Happy 19th Birthday Elder Burton!

Happy 19th Birthday Elder Burton!! November 28th 2015!

Email November 30, 2015

Email November 30, 2015 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Dia de Gracias!

Antoher great week here in argentina! A little disapointing too though, we were suppused to have a baptism for Maria on saturday but on tuesday she had an accident at work and got a hernia. So she was in the hospital for most of the week and now she´s with her daughter in Capital. So obviosly we weren´t able to do the baptism wich was sad. We still don´t really know too much about when she´s going to be back in the area. Hopefully this week and then be able to do the baptism soon too. We´ll see what happens.

This last wednesday we had a great lesson with Lucas, his two daughter who are 10 and 13 years old are now taking the lessons too which is great. We commited them to be baptised and they all accepted. Lucas needs to get married to his wife first though, and he told us that he wants to get married on his brthday which isn´t until the end of march. So he would have to wait until april to get baptised. We´re going to have a lesson with him this week and try to help him want to get married and baptised sooner. It´s best not to put things like that off, you never know what can happen in 4 months. They also all committed to come to church as an entire family which we were super excited about, but then sunday rolled around and to our disapointment they didn´t show up.  

Email November 23, 2015

Email November 23. 2015 – Isaac Kenneth Burton

Capilla abierta

I don´t know if any of you remember, but when I first got to this area me and my comp began teaching a man named Lucas. He has cancer super bad, and he was loving the lessons we were teaching him. We had a baptisimal date for him and everything. Then suddenly we couldn´t get ahold of him or find him for the longest time so we had to drop him as an investigator which was super sad. Last sunday during Elders quarumn, we did divisions to visit some less active families. The family we went to visit wasn´t home so I suggested that we stop by the house of Lucas to see if he was home. He had been on my mind lately. So that´s what we did and he was home! He came out and talked to us and said he would like to start taking the lessons again! So this week we had a lesson with him where we gave him a blessing of health and taught about the atonement. We found out that he had still been reading in the book of mormon for those three months that we didn´t teach him. When he coul´nt sleep because of his cancer he would read the Book of Mormon and it would help with the pain. Pretty cool. He has such a strong testimony now. He came to church with us this sunday and after the meeting he asked the bishop if he could share his testimony one day in sacrament meeting. The bishop of couse said yes and explained to him fast and testimony meeting. Pretty cool though that he is already wanting to share his testimony in sacrament meeting after only his first time at church. He really has been prepared to recieve this gospel. He told us the story of how he first came into contact with a missionary. He was in a plaza in a city near hear and a missionary startied talking to him. Lucas told him that he had cancer and in response the missionary gave him a "brazo sincero" sincere hug, and whispered in his ear that God loves him and will help him through his trails. A year later, a week before I got to the mission, my old companion knocked on his door. Lucas remembered the missionry from the plaza and recognized my companion as a missionary from the same chruch. And for that reason he let him in and started taking the lessons. Pretty cool story I think. Lucas has definitely helped stregthen my testimony that the Lord prepares people for us to teach and will lead us to them if we listen. We don´t have a baptisimal date for him yet because he has to get married first which he´s trying to do soon. His wife isn´t to interested in the church yet but his two daughters are. They´re going to start taking the lessons with him this week. 

Email November 23, 2015

Email November 23, 2015 – Elder Kenneth Wm. Burton

Bunch of Burtons

...................................I'm at a loss for words. Right now I'm just trying not to go into shock that I'm on to the last week. Seven days.

"I am like a man on a sea voyage nearing his destination. When I embarked I worried about having a cabin with a porthole, whether I should be asked to sit at the captain's table, who were the more attractive and important passengers. All such considerations become pointless when I shall soon be disembarking." -Ian Hunter

Time is so interesting. I found a quote from Neal A. Maxwell that I really like, he said, "let us make allowance for the rapidity with which time seems to pass, especially when we are happy. Jacob found it so: 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days. for the love he had for her.'(Gen. 29:20)"

These last two years have flown by. Until now I never really tied that to the love I have for the Lord. In my time here I've come to learn what Jacob did. That that which you give your heart to, you come to love. And that which you come to love you give your heart to.

