Goodbye Moon

I remember, just under two years ago,  my mom and I were wandering around the West Side of manhattan and I was looking around a marveling and repeatedly saying "one day, I'm going to live here."  At the time, neither of us realized how prophetic that statement was.  Then I was called to the New York New York North mission, and we all marveled together!  But today is the day of the ultimate fulfillment of those words.  I have just been transferred to the West Side YSA ward in Manhattan!  My companion is Elder Tanner and he has only been on his mission for six weeks.  I'm going to finish the twelve week training program with him.  Being a YSA ward, hwe cover a large area, from Battery Park, to 110th Street, everything west of Fifth Avenue.  Included in our are is Times Square, the World Trade Center, Central Park, the Empire State Buildin, Wall Street, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Natural History Museum, Madison Square Garden, Juliard, the Flatiron Building, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Riverside Park, nine-tenths of everything anyone would go to see in New grok.  WOW!  One of our Zone Leaders just told me I'm leaving Sodom and moving to Babylon. Haha.

Of course, this means it's been a week of hard goodbyes too.  So here are some goodbye pictures.  And unfortunately that's all the time I have this week for my general email.  Transfers make for a crazy schedule!  I may try to send an email later with some additional information once I've actually gotten to my  new are and stuff.

-Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures:

1. Goodbye Zone

2. Goodbye Elder and Sister Waterman

3. Goodbye Richards Family

4. Goodbye Ruby

5. Goodbye Brother Ford (apparently he says goodby to all the missionaries with a kiss)

A baptism this week... kind of.

This weekend we have a baptism! Only it's not in our area. It's not in
the Bronx. It's in Poughkeepsie! An investigator up there has asked
that Elder Unice return to baptize him and President Smith said he
could, so this Saturday we'll be going up to Poughkeepsie to visit
Elder Nelson and Elder Glick, and to baptize a man named Anthony.
Rhonda apparently has already learned that I will be there so she is
planning to attend. Haha. It will be weird being back up there for a
day.

We started teaching R*, Ruby's Granddaughter again. She has a
baptismal date for October 16th. She came to church last Sunday and
all the young women flocked around her: "Oh! Your back! We missed
you!" and all that. Apparently she made some friends during her one
visit to church two months ago. Perfect!

P* is still progressing well, but as I suspected, we ran into
some issues with the Word of Wisdom and she's not sure she can give up
smoking by the 26th. Seems like a sensitive issue for her, so we're
going to take it slow and start by helping her give up coffee first.
She said she can do that.

DJ has cancelled on us for every appointment we've set up this week. I
hope he doesn't disappear on us.

Miss B* is quite settled in to the ward now. She knows all the
relief society sisters and always has a beaming smile when she goes
around the church. I bet she'll get baptized one day. It might just
take a bit for her to suppress her Seventh-day Adventist pride. For
now we'll just keep her involved in the church and let the spirit do
the rest.

We had Mission Leadership Council last week. Usually the district
leaders aren't invited, but this time we were. It was great!

A few days ago, I was walking down Whitlock Ave, and my knee decided
it didn't want to bend anymore. I'm not really sure why. So now I'm
sitting down on the subways and walking a bit funny. If it's still
messed-up at transfers, I'll ask Elder Gardner, the mission doctor
about it.

Speaking of which, it's that time again! Shock calls are this
Saturday! Transfer meeting is next Wednesday. I have no idea what's
going to happen, as usual, but we'll see. President Smith has alluded
to the idea that one of us will be sent elsewhere, but he could just
be messing with us.

Got to go now. Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton


Pictures!
1. Me in my favorite sketchy, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant: King Wok.
2. This is what they call a "community garden" in the Bronx, featuring
some dead plants, a Puerto Rican flag, a shopping cart, and an XL
Barbie doll wearing a Mitt Romney mask.
3. Did I experiment withy the idea of Blueberry Bagel French Toast?
Yes. Was it delicious? Yes!

Locals

It's weird when you've been in a place so long you've become part of the community. We can't walk down the street anymore without running into someone we know, whether an investigator, member, the guy that own's the place that makes the really good pastillos, or one of the countless other people we've gotten to know just talking to people on the street. They know us here in the South Bronx! We're their local Mormon Missionaries, and whether they're interested or not, they own it! We're both famous and infamous, depending on who you ask; "had for good and evil among all [the Bronx]," but either way we're part of it now.

