Saying Goodbye to Marc

I never posted these pictures of Marc's Kneaders breakfast.  All the grandkids will grow so much while he's gone!  We love you, Marc.

Matt's email 10/25/2010

Alright to start off I have to apologize for not informing anybody on transfers. I thought they were going to be on Monday, but turns out there were on Friday. It was a long week, but here we are. My new companion is Elder Orduña. It turns out that President was just punking me. He told me I was going to train or get a young latin, and he did neither. Elder Orduña is from Queens, New York. He speaks spanish perfectly and has 15 months on the mission. He loves to teach little kids how to behave themselves and the things they shouldn´t do. It is pretty funny actually to see the way all the moms react to him disciplining their kids. But he is a stud. He used to work at Zales as a jewelry salesman... Yep. And mom, yes he does know what a Hearts on Fire diamond is ha ha. Don´t ask me how I remembered that name, but you raised me well. Since he has been here in Albardón, we have already started to see miracles. On Saturday we went up to teach some investigators that we found a few weeks ago and while we were up in the area we decided to contact a few references. We went to one of the houses that we thought was a reference and started talking to the lady. She was super nice and after a few minutes of talking, she let us in. Inside the house were here 2 daughters and her sister, all of the age to be baptized. We started finding out what they needed in their lives and ended up teaching the message of the Restoration. We watched the video The Restoration and afterwards we put baptismal dates with all 4 of them for the 16 of November and they all accepted. Then after that we went to the family of Franco to start teaching them and met his 19 year old brother and 11 year old sister who also accepted dates for the 16. It was an awesome day for us. We are definitely going to get work done over here. We also say Mayra get confirmed and Franco got the Priesthood on Sunday, so that was just awesome. Missionary work is just way too fun when you have success, but when you don´t, it makes for some long, hard days.
About the interview I had with Elder Aidukaitis. We were just talking about the goals in my life and the things I want to accomplish on the mission. He taught me how I could do a really good plan of action to accomplish all the goals I have and he also taught me the importance of back up plans in case the main plan fails. It is hard to write, because the spirit that was there was what made is so special. But yeah that´s how it went. I was also thinking about the Christmas package. I don´t think I want anything to be honest. I think I might just buy some soccer shoes here at one of the stores and call it good. So if you see a hefty credit just sing a Christmas song or something and wish me a Merry Christmas. How does that sound?
Thanks so much for all the support that everyone has shown to me. I appreciate it so much. I´m sure Cam, Adam, and Ben can all relate. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Love
Elder Burr

Marc's email 10/19/2010

So it sounds like your crew was really met. that is too bad i would have
finished that job in probably a day cause when production needs to happen i
produce. but hey at least you are working and not sitting. How is the
campaign going? is he going to win or what? this is my letter to both you
and mom just so you know but i hope all is well.  somehow
everybody in this place is sick besides me.. nobody gets it but i wont
complain. The food is terrible yesterday i ate bowls of cereal cause i
couldnt handle the nasty chicken they tried to make me eat. at least the
food in mexico will be better than here. i dont think i need much. just some
life saver mints perhaps some beef jerky and some gummy treats. other than
that i have my 72 hour kit in my room full of cookies and such. my grow a
head is awesome it is in my classroom and has i think three hairs. it will
be a good addition. im sittin right next to kyle right now and he is doing
good. it is hard and he sees that and he is just taking every day as it
comes. that is how you get by in this place. oh yeah will somebody hook me
up with the scores to football games and the top 25 maybe? that would be
cool. Also i know how it feels now to sleep on the street cause that is how
uncomfortable my bed is. but i love it here stilll and every day is better
than the last. I am reading in the BoM and alma and ammon are easily my
boys. if i can be half of the men they were i would have a successful life.
I cant wait to get down to mexico to teach the people the plan of salvation
and cry repentance unto them. No news on the visa but it definitely is not
looking too good. but ill go where i am called. i love this work and the
promises i am given. i know i am a representative of Jesus Christ and oh man
what an honor that is. I love it. I never thought i really would but i love
it. the spanish is good i try to speak it all day every day and that is
working out pretty good. i can usually go all day with saying 20 words in
english but i know when i leave i will just be stunned. well i am going to
go but i hope you all have a good safe week and i love you all. i pray for
you all and wish the best. you are the best parents and family in the world
i couldnt have asked for better. no temas. its my new saying its tight it
means no fear. its how i live. love you all

