Author: Jared Burt

Don’t Doubt Your Faith!

Posted on by Jared Burt

Hello!
This week was a great week! We had quite a few fall throughs and the heat is crazy!, but we worked hard and are even working on finding new people to teach!

We have been worried about Brother Peter, the 94 year old khulu. He was going to be baptized this past weekend, but ever since he left church last Sunday, we haven’t seen him since. Nobody knows where he is and the people he stays with don’t even care to look for him. So we’ve been checking for him every day and praying that he is ok.

Casper was baptized though! I had an experience through him that taught me a valuable lesson. We met Casper through his brother who is a returned missionary in our branch. He was coming to church every week with him so we were teaching him the lessons and he said he wanted to be baptized. So we arranged for him to be baptized before he left to go back to where he stays and we were very excited for him! Then we talked to his brother, the member, about the baptism and he seemed a little off about it, but told us that if we feel like he is ready, we should just go ahead and do what we think. After that I started doubting a bit that he was ready and had forgotten most of the spiritual impressions and reassurances that I had received when teaching Casper in the past. We carried on with the lessons and the interview still and when the morning of the baptism came, seeing Casper and how happy he was, just confirmed to me and reassured me that he was ready. He was just shining with joy and gave a powerful testimony after the baptism. You could see that he knew of the importance of the decision he was making and was ready to take that step in his life to follow Christ. The next day at church his brother even confirmed him. This experience reminded me of President Uchtdorf’s talk when he says “Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.” How true that is and I have a testimony of it!

Tinashe is so getting so ready to be baptized! After all this time it is so amazing to see him change and truly prepare for baptism! One of the members he went to school with, Brown, is going to baptize him and has helped us so much with getting Tinashe ready for his big day.

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Be the Salt of the Earth

Posted on by Jared Burt

Salibonani again!

This week was a crazy week.
One of the miracles we saw this week, was Esebel got a job! It’s so amazing to see testimonies grow and blessings flood into people’s lives as a result of righteousness and prayer and faith.
We have been visiting Innocent and Veronica, talking about marriage and Veronica especially wants to get that certificate, so we will keep working with them and hopefully they will be able to get married soon!
We have also been seeing Casper. His brother is a member and a return missionary. He is just here for a couple more weeks visiting until he goes back to Botswana. He wants to be baptized and has been coming to church for the past few weeks, so we are trying to work things out there so he can be baptized before he leaves.
sister-anyangoFriday we had Zone Conference in Gweru, which was GREAT. They focused a lot on finding people to teach and talking to everyone we see so that we can find those who are ready to hear our message. President talked about 3 Nephi 12:13-16 and how the way we can be the salt of the earth and the light of this people is to go forward in righteousness. The spirit was so strong, I don’t even have words to describe.
After Zone Conference they took Sister Mpiyakhe with them to Harare…. it was too sad. Tears were shed. I am now with Sister Anyango, so I’m looking forward to working with her!
The weather has been crazy… HOT for days, then cold and rain and thunder! I love the stormy weather though.
You are all great. Have a wonderful week!
Sister Burt
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Sister Anyango!
Last day with Sister Mpiyakhe- zone conference

Summer & Purple Trees

Posted on by Jared Burt

Not much to say this week, but hello!
This week was good. We got to go on exchanges in our area this week, which was fun, and Nksoi finally showed up for his baptism on Saturday! haha then he was confirmed yesterday and got the priesthood as well! It’s getting hotter and hotter and all the trees are turning purple. It’s beautiful!
I love you all and hope you have a great week!
Sister Burt
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Sister Burt emailed us a copy of her companion’s (Sister Mpiyakhe) letter since she was short of breath:

Litshonile!!! (from Sister Mpiyakhe)

I hope you are all well.

It has been suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper Hot over here.  So much so that my brand new lip balm melted and there was nothing left of it inside (that was a while back-it has gotten worse).  The heat has been intense.  Umberlla’s are out!!! Even the locals are complaining about the heat.

Not much happened this past week.  I sprained my ankle after zone meeting. so i was crippling around, one memeber offered to lend me his wheel chair.  Ah! But it is better now… My back is doing okay. I have been doing physio, and this week they ill be in a lumber corset for the rest of my mission to help support my back. (not looking forward to that).

