Email October 11, 2017

Email October 11, 2017 – Elder Jackson Kunzler Burton

Hey Everyone!

Hey Everyone!

     It's been another great week at the MTC!  On Monday I got to help host for senior missionary couples as they arrived at the MTC. It was so much fun to meet them all! It's so cool to see them giving up retirement time and money to serve the Lord. It was really inspiring to see all these people who have been true to the gospel their entire lives and still want to give more.

     We also had Elder Christofferson come speak yesterday! It was so cool! He spoke about the early publishing of the Book of Mormon and the challenges the church had to push through in order to make it happen. He actually had a copy of the first edition of the Book of Mormon published in England. It was really cool! He talked about how important it was for the early church to make the Book of Mormon widely accessible. Now there have been over 180 million Book of Mormons printed, and we have it for free on our phones and computers. It's easy to take it for granted now. But the Book of Mormon is still so important. I think it's really cool that an apostle came to the MTC so speak to the outgoing missionaries, and what he chose to speak about was the Book of Mormon. You'd think that an apostle would speak about a deeper topic, considering that we as missionaries already hear about the Book of Mormon so often and already know so much about it. But the fact that an apostle chose to speak to us about the Book of Mormon really shows just how important it is as a tool in missionary work and as a tool in our own conversion. It also reminds me of how what might be the prophet's last general conference address was all about the Book of Mormon. He could've chosen anything to speak about, and he chose to speak about the Book of Mormon. And I know I talk about it in my emails a lot, but I really feel like I can't stress the importance of the Book of Mormon enough. And I feel like that's one of the biggest things I'm learning at the MTC. No matter how strong our faith is, no matter how much we know about the gospel, the Book of Mormon should be the foundation of our faith. Its pages contain the fullness of the gospel, and it is evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet. If it wasn't true, our entire church would false, but because it is true, our entire church is also true. I love the Book of Mormon so much.

     Everything else is going really well! My companion is awesome, my district and zone are awesome, my teachers are awesome. The language is going pretty well. We took a language test a couple weeks ago and I got a 2.6 out of 7, which probably doesn't mean that much to most of you but I think it was a pretty good score, but not amazing or anything. Returned missionaries usually score between a 5 and a 7. Anyway, so that's what's been happening here. I'm loving it here, but I'm so excited to get to Japan! I keep hearing about how amazing the food, the culture, and the people are there and I'm so excited! I love you all! 愛しています！

Love,

バートン長老

Elder Burton