So we've had another busy Boogie-down Bronx week! We've been running all over the place. We helped a member who is moving in from New Rochelle. He's rennovating the new apartment before they move in and I got to steam all the walls to peel the gross sixties wallpaper off. It was great and I got covered in ancient wallpaper glue!

We started teaching a guy named B*. We've known him for a while but we had our first sit down lesson with him and he seems solid! Elder Unice and him really hit it off because they both love the TV show "Supernatural." So each time we see him they talk about that for a while before I'm able to steer us into the lesson, but hey, he likes us now.

We also started teaching a woman named T*. Her real name is TM*, but she said she doesn't like it, so she goes by T*. She asks so many questions we can't keep up with her! All good questions though. She also seems like a solid new investigator.

I had a really sad moment yesterday. We got on the 2 train to go up to 174th Street and I ended up being positioned across from the cutest little boy with a mess of curly hair and his mom. He couldn't have been more than four years old and she couldn't have been more than twenty. He was staring at us really hard. Two strange white guys who were dressed the same, who can blame him? So I started staring really hard back. Pretty soon we were taking turns making faces at each other. He was puzzling himself trying to copy my cross-eyed face when I noticed he had a good-sized bruise on the right side of his face and a fairly new scrape with it. Then I noticed his mom had a bruise to match and bruises all up her arm as well. I've seen plenty of other women with questionable bruises and witnessed more domestic violence than I would like, but it hurt more having just made a funny connection with her little boy. I prayed really hard for those two.

I can't end on that note though, so here's something happier:

P* came to church and loved it! For sacrament meeting, we cleverly lead her to a seat right by the seat Ruby always sits in and hey hit it off right away! They stuck by each other for the rest of the day! She's right on track for her baptism at the end of the month.

All else is going well. The Richards Family is doing great. Ruby's doing great. I'm doing great!

Talk to you later!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Crazy-o-meter

So last week we looked up a guy named T* who ordered a Book of
Mormon. He told us he can't let us in because the building he lives in
is owned by a government program and he's not allowed to have guests.
He said maybe he could meet us at the local Dunkin Donuts sometime
though. When we left I turned to Elder Unice and said, "That guy is
crazy. We should not teach him." So of course as soon as I'm gone on a
split, Elder Unice sets up an appointment with him. So yesterday was
that appointment. We met with him at a Dunkin Donuts. We sat down and
he immediately started going off about how the Aluminate is about to
open a Satanic portal to let Lucifer into the world, and how half the
voices in his head are leading him to be good, but half of them are
telling him to stab people with forks, and how he's been having an
internal battle with a entity named Jungle Cat who's trying to take
over his body, and how he has arguments with him but other people
think he's just arguing with himself, and how the clouds tell him
things. He didn't stop talking for a half hour straight! So I spent
most of that half hour giving Elder Unice my best I-told-you-so look.
We do not plan on teaching him again. Good news is, I've gotten really
good at spotting the crazies, which I'm told will be a big help once I
get back into the dating world.

Anyway, we've had another great week! We set a baptismal date with a
woman named P* who has been binge-reading the Book of Mormon for
the past few weeks. She's got it all marked up an everything! She
should be baptized on September 26th!

DJ is still moving along slowly. He got a job now, which makes meeting
with him a lot harder, but he still wants to be baptized.

Unfortunately Ruby's bad knees kept her from Church this week, but
other than that, she's doing awesome!

The Richards are awesome, of course! I taught the Plan of Salvation
with Tylil as my companion last Friday and it was awesome! The gave us
fried chicken. Tylil blew his mom away with his vast wisdom and
knowledge and now she is 100% convinced he needs to serve a mission.
YES! Next Friday, David will be teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ
with Elder Unice. Unfortunately, they still haven't been able to find
a new place to live yet and on Saturday there was a fire in their
building, so everything still has the faint hint of smoke. They really
need to get out of this place!

I'm happy as ever and I love NYC! Got to run and get laundry done now.

-Elder Samuel Burton

​Pictures: ​The Sky was looking beautiful at the Hunts Point Ave subway stop

yesterday evening!