There have been a lot of jehovah witnesses around lately, eh trying to steal our investigators. We have something they do not have and as a result we have a greater advantage over them.
 sister-mpiyakhe-back-repairs

We also accidently walked in to a music video, don’t be surprised when you see me on tv 😉

Highlight has to be Br Nkosi’s Baptism.  So he is what we call a golden investigator.  He was taught by elders I knew and he came to us wanting to be baptised.  His testimony was powerful of how he now knew the church was true.  I love seeing the change that happends in the lives of God’s children this side.  The happiness and light that shines off and how they root their testimonies in christ and not in us.  And the growth!!! Ah!!! He got the priesthood the same day he got confirmed!!! And now he and his girlfriend (a member) are now planning their wedding for next year!!!! Words cannot describe the joy i feel for these two.
 bulawayo-sunset

Conference dosage this week.  We first have zone conference. Super excited for that, we get to see president and his wife!!!! (highlight), and other missionaries – i love learning from others. Then there’s general conference.  Bleak part is we watch it 2 weeks later in our branch… (thank goodness for mondays – cause I cannot wait that long.  I will download the audio so long).  I have been preparing myself by reading past conference talks and writting questions I have had.  I look forward to hearing what the leaders of the church have to share with us, especially the Prophet (and Elder Holldand :).  Knowing that what they all speak comes from the Lord and our Heavenly Father makes it that much special.  I am so grateful to live in a time where we have the prophet and the priesthood.  I know that our leaders are called of God.  I know that happiness, peace and wisdom awaits for us as we not only listen to what is being said but we act on it.

May you all spiritually tune yourself to the sweet messages the spirit will relay to you.  Prepare yourself to receive the answers to your questions and prayers.  Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be guided and taught from on high.  Take Notes then make them practical!

I love you all.

Love,
      Sister Mpiyakhe

“Sister Bett, Are You Betta?”

Posted on by Jared Burt

So the subject title quote is from little Kayla yesterday… talk about play-on words… lol she is my number 1.
But wow! This week was crazy. But so powerful.
My health was back to normal last week. Thank you all for the many prayers.
We have been continuing to go to physio therapy every other morning for my companion, which we quite enjoy because when we go, CNN is always on so we get to hear the latest on what’s going on. First of all, Donald Trump needs a haircut. Second, wow. Zimbabwe making national news! These riots are crazy. We are very safe though. So don’t even worry.
We have a new investigator we have started teaching named John. He is 86 years old, had 6 wives, has 36 children, and a mine. He is so old and cute and has the best laugh.
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We met a guy named Greatman at Brian’s place, buying cigarettes and drinking like nobody’s business. He was HILARIOUS. And he sat and talked to us for forever. He named me smiley and told us he was going to come to church and kept saying “I’m being serious. Don’t you even worry.” As long as he could sit by “smiley” haha.
So Friday night, we had a bit of an incident. President was in town and wanted to see us for a bit, so after the area we stopped to get groceries because we hadn’t had food in the house for like days. So we get our groceries, load all $120 worth of food into the boot, shut the boot, only to realize that, oh no, the key is not in the keyhole on the boot. Wow. Second time I’ve done this now. But the problem now, is that all the spare keys are 6 hours away in Harare at the mission office! So we called the zone leaders and they picked us up to go to President, who was wearing sandals… legit haha. Then after we were done there, we told him what happened so what ended up happening is he go someone to arrange for some people who know how to break into cars to come break into our car. So he drove us to the other sister’s apartment and they gave us a wire hanger, then he took us to the store where our car was and left us with the zone leaders and the guys who, yes, eventually broke into the car and we got the keys from the boot.
On Saturday morning, we went to President Siwela’s house to help his wife water the garden because it is hard for her to carry the buckets of water all the way down the long staircase to the garden, but when we got there the water was not working, so we were able to help instead by washing out the plastic bottles she collects to sell. It was great to be able to do service.
We have been continuing to teach Innocent, who loves seeing us. he is one of a kind. He has been keeping himself busy while he isn’t at work, so he is drinking a bit less, but the problem comes in when there isn’t anything to do. His wife is pregnant with child number 2, which is super exciting! We are going to start teaching her this week as well! Innocent accepted the baptismal date we gave him this week, so we are going to continue teaching him with much faith that he will be ready by November!!
We also started teaching Daniel last week, one of the guys who hangs around at Brian’s place. He has a son who just turned 2 months old and seems to be ready for the gospel and wants to change to be able to be an example to raise his son. He started praying for the first time in a long time after the first lesson we taught him with a couple of the other guys and he was talking about how great it is. He also accepted the baptism date and is almost as excited as us!
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Sunday was the best. We left for church early so we could park the car and walk to go fetch some of our investigators. When we got to Brian’s place, both Innocent and Daniel showed up!! Wow talk about our hearts swelling with joy!!! Then on the way, we even got Greatman to leave the guys he was drinking with to come with us! he started walking with us but still tried making excuses to get out of it haha. He kept saying his shirt was dirty so he needed to go change it first… no way. Not letting you out of our sight! hahah! Then he even pushed Brian’s wheelchair while we walked 🙂 But wow. It was so great and Innocent and Daniel were dressed up all nice and there was a ton of people who knew them, so it was just great!! Everyone was quite shocked, mostly to see Greatman at church lol. I love these people.
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I love in Enos, verses 15-17 that teaches us about having faith in Christ. If we ask with faith, we will receive. And when we covenant with the Lord, if we keep our side of the promise, he will always keep His. So if we are keeping the commandments and keeping our promises, we don’t even have to worry.
I love you all so much!
Have a great week!
Sister Burt

