Elder Samuel Burge: First General Conference as a Missionary

Hey everybody,

It was a really easy weekend with general conference going on. It's weird watching all of the sessions, but I stayed awake through all of them (which is good, I was a little worried). We watched the morning sessions with our ward mission leaders, priesthood with Anthony (a recent convert), and the afternoon session on Sunday with Susan. It went well, she enjoyed listening to Falabella's talk a lot. I think the talk I got the most out of was Jeffrey R. Holland's.

Yeah, I heard about that special on Wilsonville from a member in the ward. I know most of those families, I'm not sure about the Walters (since his family didn't join with him) but I'll check it out. Funny, we actually took Donovan out with us to some lessons and I love Marcie Lake! President Lake (her husband) is on the stake presidency so we see him a lot, he's really nice too.

That's awesome that Ben got such an awesome job. $13.00/hour will be freakin' great. The hours are kind of rough, but luckily he'll get to see everyone when they get home from school/work. I hated the hours I worked after I graduated; I never got to see my family or my friends because I was off to work but 1:00 in the afternoon. It made me feel really lonely, and plus I knew I'd be going for awhile without seeing anyone so I felt like I was wasting the time I had left to be with everyone. That was the main reason I quit, it was getting me just really depressed. With his hours though- it's all good! Tell him not too blow it all too quickly.

Silas wants to be an artist? I can't say I really saw that one coming, but that's cool. He's a pretty creative guy so I think he'll do well, he just has to get his artistic vision flowing. You should tell him to break out my easel and one of books I have on oil painting and give it a shot! Tell him to wrap the palette (the flat wooden slab you mix the paint on) in wax paper so he won't have to clean it off, just throw away the wax paper. It's tough getting what you see and what you're thinking out onto paper, canvas, etc. the way you want. It's the hardest part of drawing/art, in my opinion. I'm sure he's probably searched the internet to learn how draw better, but if he has any questions he can write me and I'll see if I can't maybe help. Has he thought about taking any classes at school? Taking classes helps, I'd love to take some more painting/drawing classes when I get back. Does Silas ever plan on writing me back? If not, he can always email me if it'd be easier.

This week we had dinner with the Hofmann's (one of my favorite families in Wilsonville). He likes to entertain, so we always asks us what country we'd like to visit and he finds recipes from those countries and makes it for us. This week was Italian, so he got all fancy on us with napkins folded into flowers, etc. (That's what one of those pictures is.)

I also went on an exchange with one of our zone leaders, Elder Jensen (tall guy standing up in the office picture), and he's awesome! We went knocking on doors later in the afternoon and we were just talking and having a great time. This one guy opened his door and man, he was freakin' stoned. As we were walking away, we were joking about us getting the munchies all of the sudden. Later that night we ripped phone books back at our apartment because we had a dozen outdated ones; it was a great time. Elder Thomas and I get along really well, he scared the living daylights out of me last night though. I got up to get a glass of water and he crawled into my bed and scared me when I sat back down to go to sleep.

Well, not really a whole lot going on. How's Kayleigh doing? I haven't heard anything about her in awhile; has she just been up to the same old things? Has Silas been harassed into giving her rides yet?

Well, that's all I got. Hope things are going well, I love you all and I miss you everyday.

-Elder Samuel A. Burge