Today’s Email

Hey Family,

Thank you soo much for your emails! And for your prayers on our behalf and on the behalf of our investigators! They must be working! Don't Stop:-)

Wednesday night we took the VACA and the MESA families on a temple tour! This night there was an unusual number of spanish people there so they had a professional translator come and translate! The tour started and instantly the spirit came with such power and love! As the guide (bro. herzog) talked about the restoration of the gospel and the knowledge and blessings of the temple, the huge group was completely silent, the only thing you could hear was the light voice of the translator with the group of spanish people! The vaca children speak very good english and sister vaca was a foreign exchange student from mexico years and years ago, so she knows and understands pretty well, but brother vaca doesn't understand english at all! but during the tour for the sake of there children understanding completely they stuck with the english group, instantly Bro herzog felt something as he looked into the eyes of this family of 6, and he directed a lot of his comments directly to them and when he bore testimony he looked them right in the eyes! The spirit was soo strong! Afterward, sis Vaca wanted to feel what it was like in the temple, so we went into the waiting room, and as soon as we crossed the spirit came with even more power and everything was completely silent, you couldn't here the fountains or the passing cars, or anything, we sat down on the couches and we started flipping through temple magazines, then bro Vaca leaned over and asked me when his family could go through the temple and be an eternal family, my heart burst inside of me, i told him that he could 1 year after his baptism, and testified to him and we invited the whole family to pray about baptism and the truthfulness of the gospel! They came to church on Sunday, and there are soo many loud children in our sacrament meeting, this one was probably the loudest i have heard on my mission, but this whole family just stared with full intent at the speakers! They are sooo awesome! The lord definitely knows who he wants in his church and when! Last night we went over there with brother chuqi, and we had a great lesson, and afterward we challenged the whole family, and they accepted! This is one of those once in a lifetime families! They are definitely one of the reasons why i was called to be in this part of the Lords vineyard! They are getting baptized on the 9th of may! And they are already looking forward to going through the temple together! The Mesas are probably going to be baptized on the same day, and we have some other dates to set! It is going to be a beautiful day in white! My cup is overflowing! The Lord is soo Good! I love him with all my heart! He is working Miracles, and i am soo thankful that he lets Elder Law and i be just a small part of it!

On top of everything else, Elder Holland was AMAZING! That was the most moving and inspirational talk i have ever heard in my life! Our whole mission gathered together at 9 am and we took a mission photo with Elder Holland, and afterward we shook his hand personally, told him our name and where we are from! Shaking his hand and looking him eye to eye, was amazing, sooo much peace and love, with soo much pure fire and energy! He was amazing! He walked around in front of the benches and testified and taught! He had soo much power and authority coming from him! I believe that some have it recorded to get it typed out, the things he said, and the overpowering feelings cut to the very depths of the soul! As he started to bear testimony with tears in his eyes of the Savior in Gethsemane, you could hear a pin drop, i don't think anyone even breathed! When he was pointing his finger at each one of us and with the greatest power and authority, almost shaking with soo power, telling each and everyone of us, "Do not go home! Do not return and never become a missionary! This is your chance! This is real life! If you think you are going to find real life once you go home, you are sorely mistaken, You have missed the whole purpose of life!" i cant even describe the fire that burned in my chest!

one of my favorite quotes that he gave was "if you think the mafia is tough, you haven't seen Holland in action! :-) It sufficeth me to say, i was ultimately edified and spiritually uplifted!

I am soo happy, life is soo good! Don't let Satan get to you, this life is to enjoy, to be happy, to have joy,but not to be easy, it will never be easy, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth it, it wasn't easy for the Savior, why should it be easy for us! But we can control our attitudes and our decisions! You can choose to be Happy and you can choose to live the Gospel! They go hand in hand! Don't give up! This is life eternal- to Know God and Jesus Christ (John 17:1-3) How do you do that? You be obedient and you live the Gospel! By doing so you will undoubtedly know who our Savior is and who Our father in heaven is, so that in the next life that will not be a new thing, you will recognize him and his embrace will have a familiar feel to it! I love my Savior and Redeemer, I know he is real, there is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that he is real! When i see him again and feel the marks in his hands, feet, and side i will not know any better then, than i do know that he is real and that he LIVES!

