1/12/15

SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW COLDCOLDCOLDCOLDCOLD

Wooooooooeee! Tuesday it snowed buckets and buckets (if that's a phrase that can be used for snow idc) and then the temperature actually got colder as the week went on! Friday was 12 degrees...my Arizona tan is fading :'(

This Wednesday Elder Van De Graaff will be transferring out west and being replaced by Elder Hinkle. I've never met Elder Hinkle before and I hear mixed reviews about him. I just can't wait to say to him, "Hey Elder Hinkle, do you need to tinkle?" LOL I'm mature.

I'm happy to get a new companion! Well, that's what I say now. We'll see next week if Elder Hinkle is as tasty as sprinkles. (What does that even mean?)

Anyways! When the snow fell on Tuesday morning, Elder VDG and I went out into the white-covered neighborhood to shovel all the old folks around. I hadn't been in a real snow storm in I don't even know how many years, so I was a kitten with a laser pointer while Elder Vandemort trudged on saying how horrible the snow is. We are polar opposites. Get it. Polar. Onward we went, digging out one after another, until we came across the cutest old lady you'll ever see, bundled up in a poofy down jacket and a swaddled knit hat gently, slowly shoveling teaspoons of snow out. Naturally we help her out and find out she's 85 years old, like 80 years in Brooklyn, has the voice of an adorable gnome, and had the spiritual caliber of yoda. Honestly I think she may have been the most benevolent, Christ-like person I've ever met. She took us inside her home (don't worry, her son was there :P), sat us down, and told us she'd make us a steamy, homecooked breakfast. Easily the best meal on the mission so far.

After breakfast, she stood us up and lined us shoulder to shoulder. She then commenced some sort of Catholic blessing on us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and doing the sacred trinity sign on each of us. We didn't object, of course, for her love personified that which I can't begin to explain. Art in all of it's aspects and complexities has attempted to convey what love is. Song after song, painting after painting, poem after poem, artists commit their entire lives trying to show others what love feels like. What it feels like. If you are feeling down, unloved, or discouraged, seek love by loving! Go out and devote yourself the joy of the world, the bitter winter winds that snap you to life, the rolling lavender clouds spreading across the sky every evening, the smile that grows on another's face. Love is all around us, but waits for us to partake of it! When our Heavenly Father gave his only Begotten Son to the world, he gave him out of love. This is kind of a Christmas theme here, I know, but I mean it because I've found it to be true. There is no way we can receive and hold on to love than to give it ourselves. 

I've been deep to the waist in the New Testament about this topic the past few weeks, and it is clear as day. To quote John, "God is love". When we love another, we are loving God. When we feel love in our hearts, we are feeling God. Pretty deep there, but I think it's a point that gets over-looked in not only the Church, but in the world at large. Search not to get love, but to give love, and all comes into place. Our Father in Heaven's existence is entirely based on his love for us. Unconditional, pure, absolute love is how we can truly come closer to the Lord.

1 john 4:7-11, Luke 17:21, Matthew 5:43-48\

MAN I LOVE YOU! I think of all of you throughout the week, all of us having different adventures, no matter how small or outrageously crazy they may have been. I love you alllll!!!!

Until next week,

xoxo

Elder Burgess