To throw in another quote, "Love is the most costly of commodities. The more your willing to pay, the more valuable the price. The question is, are you willing to pay the price?" -Johnny Lingo

When I left on my mission two years seemed like quite a gift. Now my only desire is to give more. I wish to dedicate my life to the Lord. It is him who has given it to me. It is him who has been teaching me and guiding me. It is him who has blessed me and surrounded me with so many incredible people that have helped me to change and become a bit more like Christ. And it is him that strengthens me that I may be able to learn the lessons I'm being taught.

I do not know where the Lord will take me in the future. But I look forward with hope. With an excitement to see what will come. My mission is incredible, and I would not trade it for anything. I would also not trade anything for the blessings that will come with the future. 

Email November 16, 2015

Email November 16, 2015 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Here comes the heat

First off...HAPPY ANIVARSARY MOM AND DAD!! Hope you guys have an awesome day, thanks for everything you do for me and the family. I am so very blessed. Also happy birthday to Clay Bingham, I´m pretty sure his birthday is today too...if not, oh well haha.

This week has been great, it really strengthened my testimony that God is preparing people for us to find and he guides us to those that he has prepared. We found 4 new investigatores this week which is great. That´s the most I´ve had in one week my whole mission so far. We´re pretty happy about that. Two weeks ago we had a gira misional where a member of the 70 spoke and taught us. He spoke a lot on the inportance of always trying to find new investigatores because with out them we can´t have and progressing investigators or bauptisms. So this week my comp and I focused a lot on trying to find new people to teach and it payed off. I remember in the MTC my whole district always had this question of how to know if a thought or feeling was from the spirit or just from ourselves. To answer our question our teacher showed us a segment form a talk of Elder Bednar. In the talk he expained that we don´t need to worry about where it comes from. The scriptures teach us that all good things come from God. So if it´s a a thought or feeling to be better or work harder it comes from the spirit and you should act on it. He also explained that if we are being obediant and living the way we should then the spirit will guide us in the right way without us even realizing it or thinking that we´re acting on a prompting. I definitly think this is true. Many times this week we just happened to be right where we needed to be right when we needed to be there. And now we have 4 new investigatores to teach because of it. The spirit guides us to where we need to be. We just have to live right and be worthy of his guidance. I know this is true.

It´s really starting to heat up here in argentina. And rain, we have awesome rain storms here. Makes for lots of humidity though wich just makes the heat better. Maria was sick this week so she couln´t meet with us at all. We had a appoinment to give her a blessing but when we showed up she wasnt home. We have another with her tonight, we´ll see how it goes.

I hope everyone is doing well. Have a great week! Love you all.

Les quiero, Elder Burton

Email November 16, 2015

Email November 16, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

Well time flies. Feels like just yesterday I was sitting here sending an email home. Where did the week go?

I want to say, I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to extend. The Lord has been blessing me with so many opportunities to do good, and at the same time I've been learning so much.

The Lord qualifies the called. He lifts us up to more than we could be on our own, to the blessing of those around us.

We found a new investigator through our friend Martin this week. We showed up to our appointment with him and he immediately cut us off saying he wanted to introduce us to his friend. He then lead us a few blocks away to a laundromat where we met Kyle. Turns out a while back he had been given a Book of Mormon by some missionaries who had used the laundromat, and he kept it on a shelf with all the magazines and things that customers could read. He told us about a woman who would come in every week and read 15 to 20 pages from the Book of Mormon and leave a book mark for the next time she was there. Then one day she came again and found it had been taken out by another customer. Talk about flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. Who would have expected a bunch of laundromat customers to be spending so much time reading it. We gave him another book which he put on the same shelf and promised that he would  begin reading it himself. He also knows one of the members fairly well and would like to come visit the church some time. We have an appointment with him and Martin on Tuesday.  

