Lost and Found

Oh me oh my, the time just flies. I completely lost track of this cycle. Transfers are next week! We get Shock Calls this Saturday! I can't believe it! The weeks have gone by so fast! And I'll get to tell my family whether or not I'm being transferred early, because Sunday is Mothers Day, so I'll be skyping home!

The whole district is rooting for me to get sent to the city this transfer, not because I haven't been, but because this season's hayfever has intensified to an extreme. Elder Wagner, one of my Zone Leaders/roommates has expressed serious concern that I may die.

But enough complaining! Things are still happening on the other side of the mucus coating on my eyes. For example, one night, we stopped by the pharmacy in hopes of finding some re,edgy we haven't tried already and a woman stopped us in one of the isles. Turns out she recently joined the church and shortly after moved moved to Hyde Park. Her previous ward in Texas had sent her records to Maine, because she was originally planning on going to a school there, but ended up going to one in our area instead. She didn't know where the church was, so we gave her the address, our phone number and the bishop's phone number. Her roommate/cousin, who was with her at the store, will be meeting with the sister missionaries sometime in the near future. So Heavenly Father used my allergies as a means of putting us in her path! Who would've thought?

Rhonda is working her way back to good health again, slowly but surely. Keep her in your prayers!

K* seems to be slipping off the face of the earth. A* has been in and out of town and hasn't been able to meet with us. Really, most of our investigators are kind of vanishing. Oh dear.

We did find a new investigator now though! Every week we give service feeding the homeless (I may have mentioned that before). This week, an unusually nicely dressed woman came through the line and was very friendly to us, saying thanks repeatedly and such. It's actually quite refreshing. I'm surprised how many of the regulars only complain about the food we give them. So we had a good conversation with this women at the food place. Later in the week, we bumped into her in the street. She was on her way somewhere in a hurry, but paused to say hello. That same night, we looked up a potential we met on the street who showed vague interest, only to find this same woman there instead. Apparently the guy we were looking up is now in prison and his woman was happy to find that his apartment was within her budget so she could get off the streets. Finally we got the hint God was trying to give us and invited her to take the missionary lessons. She accepted. She said she once met missionaries from our church in Long Island and was very interested in the Church. Talking with her briefly revealed that she was not the kind of woman you would expect to be living on the streets. Not into drugs or alcohol, well-educated--just hit a real rough patch for a week or so. She said to give her a week before the first lesson, so she can get settled into her new home first. When we left halfway down the street before realizing I had forgotten to give her our phone number, though we had hers, so we rushed back. The man who was sitting on the porch next door to her house started yelling at us when we approached her again, saying "What are you doing? Did she tell you to come back?" I said "We just need to..." and he just yelled some more, "Leave her alone, she don't wanna talk to you! Get outta here!" She then yelled out "I CAN SPEAK FOR MYSELF, THANK YOU VERY MUCH," and we gave her our phone number. Her name, by the way, is T*, but she said she usually goes by "Quiet Storm," which is her pen name. Normally the sisters would take her, but they said we should because they are overrun with what they have already.

We just found out that Elder Quentin L. Cook is coming to visit our mission this Saturday! Apparently he's coming specifically and solely to speak to us. So we'll be down in Manhattan this Saturday at the Lincoln Center Chapel (in the temple building). There goes our Saturday plans, but it's quite an exciting surprise!

Words of wisdom from a drunk lady on the street: "You never know! You guys might save me today! You might save the me! Yeah, think about that!" Inspired mostly by alcohol, but still true. As they often say of missionaries, we may not always see the fruits of our labors, but it is possible that the pamphlet we gave that woman, when she can see straight enough to read it, might be the cause of her eventually finding the Lord.

Time to wrap this up now. Thanks for all the love and support!

Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

FDR's House in Hyde Park and 

​white-flowered trees on ​

Market Street in Poughkeepsie. I'd
include pictures of myself in these lovely places, but that would not
be a pretty sight right now.

"A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemon-zest Snickerdoodle

Hello Everyone!

We're busy as ever in Poughkeepsie! Our mission president recently instated a rule for a mandatory three hours of finding everyday. In our area, there are two main ways of finding. Tracting, and street contacting. The only place to street contact in our area is Main Street in Poughkeepsie and everyone there is either crazy, homeless, jacked up on pot, or any combination of the three. Fun! Even though we are now tracting twice as much as before, we have had zero success since the new mandate was put in effect.

Unfortunately, the mandatory time finding has left us with significantly less time to keep up with the investigators we already have. We're in a rush to try to fit everything in! We did fit in a great lesson with K* yesterday. We set a baptismal date of June 6th with him. We got everything set to get him to church on Sunday and we are determined to make it happen! We've pulled out all the stops. He said so himself: "I have no excuses now."