Matt's email 10/18/2010

So this week was perhaps the hardest, most  confusing, most rewarding week on the mission. I know those are 3 contradictory statements but that pretty much sums it all up. On Tuesday I went down to Mendoza and we had a leadership meeting with Elder Aidukaitis. Everyone was getting pretty worried about it because he likes to drop a lot of cain on the missionaries, but it all went pretty well. He started out by asking us if we wanted to be a mission that stays where it is at or if we want to be a mission that is always moving forward. We chose the obvious answer and he then went on to explain a lot about the process of setting goals. He told us that if we had the necessary amount of faith each missionary will be able to baptize once a week. That was pretty humbling to hear, but I am going to put the promise to the test. He taught us a lot about how to make a plan to be able to reach a goal. Then on Wednesday I had to do an interview over in another area and on Thursday we had the zone leaders over to do interviews for us. On Friday we went down as a zone to Mendoza for the zone conference and it was based a lot about the same stuff we talked about. I have come to realize the importance of goals in my life and it has been a huge blessing. The coolest part of the week happened right after Elder Aidukaitis finished and President asked me to go have an interview with him and Elder Aidukaitis. To sum things up it was me, Elder Aidukaitis, and President Lindahl in a room having a private interview in spanish. It was incredible being in the same room as someone from the first quorum of the Seventy. He is an amazing man and taught me a lot. Then on Friday night we got back to San Juan and I had to do some more interviews for the zone leaders. We ended up sleeping on their floor because we got back super late. One of the interviews was just ridiculous. I don´t even want to write about it it was so bad. This lady was just crazy. But then on Saturday we had a couple baptisms which went really well. Sunday shows up, one of the investigators that got baptized didn´t show up until Sacrament Meeting and then we find out she drank a little alcohol after her baptism. She didn´t end up getting confirmed, although President Lindahl says she should have and things just went down. We are hoping and praying to get her confirmed on Sunday. That´s one of the incredible blessings of the Atonement is that it is infinite and available to everyone. But yeah that is pretty much the week in a nut shell. As a zone we won a competition and will each be receiving a belt with our names on them and an asado provided by president. That should be super legit. It´s been a week of miracles. Thank you all so much for the emails. It is awesome to hear from the real world. Things are going great here. I am loving it. I love you all and hope you have a great week.
Love
Elder Burr

Marc's email 10/12/2010

Hey mom how are you? i hope your week was good and you got everything done that you had to. My week here was really good just still doing the same thing every day. laundry right now is not fun just because the washing machines blow and the dryers dont really dry but oh well. This week i have been studying in mosiah and i love what king benjamin said. It relates to that question you put in your email and we will always be eternally indebted to our Lord. just when we try to pay him back he blesses us more. Im pretty sure that is the scripture but i wrote you and dad a letter that has the scriptures. In the scriptures the way to get back is to have faith, repent, baptism, and receive the holy ghost and endure to the end. that is how you get in that is why we get it. If we have faith that we are always doing what is right the lord will be pleased with our efforts and ours will be the kingdon of God. As long as we strive to be like our brother Jesus Christ we will be worthy in the eyes of God. Serving others like Jesus did is what i am doing now. One thing i know for sure is that i represent my Savior Jesus Christ and His name is always on my heart. I will not do anything to defile his name. I got matts email and it sounds like he is doing really well. I hope he is cause he deserves it. Missionary work is hard and i know how hard we works. He deserves the best for his work. Heather wrote me and it sounds like her family is doing good. Lucy seems to be a genius already i could count the words she actually said to me on one hand though. i will come home and she will realize how cool i am. how is the rest of the family? lilfe here is good i have learned to love my comp and district. They are all really cool and they make this place so much better. my teachers are awesome and just altogether it is amazing. I have been getting random packages from random people but that is cool.  but i dont really realize it id rather just serve the lord for my remaining time and not worry about having a girl to write or anything. best decision i have ever made. But i love you mom thank you for everything. keep praying for me and matt. I know it is tough and I can feel your prayers. I hope you have a good week

