Proselyting in Downtown Portland!!

Hello,

It's been a very interesting week for us, full of some really great things! We've been continuing to work, visiting a lot of potentials (most of which moved out; I heard the phrase "they moved like a year ago" probably seven or eight times). It was awesome though because even though we haven't seen much success with that, we miraculously got three media referrals the same day. It's super uncommon to get one a week, yet alone three in a single day. So we set out to visit them and amazingly enough they all set up times this week so we can teach them! Unfortunately they all scheduled the lessons today... But, we all gotta' make sacrifices right? Sometimes we get rewarded for our labors in ways we do not expect!

During the middle of the week we had exchanges with our zone leaders, and I finally got to fulfill my aspiration of proselyting in downtown Portland! (Even if it was only for a day..!) They serve in the Market Street Branch, so we spent half of the day walking the streets of Portland! It was awesome, we went to the library to use their wifi and that is a beautiful building! We sat on third floor by the stairwell and just sitting there we had all sorts of missionary opportunities! This crazy guy came up and talked with us for awhile, told us about his band and about how great of parties he throws. Then he wanted to show us how good of a crazy person he could impersonate so he had me pretend to be an employee at a store while he pretended to turn in an application... I had a crazy man pretend to impersonate a crazy man while I role played his crazy situation with him in the middle of the Portland library. #keepitweird

We invited him to church, and then this other guy (normal) came up and started to talk with us. He'd been meeting with missionaries in Vancouver, but stopped because he didn't feel ready to make the commitment of being baptized. Well, we ended up scheduling a lesson with him at the institute building later this week and they're going to start teaching him! It was awesome, and all we had to do was sit there while they came to us!

We got to visit some potentials in this high-rise apartment as well, and that was really sweet! It makes me want to get transferred there, it was so cool! But, odds are it probably won't happen though. That's okay though, there's a lot of perks to serving in Maplewood! It's got a nice mix of the two sides: city and suburb.

This district has been a lot more challenging though. Lots of different situations that are a bit stressful dealing with, others which are just sad to have to see people go through. I think there's been a lot of lessons learned: most of which is just gratitude for the good things I have in my life. I'm healthy, I'm grateful to be here on my mission, and I've got a desire to be faithful and obedient. I love the district, they are all great elders and sisters. I will tell you though, being a leader is stressful and tough. Well, for me it's been feeling that way lately.

Well, I have been thinking a lot about school (still). I don't really want to come home, I've decided. It's really crazy to think I've only got FIVE months left! Five! That's like no time at all, only three transfers left and then I'll be walking through the SLC airport..! It's a combination of things that makes me weary of coming home.. It's like, I'm feeling like I have being a missionary down and I finally get it, only to realize that it's over! Ben and pops, did you feel like that when your mission starting coming to a close? The zone leader I exchanged with, we talked about it like all night on our exchange.

For school, I am still clueless as to what seems best.. I definitely want to apply to USU and BYU, and I have definitely considered doing SLCC. It's kind of weird, I think BYU has definitely been more drawing to me lately.. (This mission is doing all sorts of crazy things to me!) I mean, with SLCC I am saving quite a bit of money.. But I really want to be on a campus, living like a college student..! I don't know about how to go about applying either. Would it be better to have you apply for me, or get permission from my mission president to do it myself online? I have a very general idea of tuition costs from the stuff Dad sent me, but what would my other expenses look like if I went to a school like BYU or USU?

Well, I love you guys. Hope you have a good week.

-Elder Samuel A. Burge