More pics from Palmdale

California? [Week 10] (Mammoth Lakes)

Hey everybody! 

Hey everybody!

So we made the long trek to Mammoth on Tuesday, it was a five hour drive from Bakersfield. all the way through the desert. No joke we actually passed several turn offs for Death Valley. Some facts about Mammoth Lakes: 

It is way up in the high eastern Sierras, at about 8000 feet.

It is a total ski resort town, so there aren't that many people that are permanent. We estimate that about 30% of the houses up here actually have people living in them year round. 

Mammoth Mountain is the one Ski resort, It has at least 25 "chairs" and is fairly large, it also employs probably half of the people that live here. 

Mammoth is, obviously, a party town. I have counted at least 15 bars or liquor shops, though I am sure there are more. 

Everyone up here just lives in the now and essentially lives off of the booze. 

It is essentially like a cute, more packed together Park City that is RIGHT in the mountains. We aren't even in a valley. We live down the street, about 250 yards from a Ski hill/lodge

It is nice having all of mammoth be our area, it means that everyone we meet is a potential investigator. Mammoth is about 45 minutes away from Bishop, which is the closest thing to a real town out here. So everyone that works here also lives here. Sometimes we just ride around on the free trolley and try and talk to people. 

The best part of Mammoth is the cute little LDS chapel. We are in a branch of about 12 people, including the four missionaries that attend it. Though we are prone to get a lot of visitors who are in town for the week. 

Work is different up here. Everyone is fairly happy, and they generally don't take things seriously. People live here to have fun. I'll send pictures next week, maybe. 

Elder Burton

Pointing toward home?

Transfers [Week 9] (Palmdale)

Wow big week! 

Big things that happened this week-- The sisters in our districts investigators asked Elder Craig and I to baptize them! That was awesome. We met them once before when Elder Craig interviewed them for baptism -- we are actually the only real priesthood holders they know. What an experience! I baptized nine year old Antonio, he is a really happy kid who was so excited to be baptized. It was stellar to see their strong commitment to their love for God at such a young age. 

Transfer calls came!! Elder Craig got transferred to Mammoth, and I am staying. 

As his companion in Mammoth! yeeehaaaw. 

Actually it's Mammoth Lakes and it is the most north, most high (elevation), most secluded, coldest, most coveted area in the whole mission. Also it is super rare to stay with your companion when you get transferred. We are excited! Soon we will be seeing snow at 8,000 feet! Mammoth Lakes is a resort town, but I'm hoping we see a saber tooth tiger or two. 

We are sad to leave Palmdale 4th ward all at once (Elder Laubaugh and Billings also got transferred)

But we are excited for our new adventure. 

All is well here, I hope all is well with each of you. 

p.s. We went hiking and saw some big horned sheep!! cool. 

Week 8 (Palmdale)

Hey what up?!1!

So this week was good, slower than I'd like, but there were good parts. I read all of Daughters in my Kingdom this week. Which is a 200 book about Relief Society. That was kinda cool. I really like Eliza R. Snow. I think she was like the 2nd General RSP? One quote that I really liked was: "Let them seek for wisdom instead of power, and they will have all the power they have wisdom to exercise." I love that! 

Also this week we had a blind man with a large white mullet do a meditative exercise with Elder Craig in which he accused him of smoking pot, that was awesome. I laughed SO hard. 

We visited with an active family, the steeles, on friday night. They have an 18 year old son with some special needs but he is really high functioning and was eager to go out and teach with us. They also have two little ones: Emily, who is 7 and Jordan who is 9. Emily was so dang cute. We asked the family how they could help other people out and be nice and she would shout things like "Tell them about Heavenly Father!" and "Tell them about the Temple!" She was really happy and such a good example. When we were leaving she looked at us and in her raspy voice she said "Isn't it sad when people don't come to church..?" YES! Yes it is! 

I still have one more week here, we'll see what happens at transfers. Here is a picture of me and Elder Laubaugh. He is Elder Billings companion and we laugh a lot. 

Much Love

Don't Limit God [Week 7] (Palmdale)

Heaaaay

This week was all over the place but I'll try and cover the good stuff. We always teach Will on Tuesday, and that is lot of fun. He has awesome faith and humility. He is struggling with understanding how important the Priesthood is, so we are asking him to pray specifically about that. We brought the Nichols with us, they are in their 70s and are so darned cute. Sister Nichols started being extremely bold in telling Will that his previous baptism didn't count and things almost got awkward. But thankfully, it was a positive lesson, and the Nichols didn't seem too racist. (we were legitimately worried about that. 

On Wednesday we tracted for a few hours. We are very picky about where we tract since our area is huge. So we looked at our area map on the wall and we both sat their for a little bit and we pointed at where we felt we should go at the same time and we both pointed in the same spot. So cool. 

Anyway we met a man named David who has a lot of faith, a lot of humility, and the best part, he has a family! We talked to him about his life and about the gospel for 45 min, and he said something I really liked. We were talking about how when we do things we need to give glory to god, because through him all things are possible. Then he said "We limit God, because we limit ourselves" Let us do our very best to never limit God! I am very guilty of this. I think, oh, this person can't get baptized or convert (because of whatever reason) But in all reality, God will work miracles through our obedience. 

Last thing. Our ward has anywhere from 130-180 people in sacrament meeting, and there are 780 records in the ward boundaries :O Turns out people don't move to Littlerock or Pearblossom to socialize or even to be found. Every less active member we visit with has a story but more importantly, a testimony. Though dormant, it can be reactivated. Hopefully it can spew its hot testimony lava all over the town's at the bottom of the volcano. Take that as you will. 

I love you all. I still have two weeks left in the transfer (at least) , since this is a seven week transfer. 

Write me letters or don't or emails or don't.

3512 Coffee Rd

Suite B 

93308

Bakersfield, CA

E. Burton

Week 6 (Palmdale)

Things are well here in California! It rained all of Saturday and Sunday, which was awesome and a real answer to a lot of peoples prayers here. I went on two more exchanges this week since Elder Craig is the District Leader.

On Tuesday Elder Laubaugh and I went to Will Burnett's house. Will is a 52 year old hilarious black man/dad/grandpa. He just got out of a battle with cancer so he is still recovering.  This is about the third time that we have taught will and it is so fun and so cool every time. When I asked Will to be baptized he responded with a muttered "aw hell yeah" !!! Yes! hahah I'm sorry but that was so nice to have him respond with confidence. We have a few more lessons to teach him but I am so excited. 

A lot of things happened this week, but I want to focus on one of them. Every single Thursday, we go to teach Sister Gurzi at four o'clock. Sister Gurzi was baptized 7 years ago and is 40 years old. She recently, within the last year or two, realized that she needs to start coming back to church. She hasn't had a real job in two years and finally she got one. Her job makes her work every Sunday, and she has been missing church every week for months.  Sister Gurzi has strong faith and really longs to be at church. She also really needed a job, she has a few children and bills to pay after all!

Why would God give her such a blessing as a job, when it forces her to break a commandment that he also gives her? I think of Adam and Eve in this situation. They were commanded to not eat the fruit, but they had to to bring forth the plan of salvation. I believe in our own ways, we all have situations like this. It can be frustrating. As Elder Holland said "Sometimes the only way to get from A to C is by way of B." God wants us to follow the commandments, but even more so he knows what he wants us to be. Sometimes, we need to go through the valley to appreciate the mountain top. 

If anyone wants to write me letters or wants me to write them letters, send me your address! 

Elder Burton