PDX Dance Festival

Hey family!

It's been a busy week for us- we've had a zone conference, and we also had the youth's PDX dance festival this week! We spent two days helping out with that, and we actually participated in it with a short musical number from all the missionaries in the Portland mission.

It was a great festival, I'd never really known much about dance festivals so it was kind of a new experience for me. They had us come over to this enormous high school in Hillsboro where they were hosting the festival to help out with ushering, bouncing, and then with participating in the actual festival.

Since our zone is so close to Hillsboro, we got stuck with doing a majority of the ushering and bouncing. It was honestly pretty terrible, taking tons of ticket stubs at the door and we had to redirect people from the east entrance (where they couldn't enter) to the west entrance where they were accepting admissions/tickets. I was shocked about how upset and rude people were, it was like I was out knocking doors! We accidentally made some little girls cry as well, so that part wasn't too great.. The actual event was pretty sweet though! We came in and sang a rendition "We Will Bring The World His Truth (Army of Helaman)" after they showed a video of one of the youth talking about missionary work.

Some of the performances were great, like this Indian dance and this Irish specialty dance- both of those were some of my favorites. The coolest dance was one done by these four priest-age youth at the end of the festival. They let out fog onto the floor, and these guys danced in black morph-suits with these LED lights (red and blue) on! They did some seriously cool stuff, the lights were insane! It was all done to more techno/dub-step music, and they almost looked like they were straight out of Tron. It was super cool, you should see if you could find it on YouTube (PDX Dance Festival).

We also got to see all sorts of members from our old areas- it was great to see people again. We saw quite a few of the members from our old areas, and I really enjoyed that! It was just a neat experience to see and talk with people you interacted with and especially some of things people said about me, it made me definitely feel like I did some good while I've been out serving. I mean, I never necessarily doubted myself, but the reassurance that I got from members and missionaries I really enjoyed.

Plus, between some of the performances on Saturday (we spent the whole day up there at Liberty High School), to keep the missionaries from getting into too much trouble we got to watch a movie in the auditorium! We watched the Saratov Approach- and that is a great movie! Ahh, I miss movies so much, especially going to the theater, getting popcorn, a coca-cola, etc.. But trunk mess aside, the movie was actually really uplifting and made me want to get out and work (and pray, it talks about that a lot).

We went to the Oregon Zoo today, which is why this email is so late. It was pretty enjoyable, it's a lot smaller than the zoo in Utah. It rained for most of the day so some of the animals were inside and it was incredibly wet... But it was fun because we got to see some cool penguins, otters, and some big ol' polar bears. Polar bears are huge! Plus, we got to ride the MAX back home which was cool. I still like public transportation, still trying to figure out all the reasons why because it's kind of weird.

Well sorry to hear about your card being defrauded! What's funny is that since I've lost my wallet, both you and the Read's have had issues with fraud charges! I did get the card and the wallet that you sent me, and I appreciated the wallet a lot! I made a joke in zone conference about getting a chain so I wouldn't lose the stupid thing again and the next day that showed up in the mail! We think so much alike, but I appreciated the gangster chain!

I tried calling the DMV in Utah about getting my license and they were rude. The first lady hung up on me, and the second lady wasn't very friendly (but actually helped me out). Apparently I have to get some form sent out to me, then sign and notarize it, then send it back to you. Then you'll need to send two letters/documents that have proof of residency in Utah and mail/deliver it to their offices. Then I have to wait for them to mail the new duplicate license out.. She said it would be a 90-day process.. Just enough time to get on the plane! haha! So I probably won't be driving much the rest of my mission...

Well, sounds good that everybody is keeping busy and enjoying the summer. I've got a bit of tan going again (it's so weird that I can actually get darker here without burning). We're excited for these next few weeks, since transfers are next week and we're getting the new mission president the week after that! Lots of things are going to be changing, so it's going to be interesting to see how everything plays out. I'm sad to see President and Sister Morby go, but I'm grateful that I had such an awesome mission president and wife for 3/4 of my mission.

Well, I love you guys. Have a great week!

-Elder Samuel A. Burge