Email August 31, 2015

Email August 31, 2015 – Elder Isaac K. Burton

1st Zone Conference and Stake Conference

We had zone conference this week which was really cool. I really liked it because we basically just get taught by the president and his assistents. Our President is super knowledgeable about the gospel because he was a gospel principles teacher or something like that at BYUI for like 30 years. So he really knows his stuff. It´s really fun to be taught by him because you learn a lot, even if you can´t understand what he´s saying cause it´s all in spanish. The topic of the zone conference was the Atonement. We were asked to come to the zone conference having read and studied that week about the atonement and to have written 5 sentences about what we learned. That was really hard becasue the atonement is so deep and there so much to say about it. But it was really good to be able to write about it in 5 sentences cause it forced us to think simply and to look for the most important aspects for us. Thats what will help us teach others about the atonement more effectivly. Simplicity is key or else the investigator will just be lost. Thats something that I need to work on a lot especially since I have a limited vocabulary to teach with. I would have put my 5 sentences in this email but i didn´t bring them with me, sorry about that. Basically though the atonement redeemed us from the fall of adam and made it so that all of us no matter what we do in this life can be resurected. I think it´s important to remember that Christ didn´t take away our personal responsibility when he suffered for our sins. What he did was made it so that we wouldnt be accoutable for Adams transgression. He made it so that we are all accountable for our own deeds in this life. And he provided us a way to repent when we did sin. If we dont´t repent and keep christs commandments then we are not using his atonement. It´s so important that we use it every chance we get because thats what he wants and thats what brings us closer to him. We can use it in every part of our lives. It really is so incredible. 

We had stake conference this week too which was really cool. Down here they broadcast speakers from salt lake for the stake conferences. Elder cook and Elder Hales spoke which I thought was super cool. They were really good talks as far as I could understand. Two of our investigators came which was awesome and they both said they loved it!  Hopefully they could feel the power and spirit of the apostoles as they spoke.

Saturday night I got to give my first blessing in spanish. We had some things happen that night that caused us to end up at a members house that we weren´t planning on visiting. Turns out that she needed a blessing cause she´d beeen having some back problems. I definitly think God put us there for a reason. And she wanted me to give her the blessing too which was cool. So I did my best in spanish and it actually went pretty well I think. I definitley felt the spirit when I gave it.

It´s been a good week, and it´s starting to warm up which is nice. I hope everyone is doing well, thanks for all the support. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Burton