Progress!

Elder Burt and Elder Phillips

This one is going to be quick, folks. I hope things are going well back home. We quite miraculously found a wonderful woman while we were doing a contacting activity for Easter. She felt prompted to come over to us and invite us to her home. We just had an appointment with her a couple days ago and she explained how she was caring for her aged mother and epileptic brother and needed spiritual help. She already said she´d be willing to be baptized if she began to feel our message was true...and her brother said the same. Things are going wonderfully here. Also I ate a chicken heart this week! Cool cool cool. The church is true!

Transferred to Cerro de Pasco

This was my first week here in Cerro de Pasco with Elder Phillips. It was a good week. I'd like to mention some particular instances of note during the week. First, was our celebration of Holy Week here. Easter's not really a holiday...it´s a celebration of the whole last week of Christ's life. Ben-Hur and the Ten Commandments are the crowd favorites playing on every screen in the market selling DVDs. We put up a tarp, put up seven giant posters of Jesus, one representing His actions every day of the week, and gave away free pictures of Christ to the crowds. We set it up in all the areas in the zone, but our area was the most successful. Crowds upon crowds gathered around to take one. Some were gracious and surprised that they were free, when most everything of this nature costs something here. Others felt entitled to take as many as they want and ignored our pleas of one for each person.

We had some other interesting experiences in the week. One came from a contact who seemed very knowledgable of the wikipedia page about the Mormon church, and had questions about all the topics missionaries need to be trained to handle. We assured him we´d come the next day and answer all his questions. We arrived the following afternoon, and he and his older brother, young men in their early twenties, came prepared with many printed, annotated pieces of paper of what the internet has to say about the Church. Surprisingly enough, I absolutely loved the experience. The older brother was especially sincere and respectful, but nevertheless wanting to know every topic under the sun that's controversial about the Church. We animatedly went in depth to answer their questions...I've loved studying this stuff, particularly from a scholarly point of view, and I knew that was what they wanted, with enough enthusiasm and love for the subject to bring the Spirit and testify it all depends on the truth of the Book of Mormon. We answered all the classic scriptures- no man shall add to the Bible, beware of angels bringing a new gospel, etc. In the end, the older brother was making his own connections to answer his own questions, profusely thanked us, and promised he'd read the Book of Mormon. It was wonderful.

On the other hand, our next visit was an interesting man and his family who, if I'm correct, is forming his own church group. This, of course, means he was far more interested in teaching us condescendingly about the Bible than listening to us. Nevertheless, when we could talk, we shared a lot of similar views on the teachings, with the addition of the magnificent claim that yes, not only COULD Christ establish his church once more, but he DID. On this second visit, it seemed more and more obvious he would keep interrupting our message to try and show his own knowledge with diagrams and everything.

I cut in and raised my voice and level of enthusiasm to ensure we could get to the end without interruption. Our message is, after all, remarkably simple- God's church is on the earth once more; we can know by asking God and depending on the Spirit; when one knows it is true, one should be baptized to receive all the blessings possible. On that line of logic, I bore my testimony of its certainty and challenged them to be baptized upon feeling the Spirit of its truthfulness. As they backpedaled into a theological debate on what was sin and when baptism would be appropriate, we thanked them and asked if we could close with a prayer. It was a memorable experience, more than anything because the Spirit was in the room and even if they didn't accept his witness, they felt him.

Well, the Church is true. We'll keep moving on up here. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

All Things Point to Christ

Elder Burt, members of his zone, and friends

Hello, world! This week I received changes and will be going to Cerro de Pasco! That's the highest city in the world, which means I'll get lungs of steel. I hear you can drink blended frog there! This was a solid week where we got to do some divisions. I enjoyed feeling the excitement new missionaries have to work and the faith that it will have results. I love talking to people...really, the key of the mission is to speak with the world. That's what we're here to do, and it affects so many parts of your mind. For instance...

I've been sharing with my companion my theories of how Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings is about the Gospel. I've enjoyed it sufficiently that perhaps I can leave it as my spiritual thought this week. I'll warn you, it will all be **spoilers**.