Esebel’s baptism!

Posted on by Jared Burt

This week was kind of a long week, but we got through it. We were in the house sick for a couple days and had a few trips to the hospital… so we weren’t able to be in the area much this week. Everything went well though for Esebel to be baptized! It was great and William got to baptize her. President was in town over the weekend for interviews, so right after the baptism we went to see him. It was great.
esebels-baptism
Hopefully this week we will be able to see our investigators and that they will still be there… haha it’s getting hot here and the mosquitoes are coming out!
Thank you for the prayers. I really appreciate it.
Love you all!

SIster Burt
bena-did-my-hair-today-i-need-some-painkillers

Photos:

Esebel’s baptism!

Bena did my hair today! I need some painkillers…

Mzilikazi Miracles

Posted on by Jared Burt

This week was full of miracles in Mzilikazi.

flying-kayla
The other day we had a bit of extra time between appointments, so we just decided to go see if Esebel was around. So we stopped at her mother’s house where she is sometimes and we found her there moving her stuff and cleaning the place up. Turns out she was able to get a room to stay in there! What a miracle! She has been looking for a place to stay on her own with her daughter, which has been the thing that has been postponing her baptism. She said she just feels so free now! Amazing. So we helped her clean for a while and her baptism is this week! We are so happy for her.
doing-dishes
Then on Sunday, we were thrilled to see Tinashe at church! We see Tinashe around every day and he always greets us and we tell him to come to church when we see him and he always tells us he will come someday but we are all just great friends. So we decided to start teaching him last week and after months of him saying he will come to church, he came to church!! He has been taught by missionaries before, years ago, and has been to church as well. But it was so cool to see so many members who he went to school with greet him all day. It was so great and he seemed happy to be there!
our-matching-dresses
We are also now teaching Innocent, who works as a nurse at a hospital, but is 2 weeks on then 2 weeks off. When he is on, he doesn’t drink at all,but when he is off, he is constantly drinking. But he is the most aware drunk person I have ever seen. He remembers everything and can have a normal conversation. So we taught him to Word of Wisdom first and made an agreement with him that he wouldn’t drink after 3:30. Then we saw him again and he just asked a ton of questions about the church and different things. So hopefully things go well and he will be able to progress!
bandile-making-mud-sadza-and-carrying-her-baby
I love this scripture in 3 Nephi 18:32 that talks about how no effort that we make is wasted in sharing the gospel: “Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them.” Even if they don’t accept the gospel right now, at least you are planting seeds and maybe even sometime in the future, they will choose to follow Christ.
Have a great week!
Sister Burt
Bandile making mud sadza and carrying her baby
Doing dishes
Kayla
Our matching dresses

Live the Blessings of Baptism

Posted on by Jared Burt

Salibonani! Lingani? lol I’m getting there…

We had a great week last week! I am loving Mzilikazi. The area has been so fruitful and our teaching pool grows more and more each day!!
babongiles-baptism

We were able to teach Babongile during the week so she could be baptized Saturday along with Donald! She was SO excited to be baptized and she LOVES church and primary! So much so that she has been such a shining example to her family. We have been teaching her mother, Sandra, who since we have been seeing her, has started praying for the first time in 12 years. She loves learning about the gospel and has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot! She says she wants to have read it all by next week! She even came to Babongile’s baptism with her mother. We are so excited for her to be baptized.
babongiles-baptism-2
I love being able to share this beautiful message of the gospel with people every day and helping them prepare to make and keep sacred covenants like baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. I love the analogy the Elder Bednar gave last General Conference:
yes-that-is-a-pig-we-chased-down
“Consider how a farmer depends upon the unchanging pattern of planting and harvesting. Understanding the connection between sowing and reaping is a constant source of purpose and influences all of the decisions and actions a farmer undertakes in all seasons of the year. In like manner, the inseparable connection between the ordinances of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost should impact every aspect of our discipleship in all seasons of our lives.”

Baptism is the beginning of a new and wonderful life! We should never forget the covenants we made when we were baptized!

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Burt

Baptism!
Yes… that is a pig. we chased down this tiny truck that had two huge pigs in it and when we found it again, the pig had gotten out somehow. I love Zimbabwe.

Wanting to be Bapateezed

Posted on by Jared Burt

Salibonani!

Things have been fun and the area has been fun and the people we are teaching are powerful.

We have Donald who hopefully will be baptized this week.. he said he wanted to be this week, so hopefully we will find him this week to teach him the last lessons and he comes to the baptism! He comes to church every week but I’ve never actually taught him, it was when Sister Smith was here, but he’s basically a member, he just needs to enter the waters of baptism asap. Because whenever we try to see him he’s not around… so hopefully this week is it!

Esebel is set to be baptized, it’s just the marriage thing. Her and her “husband” are just staying together for the sake of accommodations and she’s looking for a job right now and she might have just found a hook up for a place to stay, so they are having a meeting about it today and we will see her tomorrow to see what the conclusion is!

And we are going to baptize an 11 year old girl named Babongile who has been coming to church with her friends, we just have to hurry and teach her so she can get baptized! and we visited her family yesterday and are going to teach her mother too who seems super interested!

Then there are 2 other girls who have been coming to church that we are going to start teaching this week! People here just show up at church and it is so great because it gives us all these people to teach!!

Then Brother Peter, the 91 year old, talks about how he wants to be “bapateezed” and stuff which is super great and we want to baptize him so bad! But teaching him is hard… because he is so Roman Catholic… and has lots of funny things haha but we love him so much. He is our grandpa haha. 91 year old investigator, Brother PeterWe found him the other day laying outside on a tiny little bench lol he is quite the character! He wasn’t feeling well the other day and it had been going on for a while and we were super worried about him so we lined up for one of the members to give him a priesthood blessing and he has been doing much better ever since! And we taught him how to fist bump and he asked what it means yesterday and we told him it means power! haha

Those are the main people that we have been focusing on lately… things are going well!

A scripture that I studied this week was Doctrine and Covenants 52:15-17. It was talked about in zone meeting on what kind of a missionary we should be, but it not only applies to missionaries, but to everyone of us! And as we strive to have these qualities, the promise in verse 17 will be made manifest and we will be blessed so much!

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Burt

We Are Never Alone

Posted on by Jared Burt

Hello all!

This week was a good week!
We were able to visit one guy named Peter who has been coming to church for quite a few weeks now. He is 91 years old and is a hardcore Roman Catholic. He has grey hair that sticks out like Albert Einstein and always has a Chastity pamphlet in his shirt pocket that we don’t even know where he got haha. He is quite the character and we are hoping to be able to teach him and help him progress!
Shyline is so ready for her baptism this Saturday! Every time we visited her she would be anxiously waiting for the next thing we would give her to read. It seemed like the happiest day of her life when we gave her the Book of Mormon!
The other day, I was searching for a particular scripture for forever without any luck, then while we were in a lesson with a part less active family, something the mother was talking about reminded me of that scripture again and I opened my scriptures and found it right away! It was Alma 36:3 “…I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day.”
I love this scripture and know it is true from experience! We will always experience challenges and hard times in our lives, but if we put our trust in God, everything will be ok! I love what Elder Bednar says: “We are not and never need be alone. We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help.”
Hope you all have a wonderful week!
Sister Burt