1st Week in Spokane, Washington Mission

Ok so a lot has happened since the last email.. About 8 hours after I sent it we got our reassignments.. We all got sent to different areas.. 3 to salt lake, 3 to Montana, 2 to Boise Idaho, 3 to Colorado Springs, and 2 to Spokane Washington! So I am now in Spokane and lovin it! so last Monday I left for the airport at 5:00 am and had an hour and a half flight and when I landed my mission president and his wife were there waiting for us.. It was me and Sister Adams that came so we got some funny looks in the salt lake airport and one guy asked if the church had changed policy and let elders and sisters be companions.. It was pretty funny.. so my new president's name is Larsen, they are really nice, he was born in New Zealand and went to the church college over there so as soon as he found out I'm a Biesinger he was excited! So the first day we went over to the temple and met some of the elders and hung out with the president and his assistants for a while then I got set up with my new companions.. Elder Bertoch and Elder Itgel.. they’re really cool, Elder Itgel is from Mongolia so I was pretty excited bout that, I stayed in the Spokane Valley by the way, i'm only about ten minutes away from the mission office.. So Mondays are preparation days so we played ultimate frisbee for a little bit then hung out for a little while gettin to know everyone. then we started talking about our plans for the night and turns out we had a lesson planned so I got kinda excited/nervous about that then I found out that we were going to be teaching the law of chastity so I though it was pretty funny that my first lesson in the field is gonna be on that.. So we went to the girl’s house, named Jessica, and started talking to her and what not, and we started talking about the law of chastity and she just kinda laughed and said that it was dumb and made us change the subject.. So we did and then after a little bit she started talking about demons and weird stuff like that and was acting all weird so we asked her if she was drinking and of course she was, so we left.. So that was my first lesson haha! Then the next day we taught a couple different lessons.. Taught about the Book of Mormon, which went really well, it was to this young couple that seemed really interested.. Then we went over to another investigator's house and taught them the word of wisdom, it went pretty well, they didn’t understand the reason for tea but they agreed with everything else. The husband said that he doesn’t want to give up smoking just yet but we'll see what happens.. Also I had my first experience with tracting that day, Tuesday, it was interesting.. We tracted into some interesting people.. then on Wednesday we had zone conference which was really good and learned a lot of stuff then that night we went back to the lady’s house, Jessica and talked to her about the word of wisdom and she said that she would quit smoking and wants to try the church's 7 steps to quit smoking program so that will be good... so since Elder Itgel is from Mongolia and is learning English, he has an hour of language study everyday so I started doing that with him and its super nice because he can help me with Mongolian and I can help him with English, and during the day while we were out and about we would talk Mongolian to each other.. by the way that area is a bike area but since I hadn’t planned on going stateside I of course don’t have a bike so we just walked all around town, which was good because we were able to talk to a lot of people on the street but it was pretty tiring, especially since all I've been doing for the past 11 weeks is sitting in a classroom. But the area is fairly small, just covered one ward, the Sullivan ward.. So on Thursday we had an elder in our district that went home because of medical issues and so since I was in a threesome I got transferred to take this elders place. Which was kinda disappointing because I was looking forward to being with the Mongolian elder, but it’s alright because my new companion, Elder Wilson is pretty cool.. so my new area where I will be for the rest of my time here covers two wards and is a pretty big area, so we have a car but we are limited to a certain amount of miles per month so we've been biking instead of driving.. I’m using the elder's bike that went home.. So we've done a lot of tracting and I’m getting kinda used to it.. It’s not as bad as I envisioned it.. we only taught a couple lessons on the restoration which went pretty good to some foreign exchange student from Germany so we'll see what happens there, we tracted into some good people who have some potential.. So everything is going really good, I like being out in the field talking to real people.. so far I've been cussed at, stuff thrown at me, and people trying to chase us away, but those are always fun, I get a good laugh at it.. Well I look forward to this coming week and the things we've got planned! Love ya!

Phone call from Greg

The last email was sent to us on September 17th. That afternoon Greg called us and told us that he had been reassigned and was leaving on Monday September 21st. He was able to call because he wouldn't be able to email us before leaving. It was great to hear from him. He was very excited. He was assigned to the Spokane Washington Mission. He said there were a few Mongolian missionaries there but he didn't know if he would be assigned to be a companion to one. On Monday morning around 7 a.m. he called us from the airport. We had a nice visit and he gave us the new address. Here it is:

Washington Spokane Mission
Elder Greg Burns
820 S. Pines Rd. Suite 101
Spokane Valley WA 99206-5420

He sounded very upbeat and excited. So send him some mail. I will post his apartment address as soon as we hear. We haven't heard anything else. I don't think we will get an email this week. We don't know when his new p-day will be. We think it might be on Monday's. Katie says usually you fly out on the p-day. Keep him in your prayers. We send our love to you all.

