On top of the world [trade center]

Well, this is it.

So Alexandra, Elan, and Mary (all from back when I was in the YSA
Ward) all showed up at our branch's sacrament meeting! I got to meet
up with three of my favorite New Yorkers for my second to last Sunday.
That was awesome.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to send pictures from Finding
Neverland last week. We went to dinner with Ray right afterwards and I
didn't get a chance to send off any more emails until after p-day was
over. Today we're going to be going up to the top of the Freedom
Tower. It's the tallest building in this hemisphere, so it should be
quite a view!

So, about this time next week, I'll be on an airplane. Is that crazy
or what? This will probably be the last you'll hear from me as a
missionary in New York. It's been amazing—indescribable really. I'm
sure you've gathered from my emails that I've had some awesome
experiences, but in reality (as I'm sure most every returned
missionary knows) there are some things an email just can't contain
and there are some things that are kept just between me and God. I now
have a burning conviction for the Gospel and Church of Jesus Christ. I
know there is a God, and he loves each one of us with a perfect and
unconditional love. Jesus Christ is his Son and my Savior. The Holy
Ghost and it's gifts are real. God's love is manifest in the truth
that he has reached out to us, sending the Savior, the Holy Ghost, and
the Gospel. I know that even when the world rejected and turned away
from those things, God yet again reached out in love and restored the
Church and Gospel to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. That
Church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is led
by men and women who are truly called and inspired by God, and they
love us with a love that comes from God. The Book of Mormon is the
word of God and anyone who desires to know God, his Gospel, his true
Church, and his prophets can know them by reading it, praying about
it, and applying what it teaches.

As I said, I have a burning conviction for these truths. Why? Because
revelation is real. It may start out as a good feeling and or gentle
nudge in the right direction, but when we are diligent and faithful,
grander revelations cannot be withheld from us. No one can ever tell
me that any of this isn't true, because God told me first that it is,
and He did so in the most beautiful, personal, and undeniable ways. I
promise He'll do the same for anyone who sincerely, diligently, and
faithfully seeks after these thing. And that is a testimony after
these two years of striving harder to be more diligent and faithful
than ever before.

Well, this is it. I guess I just have one more thing to say: Mom, you
get the first hug.

-Elder Samuel Burton


Photos:
1. Mary, myself, and Elan.

2. Finding Neverland

3. The sunset over the Hudson River.

I'll send pictures of our trip up freedom tower later today.

Ripples

The other day, we were walking down the street in Harlem and a guy
started calling calling out in our direction, "Joseph Smith! Joseph
Smith!" Immediately, our guard is up and our minds are racing. Who is
this? Is he crazy? Is he wanting to argue with us? Or is this just a
good teaching opportunity? These questions tend run through my mind
multiple times a day. So the guy walks over and he has a big smile on
his face, which makes me hopeful. He clasps his hands together and
bows, saying "Brothers! I am Joseph Smith. Good day to you!" Then he
walked away. So I put a checkbox by "crazy" in my mind and we continue
on our way laughing.

But today I'm going to be with a man who's name actually is Joseph
Smith! Ray Smith, from Poughkeepsie, is going to the Broadway show,
Finding Neverland with me. (His full name is Raymond Joseph Smith.)
This is the one and only Broadway show of my mission! I'm super
excited! I'm especially excited to be going with Ray as my companion.
He's one of my favorite people in the world.

Anyway, the work has been good this week. We're still working closely
with Alex as he continue use to strengthen his testimony. Dwight is
still having some reservations about being baptized that we can't
quite pin down. Oscar, unfortunately, is starting to become rather
unreliable, though he always texts us telling us how eager he is to be
baptized and reminding us of his baptismal date, though we keep having
to move it because he's not meeting with us consistently. That's
frustrating, but I'm sure he'll get there eventually.

So a few weeks ago, something funny happened that I think if forgot to
mention in my email. Elder Richards and I were walking down Ninth
Avenue and suddenly we here someone call out "Elder Burton!" We turn
and see a yellow taxi has come to a dead stop in the middle of the
street, much to the annoyance of other drivers, and Will Cosper is
dodging traffic to run over to the sidewalk. You may or may not me
mentioning Will Cosper from when I was in the YSA Ward here. He was a
less active member we were working with. It was great to see him! I
really liked working with him. Since my time in the YSA Ward, he has
been officially reactivated. Yesterday he had us over for dinner at
his apartment and took us to get gelato afterwards. It was great!
Talking to him, I could tell his knowledge of the gospel has grown a
lot over the last several months.