Harry Potter is a series about death...his parents die, Cedric dies, Sirius dies, Dumbledore dies, and about ten other people in the last book. Harry has to grow more and more each time because he has to deal with such a heavy burden. As he reads on his parents' gravestone, 1 Corinthians 15 teaches us that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. So in the end...he has to conquer death. He himself dies to save his people. Being the master of the Deathly Hallows, he's permitted to rob Voldemort of his power over death and have power over it himself. He resurrects. By dying for his people, he creates what is called a love shield around all those he saved. Dark magic has no power over them. Do you see it? Jesus Christ had to die for us, thus creating a love shield to protect us from Satan's power. Though Death was Satan's tool, Jesus became the master by sacrificing himself and now uses it to complete with God's Plan of Salvation. All things point to Christ.

Lord of the Rings has some apparent faults that frustrates people. For instance, why couldn't they just take the eagles to Mt. Doom? Let's start there. The eagles represent a literary device called Deus Ex Machina....or, godlike intervention when the characters do not have the power to overcome a situation. It appears cheap, unless it's literally representing the concept of grace. We cannot overcome all of our problems, so we will inevitably have to rely on the grace of Jesus Christ. That's the concept Gandalf explained when Frodo said frustratedly at the beginning, "It's a pity Bilbo didn't stab Gollum when he had the chance."

"Pity! It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity and mercy...not to take a life without need." Gandalf explains they will have to rely on this mercy to save the day in the end. Throughout the series, Frodo appears stupid for trusting Gollum over and over when it's obvious he intends to kill them. Yet that mercy is exactly what very nearly changes Gollum as a person. Even though in the end his efforts fail, that mercy was what brought the mercy of God upon him. In the end, Frodo himself fails, which, again, can appear like a frustrating ending...why have our hero fail in the end? It can only be to demonstrate that we all fail. Yet by being merciful with Gollum, God intervened and ensured the day was saved anyway. Gollum falling into the lava with the ring wasn't an "accident" at all, but rather evidence that someone was watching over them. Lord of the Rings is a story about grace. All things point to Christ.

Well I hope you enjoyed my analysis. I love you all. The church is true.

Elder Burt with recent convert

Christ-Like Love

Buenas, mis queridos hermanos y hermanas. I hope you enjoyed conference as much as I did. This week had some setbacks, but the good news is it's a new month, which offers new opportunities. 

I felt an emphasis in Conference on Christlike love...in Elder Renlund's remarks, President Nelson's, Elder Holland's, and President Monson's during Priesthood. As we develop as Christ's disciples, we become different people. My mission president has focused on the truth that the judgment day will manifest who we have become, not what we have done. Based on who we are, we'll know what state of life we will be comfortable living. As we develop charity, we become the kind of people who are capable of perfect happiness. 

I've been struck throughout my mission how much dislike is a lie...if we truly know a person, we'll inevitably love them. I think Ender Wiggin once said something like that... "I don't think you can ever understand someone...what they want, what they fear...without loving them the way they love themselves." 

It's not a truth we discover all at once, but I believe we should humbly try each day to be a little better. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Increasing Our Expectations

This week we had a conference with President. He talked about how we make our own limits by working toward limited goals. As our faith and willingness to work increase,  we can put the 'dreamer' into the work, and therein lies the key to success. This impacted me profoundly, remembering my hopes and dreams from two years ago and how much reality ended up diminishing them. This week, I really saw how much expectation can change results, as I applied myself in a way I never have before. Let me illustrate with an analogy.

Meet Dan, the stick figure. Really, his emotional range is as wide as his mouth- big smile, big frown. He likes to play tic tac toe, and quickly got tired of hangman. He would like everyone to know that putting a triangle blouse on his legs does not make him a girl.

Dan has a summer house (triangle on a square) on the chalkboard...yet somehow it doesn't take him far enough away. Deep in the two-dimensional recesses of his heart, he has a dream...one day, he hopes to be three-dimensional. Cubes inspire him; his imagination soars when small pictures appear to be distant objects. Yet there had to be something more. Seeing a photo across the room, he got an idea.

