Happy February! (Monday, February 1, 2015)

Dear Mom and everyone else,

Coming at you live right now from Sonoma, California- Happy February! Highs this week are in the upper 60s and we broke 70 one day last week... I hope you're all enjoying the snow! Update from last week, after "dropping" everyone last week and setting a goal to find at least five new people to teach, we reached our goal! Miracles are real folks, especially when you show your faith first. 

That's not the only news this week though. I have a new companion! And I still have the old one too! There are now three of us. At dinner on Friday President Wright called us and one of the Hermanas in Napa had to go home early the next day due to illness, so he was going to drop off her companion Hermana Sarvey with us the very next morning. Now she is with us and we are driving the half-hour back and forth between the two areas to cover both of them because they were working with someone preparing to be baptized and we still have people to work with here. It gets even crazier though, because my companion Hermana Gudmundson was in Napa before coming to Sonoma and her companion for three months before me was Hermana Sarvey, who goes home in two weeks! So now we're all in Sonoma but making things work between covering both Napa and Sonoma. Crazy life. That's okay though, I know it will all work out. 

More news. I finally attended a Spanish Branch! For the first time on my mission as a Spanish missionary (for a year as of this week), I finally attended a sacrament meeting in Spanish. Somehow I've managed to end up so far in all of the English wards/areas where Spanish Hermanas serve. I was really excited because I've heard how great it is from other companions and missionaries, but I have to be completely honest and say that it wasn't what my anticipation had built it up to be. It was a testimony builder to me though that I have been watched out for and put in places that would be best for me and the area. I guess that probably doesn't make sense, let me try to explain (my head is still scrambled up from all of the craziness of trying to figure things out so I apologize if none of this makes sense). We attended all of our church meetings first in Sonoma and I was so happy! People we have been working with came to church and we had a great sacrament meeting and we had quite a few people in our Spanish Sunday School group and I couldn't help but smile because I was with people that I dearly love and I could see them making progress. I realized how much I really do love these people and care about their families and their lives and I felt connected to them on a very personal level. Then we went to Napa right after our meeting to catch their sacrament meeting in Spanish, and I felt very out of place and uncomfortable. Not because of the Spanish, that part was wonderful, but because I didn't know the people and I felt no connection to them at all and there were too many other missionaries running around. I have nothing against it and to be honest I will most likely be in a Branch after I leave Sonoma because I've already been to all of the other possible places that don't have one, but it just showed me that Heavenly Father really is in charge of this work and that He placed me in Sonoma and each area that I have been in for a reason and I have loved working with all of these people on a very personal, individual level which isn't so easy in areas with more Hispanics and more missionaries around.

Anyway, life is crazy but that's okay because it's all for our good and I know it will all work out. I hope you all have a great week! Happy Groundhog Day tomorrow!

~Hermana Burton

Not to rub it in Mom, but....

I saw your snow shot so I ran outside the church to take a picture of
what it's like outside right now here in Sonoma. Happy February!