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!

December 23, 2013

So.....wow there is alot that goes down in the mission :) alot to say! Hmmm where to begin? Well....i dont have my camera so i can't send pictures of the week sorry! But we had the mission christmas party and it was way cool :) Got some presents and went to the park of the waters or something like that and its a park full of fancy fountains and way cool stuff and light show thingy kinda like at disney land. It was way cool, but i'll send the pictures next week. We ate a buffet and it was glorious :) So i forgot my name this week, in my head i am now Elder Bururp. It was hilarious. Couple of things that are awesome, so yesterday at church an investigador ancient came to church. We were waiting for ward counsel to start and we saw him waiting near the bishops office and we asked what he was doing and he told us he was waiting for an interview wiht the bishop because he wanted to be baptized. We started grinning and the members that were near were staring wide eyed and mouths agape. It was awesome. Our investigador Joseph asked if he could be baptized yesterday too :) it was so awesome! He told us last week that he would come to church on his own yesterday and we thought he probably wasnt going to come. But after the sacrament he walked in :) It made my day :) He made friends in the church too. We taught him about the LDM (libro de mormon) last night too and he said he would read and we are going to invite him to be baptized. I am so so so excited :) Yesterdya too i had the opportunity to participate in a priesthood ordianiation with a recent convert. It was so so so good. I felt the spirit so so strong. It was an amazing experience. Mom i am going to call later today im pretty sure for the precall to set stuff up. I am so excited :) not sure when but its going to happen. And skype if we can, but....i dont have a skype account! So when i call have ready a skype account from jon or laurel or janae or someone that i can barrow for christmas. So excited  :) So happy for David! Woot woot. That is awesome. Mexico. What what. And Helen leaves that soon!? Whaa. So exciting. So happy for the Browns and theri boys as well :) what a happy and glorious time. Thanks for the notes from tanner and austin :) and pictures. Janae that is so awesome Nate said his prayer about baptism and church :) what a cute little buddy. Sounds like you guys had a cool experience with the edlers and giving christmas to those families :) Good job with the missionaries!

Mom my package is in serpost right now and after this i am going ot the office to sign a power of attorny so they can get it! So stoked. Thanks mom :) Sounds like Andrew is doing well and so happy for him as well :) I miss all my cousins as well :) Laurel i cracked up about how mormon. org denied your profile because the use of slang en spanish. Hilarious

Romanos 12:1-2 says that we need to give a sacrafice of our bodies to the Lord. (Sounds wierd in enlgish, look up the scripture and read it :) sorry) and then in mosiah 2:34 que we need to entergarle todo lo que TENEIS y SOIS. Meaning give everything we HAVE and ARE. I love these scriptures as they command us to live the law of consegration. Sometimes as a missionary you do "give your body to God" because somethimes we dont eat, this week havent had clean clothes, freezing cold water to shower, sleep, walking everything. But....i am so so HAPPY :) in mosiah it says we need ot give everything we have and are. I love this and how it says who you are! We need to change our nature not our behavior. Change our minds and thoughts feelings. Change the natrual man, desires and heart. And in verse 2 of romanos that if we do this we can become transformed. I want to be transformed. In mateo22:14 dice que many people are called but few are choosen. I dont know if this is bad but i want to be chosen. I want to be transformed. I want to give my ALL like Andrew said. Its difficult like you said dad about mike. I have no idea how he could have done it. So very difficult in germany but give everything i have to the kingdom of God. 

So glad to hear about another miracle with dads scans :) we are so very blessed :) 

Hurrah for Israel

Feliz Navidad 

Elder Burrup

P.S. i forgot something but i cant remember! Ahhh...hmmmm well. I sure love you guys os much :) 

December 16, 2013

What a crazy crazy week :) I absolutely love the missionary life :)   Elder Hernandez calls me Elder Cain because of my hairy arms and the little kids think its teh coolest strangest thing ever and always touch it and stuff kinda funny :) and i am getting way chunky! tehe. In serious i am chubby now :) after meals with members, when we have tyhem :) i have to loosen my belt and unbutton my pants :) Other cool thing is remember mom when  was reading the church news and i told you how they were making that new stake in lima....im serving in it :) way cool and its kinda cool and historically because its the 100th stake in peru! Santa Patricia.

Jon you are not going to believe this....i saw and hugged Presidente Mora! I wanted to take a picture but i didnt havbe my camera! He told me yo uneeded to write him especially because he didnt know you were married!alejandro.mora@ldschurch.org I think thats what he told me. Pretty cool. 

I'm loving here. I've had a couple really cool experiences. So i can't remember if i told you this but one day i was a little bummed because we had nobody, hardly anybody wants to hear the gospel in san borja and nobody in their houses or anything and i asked elder hernandez where all the chosen people? where are the people the lord has promised? the field seems so green green green i see no white. But the lord has promised us that it would white. The next day we were walking and a jovencito of 12 years asked us who were who we represent the whole shabang. He came to church with us this sunday and everything :) golden. Yesterday a different guy showed up a church and said he wanted to get to know the church a little better and he is pretty much a member he just needs to be baptized! But this week we are gonna work hard. Also i had the opportunity to go on divisions with an ap :) kinda strange but because there was a missionary choir thing and i couldn't do it cause i'm a nuevo and he didn't want to do it so he was my comp. It was way cool! He is from chile and has red hair :) but i learned a ton and i participated in a leccion with a family and it was glorious! :) i could speak the language and share scriptures and everything! I felt the spirit so so so strong :) It was amazing!