Also, I may have forgotten to mention that Zachary, Rhonda Cady's son
in Poughkeepsie, was baptized a few weeks ago! He wanted me to come
baptize him, but unfortunately President Smith didn't give consent to
take a train up for the baptism.

So from my encounter with Will Cosper and hearing about Zachary's
baptism from Rhonda over Facebook, I've gotten to learn about some of
the future effects of what I've done in past areas. It's cool to know
that there are these "ripples" that I'm not always there to see. It
gives me hope that maybe there have been other good things that have
come from the work I've done that I don't know about.

Well, that's all for this week... Wow, I guess I'm only going to be
sending one more of these emails. AAAAAAHHHHHH! That's a strange
feeling. Well until the next and last time, love you all!

-Sam

Picture: We found a selfie machine in a subway station, so... Haha.
Sorry, that's pretty lame, but it's the only photo I've got from this
last week.

Flashbacks to Union Square

This week we had a miraculous encounter with someone I taught in the
Union Square Ward: Kevin Ortiz. You may or may not remember him. He
was almost baptized when I was there, but got discouraged and lost
contact with he missionaries. Today we turned around a corner down in
Chelsea and literally ran into him and his girlfriend, Sauce. They
were freaking out when they saw me again. He was so excited! Heck, I
was so excited! Some of the best lessons of my mission were with him.
I don't think I've ever seen repentance change someone's life so much
before or since. He told us he felt like this encounter was God
telling him he needs to start coming to church again and preparing for
baptism. We took him straight to the fifteenth street chapel and
introduced him to the current Union Square Ward Elders, who he set an
appointment with. We then committed him to start living the word of
wisdom again. He said he wants me to baptize him, but it probably
won't happen until after I'm home already. Bummer. He said he'll pay
for me to fly back if he has to, but I kind of doubt that will happen.
Regardless, I'm so excited about it! I've been wondering what had
happened to him since I heard he had stopped meeting with the
missionaries.

On Sunday, Alex had a meeting with our Branch President, which went
really well. As of our last lesson with him, he fully understands that
in order to be baptized he would have to live a chaste life in spite
of his attraction to men, and yet he still wants to continue
strengthening his testimony and has said he still sees it as a
possibility in the future. I have high hopes that he will be baptized
one day, though, again, it will probably be after I'm home. As an
unimportant side note, last Sunday, Alex discovered the missionary
dinner calendar, so we will be enjoying Chinese food and a word of
wisdom lesson tonight.

Dwight, who is also moving right along, gave us tickets to go to the
MoMA, so we'll be going there later today. I'll try to send pictures
later. He's been busy with work all week, but we have an appointment
with him and President Comstock for dinner Thursday evening. I think
we're really close to a breakthrough with him.

I've been really joyful this week for some reason. The work is great!
Life is great! I feel so happy with the way my life is right now. I've
got almost two years of good work and memories behind me, three more
weeks of the same to come, and I'm sure great things beyond that too.
I'm going to be super busy with the work over the next few weeks and
it's going to be hard leaving with so much unfinished business, but
I'm still excited to come home and see you and get started with
whatever the Lord has for me next! 

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

-Elder Samuel Burton

Photo: view of the sunset from Battery Park

​Pictures from the Museum of Modern Art

Thanks!

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade starts at 72nd street, in the
Manhattan 1st Ward and Ends smack dab in the middle of the Union
Square Ward at 34th Street. I spent most of thanksgiving within a
block of the parade route, and I did not see a single float, balloon,
or anything. Haha. I wasn't really looking though. We spent our
thanksgiving contacting in the crowds of people going to and from the
parade and then we had a lovely thanksgiving dinner with the Calder
family. Sister Calder makes what might be the best sweet potatoes I
have ever eaten. Everything else was delicious as well. So
Thanksgiving in turned out to be more or less like any other day as a
missionary, except people on the streets were a bit cheerier than
usual and so was our dinner.

Things are still going well here. We decided we need to give K*
just one extra week to be fully prepared to make the covenant of
baptism, so he will be baptized on December 12th. Both T* and A*
will have their baptismal dates moved as well. T* because--as
willing as he is--he's just not understanding everything. A* because
his work schedule only allows for us to meet once a week now.  A*
should be baptized on January 2nd and T* is still TBD.