Also unfortunately, Rhonda, that poor soul, tore her meniscus last Sunday. She's got it so rough right now! She works almost incessantly, she needs surgery on her brain, and now surgery on her knee too! We keep telling her she needs to slow down a bit, but you can't really tell Rhonda to slow down. Keep her in your prayers! We did have a great visit with her on Monday, after we learned she had tore her meniscus. We brought her a chocolate frosty from Wendy's and Sister Skriloff (another member) and her daughter who Destiny is friends with now. We read the baptismal covenant in Mosiah 18 and talked about how the whole Ward has made that covenant to "bear one another's burdens" and such, just letting Rhonda know we're all there for her if she needs. We also had a great talk about the stakes upcoming pioneer trek and Rhonda is now planning on teaching everyone there how to shoot BB guns. She was also suggesting she could teach them how to skin a deer and catch fish with their bare hands. Haha. That's her upstate New York redneck side. Speaking of upstate New York rednecks, we were recently yelled at by a drunk guy in a wife-beater while we were tracting in Hyde Park! But that doesn't really matter, so...

Again unfortunately, W*, the awesome old man we tracted into a while ago, dropped us this week. When we went by his house he had his Book of Mormon in hand and he said he was reading it but had decided he wasn't interested enough to continue. Bummer. But still, we had a good long conversation out on his porch and when we left, I realized something. He likes us! He's not too interested in the Church right now, but he likes us! We made a good impression on him. He may not be fully ready yet, but I know that we were supposed to knock on his door, even if the only reason was so that when he is ready, he'll remember those two funny boys that showed up at his house with a blue book. He'll know who to turn to.

And unfortunately, our GPS went on the fritz taking us home from a meeting in Newburgh. It took us to the wrong bridge to cross the Hudson, but as a result we ended up passing through a very particular town! See the picture below. My mom can explain.

And unfortunately, that's all there is to report this week. Talk to you next week!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Pics his week include the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and a sign I had to take a picture by for my Mom.

Fancy food inside.

BILLY JOEL WUZ HERE!

In the town of Cold Spring. Could it be just coincidence? Idk.

Firstfruits

Shout out to Mama Burton:
H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y ! ! !

Shout out to Ben:
H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y ! ! !
(Two days ago)

Shout out to the Earth:
H A P P Y   E A R T H   D A Y ! ! !

I think that covers all necessary shout outs for the week. We've had
another enjoyable week in Poughkeepsie. Unfortunately, most of our
investigators disappeared for the week and our appointments cancelled,
but I've dealt with weeks like that before. It just means the Lord has
someone else He wants us to find who's ready for the Gospel. So we hit
the streets! Knocking doors until our knuckles bruise and saying hello
to people until the word doesn't feel in our mouths. 

​

For 

the most part our finding has been unsuccessful, but we did have a bit of luck. OnSunday, we had just twenty minutes before we had to be at the
Ashworth's for dinner. Elder Glick picked a street and three houses
down a woman named D* answered with a little girl peeping out from
behind her leg. We explained who we were and started talking about
religion with her. She said she had been going to a baptist church,
but just wasn't feeling it, so she was looking for a new church. Yes!
We gave her the local LDS church address. Then she told us she was
already planning on checking out our church because she has a friend
who's a member over in New Paltz. Yes! Then she told us she wants to
sit down with us sometime and learn more. YES!!! Unless she has a
husband who wants to take the lessons to, we're going to pass her off
to the sister missionaries, but still, she's golden! On another day we
ran into a guy named B* who told us to come back tomorrow, so we'll
see how that goes.

In other news, the first of the flowers have appeared and allergy
season has most emphatically made it's debut. Spring in New York is
going to be rough. I might claw my eyes out before the end for how
itchy they are! I know it's Earth Day, and I love trees, but do there
have to be so darn many of them???

We did have a good Word of Wisdom lesson with K* this week. He's got
quite a bit to work on, but he's completely willing. He said he wants
us to call or text him everyday to keep him on track. I think we
finally be getting him to take this seriously! On a separate note, as
a result of meeting with K* and his friends, I'm starting to figure
out how to speak like and understand people from the ghetto.

That's all I have for now. I'm now taking Elder Glick to the Walkway
Over the Hudson, and I may have photos from that later. For now,
here's a picture Elder Glick taking a picture of me.
Note: this is from the beginning of the week. The trees in the
background are 

​

n​

ow all in bloom.
Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Here's a picture of me two hundred feet above the Hudson River.

Prospering by degrees.

