An email for Matt

I would love it if some of our family and Matt's friends took just a few minutes this week and sent him an email.  He has been sick and it sounds like he just needs a little love from us at home.  We are so blessed to have the gospel and each other.  Let's share some love with Matt this week!

It is my understanding that he can't open any email that is not from his immediate family.  I would be happy to forward your messages to him without reading them.  Just put "to Matt" or something in the subject line, and I'll just automatically hit the forward button.  My email is byutaylor {at} comcast {dot} net.

Please, please, please!!!!

Matt's email 7/26/2010

This week was pretty good despite all the health problems. I don´t think I ever told you this but there has been a worldwide change in the way that the missionaries teach. They found that even with Preach My Gospel, a lot of peopole are still memorizing the lessons. The whole purpose of PMG was to use the Spirit more and so the First Presidency sent out a 70 page email directing mission presidents on how to do that. So this whole week all the leaders had a 4 day meeting deal and learned all about the new method and we have been learning and applying it. Not much has changed it just makes teaching with the Spirit a little more accessible. They also changed the schedule so that we have zone conference every 3 months instead of every transfer which means that the mail gets all messed up the basically everything slows down. It´s going to be great though. The weather has really been helping out. It gets pretty warm in the middle of the day but the nights are still pretty chilly. 

 I´m doing great here and I´m trying my hardest to stay posiitive through it all. I love you guys and hope you have an incredible week.

Love

Elder Burr

Matt's email 7/19/2010

On Wednesday morning we woke up to like 3 inches of snow on the ground. It was really something else. The members said that they haven´t seen snow like that before and everyone in the city was outside. 

This week was pretty good though. We basically dropped all the investigators we had and started from new. Everyone that we had been teaching pretty much lost interest and nobody accepted any of the baptismal dates that we tried setting so we set out this week knocking doors everyday searching for those who are prepared. We came across a family who was baptized like 5 years back but are now inactive and the mom is a chain smoker. It´s way sad because the daughter served a mission and all that but now they all work for the garbage company. Anyway to make a long story short the mom is quitting smoking and they both came to church yesterday. To me that is just as good as having an investigator in church so we were pretty content. 

 Well that´s about all I got for the week. Hopefully next week will be a little more interesting with transfers and everything. Tell everyone to keep on keepin on. I love you all. Thanks so much for everything!
Love
Elder Burr

Matt's email 7/12/2010

Thanks everyone for the emails. It was great to hear from all of you and to know that everyone is doing well. It is also great to hear that everyone is keeping busy and not sitting their lives away. Man what a great family. This week was pretty good here in the good ol Godoy Cruz. We had interviews with President on Wednesday and he told me that Elder Benitez was going to be transferred. Apparently a snake (girl) in our ward was always trying to talk to him and he thought that she was cute and it was a distraction for him and so president decided to move him. I think it was all part of his plan to do anything he could to leave the area and he used it as an excuse but it´s all good. My new companion is named Elder Guzmán and he is also an Argentine. He is honestly about 99.8% gay. He takes 6 bottles of stuff with him when he showers and he walks and talks like a gay person but what can I do. He teaches really well and had a lot of success in his previous area so I´m hoping he brings it along. I have a hard time being serious with him because I don´t want him to fall for me so I´m just setting up my iron barriers. He is great though and I´m sure things are going to change. President, once again, really opened my eyes in our intervies and he gave my a bunch of tips and advice which was really good. He is an awesome man.
Anyways something pretty cool happened this week. On Tuesday we found 2 new people to teach, neither of which progressed, but then last night we did divisions with the zone leaders and one of the zone leaders and I found 10 new people. We have a goal to find 10 a week and we found them in an afternoon. It was awesome. It was also really useful to have the soccer game to help us. We would just tell them that we didn´t have tv and we wanted to watch the end and they all let us in. It sure did make for some great conversations and we met some really interesting people. I also found out that there is a neighborhood like 100 yards outside of my area that is one of the most dangerous places in Mendoza. A few years ago the people that live there shot down a helicopter. Pretty cool huh? They also stole the steeple to the church when it was under construction, and shot an Elder about a year and a half ago. Luckily the bullet hit his Book of Mormon and didn´t enter in his body. Yeah it was pretty cool when I found that out and now we make it a goal not to pass by that area anymore. Don´t worry the rest of the people are half way normal and I don´t think they would do anything like that. But the moral of the week is that the Lord really does answer prayers and He protects His missionaries.
Today we are going to some massive mall on the other part of the city to walk around and eat some legit food. I´m way stoked for that. I absolutely love P days but they always end too quick. Thanks again everyone for the emails. I¨m sorry I can´t reply to all of them right now but I will be writing letters one of these days and sending them away so be patient. I really do appreciate all your support, advice, help, love and examples. Keep on keepin´ on up there in those states. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Burr

