January 13, 2014

Querida Famailia Burrup, Pratt, and Merrill. 

Glad to hear the funeral was excellent and that laurel and janae were able to attend. I wanted to attend a whole bunch. I have a pictue with grandpa the night of the setting apart that i cherish. I wish i coulda been there. I just wanna hear him say shoot or see his toothless smile or hear him yell during a byu football game :) Thanks steve for being a good example and trooper with the kiddos. And nicole having a baby right now. I hope the baby will hurry and pop out so they can send me a picture before i have to go! tehe. Laurel glad to hear that you went on a date without being completely awkward tehe. Laurel thanks for the pictures. i feel good when i receive pictures. Janae thank you thank you for your email too. That is way cool you got to talk to the stanford basketball team, way legit :) The words of called to serve really are sacred and special.

Thanks for the dear elders crawfords and thanks for the package bruce and lisa. It is awesome to receive letters i feel very loved :) 

Couple things from down here in san borja. Well lots of things. todavia we don't have una pencionista. And presidente might sacarnos tomorrow. Might.....take us out or tansfer us because we had some struggles this week because we fasted because we didnt have food. So that is not good and we communicated with our liders and stuff so we might get taken out. In part was we actually had days full of citas and there was no time to eat so i would rather have citas than lunch. But we have to eat to work or we cannot work effectively or hard. We talked to hna ardila and she told us this is a great opportunity to develop some faith. tehe. Kinda a little tap on the head and where is your faith like the savior did many times in the new testament. But one day i was particualary hungry and i expressed my hunger to elder hernandez and he told me that its alright and we prayed and asked for the lord to provide and the following cita the lady gave us food :) it was quite the experience. 

We had a baptism 2 yesterdays! This is the old investigador rodrigo that has been interested for a while. We really didnt do anything besides the entrevista but we had a baptism nonetheless in san borja. It was an excellent service. 2 general authorities from the 70, which is kinda cool, one is in my ward but he retired form the 70 a little bit ago and the other the neighboring ward. 

So yesterday we taught an hna that was baptized but told us it was an error. She was baptized about 2 years ago more or less and we have taught here weekly and she is the bomb diggity but we are working with her testimony about a few things, joseph smith and the trinidad and other questions. Yesterday i bore a simple testimony of joseph smith, the first vision, and the godhead. The spirit was amazingly powerful. The spirit testified. The feelings of the spirit are wonderful and glorious. I have had a few experiences with testimonies like that this week. so beautiful. My invitation is to bear a simple testimony this week. Love you all so much! :) send pictures of all my sobrinos and sobrina and another sobrina de hoy :)

Con carino

Elder Burrup

La fe es el poder, la obediencia el precio el amor es el motivo el espiritu es la clave y cristo la razon. Presidente Hinckley 

January 6, 2014

Before I post Christian's email, I thought I'd share the email he received from our Dad today:

 "Well, son, I have to say, the Plan of Salvation, the mortal purposes for which we are here, and the role of the Savior are very preeminent in my mind.  This is because my father, your grandfather, Max S. Burrup, passed away this evening.  He returned to his Heavenly Father, joining his beautiful wonderful bride, my mom, around 8:45 PM tonight.  He had been ill these last couple of days with temperature, a little worsening, and then fairly worse this evening.  I was with Uncle Scott (Dickinson) and we got him to the ER.  In the ER it confirmed he was low on oxygen, etc., he seemed to do well the initial 1+ hours in the ER, then fairly rapid decline over about 7-10 minutes.  There must have been some heart problem that was taxed to the max and "gave out" -- blood pressures went down, pulse went down (usually goes up), and then right before our eyes he stopped breathing.  I chose not to have resuscitation.  We let him go without trying to "rescue" him from being called back to the spirit world.  Anyway, he didn't suffer or linger, and in the end, this is a blessing and tender mercy.  It was a little quick and a little unexpected, for all or most of us, and I think for him.  But I am so happy that he can be with Mom again, and see his parents and brothers and sisters that have passed on before.  I am grateful that he didn't linger with even poorer health, languish in an invalid state, have significant pain, and so on.  But sometimes it is hard to believe that these 54 years, the father of this mortal body that houses my spirit, has "gone the way of all the earth".  His life I remember, revere, respect, and will reconstruct in words and records.  Know that I am doing very well.  I feel at peace.  If you think about it, pray for [all of] us as a family that this be a time of love, respect, unity, understanding, and rejoicing in the Gospel and our testimonies of eternal families and the Plan of Happiness.  I trust that it will be.  We have so much to be grateful for.  I will miss him.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me to have been born under his tutelage and example.  I am so thankful he married Mom...."

So that's the big news he received today.  Christian was close to Grandpa and loved him so much.  He's named after him! Christian Max Burrup, my dad even calls him C-max :)  I know the Lord blesses his missionaries and will bless him with peace.  

Now for his wonderfully entertaining and uplifting email.  He's quite the writer, no?

