This week has been really good

Hello everybody,

I'm glad Mom liked my letter- I was thinking about her and I realized I hadn't sent her a letter or anything yet, so I decided to send her one. Yeah, cutting down that tree was really fun. I enjoy just getting outside in the fresh air any chance I can get. We went over on Saturday and watched him torch these burn-piles of all the branches and leaves that he couldn't use for firewood. It was sweet. He took this blow-torch attached to a propane tank and and just started incinerating it. We had to leave, but the flames on one of the piles got at least 20 feet high, he says.

Yeah, Silas wrote me a letter telling me about all the things that are going on in his life right now. I feel for him, that has gotta' be tough. I pray for him and his friends every night hoping that they can find relief from the rigors of their lives. I'm glad that Silas is kind of keeping his head above water, and that his driving went well.

Cross-country skiing, that's got to be really fun! I'm glad she had a good time with that; whenever we're driving and we can see Mount Hood (which is an absolutely beautiful sight on a clear, sunny day) I always think about how I want to go snowboarding/skiing when I get home. It's something I always wanted to pick up in high school, but I never got around to it. Plus, it's got quite a price tag on it. Tell Kayleigh I love her brown hair! She wrote me about it a few letters ago, but it looks really nice now that I'm seeing a picture of it.

Ben comes home in about a week... That is an absolutely weird thought. I mean, I've talked about it but it did not sink in until I read that. In a mere week he'll be back home hanging out with everyone and there's so many things I wanted to show him when he got home! It's okay though, I know Silas is going to enjoy showing him all the video games that came out while he was gone and show him just a ton of things. It will be especially weird that he'll speak fluent Spanish and have dark skin- that's the weirdest part! Also, who is Mark?

This week has been really good. We've been teaching a lot more, which is good (keeps us busy). We've been teaching mostly just less-active people, even some families that just were willing to take the discussions so we could practice a bit! We have a lady, Susan, that we're teaching though... She's been investigating the church for a few months, been in weekly attendance and that was definitely the highlight of my week. Our discussion with her this week went great, she asks tons of really good questions and she just understands things and grasps all the concepts so quickly. She's receptive to it all, and she was telling us about how she just feels good as she keeps learning and she wants to share what she's learning with people she knows. As she said, "I feel like I've been feeding my soul". She even said she would get baptized when she knows that it's true, so we took her to a baptism on Saturday and she really enjoyed it.

She came from basically being an atheist like 6 months ago, so it's really interesting to see her perspective on it all. She's also really awesome, I love teaching her! She's definitely been a pick-me-up for me.

As for any good stories I've gotten this week, I can't think of anything too crazy. We had dinner with the Young's and the Hofmann's this week (two of my favorite families in the area) which was great. The Young's took us out to this Italian restaurant and it was really good. I tried calamari (squid) and it was freaking delicious! We also had a 95-year-old man get up during testimony meeting and it was the funniest thing in the world! He does this every fast Sunday, he gets up and talks about how much he loves women and brags to be the oldest member of the ward several times while he's talking. So funny!

Ethan burned his eyebrows off! That's absolutely hilarious!! I'm glad that he's having a humbling experience being out in Mexico. I've written both him and Tyson hand-written letters, I know that getting actual mail isn't even a common thing for them, so when they get it they'll go nuts! I think that every missionary has quite the humbling experience in some way or another- I have them constantly.

Well, I've got to go now. I miss everyone and hope that they can find comfort in their trials. I love you all, and hope things will continue to get better.

Love always,

Elder Samuel Burge

P.S. - I found that scorpion sucker in my desk! We had Elder Udy eat it at our district meeting! I also burned the heck outta' my finger cooking the other day. It was a huge blister on the side of my finger, but it's all better now so no need to worry!

Scorpion sucker anyone?

I give this week a thumbs up!!!