Thanks for the pictures janae :) loved them! Sounds and looks like you guys had a blast :) 

Mom tell my friends to shoot me an email about their mission calls....or wedding announcments. Whichever comes first. tehe :) 

Sure miss you guys and hope the christmas season finds you well! I miss eggnog :) tehe. 

And i have homework for everyone or for fhe. Read dyc 38:40-42 and marcus 2-1-12 and find the connection about member missionary work. Here in the mission we have a couple dealios of the mission. First the missionary objetivo of course but this is our motto in english :) In the mission peru lima east we baptize and confirm converso weekly, and to acheive this we have some punts that we recite every morning and one of them is to work with members and liders. I know this is were the true work is and the lasting work and lasting conversos. A rule we have that is kinda cool in the mission is every day every minute todo el tiemp we have our book of mormon in our hand. ALWAYS. The mission gave us forros and its el maximo :)

Hurrah for Israel

with love

Elder Burrup

san borja is loaded with christmas stuff sometimes it feels like new york and there are a ton of parks like central park. Chevere 

our breakfast and sometimes dinner and lunhc, juice yougur and ceral :)

miembro bought uys sandwiches one night and they were HUGE but here in peru they spell sandwich sanguaches...its hilarious :)

doughnuts thingies with my sanguaches :)

Dec 10, 2013

Oh how i love the mission. Couple things before i forget, I need a zucchini bread recipe for an old abuelita that feeds us. Another crazy thing that's hilarious is we were walking to a menos activo house and all the sudden i heard a TON of screaming and i started ducking cause i thought some people were getting shot up or something or there was a riot or fight but Everybody was yelling and i heard i bunch of things smashing and people hollering out their windows and then i heard someone yell GOOOAAALLLL :) and i realize that everbody was watching a futbol game :) tehe, Me and my comp started laughing so hard. So my companero is AWESOME. He has 24 years and is from mexico. I love him. He is seriously the best. My area is san borja, and holy cow, its huge! Its lima lima and rich rich of lima. Everbody has dogs, smoking and cars and bikes. I was a little confused because the places we went proseltizing in the ccm was pobrecitos. And my area is very wealthy. We have 2 investigadors and they aren't really progressing. THe obra is really difficult and slow here. And i guess there was problems a little bit with the members a few weeks ago. Elder Hernandez (my comp) was sent here to regain the trust. We are wroking alot with the members and menos activos. And i pencionista got a different job so the first 3 days of the missinon i was fasting pretty much :) Bread and yogur :) and the famous durazno juice :) yum. and our search for a pencion continues. But this week has been AWESOME :) i LOVE the field. it is the best. We walk like crazy! And even though my first week kinda sounds lame and stinky it has been AMAZING :) This upcoming week we have a couple nuevos and hopefully more on the way. Our goal for contacts is kinda overwhelming because the area is really hard to contact people and especially because there are no doors. only intercoms. But this week is gonna be awesome. So stoked. 

Jon i met 2 people that know you! First is a teacher in the ccm, hno Granados from chipotle barrio gedeon. He said he served a mini mission with you. 

second is Hna Salgastegui. She is in my zone and said the assitentes were always tight with her family because....i don't remember but its chevere. Sounds like you and Nicole had a crazy time with keys and such! But i bet you guys had a blast in vegas and it sounds CRAZY at kirstys house :)

Just remembered....shout out to Aubrey Sintay for the Letter!

Umm.....Thanks for the notes tan and austy :) Sure love you buddies! 

Im excited to be able to receive notes from nate too! Is he talking real good?

Thanks for all the pictures too! It sounds like you guys had an absolute blast and thnk you all for the notes! Laurel just like it takes time to ease into the mission it takes time to ease out too :) no worries! 

Jon i got shocked in the shower like all the stories you used to tell us tehe. But showers in the morning are frigid! Ice cold. Our apartment is tiny! But i avsolutely love it :) its the best. My ability to talk and understand is increasing! I am frogetting words en inglish. A veces durante las lecciones english words pop out of my mouth. Tehe. Presidente Ardila is amazing :) i absolutely lovbe him and his wife. Yesterday i got over my fear of just talking spanish with everyone even if i screw up i just need to open my mouth and i've been working on that, dyc 38:8-10. But yesterday during church priesthood i rose my hand and talked, then i was on divisions and i helped teach a lesson and was really involved and last night on the bus i felt like i should sit by this young guy instead of my companero so i did and i talked to him and his mom and he wanted to hear the gospel and it was so COOL :) 

There is a lady who is amazing that wants the zuccinnii recipe, her name is hna yalli and she has like 75 years and she speaks fluent enlish because she used to live in cali. But she loves the missionaries and loads the elders up with food every time. Her plates are HUGE. She is like grandma but lives in peru and speaks spanish :) Every meal here in peru i have to loosen my pants to finish the food :) tehe and cant button my pants and tighten my belt until later :) tehe

But Thats all i can remember right now and i absolutely love peru its amazing. This gospel is glorious. If this gospel wasn't true i would be here. We had an appointment and the lady was questioning alot and i asked why i was here and i bore my testimony it was special. The church is true. i KNOW IT. 

DyC 38:40-42 is the scripture for everyone who reads this. Haganlo. Share the gospel. True missionary work is with the members. The mission motto is to baptize and confirm weekly. It needs to be with members. 

I love this work and i know i am in san borja for a reason with elder hernandez. What a glorious calling and opportunity to serve the lord :)

Hurrah For Israel

Elder Burrup

P.S. Packages and letters send to the mission home. Love you all so much. Sorry kinda a long one but a lot to fit in! Love you all dearly

El cuarto pequeno

 

guapisimo