So we were giving service at a soup kitchen yesterday. One of the homeless people provided me with a most urgent piece of information. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, our church has been scheming to build a great satanic regime. They are studying us as children and picking out the smartest ones to place them in positions of power throughout the world in preparation for the eventual takeover and Mitt Romney turned against us and revealed the whole plan to an ex-marine blogger that published it all over he internet! "So your satanic plot has been discovered so there's no point in infiltrating and you should just give up and go home!"... Or so says this one-eyed, old homeless guy anyway.

How's that for an email opener?

Anyway, it's been another pretty good week. Z* (Rhonda's little boy) had his seventh birthday party last Saturday and we helped Rhonda with it. It was great, especially because he invited his friends from primary! We gave him a present: a little homemade missionary tag that said "Elder Storms" on it (he has his dad's last name). Whenever we go over he steals our tags and wears them around the house, so we figured he could use one of his own and start getting him used to the idea of serving a mission! Haha.

Spring is finally coming around. The temperatures been creeping up slowly for a while now and we got above seventy degrees for the first time this year just yesterday! It's so nice. I think I'm already experiencing the forerunning of hay fever season though. I haven't seen a single bud on a tree yet, but I'm already starting to sneeze all the time! Agh! This might be a rough spring. So many trees... So many...

We also tracted into two new investigators this last week that both live just a short walk from our house, which is super convenient. One of them is a guy right around JS* age (JS* is the guy the other Elders baptized several weeks ago), so we'll probably bring JS* to as many lessons as we can.

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned a man named G* who Elder L'Espérance and I tracted into several weeks ago. He's a genealogist, so family history has been our attention grabber for him. Last week we brought Brother Tompkins, a member who is a genealogist himself, to our first real sit-down lesson. Brother Tompkins got there fifteen minutes early, so by the time we arrived they had already determined three different ways they were related and seemed like they'd been friends for years. We taught him and his wife about why we do family History in our church and it ended up being a kind of funny, reverse order restoration lesson. We explained how we believe families can be together forever through sealing ordinances we do in the temple, which need to be done by someone who has priesthood authority, which was restored by Joseph Smith. We also talked a lot about the Book of Mormon. He was fascinated by the history side of it. After a good long discussion in which we tried our best to keep Brother Tompkins away from the super deep stuff, Brother Tompkins told G* about how he came to know that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and how he consequently joined the church. When he bore testimony, I saw a spark of something in Gary's eyes. By the end of the lesson he was eager to get into the Book of Mormon and pray about it. His wife was significantly less enthusiastic, but was very kind. We'll have to work to win her over before any progress is made there. 

When we met with K* this week we dove into the commandments and he made it quite clear he's got a lot he needs to work on. He wants to change his life around, but I'm just hoping he's got the drive to do it.

Elder Glick and I are doing well together. He's probably the exact opposite of Elder L'Espérance's personality, which is actually quite refreshing. Today we're going to go on a hike to see some bridge over near New Paltz with the rest of the zone. I'll try to send pictures later. That's all for now. I love you all! Thanks for the support!

-Elder Samuel Burton

For now here's a picture of our chapel:

The bridge we hiked to and across, the view from both sides, and Elder
Glick holding a frog we found in the creek.

Easter in the East

Hey Everyone!!!

We've a had a good week to start off the cycle. It started out kind of
slow as Elder Glick was adjusting to the new area, but things have
picked right up again.

Easter was good for us! Sister Nolan, the relief society president,
found out that we had no dinner appointment for Easter Dinner, so she
sent an email to the whole ward and within twenty four hours we had
about ten people invite us over for Easter dinner/lunch. It was great!
We only accepted one for lunch and one for dinner of course and
divided the others between the other missionaries in the ward. The
Smiths were our dinner appointment, and of course they gave us a ton
of Easter candy and cookies to take home.

Also, wasn't conference awesome??? I feel like it had a bit different
feel than past conferences. Maybe it's just because I have a different
perspective on things.

We're kind of stumped with our investigators right now. A* is
doing everything he can but he's just not getting an answer. We keep
telling him to be patient and keep looking for ways we can help him. I
think he just needs to get to church, but he seems to think he's going
to get an answer and then start going to church. K* is doing okay
too. We went over once and his Mom surprised us by laying the smack
down on everyone else in the family, saying they needed to suck it up
and give us missionaries some respect. Sweet! Unfortunately, he's
still being lazy. He says he wants it, but he's not really willing to
put forth the effort, ya know?