Wow. i dont know where to start....i am sitting in my little cubicle with the computer bawling my eyes. I thought of something.....the sweet baby girl of jon and nicole is probably with grandpa and grandma right now. I feel it. I know this is a blessing. When i read that grandpa had passed away my heart stopped. I wanted so bad to see him again. Hear his voice and see him smile. I am going to miss him dearly. So so so much. But i know how much he has missed grandma and he is in the spirit world with her. I am teaching about the plan of salvation, every aspect everything of this wonderful plan that now i really really need to believe and feel. I feel....I KNOW that the plan of salvation is real and we can be with grandpa and grandma again.

Hang in there dad and cousins and aunts and uncles. Use this time as a time to draw closer to the Savior and strengthen your testimonies in his glorious plan. 

Dad good job in your missionary efforts. It really is pretty easy huh? I hope you are hanging in there. I am praying for you! 

Mom what a tender mercy in the temple at boise as well. Wow. i am so glad you followed that prompting. You were the Lords sent servant in that specific time for that sister in the church. Now that you were an angel you were the lords hands at that specific time. 

So something i expressed to Janae is that i feel like i am at home in the mission now. It is a wonder feeling :) so this week was a little rough, i was frustrated with the language and jospeh left on vacaciones and wont return for more than a month. so we didnt have very much. But this week was full of miracles. First....yesterday at church none of our investgadores or people we invited came but 5 people came and a 6 and menos acitvo later because of the members! They came with families! This week we are chalk full with citas! We can see the hand of the Lord in san borja it is glorious. So we are working alot con the miembros of the ward and so we had the list and so i thought we had visited everyone on this street and we were walking away but i felt prompted to check the list again so i did and saw that we missed a family. So i told elder hernandez and so we went. This women is courageous. Her husband has a duro heart, just so hard like a rock. He doesn't want the missionaries in the house so the hermana has a seperate part outside with couches and everything for people of the church. We were sent there to comfort her and help  her. She explains to us her problems and sadnesses and Elder Hernandez made a promise in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that if she were to do a couple things, fhe. prayer. scriptures that the heart of her husband and family would be softened. The spirit was so so so strong. It was beautiful. We have been blessed with the hand of the Lord. We are seeing miracles and the fruits of our labors. At church we called out of our class and the hermano nos dijo "i am a menos active and want to reunite with the church and my daughter wants to be baptized." What a miracle. Another experience with visiting a family, we went and her sister was there, she isnt a member, but she told us that this past week her husbands leg got amputated. We taught her a little and agian promised as representatives of jesus christ. The spirit was so strong. I feel good in the mission. More natrual and the spanish is coming along :)

Jon and nicole, excited to see pictures of your baby girl next week! I want lots of pictures and dont forget to tell me her name :) I am praying for you guys!

I'll be praying for dad and the family too. Have hope in the Plan 

Con carino y amor

Hurrah por Israel

Elder Burrup

P.S. Thanks for the letters Marissa, Annalise, and Monika. Monika i am stoked that you finally got your call! Boise Idaho. You were right i started laughing...alot tehe. Congrats :)

December 30, 2013

Wowziers what a great week :) Firstly, christmas was awesome to talk to everyone and hear your voices and smiling faces and hear your laughs and advice :) Couple things i forgot about christmas that are funny-- christmas eve....fireworks the WHOLE night. It was crazy. In serious a constant boom from about 11 at night to 3 or 4 in the morning it was insane! I didnt have any problems with sleeping but elder Hernandez didnt sleep. and at 2 in the morning a ward missionary, joven called us and wished us happy christmas and we were like WHAA why are you callling us at 2 in the morning. I was freaking out because i thought it was presidente or a lider saying there was changes or somthieng! Tehe. One thing i remembered from the call was porcause. Im laughing right now. Hilarious. [he's referring to our family skype session on Christmas.  He was having a hard time speaking English clearly and he said "porcause" a mixture of english 'because' and spanish 'porque'] My mind gets confused a times--mixing because and porque. Pretty funny. But no worries im not feeling even a lick of homesickness its all good and im stoked for a whole complete year of the obra de salvacion :) A whole year of being a missionaary. Awesome. 

So we have been trying to visit every ward member and train them, or teach them. (not quite sure how to explain it in english:) tehe i dont know the word in english sorry) But yesterday we received a whole boatload of referencias. It was seriously the cooles thing every. And another kid walked up to us in the street and asked us if we could teach him! :) We had a couple other people in the street stop us and ask us questions. So so cool seeing the Lords hand in his work. We are going to work with and teach the members that gave us the referencies and go visit their friends and neighbors. So excited. Elder Bednar said that the members are full time look forers. searchers (buscadores) y the missioneros are full time teachers. The work is truly WITH the members. Real work is in and through the members. There is not 2 teams of the work of salvacion, members and missionarys. There is one team, one objective one work. To open the doors of the celestial kingdom for other people. It is the same vineyard of the Lord. And i also testify of that the Lord is working side by side with us in His vineyard. I have no doubt about it. Good work with Ed, he can tell there is a little something. Keep it up :) I sure love you guys a whole ton! Remember to work with the Elders and the Lord in His work of Salvacion. 

Hurrah For Israel

Elder Burrup

P.S. No worries with Elder Hernandez, everything is fine and good :) we are working together and all is good :) I remembered the advice from Bishop Nelson and it helped me. Love you all :)

The Gospel in Peru

Found this on LDS.org and thought it was neat. I love that Christian is part of this great work in such an incredible place!