Building Zion in the Bronx

I realized last Sunday that when I got to this are, there were only two active member in our are: Brother Ford and Bishop Filion.  Since then Bishop Filion has moved away, but we now have 5 active member in our are: Brother Ford plus Ruby, David, Heather, and Tylil.  Our numbers have quintupled!  Combined with the other areas in our district  we've seen five baptisms in this area  each of them truly solid baptisms--converts with burning testimonies who will never leave the church and who will be a great strength to it in the future.  haven't before had the privilege of seeing so much improvement in one area.  It makes me feel like we're actually making a significant difference in the future of this ward.  It makes me think of the stake theme for the Holladay Stake: "Building Zion, one heart at a time."  Building Zion in the Bronx is a lot of work, but we're doing it!  Pulling out the diamonds in the rough and fitting them nicely into a crown.  it's hard to bring people to be "of one heart and one mind" in a world that is very much so "every man for himself," but these people are doing it somehow.  I would love to see what becomes of this place if the church here continues to grow as it has been.

We're still working on bringing the penitent change of heart DJ has had to manifestation in his actions. Addictions are hard, but he's a real trooper!

Ruby is still trying to coerce her family into coming to church with her, and many of them do come on occasion, just not consistently.

We met a member named Jean Smith the other day who is active in the West Bronx ward, but lives in our ward. She says she wants to switch over now because she hasn't been able to make new friends in that ward since she returned to activity (our Ward didn't exist when she went inactive). She seems super awesome. She's from South Carolina and has a good, thick southern accent. Heather Richards is also from the south and we expect them to get along nicely.

David will be blessing the sacrament for the first time next week. This week, his son Tylil passed the sacrament for the first time in years. The whole family plans to go do baptisms for the dead in the temple soon. They are also looking to move closer to the church, which is a bummer because then the Zone Leaders will be in charge of them, but they really need it. Their buildings management wants to get them out before their lease is up, so they're making it a miserable place to live, redoing the apartments above, below, and on the sides of them, filling the air with dust and nasty smells. The ceiling in their bathroom has fallen through due to the carelessness of the construction workers in the apartment above, and management isn't planning on fixing it anytime soon. They need to find a better place!

I've been going through some health challenges lately--more annoying now than painful--which has on occasion interferes with our proselyting, but I'll be seeing the doctor tomorrow and hope to get everything sorted out. No worries.

Got to go now. Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

1. Cooking Guyana food with Sister Ramdhan.
2. The 87th Street Chapel. It's massive! And so fancy! Rumor has it
was site choice number two for the Manhattan temple.
3. A picture of Elder Allred (previous Zone Leader of mine) and myself
at transfers. He's gone home now. :(
4. Me and my broken heart!

Gettin' wet.

D* R* was baptized last Saturday! Elder Unice got to baptize him because we struggled so bad to find another priesthood holder that would even be there! Elder Unice kind of bumped D*'s head against the wall of the font on the second try, but the point is he got all the way under! He was confirmed on Sunday, and even received the Aaronic Priesthood already! The R* Family is so awesome! The new member lesson are going to be mission prep for T* too. He's going to be role-play teaching them to us with his dad, D*, as his companion. It's going to be awesome!

On a separate note, it started raining Monday night and I'm beginning to wonder why President Monson hasn't built an ark for us yet, because I've seen some very literal rivers flow down the street. I feel like I'm getting more throughly baptized than David!

DJ is starting to progress again, but very slowly. He's been off the drugs and the cigarettes for about three weeks now, but he's having a hard time kicking the social drinking of all things. He never get drunk or anything, he just has a drink on occasion. We're working on it! He still has motivation and the faith of a madman so I'm optimistic about it!

R* and M* should both be back in New York soon, so hopefully we'll get them on track for baptism as well. 

Earlier this week, Elder Unice and I missed a subway by seconds and so we decided it would be faster to take the next bus than wait for a train running on severe delays. So we went up to the bus stop and immediately someone came up to us and said she and her husband were meeting with missionaries in Queens but just moved up here. We got their info and will be meeting with them soon! BOOM! Miss the train; right place, right time. God moves in a mysterious way.