On a more positive note, I had a really cool experience just
yesterday. We had just finished dinner at our apartment and Elder
Glick went to change into sports clothes to go to our ward's soccer
night, which we organized as a way of helping ward members fellowship
investigators. I was cleaning up the remnants of dinner when I
suddenly had the thought that I needed to pray and I felt warm a
peaceful inside. It was quite unexpected, but I know well enough to
follow such promptings, especially when that distinct. So I knelt down
by the couch and prayed. I just thanked our Heavenly Father for the
opportunity to serve with a Elder Glick and other things that came to
mind and then I prayed that he would help me to be the best missionary
I could be for my companion and the people in this area and I prayed
that he would guide us  with his spirit and show me what I need to do
to make this area have success now that Elder L'Espérance has left and
I've taken it over. As I prayed, words suddenly came to my mind. "Go
out tracting right now and ask Elder Glick where to go." It was
accompanied by that same warm, peaceful feeling in my chest, so I knew
it wasn't just from my own mind. Regrettably, I kind of protested at
first. I asked Heavenly Father, "does it really need to be right now?
Elder Glick would have to change back into his proselyting clothes and
we'd be late to the activity tonight." But I didn't get an more
response. He had already told me what I needed to do, so I closed my
prayer and went up stairs to tell Elder Glick that we should go to
soccer night late and go tracting first. He let out a big sight and
started changing back into his proselyting clothes, which is kind of
hard for him since half his limbs don't work right. We went out and I
asked Elder Glick where he thought we should go to tract. He told me
what exit to get off the highway at and what street to stop on. Then
he told me exactly which houses he wanted to tract before we left. We
knocked ever door he said and annoyed a few people, gave a kind man
who wasn't interested a card, and then we came to the last house. The
door was covered in bumper stickers with words such as "NRA Supports
Our Rights," "God Bless America," "Team USA," "Support the Troops,"
etc. an old man opened the door and gave us friendly smile, we talked
for a long while on his porch and he told us all about his time in
'nam, his emails to government officials asking what they are doing to
stop Islamic extremists, and his religious views. He said he's
catholic, but then went off on how the Catholic Church just isn't
true. He said they've changed things and added "man-made" things to it
since Christ made it the way it was supposed to be. We jumped on the
opportunity to tell him about a young boy in Palmyra New York who
prayed and was told more or less the same thing about the various
churches that existed at the time and how he was called as a prophet
to restore the Church of Christ to the earth again. I think we sparked
his interest. He readily accepted a Book of Mormon and told us to give
him two weeks to read and pray and then come back. We set the
appointment and left the man, who's name is W* by the way. As we
left I felt the spirit just confirm to me that we had done what we
were supposed to that night. We arrived at soccer night s good forty
five minutes late, but it was well worth it! I'm so glad that I have
the gift of the Holy Ghost and that it will guide me lot be what God
wants me to be when I need it! He surprises me sometimes, when I start
thinking he's leaving me on my own, suddenly he reaches out and shows
me very distinctly that he is there and that he has a plan.

Well, got to go. Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

the news

The long awaited news has arrived, and it has been determined that I am going to stay in Poughkeepsie for at least another six weeks! Elder L'Espérance, however, will be transferred to Darien, Connecticut so I'm getting a new companion!!! We're going to transfer meeting right now to pick him up. His name is Elder Glick and he hails from the distant, exotic land of Staten Island! I know, he's come a LONG way to serve a mission, right? Haha. There's actually a reason for the proximity between his home and the mission. He first came out to the mission without going through the MTC to serve a two transfer trial mission to see if he was able to serve a full time mission in spite of having cerebral palsy. He was given the okay and so he went to the MTC and then came back to serve full time! Preside Morgan fought hard to keep him in this mission and not let him be reassigned after the trial mission, and he succeeded. Elder Glick is also the Elder that replaced me when I left Scarsdale, so I'll definitely be talking with him about all the people down there.

So this last week's activities have mostly been taking Elder L'Espérance around to say goodbye to a lot of people. One of the families he said goodbye to was the Malcarne Family. Elder L'Espérance asked Brother Malcarne to give us a tour of his MASSIVE house, which we quickly realized we had seen very little of. We stick to the living room, dining room, and kitchen when we go over for dinner, so we saw for the first time the private gym, massage room, library, etc.

It's HUGE. We also said goodbye to the Greers, the Skriloffs, A*, Rhonda and Destiny, and many other people.

Unfortunately a lot of our investigators are being kinda lax with commitments lately, we're having trouble getting people to act on the things we're teaching them. The one person who has remained faithful is A*. He's continually reading and praying and is trying to rearrange his schedule so he can come to church. He promised us he'd watch general conference and with his track record, he probably will. But of course, because he's the one doing everything we ask him to, he is still waiting for an answer to know that the Book of Mormon is true. We had a good lesson about how the spirit speaks to us yesterday, and I'm hoping it makes a difference.