Elder Nelson and I are doing awesome! Manhattan is a rough place for
missionaries, but we are still enjoying ourselves thoroughly! The East
Coast is still hanging on to the last bits of Autumn--temperatures
floating between 40 and 60 for the most part with an incessant rainy
atmosphere. We have yet to see any snow.

We met an interesting character the other day. A woman named J*
(I'm still trying to figure that one out) who owns a lovely vintage
clothing store on 14th Street. Looking at the way she was dressed and
her hairstyle, coupled with the fact that she is a born and raised New
Englander, I was surprised that the first thing she said to us was
"Oh! You guys almost had a president!" and then she started going off
about how she loved Mitt Romney. We listened politely for a short
moment, which turned into a long moment, which turned into a
fifteen-minute, no-pause-for-breath sermon preaching Donald Trump, and
Christian global domination. It was pretty intense! She was super
friendly, even offering us an amazing deal on vintage cowboy boots,
but we literally could not get a word in. We were able to leave her
with a card and a good impression, and escape without drowning in
politics.

Another week down and it's been a good one. Thanks for the love and support!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures!
1. We tracted a super tall project building and found a little balcony
on the top floor. Cool view!
2. New York is becoming more and more racist. They have now segregated
the famous black-and-white cookie.

Something's changed...

Does anyone remember me mentioning my buddy from the Bronx, Elder
Parker Nelson? He started his mission the transfer before I did in
Manhattan. He was sent up to Yonkers, which was in my same district
when I was in Scarsdale. It was there that I first met him and also
where it was first prophesied that we would be companions. Then
eventually he ended up in Inwood (northern tip of Manhattan), where he
was held hostage by a drug-crazed less active member for five hours
and then emergency transferred to the Bronx, where we were put in the
same district again. Again it was prophesied that we would be
companions, and firmly established that we would be friends for life.
Now the prophecy is fulfilled!!!

Last Thursday, President Smith told both Elder Zeng and I to both pack
our bags. He said one of us was going to be transferred but he wasn't
sure who. That Saturday, he told me to spend a few hours with the Zone
Leaders and Elder Zeng took off with the Assistants. Both of us were
still unsure what our situation would be like by that afternoon. The
Zone Leaders, myself, and a few other missionaries were doing some
caroling and talking to people on the street. Then my phone rang. It
was Elder Zeng! He told me that he was presently driving up to
Poughkeepsie with Elder Rivera, his new companion. This made me SOOOO
excited!!! To understand why, you'll have to reminisce back to a
detail of an email I sent from the Bronx months ago, when I mentioned
that my buddy Elder Nelson was sent up to Poughkeepsie. I was well
aware he was still in Poughkeepsie and that his companion there had
most recently bee Elder Rivera. So less than an hour later Elder
Nelson showed up in Manhattan to be my new companion!!! We always said
this would happen one day and no one believed us, but now it has!!!

Elder Zeng will be very happy in Poughkeepsie I'm sure. He's going to
an awesome ward there and Elder Rivera is a great guy.

So I'll give you a little bio of my new companion. He was born and
raised around Phoenix, Arizona, most recently in Peoria, Arizona. He
has two brothers, one of which just came home from his mission last
Friday due to some terrible sickness he contracted in Honduras. He's a
big soccer player and reader. He's also one of my favorite people on
the planet!

So that craziness occupied much of my time and attention over the last
week. Luckily, I was still able to go to E*'s baptism on Saturday
and it was awesome. His whole family came and one of his best friends.
The YSA missionaries will now be teaching his friend, and the sisters
I'll be teaching his family, except one sister who is deaf, so the ASL
missionaries will teach her. So it was a successful baptism AND
finding activity.

All else is going well. Thanks for the prayers and support.

Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures:
1. E* and myself right before his baptism. The classy man wore a white suit!
2. Elder Zeng and I right before he left with the APs
3. Elder Nelson and I on the subway.

Atlantic Breeze

The cold of winter is sending its first greetings of the year here in
New York. No snow yet, like you all got back in Utah, but dang that
Atlantic wind is frigid! Everyday we get a nor'easter breeze from off
the sea and the long avenues become air ducts to condition the whole
island of Manhattan in cold ocean air. But recently it's blowing in
some success, so I won't complain!

We've had a busy week! A* and K* are still progressing towards
baptism on  December 5th. We were able to reestablish contact with a
young Haitian man named L* who says he wants to be baptized, but
wants to wait until he can rearrange his work schedule to come to
church on Sundays. We had an awesome lesson with him. We read the
story of Nephi obtaining the brass plates and compared him to Nephi,
saying if he is willing to go an do what the Lord asks, the way will
be prepared. He said he didn't feel worthy to be compared to Nephi and
feels more like Laman and Lemuel, but he wants to become like Nephi.
So we went through a few chapters and picked out what made Nephi
different from his murmurous brothers. It was an awesome lesson, full
of the spirit! We also met Brother Troy Campbell, husband of Sister
Campbell, who is a member of the Ward. He came to church with her on
Sunday and by the third hour he was saying he wants to join! We will
be meeting with him in just a bit and hopefully setting a date for
baptism! This is what I was hoping for! We work hard and people start
progressing and popping up to be taught. This area will be booming in
no time!

Exciting news! E* (the Saturday Night Live writer I was
teaching in the YSA Ward) is going to be baptized this Saturday and he
asked me to baptize him! I'm so excited! I need to find where I put my
white pants!

New Yorker profile for this week is a wonderful gentleman named Larry
Knox! He was born into an LDS family in Connecticut and served a
mission in Southern California. He is in his forties. He is currently
engaged to a woman who was recently released from prison in the
Philippines. He will shortly be flying there to bring her back to the
US and marry her. He brings a different treat to church every week for
the missionaries to take home, most recently, a Costco-size pack of
Toblerone bars. He has an unusually bright an cheery disposition for
an east coast man. He currently lives in Queens.

I'm happy as ever! The Gospel is true as ever!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Play

Sam also sent this for his mom....He knows she misses hearing him play the piano at home

Good things coming

Good things are happening in Manhattan! A*, our investigator from Sri
Lanka is back in town and back on track for baptism! We set a new
baptismal date for him: December 5th. We also committed a guy named
K* to be baptized on December 5th as well. He's the boyfriend of a
recent convert the sisters have taught. They handed him off to us this
week and we had a great first lesson. He wants so badly to be
baptized. He's made some big changes in his life recently and has a
few more to go, but he is committed! He says he wants to serve a
mission like us after he's baptized!

We also have some referrals from other missionaries to check out. We
may have a solid teaching pool here soon. I'm optimistic that this
area has some good things coming!

Next week, E* (in the YSA Ward) will be baptized! He has his
interview with the Zone Leaders tomorrow.

We've taken a bit of a beating from the locals recently with the new
changes in Handbook 1. A lot of harassment from people on the streets.
Two of our sisters were spit on in generous amounts while riding the
subway. Later on they got messages from two different members telling
them that they had friends who were in that subway car who were quite
impressed by the dignity they displayed through their persecutions.
Things are calming down now though. If things are still causing you
problems, pray about it. We know the 1st Presidency prayed about it
and received revelation. You can pray about it too and see what the
spirit says to you about it.

Not much else to report this week. Thanks for the prayers, love, and support!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Statistically speaking...

There are over 8 million residents across the five boroughs of New
York City.  During the day, a high percentage of those dwelling in the
boroughs of Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island come to the
borough of Manhattan for work, school, entertainment, or leisure. Add
countless more of such from across the Hudson in New Jersey; countless
more from Long Island, Upstate, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Pennsylvania and other nearby places. On top of that, add the
incessant flow of tourists and business trippers coming and going from
all of the world, and at any given moment there may be more people in
Manhattan than the actual population of New York City. Now imagine you
add 70 more to the mix. Just 70 kids, mostly from Utah, who are given
instructions to go an talk to everyone they see. Millions of people
people, 14 square miles, 70 Mormon missionaries instructed to talk to
everyone else. You may think it an overwhelming idea to contemplate,
but I assure you, it is far more overwhelming to be living it.
Missionary work in Manhattan is insane! Never a dull moment. Always
someone to be talking to. It's a bit exhausting! But we do it!