As I said last week, we got a new Elder in our district, fresh out of the MTC. His name is Elder Hughes from Nevada and today we're in Manhattan because Elder Unice has a doctors appointment, so we get to show the new guy, what downtown NYC is like for the first time in his life! I love just watching his face every time he sees something new and weird and oh so New York!

So I got to go now because Elder Pulu will inevitably get lost in Manhattan without an escort. Until next week...

-Elder Samuel Burton

Photo: H* on my left, D* (holding Baby W*) on my right, and T* on the far right. I love these guys!

Walking on Water.

Okay, so here's the news with transfers:  I'm staying; Elder Unice is staying; everyone in my district is staying, except Elder Nelson, which kills me because I love that kid so darn much!  I call him "that kid" and he's Ben's age, but he calle me "big guy" and I'm 5'5" and 125 pounds.  Elder Pulu has been called to train a new missionary--and he just barely finished being trained by Elder Nelson!  And interestingly enough, Elder Nelson is going up to Poughkeepsie to be companions with Elder Glick!  I'm going to miss Elder Nelson like crazy, but we've already made plans to meet up in a year at an old train station in Ogden, which apparently is a good spot for bottle hunting.

So most exciting news is the baptism this Saturday. D* is so ready! It looks like Bishop Jessop will be baptizing him. D* really wanted Elder Unice or me to baptize him, but our ward mission leader has issues with missionaries baptizing their converts.

DJ's baptismal date is going to be moved again. He's still struggling, but he's not giving up! He's stopped hanging around his friend R* now and his family has been a huge support for him lately. Funny thing: I call DJ "that kid" too, and he's 40! Maybe I need to find some new terms of endearment... Regardless, we're going to get that kid baptized this cycle!

I mentioned last week about how we were going bottle hunting. It was some of the most fun I've had on my mission! We went to Pelham Bay Park, the biggest park in NYC. There was a lovely view of Long Island Sound and some good deep mud. There came a point where Elder Nelson, Elder Wallace, and myself were searching a bit further out than was wise and suddenly we hit a really gooey patch of mud. We all had to sprint across the mud to keep from sinking in and getting stuck. We made it back to shore, but man it was a workout! We were like those lizards that can run on water, except it was actually just really watery mud.

I have to go now, transfer meeting makes our p-day schedule a bit tricky. Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Here are some pictures!

1. Elder Nelson, me, and some old bottles. 

2. The whole bottle-hunting group: Sister Krieg is front and center. Brother Kreig is the bearded man near the top left. The guy above Sister Kreig is named Peter and he's a funny old man. All the others are missionaries.

3. Some local Bronxites playing in the spray of a fire hydrant. This scene is so common here in the summer, I had to finally take a picture to send to you all.

The heat of battle

The other day we were walking down the street in ninety-two degrees
with sixty-eight percent humidity. A homeless man called out to us, so
we went over to talk to him.
"I just need you guys to answer one question for me: is it hot or what?"
"Yeah it is!"
"But it's hotter in hell, so keep on the good path, brothers!"

Wow this week has been busy (and yes, also excessively hot)! The
sister missionaries got to see two of their investigators baptized and
confirmed. We missionaries were in charge of a ward party. We've got a
ton of people we're trying to teach all at once! It's great!

D* and Heather are sooooo awesome! They have jumped right into
church life! I called them up on Monday evening to see if they were
going to come to Family Home Evening at the Watermans, and they said
they were already in the middle of their own family home evening! They
have a family scripture study every night! They came to the ward part.
They've come to church twice in row now. We taught D* a bunch of
the commandments yesterday and he already knew most of them and is
living them, including the Word of Wisdom! I feel like we are doing
absolutely nothing to prepare him for baptism, he's doing it all
himself! I just am lucky enough to get to watch him do it.

DJ is doing well too, but things are going much more slowly. He's
trying so hard with the Word of Wisdom, and I think he's getting a bit
discouraged. It's been a real battle, but he keeps telling us, "It's
gonna be okay. We're on Jesus' side, and that's the winning side!" He
does NOT want to move his baptismal date again. We keep praying for
him. We gave him a priesthood blessing too. We had a really strange
lesson with him the other day. His friend R* was there at the
beginning, and was acting kind of funny. He said he'd stay for the
lesson, but he was saying he lost something we were looking for it
(though we didn't know what "it" was) for a few minutes, then all of a
sudden he said he had to go to football practice and took off. Then,
in the middle of the lesson, we discovered a pack of cigarettes that
was under a pillow on the couch, only there were no cigarettes inside.
Instead there was a crack pipe. Apparently R* had left it there. DJ
was so upset by it. He was into crack cocaine twenty years ago, and he
says it almost killed him. He just kept saying "Why would he bring
that in my home?!" He was all shaken up for the rest of the lesson.

