Photos from Sapporo

Closest thing to pizza - Cheese Naan!

My new companion Elder Minegishi!

Making sushi at zone conference

Elder Ike Burton is HOME!!!

President & Sister Calquin Sending Elder Burton Home at the completion of his mission.

Homecoming!!!

Argentina

Email June 5, 2017

Email June 5, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Don´t cry for me Argentina

Well...I guess this is pretty much it...seven days...seven more days to work my heart out in this beautiful country.

Honestly I'm kinda at a loss for words, I still can't believe that I've actually reached this point. It feels pretty unreal.

I´m going to miss this place. The amazingly blue skies, the loving people. I´m going to miss speaking spanish in the streets and chasing dogs in the alleys. Working in the rain and sweating in the sun. I'm even going to miss the sight and smell of burning trash in the gutter and drunk guys yelling at us from the sidewalk. Especially I will miss testifying of my savior Jesus Christ, being one of his official representatives. Having His name upon my chest.

What better way to get to know your maker than to spend time in and with his creations. In the the service of his sons and daughters. 

Email May 29, 2017

Email May 29, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Another week in the life :)

First off...Happy Birthday Ken an Brig!! I hope you guys have an awesome day, make it a good one, know that I love you guys a ton.

Second off...Congrats to my brother Jack getting his call to serve a mission in Japan!! You're gonna be an awesome missionary. I´m so excited for you.

Missions really are the best. Two years with one purpose to make the world a better place by helping people come unto Christ. It really is the most noble of works and it reaps so many rewards. Something that I have learned recently is something that King Benjamin taught, that we are eternally indebted to our God. Every time that we do something to try to pay him back for the blessings that he gives us he just ends up dumping even more blessings upon our heads. And then there is the one blessing that would be impossible to ever payback, that of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and that through him, we can be cleaned a perfected to one day return to his presence. How blessed we are. How blessed I am. My mission has really opened my eyes to how great God really is and how much he loves his children.  He is our Father and loves us infinitely. Of that I am certain. 

Photo from Buenos Aires

Email May 15, 2017

Email May 15, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

New companion!

It´s been a great week!! This week was full of eventful things, first of which is that I got a new companion! I´m still with Elder Tenhoeve who has been my comp for the last almost 8 months, but now we are in a trio with an awesome missionary named Elder Cahoon! He will be my replacement once I take off, so we are just kinda showing him the ropes for now so that he knows how everything works. But he´s great, he´s from Montana and has a year and a half in the mission. We are already super good friends because he has worked with us in the offices as secretary for the last six months. I´m excited to be his comp and will be an awesome assistant! 

Photos from Buenos Aires

Email May 8, 2017

Email May 8, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Crazy week

Well this week has been awesome and super crazy! We are really focusing everything in the mission right now on worthines and obedience so that we can keep improving and baptize more of these amazing argentine people. As part of that, my comp and I have been doing revisions of all the missionaries apartments, which has been a pretty interesting experience. But that´s what we did pretty much the whole week. Also we had leadership council...my last one. I have been a part of the mission leadership council here since january of 2016, and it has been such a blessing to work with so many great missionaries and learn from them. We talked a lot about obedience, especially from the leaders. If the head is bad, the whole body follows. I´m grateful that we have good leaders in the mission that help us improve and grow through their example. I´m grateful to have the only perfect leader, our savior Jesus Christ, as the head and leader of this church. He really is the perfect example and who we should be constantly trying to emulate. If we follow his lead, we will never be lead astray and fall from the path.

I love you all, have a great week!!

Con mucho amor, Elder Burton

Email May 1, 2017

Email May 1, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Transfer #17...here we go :)

Wow, this week has been crazy, the week before transfers always is. Lots of planning checking to make sure that everything will go smoothly. But everything has gone well up till now so that´s good. I feel like we are really starting to see some changes in the mission. This last month of april we reached a new record of seventy baptisms in the month which is great. We have been focusing a lot with the missionaries on the importance of personal worthiness and I think that´s whats really causing the change in the mission. If we are worthy then God will be able to direct our lives in the direction he needs, and we will receive the help to overcome anything that might trip us up.

Well sorry I can´t write much, we are now closing the offices on mondays at 12:00 so that means we have a little less time to write using the computers. Thanks for everything that you all do, I hope you have a great week! I love you all!

Con mucho amor, Elder Burton

Email April 24, 2017

Email April 24, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

That awkward walk to the front

You know that moment when you get to sacrament meeting late and the only available remaining seats are the first and second rows? Then you have to make that long, awkward walk past everyone as they watch you come in late and take your seat in front. I'm pretty sure that's a walk that everyone has experienced at least a few times in life. Yesterday it happened to me and my comp...but this time it wasn't awkward, but glorious, because we had with us  a family of seven :) Yep, our investigators the Puegher family came to church yesterday! They got there about 20 minutes late but it was even better that way I think because everyone saw them walk in. You should have seen the look on all the members faces when they saw this amazing family, you would have thought that a group of angels had walked into the chapel. Even the bishop got up to the pulpit after they had sat down just to welcome them to the ward. It was awesome, and they loved it. Right after sacrament meeting the members basically attacked the family with love. They stayed for all the meetings and were so happy at the end. The kids didn't even want to leave. It was awesome, we had a few lessons with them this week and we were able to set a baptism date for the 6th of May which is great! We are so excited for them, I pray constantly that they will be able to keep progressing. Families are the best :)

Baptism Photos

Email April 17, 2017

Email April 17, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Happy Easter!

Felices Pascuas!! Happy Easter!

This week was great! Here they celebrate Holy Week a lot because there are a lot of catholics.I absolutely love being a representative a Christ and being able to testify to all that Jesus  Christ really did die and resurrect for us. I am so grateful for that fact and that I can be here teaching others about it. I love this work.

We found a great family this week! Lillian and Mariano and their 4 kids. They seem really receptive and really want to have a firm and happy family. The lesson was fun because I was on divisions with Elder Nixon, who was in the MTC with me. It was the first time since then that we´ve worked together which made it fun. It was cool to see how far we have come in the last few months. But the family is great, we are excited to work with them and help them recieve the beautiful blessings that come from this amazing gospel. 

Email April 10, 2017

Email April 10, 2017 – Elder Isaac Kenneth Burton

Thoughts of the week

This week has been great! Super busy as usual, but that is definitely a good thing when you are in the work of the Lord. On Tuesday we finished the last zone conference and it went really well.  All of the missionaries left really excited to work and fulfill the new goals that we put. The rest of the week we got into our cycle of interviews which has gone well also. I am teaching a little bit about vision and setting goals to reach our visions. I feel like it´s gone well up till now.

Here are a few thoughts that have been on my mind this week: