I’m a grandpa now!

Hello!

Well, it's transfers this week and almost every companionship in the mission is getting changed up. We (Elder Viecco and I) are the only companionship in our zone not splitting- and it's supposedly going to be a large transfer meeting. We're going to go to the transfer meetings anyways, for a few reasons. A lot of my missionary buddies leave this transfer so I want to say goodbye, and also my greenie (Elder Olsen) is training this transfer! In mission terms, "I'm a grandpa now!" So that's super awesome, training is such a sweet experience! That's so funny that Bro. Pehrson is training Matt Baxter! He wrote me a week or two ago and told me he got the job there. What a small world, right?

I think they might shut down the second companionship in Maplewood. Both Sister McMahon and Sister Olsen (the sisters in our ward) are being transferred out. Either they'll white-wash the area (just replace them) or they will close the area down. I think they will just replace them, I really hope they don't take the sister missionaries out.. I think it would be much better to have them versus elders. Everyone being taught by both of us are women, and the ward has loved having sister missionaries much more than us.

One of my favorite elders, Elder Ah Kuoi, is getting transferred out after being here a mere seven weeks. I was ticked, but it's better that he got out of his area. He's had a hard area and deserves to be somewhere else. He's an amazing elder and has the most beautiful testimony I have ever heard! We went on an exchange this past week and during a lesson we had he was bearing his testimony and it was solid!

Funny though, on our exchange day (Wednesday), we went out of our apartment and found that somebody had left a light on in our car and completely killed the battery..! We tried the clichéd "pray and the car miraculously works again". Well, after praying and turning it over like eight times it didn't work. We have a parking stall, and with the other cars there we couldn't even get a car up to the front to jump it. Luckily though, it worked out really quickly. The lady next to us just decided to go out at that point to like get groceries or something and we had a member with cables just long enough come and jump our car. It didn't work out in a big, flashy way but our prayer was answered within 10 minutes. Made me reflect on how usually God doesn't work in our lives through the signs and wonders we so often seek, but it's almost always in very subtle and quiet ways. Usually he also works through us as well, and I thought those were some spiritual lessons learned this week.

Yep. We helped Bro. Baertlein do some maintenance on the house(s) he's managing. One happened to be an investigator'a house, and we helped replace door-knobs and locks on her exterior doors. Funny though, I remembered exactly how to do it from when Dad and I replaced the front door-knob to the house! I felt very useful, that was kind of cool.

Well, I am glad that Ben and Silas are out camping and being outdoors. I am excited to go adventuring with them in the mountains when I get home, and apparently to get schooled playing tennis with Kayleigh! Well Dad, I'd encourage you to stick with it. When I started my mission I felt like I was spiritually out-of-shape (because quite frankly I was totally unprepared). But patience and diligence with the spiritual workout my mission was, has totally refined and strengthened my spiritual side. It applies with the physical too, so just beast it as hard as you can and move from "grace to grace" until you get where you want to be!

Well, I love you! Talk to you next week!

-Elder Samuel Burge

P.S. - I will keep you posted with the college applications, thanks for sending me the details on it!