The missionary-hosted ward activity on Saturday was the Olmstead 2nd
Ward Pioneer Day Fair Extravaganza! More so than celebrating the
actual pioneers, we were celebrating the cultural background of the
many diverse people in the ward and how they each are pioneers in the
church for their families. It was a lot of fun and we had a good
turnout. Ruby brought some family and they loved it. Elder Pulu (who
is Tongan) taught the elders and the young men how to do a Haka, which
we performed. Miss Bailey particularly loved that. She was saying,
"It's like you're warriors in the army of God!"

It's already time for Shock Calls again! This cycle just flew by! I
hope I don't get transferred, because I'd miss both D* and DJ's
baptisms, on the 8th and the 15th respectively, but Elder Nelson and I
keep saying we're going to whitewash an area in Connecticut together.
That would probably be the only way I would be content leaving this
area already. I love it here too much!

Today we'll be out in ninety-five degrees with sixty-seven percent
humidity bottle hunting near City Island! The Kriegs (a part member
family Elder Nelson and Elder Pulu are working with) are taking the
whole district. They know everything there is to know about antique
bottles and they live in the coolest place in the Bronx: City Island
itself. It's going to be a fun day!

Thanks for all the love and support! Until next week...

-Elder Samuel Burton

No picture this week, but instead, a VIDEO: The Haka. The missionaries
in the back are (from left to right) Elder Johanson, Elder Wallace,
Elder Waterman, Elder Unice, Elder Me, Elder Nelson (and Elder Pulu is
the Tongan leading the whole thing). The Young Men in the front are
Clifford, Filipe, Tylil, NJ, Devon, and Jo-Jo. Also, Ruby is the woman
sitting on the right.

Samuel the Lamanite

So the other day, we were walking down Vyse Ave to look up an
investigator who's been on vacation. We passed by some kids that had
opened up a fire hydrant (a common summertime practice here that the
cops usually choose to ignore) and were messing around with tons of
water balloons. The investigator was still on vacation (so said her
j-dub husband) so we headed back up towards Ruby's building. As we
passed these kids again, this time on the other side of the street,
somehow I just knew what was coming. All of a sudden, water balloons
were bursting on the sidewalk and the walls all around us. We didn't
flinch once, just kept walking. We walked down the whole block being
surrounded by watery bursts, but not a single drop touched either of
us. When we got to the corner, the attack had subsided, so I turned
around and gave the Bronxite kids a gesture to compliment there aim.
This, of course, provoked another volley, but still we remained
unscathed.... So now I know how Samuel the Lamanite felt, I am brought
to remember the honorable title Grandpa Burton always called me by.

Later, I made the mistake of standing too close to the bus stop after
a cloudburst and I ended up getting gutter water all up my side. Eh,
I'm sure Samuel the Lamanite had his off days too.

We found a GOLDEN investigator this week. We looked up a less active
member named Heather in the point, and found out that her husband and
she have been praying and talking and have determined that God wants
the husband to be baptized, wants her to come back to church, and
wants them and their kids to all be sealed in the temple. The next
day, we showed up! He's been taught by missionaries before, and the
Watermans (one of the senior couples) know both of them really well
already. Apparently they kind of fell off the face of the earth when
their little baby W* was born several months ago, but now D*
(that's the husband) is more motivated than ever to get to be sealed
to his family. They came to Family Home Evening at the Watermans'
house. They came to church with their son, baby W*, and
nephew/adopted son, a T*. D*'s already met with us three times
now to prepare for his baptism on August 8th! They're soooooo solid!
We're more worried about their nephew/adopted son T*.

DJ's been far too busy to meet up lately because of the death of his
friend. The funeral was last Sunday, so he wasn't at church, and he
had been running back and forth between here and Queens all week
making the arrangements for it. I hope we don't have to reschedule his
baptismal date again, but we might. He still seems to be coping with
his friend's death very well though. I can tell he's got the new, Plan
of Salvation perspective on it.