Matt's email 10/11/2010

So I have to tell you all that this week was just awesome. It was by far the most tiring week that I have had thus far on the mission, but it was amazing. I think the motivation that I received from conference really helped. I can tell you, after seeing 2 full sessions of conference on the mission, that there is not a greater time in the life of a missionary than the 2 days of conference. I didn´t want them to end, but sadly enough they did. But about this week... On Tuesday we had interviews with President Lindahl. I can´t get over how legit that man is. He connects so well with his missionaries and he honestly is like a dad out here on the mission. The only thing he wants for us is to be happy and work. He is always willing to help with anything and he is just an amazing person. In the interview he asked me if I would rather have a really young latin companion or if I would rather train a brand new gringo. I told him that it would be awesome to train, but that it would be great to improve my spanish. I know he will make the better choice and I wouldn´t be surprised to receive a phone call on sunday telling me that I will be training. Then on Thursday I went out to do some more baptismal interviews and met a lot of investigators in other areas in the district. I love interviews. The Spirit that is felt is just incredible during them and it is an awesome time getting to know someone and such a spiritual level. The only downer of the week is that Vazquez has started counting down the days and is talking about home a lot. I think he is way excited to leave this country and he makes me think of home a lot, but we are still working and finding people so it´s all great. We will find out transfers again this next monday so I am sure I will have some news. We will also be baptizing a few people this Saturday so I am super stoked. As for Viviana and her family... Well we called to set up an appointment to go and teach them again and she told us that she needed us to come pick up the Book of Mormon because her husband wouldn´t let her switch religions... It was hard trying to swallow that one, but we told her to continue reading and praying and when the Lord softens up the heart of her husband to let us know. She seemed pretty upset, but I have trust in the Lord and I know He can do anything. I have seen miracles on the mission and I don´t doubt the power that He has. This week is going to be crazy. Tomorrow in the morning I have to go to Mendoza to a leadership meeting with Elder Aidukaitis, then on Wednesday and Thursday I will be doing divisions and doing interviews again, then on Friday we are going to Mendoza as a zone to have zone meeting, then on Saturday we will be baptizing. It is a pretty packed week, but it will be awesome.
I hope all is going well back home. I have been trying to imagine what you are all doing without Marc and I and I just can´t do it. I hope you all have a great week. Keep the prayers coming. Thanks for all the support and love. Thanks for the packages mom. I´m sure they will be here soon. At least I hope so. I love you all. The Gospel is true. The church is perfect. The Prophet really does talk with God. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I love Him. The Book of Mormon is the most true book that we have. It can change lives faster than anything else. God loves us. I love you all
Love
Elder Burr

A photo of Matt

Matt is on the right end of the second row.

Marc's email 10/04/2010

Mom

Matt still hasnt written me neither has anybody from our family so they suck. tell adam thanks for the ipod and i really appreciate it. how is taelyn? But about conference I loved is from this perspective. I could relate almost every talk on how i could be better and i enjoyed that. i think overall i have changed alot and my testimony is very strong. I love the new testament and am almost done with luke. reading through those reminds me of israel and i loved israel. i loved all of the places and i love knowing what the places look like that i am reading about. yeah that parking ticket i told you about so its not all my fault but im sure you liked the surprise. just make sure when you pick out my picture you pick one that doesnt make me look like a homo. might be hard to find but im sure there are some. and to answer your question yes i email on tuesday. Tell the family to write me either dear elders or email me cause i want to hear how they are doing. I love you mom and realized how great you really are while ive been here. i know you have only wanted the best for me and im sorry for how i was before i left. you are the best lady in the world and i wouldnt trade you for anything. I hope you have a great week. I love it here by the way i will write a letter next week cause i am out of time. love you mom

Matt is made a District Leader

Dear Brother and Sister Burr,

 

            It is a pleasure to be working with Elder Burr.  He has recently been called to serve as a district leader and is growing and maturing as a man and as a servant of the Lord.  Thank you for the support and encouragement you give to him.

           

            Your son’s mission brings many blessings to him, the people he teaches, and the other missionaries around him.  I’m sure that you have also felt the blessings that the Lord gives to a missionary’s family.  A district leader is assigned to a group of elders, normally two or three companionships.  Once a week he presides in a meeting with his district.  He will prepare talks and classes that will help the missionaries in his district improve their teaching techniques and knowledge of the scriptures as well as the missionary lessons. He is responsible to stay aware of his district’s health and spiritual progress.  He also does proselyting work with each of them.

           

            As district leader, Elder Burr will give baptismal interviews.  What a wonderful opportunity and blessing it is for him to sit and discuss with baptismal candidates their progress and the covenants that they will make.  He determines whether or not the candidates have fully repented and if they are prepared to be baptized.  We know your family will be blessed and see the growth in Elder Burr as he shares with you the experiences and challenges that he has as a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ.  I pray that the Lord will bless you and your son continually in your efforts to build the kingdom of God on earth.

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                With love,

 

                                                                                                James B. Lindahl

 

