had an investigator fireside in Orlando as part of Elder Johnson, of the seventy) (the british one), as part of his mission tour, we were able to go out there with a member and take beth ryan to it, it was amazing, it was one straight hour of spiritual power, it was crazy i was actually exhausted afterward, he just laid it all out on the line! Then on friday we had our zone conference down in Palm Bay, for all of the south missionaries, It was amazing, General authorities are definently different when they arent behing the general conference pulpit, Elder Johnson has such a great personality! It was such and spitiual and fun zone conference, he kept calling people at random to do things, and he called me up and said Elder Burdick, bear us your testimony, my heart started to beat, and so i said a little prayer in my heart, and all of a sudden everything was sooo calm, like i was on the beach or something! Words were put in my mouth! After zone conference he met with the zone leaders, there were only four of us for the south, so it was just us and Elder Johnson and President Darrington in a room, that was awesome as well, i got to have a great conversation with him and being a missionary and he gave me some great advice, i got a picture with him to, that i will try to send asap.

Bits and Pieces from his email on 10/14/08

Well here i am in Viera, and still alive, it is definently different from my last area! But i love it already, i have met alot of the members here and they are awesome, there is WAY too much money here on the coast, but the members remain soo humble and kind! Alot of members work out on beach side at NASA or other really big industries. This ward is exactly like a Utah ward, it is very functional and well led, the bishop like i said is from idaho falls, he is awesome! I already love all of the members here. We live in Melbourne, which is actually like 5 miles south of our southern border, we live with the two melbourne elders, Viera is a very new area, only like 4 years old, and the ward here was formed last year when they built the brand new building! My new apartment is considerably worse, i got too spoiled with the nicest apartment in the mission last transfer, oh well, i feel like i am "roughin" it a little more now:-)

Although i really miss the families and investigators from my last area, i know that this is where i need to be and what i need to be doing! My companions name is elder Johnson, he only has like 4 months left in the mission, but it looks like we will be together for those four months, he is a great Elder and we work really good together, i am really excited to be serving with him in this area! It turns out that there is a spanish branch near here that hasnt had missionaries in like 6 months, and president and the aps didnt realize that when they called me here, and so we got clearence to work with them to, two nights ago we went and visited the branch president and his wife, and told them that i would be working with them in the spanish work, and she said, that that day in testimony meeting she told the small group that if they had faith that the lord would bring missionaries to help them, It is amazing how the lord works, i KNOW that this is his work!