We had our first interviews with President Smith this week. He wanted
long interviews with every missionary to really get to know them.
Sister Smith tagged along so she could get to know the missionaries
while they wait in the foyer. They are both sooooo cool! I love them!
This is going to be a good second half to my mission.

There are a lot more people to talk about, but I've covered our most
chief investigators and I've got to get going to a Zone Activity. So
again, thank you all for the love and support! Tune in next time, when
Elder Unice leads an army of two thousand stripling missionaries like
Helaman!

-Elder Samuel "the Lamanite" Burton


Pictures: 1. ties! (We all had the same brand on, so...)  2. The most
famous subway stop in the mission.  3. Brother Ford, looking spiffy in
his bow tie!  4. You know you have a cool mission president when...
(Sister Smith airdropped that one to me)

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.

"Whoa-oh! We're halfway there!"

I'm going BOTTLE-HUNTING! Elder Nelson and Elder Pulu in my district sometimes go out with a member they work with to find antique bottles in the mud of the Long Island Sound beaches, and today we're doing it for a p-day activity! I'll let you know how it goes later.

Anyway, we've had another great week! Ruby's friend, Miss B*, cam to church with her las Sunday and she loved it. We hope she'll keep coming. It will never interfere with going to her own church because she's a Seventh-Day Adventist... We'll see how long that lasts.  She actually joined the Adventists with Ruby, but then Ruby left and eventually joined our church.

Speaking of Ruby, she was just called as the Gospel Principles teacher! The ward mission leader teaches it right now, but he's going to teach it with her for a few weeks and then start letting her do it on her own. She's already read through most of the Gospel Principles book!

DJ is still on track to be baptized on August 1st, but we may have to move it to August 8th so we have more time to teach him everything. We'll see. Either way, he's going to get there. Every time we talk about the Celestial Kingdom he says, "That's where I'm going! I'm getting baptized!"

Unfortunately, R* had to cancel our last Skype appointment because she got sick, but she's been reading the Book of Mormon!

On Friday, the whole mission got to go to a Yankees Game to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing and watch to first half of the game. Apparently we only got the boring half, when the Ya Kees were losing, and then after we left they made a comeback and won it! Oh, well. It was a lot of fun! We were literally on the very top row, but that just means we had a view of the game, and of Manhattan!

I hope you all had a fun 4th of July! We didn't really do anything to celebrate here, but we were required to turn in an hour early to avoid the reveling going on that night. But as we were getting ready for bed, I had the strangest realization. I realized that exactly one year from that night I would be getting ready for bed in the mission home after a lovely Fourth of July meal with President and Sister Smith and the next day I would be on a plane to Salt Lake City. Where did the time go??? That means today is May last July 8th on my mission! That sounds like a ridiculous to be contemplating, but it feels so strange to! Tomorrow's my last July 9th. Then my last August, my last September, my last Halloween, my last Christmas my last everyone before I go home! I think I understand better how a man must feel when he turns forty and realized he's officially "over the hill." I think I'm having my mission mid-life crisis or something. Haha! I could swear time is accelerating.

Well, I've got to go now. Thanks for all the love and support, as always. I'll try to send pictures from bottle hunting later.

-Elder Samuel Burton

The (future) Vyse Avenue Branch

Wow we've had an awesome week!!! Biggest event of the week is obviously the new mission president, President Smith. He seems awesome so far! He had all the missionaries go go through and meet each member of his family! When I came up to President Smith himself, he said "Elder Burton! This is from your mom!" and he came up and gave me a huge hug. I'm super excited for this!

And, of course, I also have my new companion, Elder Unice. He's still a very green missionary, but he's great. He's been out for about four months. He's from Pleasant Grove, Utah. He is the youngest of six. He is a quarter Lebanese and consequently is the hairiest man I've ever met (Apparently Lebanese people are hairy?). I'm glad I figured things out in this area pretty fast, especially the subways and buses. Otherwise we would both be completely lost.