In other news, it's Easter his weekend! (Just in case you didn't know). That should be lots of fun. All the members are out of town for spring break, so we'll be all alone for Easter dinner and probably have to basically run the ward on our own this Sunday. It'll be good!

Love you all, and talk to you next week. I'll send pictures with Elder Glick later today.

-Elder Samuel Burton

Elder Glick and I with Elder Smith in the background making a funny face.

Black

Another fine week in Poughkeepsie, New York. I would like to begin by describing our eeriest experience from this week:

In the city of Poughkeepsie, there are many brightly colored townhouses. We see pink houses, orange houses, purple houses, turquoise houses. Some are themed, like a dark painted house with orange and purple trim known as "the Halloween House," or one painted red, white, and blue. Some seem very lacking in any sort of theme or planned color scheme of any kind but still are excessively bright. The other day, we were tracking on South Clinton Street and we came across a house that was painted jet black with a few spots of red trim. There was a big metal fence going around the lot they said to all passersby, "these people do not like visitors." So of course we had to cross the street an knock on the front door. The house's ominous coloring and Victorian era style made the atmosphere of the whole place quite foreboding, but beyond that a feeling of dread set in far more soul-penetrating than could be induced by mere appearances as we walked up to the door. Still, we fearlessly rang the doorbell. The man who answered had a bald head, a silver beard, and a mustache that curled sharply towards his cheekbones. When he opened the door, we could see that the interior of the house was as dark as the exterior and in the entryway there was a large stain glass window depicting an upside down pentagram with the devil's face inside it. The man was quite rude and said that we were trespassing (Why do you have a doorbell if no one is allowed to ring it?). So we apologized and left. As we walked away Elder L'Espérance turned to me, "did we just meet Satan-worshippers?" "...yep." At dinner that Saturday we told Rhonda the story and she confirmed our suspicions. Apparently she used to be involved in what she called "white magic" as opposed to "black magic" which is symbolized by the emblem we saw in the stain glass and does involve devil-worship. Yeah, she's had a crazy life. A lot of changes have been made since, obviously.

We had a surprise trip to the temple this week to accompany Destiny for the first time doing baptisms. Unfortunately, Rhonda's health did not permit her to attend. She's been having a rough time. Heart problems and apparently head problems as well now. But luckily destiny had a great time. She loved it and was telling her Mom that she has to go as soon as possible.

In other news we had a good lesson with Ky* a few days ago. We met a lot of his friends. They were all just chillin' in his apartment and I felt like we walked onto the set of 90s sitcom. I was surprised there was no laugh track to accompany our arrival. Talking with them also reminds me just how ghetto Poughkeepsie is. I'll explain: there are three ways people of American decent speak in New York: good ol' American English, "Black Talk," and the extreme, Ebonics. Ebonics is typically only spoken in the city, but in the ghetto upstate areas we get "black talk" all the time. (Fun fact: "black talk" in black talk is "bleck talk") That is all Ky* uses around his friends. Then when we sit down and have a lesson with him, he refines his language a bit more so we can understand. As we talked with his friends about what we do as missionaries they were astonished to learn we weren't from around here. "Oh, we thought you's was local. We thought that's why you's was so comfortable being two white boys hangin' in this neighborhood." Haha. Anyway, we had a great lesson. We taught him about baptism and set a date for the eleventh. We also established pretty clear expectations with Ky* and organized a ride for him to go to church. The next day his ride came to church and said he didn't come out when they showed up and didn't answer their calls. We've been trying to contact him since with no luck. I suspect it's his family again. Bummer. 

Everything else is going well. Slow and steady progression. This Saturday is shock calls. Tonight is training calls and Elder L'Espérance keeps saying I'm going to train this time. I think he is, so... We'll see.

We said goodbye to the ashworths yesterday just in case we get transferred because they're going to England for a few weeks.

For now we work and we wait for the calls. Love you all tons!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures: The Halloween House, a fun sign we found, and a selfie waiting at the laundromat.

Here's a picture with the Ashworth Family. Roughly left to right: Me,
Elder L'Espérance, George, Isaac (dad), Harvey, Finn, Harriet (aka
Hatty, on Finn's shoulders), and Eve (mom)

When it rains...

Like I said last week, that springtime rain has finally come, and it's hardly stopped coming since then. It's been going off and on for the last week. I think it's awesome, but Elder L'Espérance doesn't. He's from the east coast, so he's probably sick of rain, but it always makes us desert-dwellers happy!