He starts, tremulously, with a single extra line from his head down to his legs, bending out. No, that looks stupid. He's lopsided. He adjusts his body, then gives himself a nose, hair, ears, fingers. He adds lines to reflect depth, and draws mountains, rivers and trees. He views his work, and does it all over again. Then he does it again, and again, until people flock to see Dan's beautiful, back- and fore-ground, inspiring new home. He's replicated his three-dimensional dream, but it's only a replication. While everyone's busy trying to frame the work of art, he escapes and finds a pad of sticky notes. No, a flip book. He spins his emotions into animated motion, reaching into the fourth dimension and snatching at the very dreams of the humans he so admired, weaving them into his reality. We creatures of the third dimension begin to aspire to one day be on a two dimensional screen like him.

His is the world of words on paper, art in the finest museums, movies on which we rest our highest hopes. Did he enter the third dimension? He never did, and he never will. But as he reached...sideways (he can't reach forward, silly, he has no depth perception), just as his certainty heightened that he would never achieve his dream, so ceased his interest. For he saw that there was no end of things in his own world he could make, and create. 

As we aim for crazy goals, and as we heighten our actions to be just as crazy, we begin to enjoy life far more and accomplish more than what we originally expected...even if we never quite reach the impossible. We grow content with our own capacities. And our capacity is our responsibility. Quintuple your goals sometimes...it's good for you.

A Family Gospel

We had a baptism this week! Here's a picture below. It's been inspiring to see him struggle through a number of extraordinarily hard challenges. 

We've also begun to progress with a wonderful family who work in a restaurant. To have a family all progress at the same time is extraordinarily rare and makes us all very happy. It is a family gospel. Perhaps some wonder why family is so central to the plan of God if they live in environments where their family are not their closest friends and aids. I believe it is to demonstrate the pattern to us. To know that in the following life, when all of us live as one family with our Father in Heaven, we will recognize the importance of siblings and filial respect. All of the close friendships we make here are destined to transform into brotherhoods and sisterhoods in the next life. All the love and charity developed for our fellowman will not be lost nor disappear in the new reality of the Kingdoms of Glory, but rather be manifest all the more powerfully. Mankind is destined to carry on together, as a family, into eternity. 

May we find one another there in the great family reunion.

Flecks of Gold

This week began the new transfer period, and this week we saw people with a good number of problems. One young man that we're visiting attempted suicide, and we spoke to him the day after. Those are the times when you hold on to the rope of the doctrine we teach and actually have to have the faith that our message can help. I felt the brutal reality that I'm not good at knowing what to say to people in hard situations. I think I have a talent for making people generally feel happier, but not in addressing problems such as this...any comfort always seems to me to be contrived. We gave him a blessing and visited him a couple other times in the week.

On a happier note, I've got another sad story that has a happy ending. We're visiting a young man who has lived with his drunk uncles nearly all his life. They've hit him at times, and the last time one did so, in January, he snapped and fought back, then escaped from the house for a week. He found a contact card he received a year ago and went to church that Sunday, which happened to be Stake Conference. He felt remarkably at peace while he was there, even though all his problems came rushing back when he left. He started attending another ward. The Elders there realized he wasn't from their area and passed him to us about a month ago. We became his friends, and he started accompanying us on visits, fasting, keeping the commandments, cutting friendships, telling us his story, and thinking on how to save money for a mission.

I suppose we're here to help people. I know if you're reading missionary blogs you're used to hearing stories like this. The truth is, these things don't happen very often. We missionaries get these gems in our experiences and it's what we share with you. What we don't share is the other 99 out of 100 days. We get magnificent opportunities, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  I heard other missionaries say this to me before my mission, and I would chuckle a little. Not easy? I came on the mission wanting challenges and pain and tears...those are the heroics you hear about that you don't get that much back home. That's exactly what we came out here to do...suffer courageously to save others in celestial glory. I think I've learned that the difficulties come from doing the most ordinary activities over and over again in the faith that it'll do something at some point. Sometimes it doesn't work, and the people who need the gospel most don't accept it. Sometimes the most spiritual lessons don't end up going anywhere that you can see. And sometimes things do happen. So, in the end, we keep it up and fight the good fight, and wait for those flecks of gold that inevitably come, and then testify that the work comes undoubtedly and fully from God. In the end the flecks add up to something priceless.