Other important things: we are currently teaching 8 people in four different apartments in Ruby's building, largely due to her own missionary efforts. D* (DJ), of course, Miss B* (Ruby's best friend), AJ (Ruby's grandson), R* (Ruby's granddaughter, who we are teaching over Skype while she's on vacation in Jamaica), Sh* and her two daughters (Ruby's across the hall neighbors), and of course Ruby herself. We've joked about soon starting up the Vyse Avenue Branch, consisting of only people Ruby's building! If everyone we're teaching and everyone that Ruby plans for us to teach get baptized, we would have enough members for a small branch there.

Unfortunately, our first lesson with Sh* was interrupted by a drunk guy who was trying to pick a fight with us, so Sh* took us on a walk down the street to get away from him. Next time we'll meet in their apartment, and we had D* volunteer to help us teach them the restoration. Haha! He's not even a member and he's going with us to teach and fellowship. Unfortunately, he relapsed this week, and he felt so terrible about it. But we had a great lesson with him to motivate him to keep trying.

We had a fun lesson with M* and S* Cruz. I forget if I've mentioned them before. They're less active members. S* is M*'s son and he is schizophrenic. He thinks he's Jesus sometimes because the voices in his head tell him he is. M* gets mad when he tells us he's Jesus. So the other day when we were visiting them, we were talking about Jesus (of course) and he cleverly used some third-person tactics to tell us why he hasn't been to church for so long. He said, "Sometimes Jesus Christ is scared to go to church because sometimes Jesus Christ thinks it's a cult" I tried so hard not to laugh! He's crazy and his mom is Puerto Rican, so she's kind of crazy too--just Puerto Rican crazy, not schizophrenic crazy.

We taught R*, Ruby's granddaughter, over Skype for the first time. It went super well! Next time we plan to give her a baptismal date!

We have recently started teaching a guy named A*, who has proven himself to be a bit flaky. We'll see. If he doesn't put a bit of effort into it, we have other investigators we could focus our time one. That's one thing that's very different about this area. There is an endless supply of people to teach! We always have someone to be visiting, we just need to weed out the crazies and the people that won't take it seriously so we know who is worth taking time out our schedule for. It wasn't like that in Poughkeepsie. We were tracting all the time, scrounging for people to teach.

Speaking of Poughkeepsie, I actually ran into a guy I know for there--L*--who we were semi-teaching when we went to visit K*. Apparently he recently moved here and is open to meeting with us. We'll see if it goes anywhere.

Shout out and thanks to my Uncle James for visiting and taking us to lunch! Always nice to see a familiar face. Thanks so much!

There are so many more things to say, but just not enough time! I could tell you about a friend of ours named Randall whose keep running into, or a crazy Hispanic guy we talk to in a nearby park, or any pick of fun and crazy people I've met this week, but again, there just isn't time! 

Love you all and talk to you later!

-Elder Samuel Burton

​Picture: Elder Unice and I​

the BIG goodbye

He flew around corners. He dodged in and out of lanes to get around traffic. He even cut off an ambulance. What sort of a madman is this??? One of many bus drivers in the Bronx. Good thing too, because we were running late. It was a bit scary though... Most bus drivers here are very pushy with other vehicles, but this guy was something else! He was just flying! On the same bus ride, we struck up a conversation with two ladies who were talking about littering because I had to remove some mysterious trash from the bus seat before I could sit down. They were talking all about how no one has any respect anymore, just throwing trash all around. They just kept going at it. They were so funny! One of them had seen the chapel in Harlem, and started asking us questions. We'll be referring her to the missionaries there.

I think I'm just going to give up trying to include all the amazing things that happen each week in each email. I just don't have the time and can't keep track well enough! But obviously, the most exciting thing of this week was R*'s baptism. It was AWESOME. Everything went very well. The stake president baptized her. I played an arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" for a special musical number. The ward was very supportive and we had a lot of people come. A lot of R*'s family came too. At the end, R* shared her testimony with everyone. It was INCREDIBLE. Literally, not a dry eye in the room. She told them all about how she knew she had at last found the fullness of the truth, and she invited them all to join her in the true church and to eventually go to the temple with her to be sealed together as a family. It was beautiful. We will soon be teaching about half of them now. The other half don't live in our area. Unfortunately, DJ wasn't able to make it due to an unexpected funeral. But he was at her confirmation, and he was bawling through the whole thing (tears of joy, of course). I had the privilege of doing the confirmation and afterwards, as R* was shaking the hands of everyone who participated, she knocked aside my stiff arm and gave me a big hug in front of the congregation. Haha.