And as the saying goes: when it rains, it pours. This last week we've had so much success with finding new investigators, it's getting hard to keep track of them all! Here's a bit about some of them:

L*: we tracted into L* at Allen Place in Poughkeepsie. He's Jamaican and we can barely understand his accent at all. "One love, mon!" We've taught him about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation and he seems to be liking it. He's been praying about the things we're teaching, but unfortunately he isn't reading the Book of Mormon because he doesn't know how to read. We've ordered him the audio version and in the meantime we will be reading with him whenever we come over. Stereotypes for Jamaicans are totally real. His guy is awesome!

K* and Kh*: K* and Kh* are a couple we met who we've just started teaching. We had an amazing Restoration lesson with K*. She loved it! She said she's been "church shopping" and is very excited by the idea of the restored church. We have 't taught an official lesson to Kh* yet, but he's going to be joining us for lessons from now on. They have a four-year-old daughter and s

​on.​

A*: We came across a record for a Panamanian named A* who has been searching for answers like crazy. When we taught him about the Book of Mormon, he said he already knows it's true because he says if it's the book people like us are reading from, it must be teaching what's right. We encouraged him to read and pray about it though to strengthen that belief. He readily agreed. He said he'll come to church on Sunday too!

J*: J* is a funny man we met on the street. We taught him about the Restoration right then and there and every time we bore our testimony about anything, he said "oh, that's beautiful!" Haha. He's going to the Jehovah's Witness Church right now, but he isn't a member there. Hopefully they don't tell him he can't meet with us. They do that quite often.

On top of that, we also met a college student named J* who was on spring break. We taught him about the restoration too and got his information to give to the missionaries up in the Rochester Mission, where he goes to school.

As for people you already have heard about, A* is still progressing well and still praying for an answer. Unfortunately, our attempts to meet with Ky* (the dreamer) have all failed. His family has yelled at us a bit, saying "we don't want none of this white-man crap" only they used a bit more colorful language than that. So we're not welcome at his house anymore and he didn't show up at church on Sunday. He's twenty-two (an adult) so we can still keep meeting with him at other locations, even if his family doesn't like it, but I think it's a bit rough for him with so much familial opposition. We've kept in touch though and he says he still wants to learn more.

Also unfortunately, the Kz* cancelled on us AGAIN this week. Bummer. We're going to keep trying though!

Last night we had some unexpected excitement. We were at the church and we got a call from Sharon Rose, a member who the sisters have been meeting with. She said they just found out that her son-in-law's mother died. She's been in prison and died under mysterious circumstances, most likely murdered by another inmate. J*--the son-in-law--was in a dreadful state and wanted us to come give him a blessing. We did and talked with him a bit about the atonement and how he can receive help from it. Tonight we are going again to talk with him about the plan of salvation. I glad we were able and ready to runt to their place and give him a blessing at that moment.

So now we have a fair amount of work to keep us busy! All that time knocking doors is now paying off and ever so abundantly! Just in time too; a week from Saturday are transfer calls again! This cycle went by SOOOOO fast.

Well, that's all folks! Thanks for your love, prayers, and support.

-Elder Samuel Burton

I don't really have any from this week, so here are some last minute selfies.
1. Elder Ross (our district leader from Green River, Wyoming) and Myself
2. Elder L'Espérance and Myself
3. Elder L'Espérance and Myself in the back of a car. Exciting!

Livin' the dream!

This week has been awesome!!! All our finding efforts are now paying off, but I'll get to that good stuff later. First off, it rained!!! For the first time since before Christmas. Things are finally starting to warm up. This morning we woke up to some beautiful post rainstorm fog and some nice warm temperatures.

We had a good Zone Conference. Much of it was taken up by turning I our old iPads and getting the new ones set up. We also drove down to Scarsdale to drop our car off at Ted Herrmann's to get the fender fixed. Funny thing is, the temporary car we're using is the car the Spanish elders in Scarsdale drove when I was there, so when I got in it smelled like carpooling to get groceries from the Scarsdale A&P Grocery. It was weird.

Today we get an unexpected trip to the temple with Ray Smith (Ben may remember him as the man who took us to the city the day we went).

We had an awesome day tracking a little while ago. As Elder L'Espérance was saying our regular prayer before we leave the apartment for the day, he prayed that we would know where we should go to knock doors. Immediately as he said that I remembered seeing a street sign for a little street called Cottage Street. I didn't even know where I'd seen it, but I was pretty sure I had seen it somewhere

​. ​

We put it in the GPS, the GPS found it for us, and we went knocking doors there.

