5th week in the Spokane Washington Mission

Hello! alright so when I got put here at the end of September we didn’t really have very many people to teach, in fact it took about 4 days before we even taught a lesson. so we really focused our efforts in the month of October in finding new people to teach. Well, the Lord has blessed us this month with 17 new investigators and as of right now we have two people on date to be baptized on Nov 7th!! This passed week we started teaching this girl named Natasha and she is loving everything and so we extended to her the commitment to be baptized and she accepted! so now we are meeting with her 3 times a week to make sure she is taught everything and has a testimony on those things. Well I mentioned last week that we got another companion, Elder Smith, well he had some health problems these past couple weeks and so they decided to send him home, so now its back down to Elder Wilson and I. Elder Smith is a great missionary, he really taught well and with the spirit, we wish him luck as he recovers! Well I’ve been here for five weeks now and I’m lovin it! we've been blessed with a way good month that has great potentials for this upcoming month so we are definitely excited!! Well I know that in missionary work there are no coincidences and so i know that there is a reason why I’m in Spokane right now other than Mongolia, so I made it a goal and I’ve been praying to find the reason why I’ve been sent here. Well I’m happy to say the answer has come! There’s an 18 year old guy who hasn’t come to church in a long time. the Lord wants him to go on a mission and on Wednesday while we were meeting with him the Spirit told me that he is the reason why I’ve been sent here, to prepare him to go on a mission. I think that that was the most spiritual lessons I’ve been involved with so far on my mission. its amazing how well the Lord knows each one of us and loves each on of us so much, and Cody, that He would stop me from going to Mongolia so that I can talk to him and help prepare him and let him know of the great blessings that come from serving the Lord. I know that He knows and loves each of us so much and so well, beyond what we can comprehend, my testimony of that grows more and more each day as I watch what people He places in our path. I'm grateful to have this opportunity to serve him in His work! I love you
-Elder Burns

4th week in the Spokane, Washington Mission

I made it through my first transfer! transfers are tomorrow and Elder Wilson and I are staying together so I'm happy about that, and we are also getting a third companion named Elder Smith so that will be cool. Well we had a really good week. We found 7 new investigators and taught about 20 lessons. We had a way good lesson with this guy named Nick, he’s 18, we taught him about the restoration and then I asked him to be baptized and he agreed! So that will be on Nov. 7! so now we are gonna meet with him a few times a week and make sure he’s really ready to make that covenant and make sure he understands everything that it involves! We’ve become way good friends with this awesome member family named the Schlerfs, they are way cool and have amazing testimonies.. So we are going to introduce Nick to them to get him some friends in our ward. Nick is in the 22nd ward so that will be really good because they haven't had a baptism in a couple years. We also had a way good lesson with a less active 18 year old in the 15th ward named Cody and we went with one of the high priests, Brother Kunz (he’s pretty closely related to President Monson!) anyways, Brother Kunz pretty much straight up told Cody that he needs to go on a mission, so we had a good lesson about that and I was able to tell him about my experience and why I decided to serve a mission and gave him Doctrine and Covenants 31 to have him read and pray about and he said he would and things are looking good there. Another new investigator we got this week is Jeff, he’s a manager for an apartment complex that we tracted one day, so that’s good because usually the managers just kick us out, but we taught him the restoration and he seemed open to it and we explained the Book of Mormon to him and he said he was going to read it before we ever even gave it to him so that was exciting, we haven’t been able to have a follow up lesson yet but were hoping for tomorrow and we'll get his thoughts on everything, and teach him the plan of salvation. So ya, a lot of good things will be happening in the next couple of weeks that I’m really excited for. Tonight we are teaching the German girl, Sarah, again and we are doing a family home evening with her and the family she is staying with. Well we had our meeting with Elder Bednar on Saturday. It was awesome!! It was cool because there wasn’t any lecture or prepared talk or anything like that, it was just a whole 3 hours of questions and answers with him. For most of the time it was him asking the questions but then he opened it up for us to be able to ask him questions, he said for the most part never again will we have an opportunity like this where we can ask an apostle of the Lord any question we want. So ya.. That was awesome!! But he did make us promise to not really repeat anything that was said in the meeting, so just know that it was a very spiritual experience, one that I’ll never forget. I know this church is true, I know that Elder Bednar is literally Jesus Christ's apostle and that President Monson is Gods prophet to the world today. There is no question, there is no doubt.
I love you
Burns