Matt's email 7/5/2010

Well I´m glad to hear that people still celebrate the 4th of July. Yesterday morning while getting ready for church the 3 gringos in the apartment were singing American songs and celebrating in our own way, but it doesn´t compare to Carrie Underwood and the parade that´s for sure. The Argentine independence day is the 9th and from what I hear it should be pretty legit. The people here love their holidays. They only work 4 hours out of the day anyways, but they still can´t get enough of their holidays.  We go swimming in the asekeas here which are like 2 foot gutters full of the most disgusting stuff anyone could ever find. No I´m kidding but I´m glad everyone is having fun. Right now I´m just posted up in a Subway in the middle of downtown Mendoza. I had a legit American sandwhich and I think I might go across the street and buy myself a bigmac from McDonalds. See I can celebrate the 4th too. This week was pretty lame. I failed to mention that 99% of the people here are 75 and older and the other 1% are the snakiest girls that I have ever seen. It´s uhh... pretty interesting. I have started being a lot more opinionated when I talk with people on the streets. The people here are arrogant and everyone says they read the Bible every day and blah blah blah but then I ask where the verse is that says you have to worship the Virgin and they proceed to tell me that it isn´t worshipping her when they cross themselves and pray to her but it is a form of respect. It is pretty ridiculous. The only place we ever have any luck is in the poorest of the poors. Places where they tell us not to go in the night because stuff goes down there. There are always police driving out on the BMW motorcycles with their beating sticks and hand guns. But yeah to make a long week short pretty much nobody listens to us. It´s way hard being rejected all day time after time, but it is the exact same thing that happened to Christ and His Apostles so how can I expect anything different? Elder Benitez and I are getting along well. He is pretty annoyed with the area and is sick of being here and he makes it known to everybody, which is way frustrating. I can´t wait to get a companion that hasn´t already been in an area 2 transfers so we can actually work. It seems like that has been the theme of the mission so far. Both of my companions just tell me that they want to get transferred and leave the area so they can have success somewhere else. It is pretty tough trying to motivate them to do anything. But it´s a battle out there and somebody has to win right? Anyways you wouldn´t believe how good at cleaning I am now. I have cleaned every single dish that anyone has ever used for the past however long I have been here. Nobody here knows how to use a sponge and soap so I slave away at the sink every night cleaning up after people. It´s great. I love it. Oh and also this week was a lot warmer. I guess there are a few months out of the year that are like transition months and they are the most extreme, but then everything settles down. It was fantastic. That´s all I got for the updates. You keep on celebrating there and don´t forget about me now. I love you all and wish you the best this week.
Love
Elder Burr

Matt's email 6/28/10

After we got back to the apartment (after dinner on a p day) we got a call from one of the zone leaders. As it all turns out I got transferred and am now in the city of Godoy Cruz, which is pretty close to downtown Mendoza. It is right up against the Andes which is pretty cool but in our area there are 4 catholic churches, 1 Evangelist church, and a bunch of little Argentine sects so it makes for some interesting conversations. One lady the other day said that she believes in a book written by 3 theoligians. Their belief is that Jesus didn´t die on the cross. They claim that the tomb that Joseph of Arimethea built had some flaw so Jesus could escape and for three days he was healing himself and he came back after 3 days, had a family, and died of old age... It was pretty interesting and the only reason they think all that is because nobody could find the bones of Jesus´s body. She obviously just doesn´t get it. But yeah that is just a taste of what goes on here. The area is a lot nicer than San Rafael and the houses are somewhat realistic. My comp is a Latin from Buenos Aires. His name is Elder Benitez and he is way legit. He has only been here 2 transfers more than me so we are a way young companionship, but we work way hard anyway. Ten days before the mission he had a coach from a premier team in Spain come and offer him a spot on the team and promised him a bunch of money, but he declined the offer. Before the mission he played professional soccer in Paraguay and he´s a baller. Speaking spanish all the time is different, but we have pretty good conversations and I can communicate myself so I´m pretty satisfied. I was pretty disappointed when I got transferred because I had to walk away from 2 baptisms but whatever... Success on a mission isn´t measured by the number of baptisms you get. Anyways yeah that is the transfer. We live in an apartment with the zone leaders and that is way gay but what can you do. The ward here is pretty small and they are all a bunch of lazy Argentines. There is one Sister in the ward that is willing to work with us and everyone else claims that they are always busy. The lady that normally washes the missionary´s clothes said she won´t wash Elder Benitez´s clothes because he is from Buenos Aires. Yeah it´s pretty jacked up. We have to wash our clothes with a wash board in the sink. That´s about all the new news I have. It is freaking cold still.  Once we get out and start working and walking around I warm up but it´s just when I´m studying and all that. The winter only lasts until like the end of August so it should pass pretty quickly. That´s the hope at least.
That is a blessing that Mike won the election. It sounds like there was a ton of work that went into that deal. I´m happy for him though and he will do great.  Life here is going great. Argentina is about 180 degrees different from America. I can see now how blessed I am to be born in a place so great as America. Everyone here just rips on North Americans but they have no idea. I hope everyone has a good week there. Thank you all for the emails last week. It was great to finally hear from the rest of the family. I love you all and pray for you all daily. Keep on keepin on.
Love
Elder Burr