First door, we met a Hispanic man named M* who immediately invited us in and started showing us a song he had written. The song was in Spanish, so we didn't understand most of it,it we smiled and told him we liked it. Then we taught him about the Book of Mormon. He's super interested. Unfortunately, his English isn't too great, so we're passing him off to Elder Wagner and Elder Allred, because Elder Wagner speaks Spanish.

Next door, no one was home.

Next door, a guy who is about our age answered. His name is A*  and we taught him the whole restoration right there in the doorway. He had lots of good questions and was really excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We since have stopped by again and he had read all the introductory stuff (the testimonies, brief explanation, introduction, etc.) and also the first chapter. He said he's praying about it, but hasn't got and answer yet. He will though, he's super humble and willing to learn. So we talked about how answers might come and red through parts of Alma 32 with him. He always asks lots of questions. We can just tell he craves learning. He's awesome!!!

Next door, a guy named K* answered and quickly stepped outside and shut the door behind him. Before we could introduce ourselves he said that his mom doesn't like people like us, but that he wants to talk to us. So we again taught the restoration just outside the door. He was so interested in the whole thing. When we talked about how he can pray to know if our message and the Book of Mormon are true, he was so excited. He said, "Man, if this church is it, I want in."

We knocked one more door, which no one answered, and then had to go to an appointment. I've never had so much success knocking so few doors. Two hours, five doors, 3 new investigators. That's what happens when you listen to the spirit. I'm learning more and more how the spirit works. It's awesome! I'm also understanding better that when you work hard for the Lord, you realize how hard he's working for you. We've spent so much time trying to find new investigators since the last transfer and we've had no success at all until this last week. But once we were ready, God led us straight to the people he's been preparing for the restored gospel.

But wait, there's more! The story continues. Two days after our awesome day knocking doors, something AMAZING happened. We were back on Cottage Street following up with A* on his reading and praying (both of which he was doing) and K* happened to be outside talking to his sister. We talked with them for a few minutes. His sister was hating on us pretty bad, saying we were worshipping Thomas Monson and such crazy talk. She just wouldn't accept it when we told here what our church is actually about. She was also talking a lot about black Jesus, which suggests that the family may have some connection to the Heebie Jeebies (I've mentioned them, right? Hebrew Israelites?) but apparently their family is actually Jehovah's Witnesses. She was going on and on and finally she turned to her brother and said, "You don't actually believe any of their stuff, do you?" He firmly replied that he definitely did believe it and his sister got really angry and went inside. K* then told us what had happened to him since we had first met him. The night after we met him, he prayed to God asking if what we were teaching was true. After he went to bed, he had a dream in which he was being taught by the Jehovah's Witnesses and he was told that they were not teaching the truth. Then, he was suddenly being taught by us, and he was told that we were teaching the truth and he needed to continue learning from us. HOW AWESOME IS THAT??? He had a dream!!! How's that for an answer to prayers. We're so excited to keep working with him!

So we have two awesome new investigators, both men now, and they both are progressing nicely. We have still been struggling to meet up with the K* family, so unfortunately they are not progressing very much.

That's all for this week. Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

 ​Pictures: Foggy morning in Hyde Park, streets of Manhattan

Christmas & Halloween in March

Well a fair amount has happened this week. To start, last Friday we
had that mission conference. It was awesome! The two general
authorities that spake were Elder David Evans and Elder Stephen Allen.
They did a fantastic job of presenting something that could've been
quite boring. They covered all the boring stuff about how new iPad
training is going to go and all the technical information, but it was
interwoven with what was more or less a fantastic seminar on the
Doctrine of Christ. It was probably the most beautiful call to
repentance I've ever heard. It wasn't really a "you really need to fix
this" call to repentance, it was an "onward and upward, change for the
better" call to repentance. Isn't the Doctrine of Christ amazing? We
can just keep changing--keep repenting--and reach higher and higher,
get pulled out of every slump, be made stronger through trials, be
made better than our imperfections. It's quite a process--a lifelong
and then some one--but it is SO worth it.
Moving on though, the next day we had those two baptisms and
interviews with President Morgan more or less all at once. The
baptisms were great. Basically everyone was crying during he first
one. Sweet T*, who attended G*'s baptism before her own, was
going around the room handing out tissues. G* spoke afterwards and
gave a brief rundown of the crazy things she's been through as God
prepared her to accept the gospel. Five different sister missionaries
that have worked with her over the last two years Skyped in to the
baptism. At T*'s baptism, T* also spoke after the ordinance. I
don't know if I ever mentioned this, but T* is originally from
Texas and has a pretty distinct accent. We learned at the baptism that
when she get's emotional, her accent thickens to it's full glory.
Haha! It was great. She said some memorable things: "I just wanna yell
it out to y'all: I'm a Mormon!"  "I asked all the missionaries to
come, so if you feel likes your surrounded, so do I and I love it!"  "
During the week, we tracted a trailer park! Found some interesting
people there. There was a man who looked like Santa Claus who we gave
a Book of Mormon. He set up a return appointment with us, but didn't
want us to come back until next month. So we will be back in one
month, without fail! We also met an old lady who told us she was a
witch. According to her, Jesus is a witch too, but the bible is false.
I've realized that I am becoming way to comfortable around crazy weird
people. They're all over the place here, so it's become normal, but at
the beginning of my mission things were so different. I once marveled
every time I saw a crazy guy in the street, I was once fascinated by
people's weird unique lifestyles. Now I meet a witch and I don't even
realize it's an unusual occurrence until I'm trying to think of things
to write in my weekly email! New York is changing my entire psyche!
The winter weather continues. It just keeps coming! I'm ready for some
spring now.
We've now given most of our investigators to the sisters. The
K* can only meet once a week on Sunday evening and the snow
kept us from being able to make it this week, so no news there. We've
been out tracting and looking up former investigators. So far, other
than Santa Clause and a semi-interested agnostic couple we met in the
same trailer park, we haven't had any luck. Next week we have Zone
Conference. We're getting our new iPads then. Exciting!
Until next week...
-Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures:
Me chillin at the laundromat. Our new home.

