Email February 29, 2016

Email February 29, 2016 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Elder Bednar!!!

What a great week this week with the meeting we had with Elder Bednar. I don{t even know where to start, there was just to much.

Something that was interesting and that I liked a lot was that in the beginning he gave us two rules. 1. We couldn{t write down anything that he said, only what we learned from the spirit. And 2. We were to participate, it  was a discussion, not just a talk.

With these to rules in place it really open up the meeting to be a place of learning, and not just from Elder bednar, but more specifically, the spirit. Elder Bednar told us that he didn{t come to the meeting with a set topic or something that he wanted to talk about. He told us that he had been preparing for this meeting for the last 40 years and that he was just going to let the spirit take us where we needed to go. It was pretty cool. I think the thing that I took away most from the meeting is to really act, not be acted upon. Elder Bedar talkes about that a lot but he explained it in a way this time that realy hit me. He used this example: 

Email February 22, 2016

Email February 22, 2016 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Sewer Eel

What a great week! We found several new investigators this week that are awesome, I really think they´ll progress really well. One of them is a man named Raúl. He lives at the very edge of our area so it takes like 25 minutes to bike out to his house but it´s worth it. He lives in the middle of nowhere, its just fields with horses and cows. It´s beautiful, I´ve never seen such perfect skies in my life. Raúl is an ex-pastor of an evangeligist church. That was a little scary at first, we thought that maybe he´d just want to bible bash but he´s not like that at all. He accepted everything we taught him about the restoration and when we gave a Book of Mormon he held it in his hands, looked up towards heaven, and said, "Thank you God, Thank you for more of your word!" It was pretty cool, that wasn´t really the reaction we were expecting.

We also had a few awesome contacts this week. We talked to one man on the street and we asked him if he knew anyone that could use some spiritual help and he said, "Yes! I need help, I need help to stop drinking alcohol." That was a first. We have an apointment with him tomorrow. Yesterday we contacted a house and a lady from spain stuck her head out the door and said, "Hey! Are you mormons?! Do you guys have lots of wives?" Haha that was kinda wierd, I guess thats a spaniard for you ;) But she actually does have lots of interest, we´re going to try to teach her and her husband this week. We´ll see what happens. The mission is awesome. 

Photos from Alejandro Korn

Email February 15, 2016

Email February 15, 2016 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Zone Conference, Divisions with the assistants

Great week as always here in Alejandro Korn. On Friday we had zone conferece which was great. The whole thing was centered on repentence and how we can better teach repentance and baptize converts. We did a ton of practices and group discussions that were great, they really helped me and I hope they helped the rest of the zone too.

The principle of repentance really is amazing. I think my whole life I just kind of looked at it as something for sinners. Which is sad because I´m beginning to understand how much more it really means. My favorite way to teach repentence is to explain that repentance means the same thing as change. They´re synominous. When we truly repent, we change our thoughts, beliefs, actions. Everything we can to put our lives more in harmony with the will of God. When you look at repentance this way its a lot easier to see how repentance truly is for everyone, everyday. We all have our weaknesses and those things we want to change and improve. ANd the way to change and improve is through repentance. Which is posible because of the atonement of our brother Jesus Christ. 

Email February 8, 2016

Email February 8, 2016 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Elder Bednar is coming!!!

This last wednesday we had a leadership meeting with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders in the mission. The meeting was great, we all got to teach a part from the worldwide missionary conference that we had a few weeks ago. I love meeting like that because I get to see all the different ways that people teach and explain the gospel. It´s something that I´m really trying to improve so I love learning how to improve myself. But the best part of the meeting was that President Thurgood anounced that on the 24th of this month Elder Bednar is coming to Buenos Aires to speak to all the missionaries here!! I don´t think I've ever been so excited for a meeting before.

Transfer Photos

Leaving Rafael Castillo Central

Elder Burton with his new companion Elder Cortez in the area Alejandro Korn where he will serve as the Longchamps Zone leader

Email February 1, 2016

Email February 1, 2016 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

La vida de la mision es la vida mejor!

A veces solo quiero escribir en español. It´s kinda starting to scare me how spanish is just kinda taking me over. The other day I had to call one of the senor missionaries here in the mission offices who doesn´t speak spanish. It was just about killed me to talk in english haha, I literally couldn´t express my thoughts in english with out really thinking about it first. Weird, I never thought I´d get to that point. I´ll take it as a good thing though. I still have a lot to leard of this language but I have come a long way. It´s amazing what we can do when we put our trust in the Lord and work hard to do our part. We literally can do anything.

This week has been great. It is really weird to switch areas. You go from knowing an area like the back of your hand and being super confident with the members, companion, and everything to not knowing anything. Everything is new and you´re forced to start over and learn it all again. But it is so awesome. I think God does it like this for a reason. He never lets you get to comfortable because we don´t learn when we are comfortable. We learn in those difficult times where we really have to strech and step into the unknown. It´s all part of His incredible plan for us. Becuase He loves us.