February 11, 2013

My dear family,

Thank you for your supportive letters! Someone saw the email from mom today and said, "whoa your mom loves you. My mom only writes me a few sentence." I really do feel so incredibly blessed for people who support me.thank you. I'm sorry we are writing kind of late. transfers are tomorrow and there are a lot of changes here. I'm blessed to be with sister nieto again but there are lots of changes so we did a last hurrah and climbed sunrise mountain. it was so beautiful. We had the neat opportunity to sing hymns (ex: high on the mountain top and a few others) on top of the mountain. it was fun. I've really enjoyed being in this zone and close to the temple. 

A quick update on investigators:  Gabriela is still preparing to be baptized on march16th. She is living with a handicap man and has to leave before then. We are working with her so she can still prepare for that day. She is so sweet and has a desire to do what is right. She really enjoys going to church and has a testimony of the Book of Mormon. She is very sensitive to the spirit but feels confused that she has felt the spirit in other churches as well. We are working with her to help her understand specific prayers with specific answers. I love her even her dogs climb all over us :) We have a new investigator nadia and her husband jose. She is so sweet. We've only had two lessons with her. She has a life of regret. she said, "i don't think god still loves me because i haven't kept my promises and i've sinned so much" It broke my heart to hear her say that. It was really neat to teach the restoration with the inspired focus on God's love for Nadia. The Gospel was restored so that Nadia can have the blessings of the restored priesthood. All things do testify of god's love. the Gospel principles teacher wasn't at church so we had the opportunity to give an impromptu lesson on the creation. How the lord answers prayers. I was touched by God's love as we learned together about the creation as a key part of the plan of salvation/happiness. 

Well, i'm sorry there isn't quite as much time to write because we're behind schedule but to finish off, i want to share my quick testimony and personal experience. This morning in personal study i was studying baptism and i loved the scriptures in mosiah 4:11-12. I had to read a few times but When we have a remision of our sins we are given joy. I was thinking about my personal baptism and how excited i was before and happy afterwards. Then i learned about the power of the sacrament. The promises of baptism are equally applicable to the promises of the sacrament. Our commitment and our preparation and our joy can be the same and stronger each week. I love the gospel and i love sundays! I am so happy here. Even on rough days we seem to be happy! Thank you again!

I love you and hurrah for israel!

Hermana burrup

ps- mom, i loved your card. Thank you so much. it put a big smile on my face. I love you!

Dear  President Neider,
The transfers are going faster and faster. Honestly, it makes me nervous. I feel panicked that my time is ticking but i'm working hard. For some reason or another i keep thinking, "no time wasted" not a minute in the car before going to the house or a minute in the apartment before leaving to proselyte or a minute late to start personal study. I'm trying hard to stay consecrated and move forward to be more and more consecrated. We have a new investigator this week and we taught the restoration. She had a personal experience that helped her know that the first vision was real. It was a neat experience to be guided to someone prepared for the gospel. How i love the Lord and His work. I'm excited for interviews because it is always relieving to receive the instructions that i need if i don't realize it until i recieve it. At our zone meeting we learned about leadership. I feel very blessed to have good missionary leaders here. Elder Martinez and Elder Dubois gave very inspired trainings. Thank you president! Hurrah for Israel!

Love

Hermana Burrup