I love all of you soo much! Thank you for your love and prayers, i am soo blessed to have all of you! You are always in my prayers!

love,

Elder Samuel Paul Burdick

ps this saturday is transfer calls, I really really hope i stay with Elder LAW this third and final transfer of his mission!

Last four emails…

I hadn’t realized it had been so long since I’d posted… so I'll try to condense the last four emails…

3/30/09 - “First off, a guy that we tracted into in my last area and brought to church a few times and taught a few times that was completely golden, named MARK, i think i wrote something about him in an email like a month and a half ago, anyways he got baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday and afterwards shared his testimony, i was soo happy, he is such a neat guy, it was awesome to hear him tell us of his life growing up, and it seemed like everything in his life has been preparing him for the church and evangelio de Jesucristo, it was awesome, He is definently a future bishop or stake President! Unshakeable testimony and faith! I love this work!

The next one, there is a companionship in our zone that two weeks ago, tracted into a guatemalan indian that has only been in the states for a few months, one of the first things they asked him was if he knew that Jesus Christ had appeared in the ancient americas before, and he said "yes, i do actually, my grandmother used to tell me and my other little cousins a story that has been passed down in our family for generations and generations of when Jesus Christ appeared to our ancestors" they then taught him about the book of mormon and what it is, and he knew it was true right that instant and they set a baptismal date with him and he got baptized on saturday! I did the baptismal interview for him and he retold me some of the story that his grandmother used to tell him, it was soo amazing, the spirit was soo strong! I love doing baptismal interviews! Anyways, That that build your testimony a lil stronger!

We found out some really exciting news last week at a zone leader council meeting that we are having a mission wide conference next month April 25th, for the first time the whole mission will be in the same conference, because we have a very special guest coming, ELDER JEFFREY R. HOLLAND, is coming to our mission and he is going to enlighten us for about 2 hours, I am SOO excited, he is such a powerhouse speaker, his talk in the mtc was amazing, and now it is just him and like 150 missionaries, i am soo excited! He is such an amazing missionary leader as well, he is one of the Apostle specifically assigned to missionary work because it is in his every fiber of being, and his talks leave you soo fired up and full of the spirit! I cant wait!

I hope that BreeAnna gets called here as well, the world and we need Awesome sister missionaries, and she will be a really awesome missionary!” *side note: BreeAnna has been called to the Florida, Fort Lauderdale mission, English speaking, and enters the MTC on June 10

4/6/09 - “Things are going great here! We set baptismal dates with bro and sis Mesa! It was awesome, a very spiritual lesson! When we first challenged them to be baptized, they said yes........ in 6 months! So then we had a discussion as to why they wanted to wait so long, because they have problems with the word of wisdom, especially bro mesa, we were on exchanges with a fellow cuban member that had to overcome all of these challenges to be baptized as well ( hand of God manifested) And this member testified that he could do it, with faith and help from God! The spirit was soo strong! Then another member testified that the missionaries receive revelation and are literal representatives of Jesus Christ, and we know when they can be ready, (we had been praying fervently for the past week to find out when they could be ready) and we testified that they could be ready in 3 weeks, and they weren't shocked, they received an overwhelming feeling of peace when we said that and they knew that they could do it! They testified that they knew that the lord will help them and that they are going to practice their faith, please remember them in your prayers, especially bro mesa and smoking!