New Companion

Elder Burton with his new trainee Elder Barrantes

Email November 9, 2015

Email November 9, 2015 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

First week as trainer!

This week has been awesome! It´s been hard and way different than past weeks but it has been awesome. My new companion who I will be training for the next 3 months is Elder Barrantes from Lima, Peru. He´s 25 years old which is kinda cool and he´s only been a member of the church for 3 years. He is the only living member of the church in his family too.  Pretty cool that he´s out on a mission with only three years of membership. He´s an awesome missionary, tons of energy and love for the work. He has absolutley no fear of talking to people which is awesome and we´ve made more street contacts this week then I ever have before cause my old comp didn´t like contacting much. So yeah, Elder Barrantes is great, his excitment and energy will be fun to work with and I know I´ll learn a ton from him. He speaks a little bit of english but not much which is good. It´s helped my spanish a ton. I have definitly felt the lords help with my spanish this week. There are still a ton of things that I don´t understand, but I understand what I need to and I can say pretty much what I want. 

Email November 9, 2015

Email November 9, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

I love it when you get to the beginning of a new week and just feel ready. No idea what it will bring, but you feel happy with the way things are going and look to the future with hope. Isn't the gospel great!

The scripture I'm ponderizing this week is Moroni 10:32 "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

My purpose has been on my mind recently. "To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end." To invite others to come unto Christ.

I believe its the same purpose everywhere. As a missionary. As a district leader. Sister training leader. Zone leader. Assistant. President. Bishop. Primary teacher. Deacons quorum councilor. Parent. Child. There are many things outside of our control, all we can do is come unto Christ and invite those around us to do the same.

Photos from Buenos Aires

Elder Bahena & Elder Burton 

Email November 2, 2015

Email November 2, 2015 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Transfers!

Great week here in Rafael Castillo Central! On tuesday I had intercambios in another area and when I came back my comp told me that the lesson he had had with our investigator Maria went super well. She decided that she didn´t care anymore about what her daughter thought of her being baptised and she decided that she wanted to be baptized on the 7th of November which is this upcoming saturday! We had the baptizmal interview last wednesday and the zone leaders decided that she needs to strengthen her testimony of the book of mormon before she gets baptized though. SO thats what we´ve been working on with her. We are going to have another interview this wednesday and if all goes well then she can still be baptized this satuday. We´re hoping and praying that all goes well, she wants this so bad. We´ll see how things go. 

Photo from Horsens

Email November 2, 2015

Email November 2, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Happy Halloween!

Bunch of Burtons

Halloween isn't huge in Denmark, there are a few that celebrate it though. Rafael invited us over and we carved pumpkins with a friend of his who was visiting from Copenhagen.

This last weekend was... interesting. I don't know quite what it was, maybe just the overall Halloween feel. Not necessarily that I had forgotten, but it hit me more this last week that there is an adversary out there who indeed does want us to be miserable like unto himself. And it is essential that we rely upon and trust in the Savior Jesus Christ that we might be able to overcome the temptations and resist the fiery darts being thrown at us. I received a new perspective of what it means to use the atonement in ones life. It is a gift to help us overcome weakness, as well as a protection from outside forces.

There is opposition in all things..... I'm grateful for that knowledge, and the knowledge of good and evil that I can choose the good.

I find the Holy Ghost prompts everything that leadeth to good. This change of perspective has helped me find a stronger desire to do specific things that help me act in faith when tempted.

There was a day recently when I had irrational fears come over me of talking with people on the street. I couldn't do it. All of a sudden excuses were filling my mind for why I shouldn't stop the person coming my way. But I've found certain things that help bring the spirit in times of temptation, that help me move forward with faith. Such as prayer, reciting a scripture or singing a hymn, expressing gratitude or love for the Lord and those around me, turning to others rather than looking inward on myself, writing down my thoughts and feelings, and acting immediately on the things I know to be promptings from the Spirit. Each of these is something that has brought my mind back to Christ in a time of fear or temptation. And now I'm back to talking with everyone I can.

Homecoming!