3rd Week in Spokane Washington Mission

Well week three here in Spokane Washington! Our teaching is starting to pick up which is awesome!! We had some way good lessons this past week. On Tuesday we taught this boy that’s eleven years old that wants to join our church and is going to scouts and everything, we read Enos with him and committed him to pray each day. There’s a foreign exchange student from Germany staying with a member and she was confused about our religion so we started teaching her and then this last Wednesday we showed her the restoration DVD in German and things started making a lot more sense to her and we gave her a German book of Mormon so things are progressing there. Then we met with her again yesterday for a little bit at church and she brought her friend Nina who is also from Germany and we gave her a german book of Mormon. Then on Thursday we met with this guy named west. West is a rapper, he’s actually really good and has an album and is in the process of making a video. Anyways he said that our visits with him have inspired him in a lot of his songs and that his life is going way better then it used to. He asked us to share our testimonies with him and our reason why we decided to serve a mission and while we did he took notes and said that he’s going to use our experiences. I had a strong impression to share with him Helamen 5 where it talks about having a sure foundation in Christ, but right as I was about to share it with him my companion elder Wilson said that he wanted to share a scripture with him so I got a little disappointed but then he started explaining the scripture and it turns out we were sharing the same scripture, so that was a really cool experience and West was able to open up to us and share about his turning point in life. He’s an awesome guy and we're starting to see some progress with him. Then on Friday we taught a guy named Jeffrey. He looks identical to my brother Phil, same exact facial features.. He’s just about six inches taller and about 100 pounds heavier.. But it’s actually kind of scary how similar he looks. Well we taught him about the book of Mormon and some basic beliefs of the church and we gave him the family proclamation pamphlet and I'm excited to go see him again, he’s a super super nice guy. Well here’s some news for ya about the mission.. On Saturday elder Bednar is coming to do a mission tour!! So I’m gonna be able to meet him and we have like a three hour meeting with him so we are all way excited about that! Well I’m excited for the upcoming events here, its gonna be a good week, we have a lot of good things planned and we've set some awesome goals! I love you!

2nd Week in Spokane Washington Mission

I can’t believe another week has gone by already!! I think this was my fastest week yet! Kind of crazy! Well things are going ok, nothing really too exciting to report on.. We taught a few lessons, not as much as I was hoping, but it’s alright.. My Mongolian is pretty much slipping away and there's not really much I can do about it, but I'm sure that once I get into the country it'll all come rushing back.. Conference was really good! We got to see all the sessions but one at the stake center and then one at a member’s house, it was so good! Definitely grateful for that extra boost, I definitely need it! So we keep getting told that our area is cursed with no baptisms cuz there hasn’t been one in a couple years.. So I've made it my goal that by the time my visa comes through, we'll have at least one investigator on date. So prayers concerning that would be helpful! so one lady that we taught is extremely educated in religion and has absolutely zero faith, she would tell you that she’s full of faith, but if she cant see factual evidence of something, it doesn’t exist, its really frustrating, but she is at least willing to listen, even though everything we tell her she shoots down because she cant see any evidence on it, but that’s just when we bare testimony and leave it at that, I don’t know, I’ve got a few ideas for her so we'll see how it goes, her and her husband are extremely nice people and say they always invite missionaries in, but for now, she is WAY too prideful to be taught. We did tract into some good potentials that we are going to see this week so I’m excited bout that! Well I love you all and you are all in my prayers! I’ll do my best to make next week's email more interesting!!

Love ya!

Elder Burns

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