Marcus's Endowment

Marcus chose to go and receive his endowment at the Mount Timpanogos Temple yesterday, June 22.
It was such a great experience to be there to support him and to do work for the dead.  Bryan and Natalie, Shea and Heather, Ben and Olivia, Adam and Ashley, Cam and Ashley, and Mike and Sharon Lee were in the session with Marc.
He is now "sweating" since he has to wear a shirt.  He made me feel his neck 14 times last night at the Mike Lee victory party.  He's definitely another Burr boy!

Matt's email 6/14/10

It is way cold here all the time. I wake up freezing, I study freezing, I go to bed freezing. It is pretty ridiculous. The only thing I do not freezing is eat a huge lunch. It is hotter than a furnace in all the member´s houses. It is seriously something else. I get all bundled up in the morning and when I get to their house for lunch I have to undress or else I just wouldn´t make it. We still eat a huge meal everyday and it is really taking a toll on the body. I don´t think walking all day does anything for exercise. Oh well, if I were here for a weight loss program then I would be doing a lot of things differently right? The people here are still really hard. Just stuck in their old Catholic ways, claiming belief in the Bible even though they haven´t opened it once. It is just ridiculous. But Alejandro told us that he wanted to wait until next week to get baptized so we are waiting for that. Other than that everything is pretty slow. Today was a way sweet day. We played soccer for hours and I had a little bit of Messi come out. It was pretty legit until I ripped my new kicks. I was way upset but it´s all good. We just ball out on a concrete court outside the church. It is pretty barbaric but it gets the job done. I would definitely put Cam in his place. Anyways that is about all I got. Oh we got permission to watch the Argentina Nigeria game and that was way cool. Soccer is life around this place. All the little kids just rock their jerseys all day and kick the ball around and everyone just has a great old time.  

Love

Elder Burr

Matt at zone conference

Matt's email 6/7/2010

This week was a pretty crazy week. We travelled 3 hours to Mendoza to listen to Elder Zivic. He had some really good advice and said some things that really changed my outlook on the missionary work. The entire conference was in spanish which made it so I had to pay attention. I understood pretty much all of it. I can understand when people talk about the gospel but when it comes down to general talk I only get like half of it if I am lucky. It was way good though and we were able to eat at McDonald´s in Mendoza so that was a real treat. The food in San Rafael is really good but pasta and bread everyday gets pretty old. Then on Friday we went to another area and worked the afternoon there. We wandered into a Bolivian village where the houses really are mud huts and the hole colony was centered around a huge brick yard. I felt like I was in a completely different world. Huge pigs and roosters everywhere just posting up... It was crazy but the people there can´t pull the too busy card so we were able to teach 4 people in 2 hours so it all paid off. 

We also had the opportunity to talk to this lady that was on her way to turn herself in for some things that she had done. She said that she wanted us to visit her in the jail but we told her that might not work out very well. She was an interesting person. It is pretty interesting the people we talk to. Everyone has their own story. Alejandro is doing well. The kid went to institute already and is starting to go to mission prep. He tells everyone in the ward that he wants to serve a mission and he hasn´t even been baptized yet. We are hoping that we can teach him all that we need to and have a baptism on Saturday. Things are looking good and the chances are high.  But yeah we struck gold with Alejandro and all the others are way difficult. I found out this week that my next companion will probably be nativo. President came up to me and asked if I was ready and I told him I was so we will see. I also had to say the prayer at mission conference. I think I have given a prayer at every single meeting we have gone to. I don´t even listen when they ask me I just fold my arms and start..

Anyway that´s all I got. I hope everyone has a nice hot week. We just freeze everyday. Today we cooked an asado which is pretty much more meat than they sell in the grocery store all cooked over a fire and you eat until you throw up. It was way fun. I love you. Thanks for the prayers. 

Love

Elder Burr

Gaston's baptism

Matt's email 5/31/2010 and first baptism!

So this week was pretty crazy here in the San Raffy. With the 25 of May and all that good stuff everyone was just way too busy to talk about the Gospel. They all had to get home to prepare their empanadas for the family. That is one of the top excuses here, "My sister, or my daughter, or someone in my family is sick and I am helping them..." Yeah I don´t believe it either. It´s all good though because we had a baptism yesterday. It was cool to see a 9 year old boy walk in to the font and make one of the biggest decisions in his life. He seemed way excited about it all so that was good. I had to get up and lead the music in front of the entire congregation of people which was like 50 and in case you didn´t know I can´t lead music. It was pretty rough but I have to learn at some point in my life. 

 Another really cool thing happened this week. On Friday we were eating at the bishop´s house and the first thing he said to us was "Elders, I have a reference for you. He will be baptized in 2 weeks." He said it in a pretty sarcastic voice and we were just like, yeah I bet bishop. Anyways Saturday night we passed by his house and come to find out that he is an 18 year old boy named Alejandro. We talked about the Restoration and prophets and all that and invited him to come to church yesterday. He came like 10 minutes early and stayed for all 3 hours. After church we invited him to the baptism and he came to that as well. We set a baptismal date for him in 2 weeks and he was way stoked. After the baptism we were walking on the main street just talking with people and he just immersed himself in the conversations and said he can´t wait to serve a mission. Yeah we met him 2 days ago and it is as if he has been a member his whole life. It is like a story that you would read in the Ensign right? It is super cool though and it goes to show that the Lord really is preparing people out here for us to find. It also goes to show the importance of member referrals. They are gold. 

 One last thing... This week I had to opportunity to eat blood sausage. I told the guy that I wanted a tiny bit but apparently a tiny bit here is half the sausage. It turns out that it really isn´t that bad, but I was glad to have finished it when I did and I was also glad he didn´t offer me more.
Love
Elder Burr