Goodbye, “Ruby” Tuesday!

‘Ello mates!

I’m alive. The storm wasn’t bad where i was at. But as assistants, office elders, and stranded zone leaders, we organized evacuation plans and stuff for other zones, but i’ll go over that later.

I guess I’ll start with last week. We went on an exchange on Tuesday to Wednesday with a district leader and then attended their district meeting. It was REALLY good. I was on exchanges with the district leader.  On Tuesday, we talked and counseled about different ways to really take “ownership” of the district that you lead. To set goals, use time wisely, receive revelation, act, follow up, etc. I felt like when we were discussing these things, he was listening. Turns out he was REALLY listening because he hit the nail on the head at district meeting. It was really refreshing seeing someone apply something so quickly and so effectively.

On Thursday, we completed our workshop and the training plan for our Mission Leader’s Council.  As assistants, we conduct the meeting, present the training plan, and give an hour long workshop on a topic that we receive through revelation for the mission that will aid the leaders in effectively leading their missionaries. We decided to twist things up a bit. In the past, the MLC workshops were given to instruct the missionaries on teaching skills that would have somehow “carried-over” into leadership qualities that could also be used in the next week’s zone training meeting to train missionaries. This MLC, my companion and I went straight for the core leadership of the mission. We gave a workshop to THEM about their needs, about how to become more like Christ and to lead like Him. We gave a workshop focused on the Christlike attribute of CHARITY and how it connects to our training plan topic of REPENTANCE AND THE ATONEMENT.

Studying and preparing for the workshop was cool. I realized on a completely different level how everything in the gospel is related. Prayer and The Resurrection. Tithing and the Pre-existence. Eternal Families and Planning. I’ve found that if we find the simple connection between doctrine (which is so vast) and every day simple things that we understand well, such as prayer, fasting, or faith, our understanding of Jesus Christ, who He is, what He did, and who we are, becomes so incredibly clear. With charity, we taught a principle that you’ll find in a physics book. For every charitable ACTION there is a charitable (or Christlike) REACTION. in other words, if you exercise any of the attributes listed in Moroni 7:45, you will invoke a charitable (or Christlike) reaction upon another person, or in other words, you help them to REPENT as Christ helped others repent. 

Why do you want to repent? where does that desire come from? It comes from Christ’s Atonement for us. It’s something that we ALL feel, whether we have knowledge of Christ or not. We all feel a need to exercise virtue, or endure, or believe, just because Christ acted out of love for us. How cool is that? i’m learning soooo much here in the office. I feel a little down sometimes, because it’s hard to see the direct effect that comes so often with teaching investigators, but it is still a feeling that i’m fulfilling the purpose in some way. 

As for the storm, on Friday we had an office meeting. We put together group text messages and assigned each elder in the office 1 or 2 zones to be responsible throughout and after the storm for reporting purposes. I was assigned to the Lopez Zone and the San Pablo Zone. For the last storm, Glenda back in July, Lopez got absolutely thrashed, so as soon as this storm got anywhere close to our mission, we evacuated the whole zone to a chapel in the area that was highest in elevation and most able to withstand the storm. San Pablo wasn’t effected much and we saw that the storm wouldn’t really effect the missionaries here, but we did evacuate two apartments before the storm for a risk of flooding. It was really cool to kind of be a part of a “headquarters” crew that managed people and places and stuff. It was kinda scary because we didn’t know what was going to happen, but it turned out the worst we had was flooding out of the bathrooms at that Lopez Zone evacuation spot. 

Yesterday, while staying in our apartment, we just hung out, studied, sang, tried to eat 72 hour kit food, and slept. It was a nice relaxing day. Not much happened, but it got pretty windy during the evening hours. I’m really enjoying the cool weather that the storms bring. I forgot how nice it was to sleep with a sweatshirt on.

I think that’s about it friends! I’m happy and safe!  We’re taking our P-day today on Tuesday, so I might try to find some socks… they seem to disappear. Have a great week! Patuloy lang! mahal ka ni Jesucristo, huwag kang magaalala sa iyong mga pagsubok. basta maniwala sa ating Diyos and ang Kanyang dakilang plano. ilagay ang iyong pagtiwala sa kanyang kamay at gawin lahat para maging masunurin sa kanyang mga utos. mahal ko kayo!!!! ingat lagiz.

Elder Tyler Burbidge