​ ​A 

picture of G* with a Elder Allred and Elder Wagner (who are our roommates by the way). I'll get some pictures from T*'s baptism from the other elders and send them next week.

(Elder Allred is the one in white)

Hyde 'n' Seek

Hello everyone!
We've been in Hyde Park for one week now and I like it. It's nice
living with the zone leaders, the pad isn't as nice, but I feel more
comfortable there. This is the first time I've had to use a
laundromat! Haha. That shows you just how nice I've had it so far.
I've been spoiled. It's really nice to be so close to where our work
is now, not so much time wasted driving. But at the same time, most of
our work is slowly slipping away as we introduce everyone we've been
teaching to the sister missionaries. They better take good care of
those investigators! We haven't had too much success from finding. We
have had some luck with a family called the G*. I forget if I
mentioned them before... I definitely should have but I think I might
have forgot. I'll summarize: we were tracting once on a very cold day
when a random lady invited us in for dinner with her family. They were
super nice, but not too interested. We gave them our number and got
theirs, but we haven't had much luck setting anything up with them.
Then last Sunday, out of the blue, they invited us over for dinner
again! Awesome! Chicken and dumplings. We had a great dinner and
taught them a bit about the restoration. They don't seem very
interested still, but they really like us and say they're going to
have us over for dinner a lot. I bet they'll come around eventually!
They're some of the nicest people I've ever met!
Other than that, we've had little success in our actual area. We have,
however, had some success online. We're teaching one of Elder
L'Esperance's friends back home and it's going super well. We're also
teaching a French-speaking African in Harlem who is awesome! They
don't have french-speaking missionaries down there so they referred
him to us online. We teach him over Skype on occasion, but it's tricky
because I can't speak or understand. We do the best we can though, I
sometimes share a thought or my testimony of something and Elder
L'Esperance translates.
Exciting news! There are two baptism in our area this Saturday, both
people we've had some sort of influence with. The first one is G*,
who I mentioned a month or two ago. We taught her briefly while we
were Ina trio with Elder Allred, during which time she was evicted
from her home. She's since been taught by the Zone Leaders. We see her
at church every week though. The other one is T*. She's the woman
we found on the street in Beacon several weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I
mentioned her, though not by name. She's awesome! We only taught her
that first day we met her, because she lives in the poughkeepsie 1st
Ward and we work in the second, but we see her around quite a bit.
More exciting news! We have an unexpected Mission Conference tomorrow.
All 250ish missionaries are gathering at the Lincoln Center Chapel (in
the temple building) for some sort of special training thing. They
just announced it last Friday. We have to get up at 5 am tomorrow to
catch a train to Grand Central and subsequent subway to the Lincoln
Center. Also, apparently we're doing a musical number. Elder Reid from
the Stamford Zone and Elders Fronk, L'Esperance, and myself from the
Poughkeepsie Zone met up yesterday and threw together an quartet
arrangement for the hymn "Abide With Me!" It's all pretty last minute,
but it should be good.
We're looking forward to some good finding time this next week or so
as we try to rebuild our teaching pool. Not much has come of our
efforts to seek new investigators this week. Just got to keep at it,
work harder, and good things will come.
Got to go now. Love you all!
-Elder Samuel Burton