We just got a referral from a missionary in Tacoma, Washington. He says his friend, who lives in our area, is ready for the gospel! So we stopped by the address last night. We talked to his family, but he wasn't home. I realized afterwards how strange of an experience that must of have been for that family. After we rang their bell, the mom looked out the peephole and said to someone, "you answer it! It's some respectably-dressed folk!" So they had two guys in white shirts and ties in front of their door asking for their brother, saying they got his info from a friend in Washington... This is why people ask us if we're FBI agents. Anyway, hopefully we'll contact him soon!

Another exciting bit of news is transfers of course. I'm staying in Hunts Point and I couldn't be happier about it! Elder Beardall is going to Danbury, Connecticut. My new companion is Elder Unice. He was being trained up in Poughkeepsie when I was there, so I know him already. This will be his first time serving in the city or anywhere even close to it. It will be fun!

Sadly, there is one other change this transfer. President and Sister Morgan are being transferred back to Sandy, UT. President told us at the transfer meeting that President and Sister Smith were being set apart right then back in Elder Ballard's office. So I've most likely seen President Morgan for the last time for the next year or so. On a mission, you meet a lot of different people and forge a lot of new relationships. Consequently, you say a lot of goodbyes. But of all the goodbyes I've had to say on my mission, this has got to be the hardest. I'm going to miss them.

Good things are yet to come though! President and Sister Smith and their kids will be here soon and they seem awesome!

So right now, I am just sitting in the chapel at Inwood Hill in Harlem waiting for Elder Unice to get here for, upstate. I'm temporarily with Elder Miller, who is also waiting for a companion from upstate. We went and saw the Cloisters during our waiting time! That was so cool! I'd highly recommend it to anyone who visits New York. The main part of it is a castle that was moved to New York piece by piece from Spain.

I'll try to send a picture with Elder Unice later today if we have time. For now, I'm going to wrap this up. Until next week...

-Sam

Pictures: R* at her baptism, President Morgan and myself, Sister Morgan and myself, the Cloisters from outside.

Dinner with the Breinholts!

Can you say... BRONX?

Earlier this week we saw a guy on a bike pulling a shopping cart that
was chained to the frame. BRONX. A crazy hunchbacked lady was cursing
to the sky in the middle of a busy intersection. BRONX. Someone pooped
on our building's doorstep. BRONX. A random abuelita in the laundromat
who didn't speak English just gave us a free pastilla. BRONX. I
tripped over a pigeon. BRONX .

...And that's just a few of this week's BRONX moments.

Wow, this week flew by! WOW, this cycle flew by! It's already over!
Shock calls are this Saturday! Oh dear. My prediction is that Elder
Beardall is leaving. The APs were hinting that he needs to start doing
language study again, which means he's probably going back to the
Portuguese program again. But really, as with every transfer, there is
no telling what will happen.

This week has been quite busy. We've been finalizing preparations for
R*'s baptism this coming Saturday! (she passed her interview last
Saturday, by the way). She's invited just about everyone she knows and
she told us she plans to give a speech at her baptism to share her
testimony with them all and inviting them to come to church and meet
with the missionaries. She has a lot of respect in the local religious
community, so we might get some seriously interested people out of
this! She's already been telling us about people questioning her about
why she decided to be baptized into this church. She's asked the stake
president, who I know from the Scarsdale Ward, to baptize her. She met
him once and just kept saying he had a glow about him, and that he
must really love Jesus. So when we asked her who she wanted to baptize
her, he was the number one choice. She asked me to confirm her the
next day, so that will be a first for me!

DJ is doing great! He has been going strong living the word of wisdom
for over a week now! He's got so much desire, I love it! We'll be
teaching him the plan of salvation tonight.

Later today I have the privilege of sharing dinner with he
Breinholts!!! That was a pleasant surprise to get that email from them
earlier this week. I'm so excited! Interestingly, just yesterday,
Elder Beardall's brother took us out for lunch. When it rains it
pours.

I have more updates to share, but so little time.  I'm afraid I'm
going to have to wrap this one up.

-Elder Samuel Burton

Some street pics.