MONDAY
We had a great lesson
with Maurice today! She had read a ton in the Book of Mormon and was able to
explain the story to us in great detail. My favorite part was when she
described Laban (which she pronounced as Lah-bon) as a greedy, greedy man! Her
daughter was frying up some dinner and chimed in occasionally, asking questions
about the Plan of Salvation.
TUESDAY
We had exchanges in
Fort Walton today! I got to be with Sister Boyce, who I served around when I
was first in Brewton, AL! I am the tallest sister in the mission, and she is
the shortest, so we had always joked about being companions one day! We met up
with some older ladies and line-danced with them. I kept up at first, but then
they totally put me to shame! I had many opportunities to bear my testimony and
enjoyed visiting a new area to see how they did missionary work there!
WEDNESDAY 
On our way home from exchanges, Sister Stites was hungry and wanted to stop by Burger King. I accidentally missed the turn, so we just decided to keep going on and find something else. After a long while, we finally found another Burger King! We went in and met a young man who was friendly. Sister Stites felt prompted to go back inside and give him a pass-along card when we left, and in return, he gave us some crowns to wear. We felt like royalty. So it was totally inspired that I missed the first Burger King, and not because I'm a bad driver!
THURSDAY
We helped Brother
Harris set up social media accounts and hook-up his printer. Old people and
technology don't seem to mix well! We had another lesson with Maurice, and we
had planned on inviting her to be baptized during the lesson. Before we even
started, she asks us, "When's my baptism day?" We had been thinking
between the 8th or 15th of September, and the 8th happens to be her birthday,
so when we decided on that day, she started crying. She is so happy and so
excited to be baptized! We had our very last Bible Study that evening and it
went great. Everyone has really enjoyed it! The only part I didn't enjoy was
finding a live cockroach in the utensil drawer when we went to the kitchen for
refreshments.
FRIDAY
How a lizard was on
the Lord's errand today: As we were driving to a Bible referral's house, a
lizard dropped out of nowhere onto the hood of our car. He was hanging on for
dear life, and as we reached the highway, Sister Stites made me pull over to
get it off. We got back into the car and continued our journey to contact the
referral. No one was home, so we decided to write a quick note. Just as we were
finishing the note, he pulled into his driveway. We were able to have a great
conversation with him and give him a Book of Mormon in addition to the Bible he
ordered. We got his new number to come back for another visit and went on
our merry way and surprise visited a member. Turns out they had just gotten
home five minutes before we showed up. The wife had a super hard week, and the
simple message we shared about forgiveness and Joseph Smith really touched her.
As we were heading home, I realized that if we had not stopped for that 5
minutes to get the lizard off our car, we would have just barley missed
the referral getting home! As a result, we also would have missed the
less-active family because we would have headed straight over there without
delay, and all of our plans would have seemed to have fallen through. God truly
is in the details of our lives and always sends help (sometimes in the form of
lizards).
We also had a fun
dinner with the Lucas family, where we scared them half to death with the
"can-smashing-finger" object lesson!
SATURDAY
Like always, we had old-lady drama at bingo! And one of the residents, an old lady with dementia, kept trying to escape in her wheelchair. We went to teach Maurice, and she is progressing very well. I keep praying for her to continue to understand and soak in all the information! We also heart-attacked some members, and cleaned for an elderly lady. We had dinner with our ward mission leader. The love of the ward truly is growing toward missionaries!
SUNDAY
Maurice loved church
again! We were blessed to teach the gospel principles class last minute
(welcome to the life of a missionary). We had a late lunch with some members,
who generously gave us lots of food to take home. We went to a get-together to
say goodbye to the senior missionaries, and I was asked to bless the
refreshments. I said something along the lines of, "Please bless this
food, if not to be healthy, to at least not harm our bodies." ALSO, Sister
Stites keeps trying to play match-maker and set me up with people! *cue
eye-rolling*
Spiritual Thought
Our prophet has said
that good inspiration follows good information. And as we learn about someone
and invest our time in them, we grow to love them. Lately, Sister Stites and I
have felt prompted to learn more about the prophet Joseph Smith so we could
have a fiery conviction about us when we testify of him. Our mission president
has such a powerful testimony of Joseph Smith, and you can really tell he loves
him a lot. He always says how excited he is to meet Joseph in the next life and
thank him for all he has done. This has come about because of much study about
him. The church has recently released a new book about him that can be found on
the Gospel Library app under "Church History." It's called "Saints,
Volume 1." It reads just like a story and really makes Joseph and his
family real and relatable. I have felt my love and respect for the prophet of
the Restoration increase as I've put the time into studying about his sincere
and pure desires. I invite each of you to read it, and I promise that as you do
so, your love for and testimony of Joseph Smith will blossom and grow. You will
have a greater desire to share the Restoration, and like my companion, you will
want to shout your testimony of him from the balcony to the world! Which yes,
she actually did. And yes, people heard and gave her strange looks...
Much love,
Sister Burnham
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