Greg's Mom

10th week in the MTC

Well today is the last preparation day before we take off!! Last Thursday we got our flight plans! We leave from the MTC at 5am and our plan leaves at 8 to Los Angeles, then we have a three hour layover then we head to South Korea for a three hour layover then onto Mongolia!! So ya those came to us Thursday night. Our lesson that we taught on Friday went really good, probably our best one yet! Then right after we taught we did our normal ritual and went over to the travel office and got some otter pops! The lady in the office has a daughter that went to Mongolia on her mission so she really likes us! So while we were in the office we were informed that our visas will not be going through on time and as of right now there’s not an ending in sight.. So for that reason, they told us that we are getting reassigned somewhere stateside temporarily until our visas come through.. We haven’t found out yet where we're all going to but we will probably be all spread out across the country.. They said that reassigning goes through the same process as getting our first assignment, so it’s pretty much like getting a call all over again! It’s kinda cool and we're all pretty nervous and anxious to find out where we end up! It will definitely be weird because we've spent the past 10 weeks learning Mongolian, how to teach in Mongolian, and how to teach to Buddhists and atheists.. So now we gotta teach in English, to Christians.. It’ll be interesting ha-ha!! But we know that Heavenly Father has a reason in mind for having us go stateside for a little while, and we are all determined to find out what that reason is! So ya the next few weeks are definitely going to be interesting. I just hope that I don’t loose too much of my Mongolian!! But we did find out that there are roughly 30 Mongolian missionaries serving in the state so that means chances are pretty good that we'll be put with a Mongolian companion! Ha-ha I wish that was true, that would be awesome!! But like I said, there’s a reason for it, so imp not too concerned bout it, I know that the Lord will bless me! So my next email to you will be in my new area, kinda weird to think that there’s life outside this MTC! Alright so, moving on.. On Tuesday night for our devotional, we had my favorite apostle come and talk to us! That’s right, Elder Holland came!! I've literally been praying everyday since I got here that he would come, and he did!! His talk was awesome! Definitely got me pumped to get out there and start teaching real people everyday!! Everything he said and talked about rang true in my heart and in my soul, it was an incredible message and I'm so grateful that I could be here for it! Well that’s all the news I got for this week, my emails from now on will be completely different as I’ll be out teaching and bringing people to Christ! I look forward to telling everyone all about my experiences in the upcoming couple of weeks and the upcoming couple of years, I really appreciate all of your support and love, it has helped me through the hard times, and yes there has definitely been hard times, but I am grateful for all of you and am anxious to hear how all of you are doing! I love you
-Elder Burns

Nineth Week in MTC

Alright so I’ve been tryin to do this for like a month now but I never have enough time at the end so I decided to start it at the beginning and give everyone a little taste of Mongolian.. here’s my nametag..
Ахлагч Борнс
ЕСУС ХРИСТИЙН
Хожмын Уеийн
Гэгээнтнуудийн Сум
so that’s pretty much it, there’s a couple of letters that didn’t work so I had to replace them! Well last week my companion and I had the opportunity to teach a real live Mongolian family! it was a husband and wife with an 18 month old baby and the husband's sister.. It was awesome! one thing that got me excited was that I could actually understand most everything the husband said, but nothin the other two said haha but that’s alright that’s what my companion is for! But it went really good, they were super funny, they’re awesome people! Then after that we taught two other Mongolians and two returned missionaries and that went super good.. It was the best teaching experience I’ve had yet! that was on Friday.. On Sunday and Monday too i had awesome teaching experiences too just with other missionaries.. We’ve started preparing two minute uplifting messages for other missionaries because we know how hard it is and how discouraging it can be so we’ve started praying to be able to find those missionaries that will need to hear our message, then we just start walkin around and follow the spirit.. its awesome! Well we've also started going Mongolian full time! its been pretty fun and I’ve learned a lot but there’s sooooo much that I don’t know and it gets pretty frustrating when trying to explain what I wanna say!! but oh well, it will come. We’ve also started teaching a progressive investigator.. We’ll teach the same person almost daily so we're lookin forward to that. So guess what!! we get our flight plans today!! And if all goes well and no visa delays.. We got less then 2 weeks left and then we'll be in Mongolia!! Well I love you all and hope to hear from ya soon, i love teaching and am anxious to be doing it full time.. love ya

Eighth Week in the MTC

Well we're eight weeks in now and only a few more days till we go completely Mongolian speaking! not too sure how ready I am for it but it'll be fun.. One thing I forgot to mention last week is that I was made the new district leader. There’s 7 different districts in our zone.. Two Indonesian speaking, one Malagasy, one Mongolian, and three English so I was made the district leader over the Mongolians last Sunday. So things have been going pretty good there! well if there’s no visa delays then I only have two more emails to send after today.. weird.. and then its off to Mongolia!! hopefully I’ll feel a bit more ready to go then i do now.. I feel like my speaking is doing alright, but my listening comprehension definitely needs works.. my companion elder marquis had a really good listening comprehension which I’m really grateful for while we're teaching the lessons because he can jump right on the answer.. so I’m hopin the two weeks of straight Mongolian will help me out with that. well our lesson last week went pretty good, it was the first one that both of us, elder marquis and i, went into it without any notes and it turned out pretty good.. so I’m pretty sure we're gonna be doing that from now on.. it makes it a
lot more enjoyable because your not so focused on what your gonna say but your focused on the person you’re teaching.. so this week for our devotional we had elder Sybrowsky come talk to us, it was cool because that same day he asked 3 of the aposltes what they want him to tell us, so it was like hearing from four different people.. the message was really good and i had a really good experience during it that has changed my attitude for the better! Oh ya I almost forgot.. we got a new teacher this week.. Brother Mortensen.. he just got off his mission from Mongolia two months ago, he’s really great.. we had to get another teacher because sister Marta, our native teacher, graduated from byu a couple weeks ago so she because of her student visa situation she’s not allowed to work here anymore. Well my time is up i love you all