Gross!

The Bronx is still awesome and I love serving here so much! But let's
be honest: the South Bronx is a nasty place. Sometimes, being here, I
feel like Alma among the Zoramites: "O, how long, O Lord, wilt thou
suffer that thy servants shall dwell here...to behold such gross
wickedness among the children of men?" Because that really is the best
way to describe the Bronx--"gross wickedness." But, of course, I, like
Alma, also know that "their souls are precious, and many of them are
our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that
we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee." And again, I still
love being here! (But I'm certainly not about to recommend it as
anyone's next place of residence). In fact, I didn't realize it was
possible to love this much! I love the people we teach with SO MUCH. I
love the missionaries in my district SO MUCH. I love the ward members
SO MUCH. But beyond that, I find that somehow I also love my family
and friends back home and abroad more than I ever have before--and I
haven't even seen most of them in over a year! I don't know how that
works but it does. I feel such an overload of love and joy for just
about everyone and everything, I think something surely must be wrong
with me! (If I end up in a nuthouse sometime soon, you can say you saw
the signs well before).

Anyway, we've had another busy week with far too many happenings to
include in one email. To summarize a few things: DJ has moved his
baptismal date to August 15th, to allow for more time to be taught
everything. He missed every lesson we had scheduled last week, because
his friend died, which put him in a bit of a funk for a while. But now
he's doing well and he's back on track.

Ruby is still doing awesome! She hasn't started teaching gospel
principles yet. Apparently there are a few auxiliary organizations
vying for her and the Bishop is still deciding where the best place to
put her is.

We went on two splits last week. I usually forget to mention splits,
but since a good chunk of my time was devoted to them this week, I
might as well. For the first split, I was with Elder Nelson in the
Co-op City / Morris Park area. Elder Nelson was in my district in
Scarsdale for a while, and we've been good friends since. I'm glad
we've been in the same district again here. For the second split, I
was with Elder Wallace, one of the Zone Leaders, in our area (Hunts
Point).

I had cool district leader experience this last week. I've mentioned Elder Nelson before, right? (Note: not Elder Nielson). He's got to be one of my favorite people in this mission! He's been having a bit of a rough time lately though. He's training, he's been in the city his entire mission (except when he was in Yonkers, which is just an extension of the Bronx) and he's consequently had to deal with a lot of things a twenty year old kid should not have to deal with--mostly resulting from New Yorkers with their crazy, messed-up lives. It's kind of started wearing on him, and I've been praying so much to know how to help him. Then when we were interviewing him and his companion, I suddenly thought they should start helping the Watermans (the senior couple) with the cub scouts. We've been helping them because travel-wise it's more convenient for us. But I told them I wanted them to take it over instead. They have since done that, and suddenly Elder Nelson is doing a lot better! He just needs to be around normal people, like the Watermans and the thus far uncorrupted children, instead of the crazy, messed up people that dominate New York City.

I have to finish this up now, because we're about to go to the temple!
Love you all! Talk to you next week.

-Elder Samuel Burton

​Picture:  Taken off the new mission Presidents blog​.  That is President Smith on the bottom left. At the Yankee's game.