All that being said, I've realized that I have long since given up
trying to describe the vast array of personalities I encounter every
week, so I have now decided to take the time to depict for you just
one New Yorker (or New York visitor) every week, so perhaps by the
time I leave Manhattan you'll have a small taste of what it's like to
interact with these people as a missionary. This week's New Yorker is
a man named Brother Twitchell. Brother Twitchell comes from out west.
He and his wife moved to New York in pursuit of a dream life in the
show business! Between the two of them they could make a living
performing in, directing, and producing various shows across the city.
They raised a few kids, who have since moved out all across the
country. Mr. Twist he'll eventually figured out that he could actually
make more money as a stagehand and so he's been doing that for several
decades now. He currently works as a stagehand for NBC, particularly
for Saturday Night Live. He's in his seventies but still not retired
and still looking spry as ever. His dear wife Angie passed away a few
years back, which was rough for him, but he keeps plugging away until
the time when he'll be with her again. Interestingly, they are members
who were sealed in the temple and even served as temple workers, but
both slipped into inactivity in their old age. We got him reading the
Book of Mormon again and referred him to the Manhattan 1st Ward
missionaries who cover the area where he lives. Lovely man. Fed us
lunch at his favorite diner. Very friendly with a lot of stories to
tell.

This week has been a good week! Our area has a lot of good potential
(with so many million people, it should anyway), we just need to
unlock it! The baptism on Saturday was amazing! A* is sooo
solid! Elder Tanner baptized her three times, because he said the
words wrong the first two times. Haha. It all worked out though.

The rest of our Halloween was pretty crazy. Manhattan has some pretty
crazy character roaming the streets on a normal day. Halloween
intensified the number and bizarreness of such characters. We set up a
table in Lincoln Square and gave out hot apple cider and copies of the
Book of Mormon. It was a great success and we have some new
investigators in our district now (unfortunately none for our
companionship).

 Elder Zeng is awesome! He's fearless with contacting. We can't carry
our laundry down the street to the laundromat without him making
conversation with some passerby. It helps that most of the passersby
where we live are Chinese, so he can talk to them. He also found a
Dutch couple on the train he could talk to as well! He's great! I'm
excited for this cycle.

We've found a lot of people who want to be taught, but all of them
have been referred to missionaries in other parts of the mission or
the south mission. Oh well. We'll get some for ourselves eventually.
For now our main investigator is in Canada so we have to wait until
Saturday to teach him again. We may have to move his baptismal date
too because we probably won't have time to teach him everything before
the 21st due to his unexpected vacation.

That's all for now. Love you all and thanks for the prayers and support!

-Elder Samuel Burton

Pictures: Jersey, Jersey, and Manhattan bridge

Downtown

This is a most unusual transfer. I'm staying in Manhattan. In fact I'm
still the district leader of the exact same district. The only
difference is now I'm in the Union Square Ward that meets on 15th
Street. The only change to my area is that it got a bit smaller--just
part of what the YSA Ward covers. I moved down to Chinatown so now all
the signs and people on the street are Chinese. My new companion,
Elder Zeng, is also Chinese, except he was born and raised in Surinam,
grew up speaking Dutch in school and Chinese at home, and has lived
all over the world since. He was in the district before, of course, so
I already know him. It's going to be  a good six weeks!

I had a great last week in the YSA Ward. E* made us a cake and we
had a little going-away party for our last lesson. Luckily, I'll still
be able to attend his baptism in a few weeks since it's in my district
still! We also got permission to attend Alexandra's baptism in Harlem
this Saturday... Dang this Saturday is Halloween! Where did that come
from? Haha.

Elder Tanner is set up with a bunch of solid new investigators for his
trainee and himself. They are going to have a lot of baptisms this
cycle. And I'll get to be there for all of them! Especially the people
I've taught.

The area I'm going to has been struggling quite a bit, but I'm
determined to get things going again! The Lord has blessed me to see a
lot of success in my last two areas and I'm hoping if I keep working
hard, he'll bless us with success in this area as well.

I said goodbye to the Waterman's at transfers. They're going home now!
I also got to meet Elder Johanson's new trainee from the Philippines!
How awesome is that! He's training again for his last transfer. He's
6'4" and he trained me at 5'5" and now an even tinier Filipino!

I'll send pictures of my new home later today hopefully. For now
here's our cake party with Elan and Mary, me and President & Sister
Smith, and me and my district (Elder Tanner, Sister Atkinson , Elder
Wallace, Sister Amorim, Sister Vincent, Sister Rasmussen, and Sister
Spendlove--Elder Zeng is hiding behind Sister Vincent). Now Elder
Tanner, Sister Atkinson, and Sister Vincent are all training. We're
going to have a district full of trainees!

​ My new companion Elder Zeng,

 the Waterman's and me, funny signs at the new laundromat that were 

clearly not written by someone who speaks English.

Love you all!

-Elder Samuel Burton