Elder Burch π: "I put on my overcoat and walked into winter, my teeth chattered rhythms..."

Friends, family, and people who don't read these emails,

It's been a good week! We had the awesome opportunity to participate
in Sheridan's Storybook Stroll, which was an event held in Sheridan on
Friday. The shops on Main decorated for the theme, and various
organizations had tables set up with hot chocolate and other things.
The missionaries in Sheridan invited us, and we all were able to talk
to a lot of people and share this year's Christmas initiative,
#LIGHTtheWORLD. If you haven't seen it yet, go to www.mormon.org and
check it out! Basically, it is twenty-five days of service leading up
to Christmas, with short videos to accompany each. Share it with you
friends and get some service into your holiday season! Anyway, we were
able to street contact many people. Some of the other Elders took me
out to do that, and though I was hesitant at first, it quickly became
something I was excited to do! It takes an act of faith, my friends,
and we can do anything.

Other things this week include contacting a referral from the Hilton
family. We met the father, who is probably early thirties and has a
wife and two little boys. He let us in right away and we are so
excited to be visiting with him and his family in the future! We'll
likely be texting him today about that. His work schedule is a little
mean, so we'll have to work around that. It'll be good - we're
excited! We also did a fair amount of tracting today. I didn't
particularly care for knocking doors, but the more I do it, the more I
find enjoyment and fulfillment in it. On top of that, there seems to
be a direct correlation between tracting and success, even though that
success does not directly come from the tracting itself. Funny how
that works.

I was about to make a joke about Yanni, and then I remembered that it
wouldn't be funny to pretty much anyone. That seems to be how most of
my inside jokes are. Ah, well.

We got to see fireworks the other day. They were in a park and it
made me laugh. They were nice, but compared to even the Arizona
Celebration of Freedom, they were weak. It was super funny, though, as
we were walking away, probably three minutes after they had stopped,
there was a huge rumbling sound behind us, and we turned to see a wave
of smoke and fire rise into the air amid a few more fireworks going
off. I guess it had gotten stuck and then went off all at once?
Anyway, it was rad.

We have an investigator on date! His name is Kieth and he lives in
the local veterans' home. He showed up to church one day, and we asked
him about it. He says that recently, he has been looking for God in
his life, and so we started to meet with him. He is awesome! He talks
a little slow, but he has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying.
(He prayed for the lesson last week!) So, yes. He is on date for
baptism coming up fairly soon. On another note, we totally ship him
with a lady in our ward who is a bit... different. She was actually at
the lesson we had with him last, and afterward we all played pool. It
looked grim at first, but her and I as a team pulled the victory over
Elder Ferrara and Kieth. "Do you hear that? Those are the winds of
change..." Maybe that game of pool was symbolic of our missionary work
more generally. Things are changing!

I love doing this work, and I'm seeing more and more blessings from
the Lord regarding it and I just feel so thankful for it all. Let us
hope that Elder Ferrara and I show our appreciation and take advantage
of it!

Thank you for your continuing prays and support. As always, keep the
faith, and rock and roll!

-Elder Burch π

"... And they were grouped in twos or threes like a morse code
message was sent from me to me."