Six Months

HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my goodness, I was so happy to get those pictures. I was so so so excited.  Ky, that outfit is CLASSIC Italian. You look good, brother! 

The poster is too much for me! I L.O.V.E. it!!!

Well. What can I say. This week, my testimony of the Plan of Salvation grew a thousand billion times over. I have had very sacred experiences studying the scriptures, teaching others, and understanding more and more about the plan of God in our lives. I know what is coming after this life, and I want and need to give it all I can in this life so that I can achieve that vision after this life. 

I really really love having a Mexican companion because I am having a really hard time thinking in English right now. Haha. How cool that I am starting to master this language. I would say I am fluent now. It´s such a blessing from Heavenly Father. 

Sorry this letter is so random, it´s just all of my thoughts in one. 

Well... So good to see Bubby home and healthy and happy. So happy to see all of the people that came to greet him in the airport. How fast two years went by, no? I officially have 6 months as a missionary and it went by so fast! Luckily I still have a long time to become better and to touch more lives. We are having a lot of success here in Huatabampo. We have another friend that is going to enter the waters of baptism this Saturday, his name is M and he is 20 years old, he is seriously SOOO golden. It´s so amazing because I have been part of the process from receiving his reference (from a member, GIVE REFERENCES TO THE MISSIONARIES) until now, when we are preparing for his baptism. He knows, knows, knows it´s true, reads the Book of Mormon every day and loves it, prays every day, and is being blessed for it. His parents are super mad, they don´t want him to have anything to do with the mormons, but he said, I know it´s true, I am going to do it anyway, and we meet in the capilla for the lessons now. Chapel in english. I am so happy to be an instrument in the Lord in bringing one of his beloved sons back home to him! And there is a temple trip in March and M is super pumped and is preparing to go to the temple! Haha, before his baptism...talk about golden. 

Well.. let´s see what else. Oh! I know. So after I received the news about Nathan it was incredibly rough... I was having a really hard time and wanted to call my mom. But I know that it´s not part of the guidelines that we had and so I decided to call the closest thing that I had to a parent here in the mission, my mission president. I called him and told him what happened and everything that I had been feeling, and really he just talked to me like a father. He cared. He listened. He gave me advice. And I was so so grateful that this church has organization and that Presidente M was called to be my mission president, that I was called to this mission, and grateful for this trial that God had given me in my life. 

Also we were in one of the members houses when she pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of me and Nathan and Hannah and Steven at homecoming. She was looking on the internet she said, and found an article that Nathan´s dad wrote that someone had translated into spanish and it had the picture as part of the article. I was amazed. I hadn´t told her about Nathan or anything... and it was funny because my companion said how did you know it was her? and the hermana said, are you kidding me? have you seen that face? It´s exactly the same... hahaha oh woman, story of my life. 

Like I said, I love Huatabampo. It´s seriously like my other home.  The Lord has taught me so much here, and I have been through so much here, and I am just so happy to be a missionary and to be able to serve the Lord. I was reading in the Book of Mormon this morning and had this revelacion that I wrote in my study journal, that we are literally less than the dust of the earth, but we are children of the Lord and that He loves us. and that this is JESUS´s EARTH! It´s his. And I am serving His mission. I am doing His will. Every day I am more and more and more converted to that fact that He is real. And that this is his Church, the only true and living Church in the earth. I am so blessed to be a part of sharing it with the people. 

Of course it´s sad when people reject the message, when menos activos don´t want to return to true happiness and when we walk for hours on end without any success, but still at the end of the day there is that feeling inside of, I did good cause I did the will of God. I fought for His cause, you know? And when you are doing that, well, you never lose. 

I love you so so much and am so grateful for everything. Give my love to the McBrides every time you see them. I know where Nathan is, and I am content, but I just want them to know that I love them. 

I love my dear family and know I´ll see you all again one day, but in the meantime, God has a lot of work for me to do here. 

6 months young and still going, 
Hermana Burton