                                                                                                President James B. Lindahl

Matt's email 10/04/2010

This past week has been absolutely awesome. On Tuesday I went down to Mendoza with the zone leaders and the other district leader to a leadership training meeting deal. It started on tuesday and lasted until Wednesday night. It was awesome. President and the assistants talked a lot about getting our districts and zones excited about the work. He told us that as a mission we are going to have baptized over a thousand people this year. That is the goal at least and we are going to kill it. It was also great because we got to eat some Hermana Lindahl brownies and way legit food. On Tuesday afternoon we were all assigned to go to particular areas around Mendoza and work the rest of the day. I was put with an Elder that just transferred into my old zone. We were all challenged to put as many baptismal commitments as we could and were told the winner was going to get a tie. The elder I was with and I committed 5 people to baptism in one afternoon and ended up winning the tie. It was an incredible day. Then just to top of the week yesterday we were walking to the stake center to watch conference and we were approached by some random guy on the street. He literally ran up from behind us and chased us down and he told us that he had a question about the bible that was really bothering him. Since we were way close to the church I told him we were going to run in, drop our stuff off, grab a Bible and that we would be right out. It turns out that nobody in the church had a Bible in spanish so armed with my English Bible, Elder Vazquez and I went out to try and help this guy. He had been reading in 2 Timothy 1 and had a ton of questions. After me trying to explain to him what the verses were saying I basically just bore testimony to him and told him that each of us are blessed with knowledge of certain things. These certain things make up a testimony that each of us possess and if we put our testimony and our trust in God, He will help us through all our trials. He went on to explain to us the problems of his life and we told him that he was about 30 minutes away from hearing from the prophet of the world. He came in, watched all the Mo Tab concert and the entire first session. It was awesome bringing in a random guy from the street to hear the prophet. It was one of my mission goals that was fulfilled. Last cool story of the week. On Friday I was doing divisions with an Elder from another area. We had an appointment that fell through and so we just started walking and knocking doors until the next appointment we had. The whole time we were telling each other that if we walked to the end of the street and knocked every door some sort of miracle was going to happen. They are always in the Ensign right? Anyway after entering a few houses and walking a ton we arrived at the last house of the street. Pretty common story so far... But this man was too far from common. We started to talking about the concept of eternal families and God and all that good stuff then he assured us that he had a spot reserved for him in Heaven. After seeing a pack of cigarettes on the table I asked him if he had been taking care of the blessings God had given him. He asked if it was becasue of the box of cigarettes that I had seen that caused me to ask the question. I told him that it was and he replied, "you have no idea." He then told us his entire life story. When he was 9 he started smoking weed. By the age of 13 he was doing and selling cocaine. He bought his first brand new truck when he was 14. He continued this lifestyle until he was 24 and decided after killing 17 people that he was tired of that kind of life. He also taught me a great lesson: God can forgive man, Man can forgive man, but it is nearly impossible for man to forgive himself. It was awesome. I can´t say that we put a baptismal date with this guy, sadly, but we are going to continue teaching him and hopefully things will work out.
To answer the conference question... Yes we had the opportunity to watch all the sessions in English. It was great. I absolutely loved every talk. The themes were all pretty common: Follow the teachings of the prophet, repent and live a life full of faith and the Spirit, and make wise, careful decisions. Man it was just awesome. I hope everything goes well at home. It sounds like Dave Salo is going to have a lot of fun with his new toy. I love you all and wish you all a great week!
Love
Elder Burr

Marc's first email home 10/02/2010

Hi mom,
Life here is ok it is not a party but my district and companion are the best i could have hoped for. Ill write a letter next week in detail cause i have no time for email but yeah life here is alright. It is not what i expected but it could be a lot worse.  I told dad alot of what to tell kyle but he just has to stay positive and has to realize that he is doing the lords work and is not here for himself. If he comes for himself he will probably start punching himself in the face asking why he is here. thats what i want to do when i lose sight of why i am here. My roommates are tight. every night we are in bed by 1029 and they dont mess around so that is good for me. I can honestly say we havent disobeyed one rule yet and i hope to keep it that way. I love this work and know that the Savior is the redeemer of the world. I know Jesus Christ atoned for everyone of us and i am always thinking about israel and how awesome that really was. We are all children of God and that is how i have started seeing everyone and i can already see a change in my life and i love it. I love this work and cant wait to get out. Mom you are the best and i love you so much thank you for everything. For right now i think i am good on stuff that i need. just i know your brain thinks of good things to send so i will be happy with anything. Thanks for everything mom i love you i am out of time. 

Matt's email 9/27/2010

This week was awesome. We had the opportunity to find and teach a lot of people that are ready to receive the Gospel. It was amazing to knock a door and find someone that had just been praying for someone to help her out. That was something that I always wanted to experience on the mission, and I finally did. It was also nice to get into a house, talk a little bit about the purpose of baptism, and have someone commit within the first 10 minutes. She was incredible. She basically told us she wanted to be forgiven of her entire past and we told her we knew the perfect solution. She pretty much set her own date and told us she was going to talk to her husband and daughter about it too. Her name is Viviana and the husband is Jose Luis. They are incredible.
I´m sorry to say that besides that, not much has happened this week. The weather has been getting super hot and I have to put sun screen on my beak every day to keep from getting skin cancer. It is pretty stunning falling asleep sweating and waking up sweating, but I love it.
I hope you all have a great week and you know that I love you!
Love
Elder Burr