I loved General Conference, i was more excited on friday night than christmas eve night i believe! I absolutely love hearing the words of our beloved prophet and the 12 apostles, i felt soo much peace and happiness listening to them, and i received revelation of answers and things i felt was just for me and our investigators! I am not going to lie though, i will greatly enjoy the day when i can just relax and feel the spirit, instead of giving myself ulcers trying to get all of our investigators to 5 different conference sessions! When they come they always hear exactly what they need! This week was awesome, as we taught investigators and challenged them to come to conference, there was certain sessions that we felt strongly impressed to promise them that if they would come to that certain session they would receive the answers and help they needed, and the ones that did come truly did see and feel that! It was soo awesome to see the hand of the Lord revealed once again! Geez, the CHURCH IS SOO TRUE!”

4/13/09 - “I hope that each of you are Happy, because life is good, and Jesus Christ already went through the sadness, so we don't need to, so why should we! Be happy and smile! Life is good!

Things are going amazing here! This was one of the best weeks of my entire mission, Heavenly Father is blessing us soo richly right now! I will start day by day, Monday night we taught Sergio, he contacted us while we were teaching someone on the street and he wanted a copy of the book of mormon, we taught him and he is soo prepared, we are teaching him again tonight, i cant wait, we left him with a solid commitment to read and pray, he said the prayer at the end of the lesson and thanked heavenly father for a living prophet and more scripture, and for showing him the truth after soo many years of searching!

Tuesday we tracted ALOT, and we had minimal success, then as we were walking back to the car we saw a little family playing on a playground, the hernandez family, we started speaking to Rafael, the father, and we started testifying of the restoration of the gospel, and he invited us into his house and we ended up teaching his family for two hours right there, golden family!

Wednesday, that night we taught a member referral from Sis Lopez, and as we started to teach Betty Vallejo, it didn't take long to realize she was prepared, so even though it was our first appointment with her, we challenged here and she Accepted! she has a date for may 2nd! Afterward we called sis lopez to let her know, and sis lopez wasn't surprised at all, she said" i know, earlier this morning she knelt down and prayed for the true church, she needed hope in her life, and then she came over to my house and i felt impressed to have you teach her" Amazing how God works!

Thursday, we had Zone conference, it was awesome, our zone is doing great right now, we are seeing miracles!

Friday, we weekly planned, went over to the mesas, to give them pictures of christ we bought for their anniversary, she loved them, and she told us that after praying her and her husband were discussing baptism, and they are ready, she said that nothing is going to get in their way, she started to cry as she testified of the truthfulness of the gospel, later that day we taught Rafael again, Amazing lesson!

Saturday the mesas came to the church in the morning to see a baptism for a child of record and loved it, afterwards they stayed for the ward easter party and some of our members brought their food trailers, so we had some empanadas and arepas, it was awesome, the mesas loved it, that night we taught the mesas again and her son and his friends were there and we challenged them for church, and they accepted!

Sunday, we had expected about 6 investigators at church and we ended up with 13! 5 with the mesas, and Maria Bedoya (we are challenging her on tuesday), Alonso, and The most amazing family EVER, The VACA family, they are self referral, meaning they came to us! They showed up at church, because they remember learning of the church in mexico, and they need a solid church for them and their children, and lucky for them, they found the true church! They are a family of 6, Mom, dad, and 4 children, youngest being 8:-) they loved church, before hand we set an appointment for this saturday, and in the middle of the sacrament meeting he leaned over and asked if we could meet sooner, soo we taught them last night! They are soo awesome! They have a home here and one in mexico, he has a successful business dealing with natural vitamins, they are your typical mormon family:-) We are teaching them again tomorrow night! I cant wait!

So it was a great week, and any other free second we had we were knocking doors trying to find the lost sheep!”

4/20/09 - “ I wrote a huge email that got deleted, i am super bumbed!

Highlights, our families here are doing great! WE had an awesome FHE with them and our former branch president, it was amazing! Hopefully they can go on a temple tour this week! Please pray for them,

Abel and Janitsy Mesa

Mauricio and Sefora

David, Brenda, Mauricio jr., and sefora hija, VACA,

they are doing great and they are amazing!

I am super excited for the mission conference with Elder Holland!

I love you soo much and i am praying for each of you!

love, Elder Burdick”