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

Marc's Farewell Party

Last Saturday night, we enjoyed a night of family, friends and delicious food provided by Cam.  It was a wonderful way to show Marc how much we love him!

Matt's email 9/20/2010

So here I am in yet another new area with a new companion. It is crazy to think that a new transfer is starting. My companion is a super cool guy. His name is Elder Vazquez and he actually went to Provo High and knows Meg and Madisson. Pretty small world huh? But yeah this is his last transfer which means that for sure I will be staying at least two up here. What a relief. The area of Albardon is absolutely massive. I don´t think it is possible to walk from one end to the other in a day. It has also been really successful in the past so we will see what the Lord has in store. It is super hot up here already. I think it is pushing 85 every day and we are still in the winter. Pretty stunning going from 50 to 85 in one day but it is what it is. I don´t think Argentina really has transfer seasons like spring and fall: It is just really hot or cold... No inbetween. I love it up here though. The house we live in is just a straight up crib. It is way too legit. Also the mosquitoes up here are a joke. I think I wake up scratching like 5 new bites a day.
It sounds like Marcus and Kyle just tore it up with their farewell talks. I´m not surprised. Marcus is just massive. His arms... ridiculous. That is so crazy that he is leaving on Wednesday. I hope all goes well around the house. Don´t miss us too much alright?? It´s a pretty sad story that I wont be able to see them for the next 2 years but I can fight through. Oh and another quick story. On Thursday I had to conduct the first baptismal interviews of my life. They were sweet. The Spirit was felt really strongly. I had to interview 3 kids and a mom. I was really nervous to be honest, but all went well. It was a really good learning experience. Other than that not much has happened. Just living the dream here. Loving every minute of it. I hope you all have a great week. Keep praying for the people here in Argentina. I love you all.
Love
Elder Burr

Matt's email 9/13/2010

Well it is good to be writing all you all again. This week was super good here in Rivadavia. Elder Williams and I have just been preppin up the baptism pool getting some people ready to make one of the biggest steps of their lives. It is way sweet seeing the way people change once they come in contact with the Gospel. We are teaching a kid named Ariel and he is just a stud. He is 16 and jacks people up on the soccer field. Anyways we have gone past his house like every day this past week and his mom and grandma are always thanking us for teaching him and bringing him into the church. They tell us that they can´t believe the change that he has made and they have no problems with him getting baptized. It was nice to have someone that is super solid and actually has a future ahead of them. He seems pretty content with it all and loves learning so it´s all good. Other than him we have a few more that are pretty legit but their stories aren´t very cool. Also this week we had a meeting with President Lindahl and he said he had a trip planned for me and that he was kicking me to the curb. BUT... the sad news is that I will not be staying in Rivadavia anymore. We seemed to get a call from President last night informing Elder Williams that he will be training a new missionary and that I will be leaving. I have no idea what is going on but this will be my fourth transfer, fourth area, and fifth companion... Pretty stunning. President told me I will be headed to Agardón, San Juan. I don´t really know how to spell the name but yeah. It is the most northern area in the entire mission and he also informed me that I was going to be district leader. I was pretty shocked to find out that I was going to be district leader at so short a time, but it is what it is. San Juan is going to be ridiculously hot. I have heard that 120 is about the average up there. All the people here say the summers there are brutal, so I guess we will see.  But yeah that is the news for the week. Some new guy is walking into a ton of baptisms, and I am leaving them all. It is pretty disappointing, but when presidend receives revelation, he doesn´t let anything get in his way. I will be with Elder Vazquez, who I don´t know anything about, and we will just tear it up. I love you all. Congrats to Cam and Ashley. That is awesome. I wish them the best of luck in the next few years to come. Have a great week!

Love

Elder Burr

Matt's email 9/7/2010

You people back there have no idea how happy I am to look outside and see the sun shining, hear the birds chirping, and see the trees finally blossoming. It has seriously been the longest 9 month summer of my entire life, but it looks like things are finally staring to turn around. It is about time. It sounds like things have been pretty busy around the house, which would be a good thing I supose. It´s crazy to think that pretty soon that basement will be empty and mom and dad will just be staring at each other for 12 hours a day figuring out what they are going to do. Don´t let them get too bored ok Heather? Cam and Ashley are having their baby this week?? It seems like just yesterday they announced that Ashley was pregnant. Man I wish them the best of luck and I hope and pray that everything goes without a problem. The family is growing like a weed without me. I somehow have a niece and a nephew that I don´t know and pretty soon Olivia is going to have another one. (Prophecy from Matt Burr). Man the way things change. This week was pretty good down here in the ARG. Rivadavia is just too legit. The young men in the branch are the biggest studs. Every Sunday they bring one of their friends and they always are willing to leave with us when we ask them. They are super cool kids and help us out a ton. We put a date with one of their buddies named Ariel for the 18 of September. We are pretty confident he will make it, we just have to talk to his parents about it. I´m sorry I don´t write a lot about the investigators that we have. A lot of them are just kind of the mediocre people that are interested in the Gospel and progressing, but have some obstacles to overcome. I try to keep you informed on the people that really stick out and have a cool story, but that hasn´t happened for quite a while.
About the whole culture thing of these people... They are just crazy. They have this mixed up theory that the United States is full of thieves that want all the fresh water from Argentina and that we are spies here trying to find out how they live. We have also heard that we sold them bombs that were all duds and that is why they lost the Falkland Islands to England. Also, perhaps the most ridiculous, thing that we have heard is that they developed the most sophisticated fighter jet in the 80´s... You never would have thunk it right? These people life in houses with bamboo roofs and invented the most sophisticated fighter jet?? Yeah right. It´s way funny hearing how sweet they think their country is. They think it is just the bee´s knees down here. That´s about all I got for the new news. The time is flying down here. It´s crazy to think about the day I entered the MTC. Feels like Yesterday. I love you all. Do work.
Love
Elder Burr