Sister Mariah Burton

Hello friends and family!  It has been an adventure of a week, that's for sure! We had a super fun last night at Bob and Wanda's. Some of the people from Prairie Grove came down to hear me sing again. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone, but I know Heavenly Father has a plan for me. Then we went to the Senior center on Tuesday and delivered meals to 66 different houses! That was fun running around and giving people meals. They were a lot more open and excited to see us, that's for sure :) Haha! Then we had my last group lesson Tuesday night. We did the Book of Mormon experiment and had everyone take a page from the Book of Mormon and then highlight every time it mentions the Savior and things that stood out to you. We had an amazing discussion and everyone participated in it. So good!! Wednesday I packed and said goodbye to more people, I definitely miss Van Buren. But. Thursday I made it safely to MOUNTAIN HOME!! woohoo!! I met my new companion sister Chandler and she ...

TRANSFERS!!! I am..... leaving! I am going to Mountain Home Arkansas where I will spend my last 6 weeks on the mission! Crazy!! I'm sad to leave Van Buren, but excited to go and make the most of this last transfer. Sister Buhler is staying and training so that's super awesome! I'm going to be with Sister Chandler (I haven't met her yet so that's exciting!) But I'll also be in the same district (area) as my MTC companion sister McNeil!!! I'm so excited about that! In addition to transfer calls, it's been an adventure of a week! So much I feel like has happened. We sang at Bob and Wanda's last Monday and the Vines and Yannick from Prairie Grove came down to see me!! It was so awesome! Another thing that happened was we got a lot of referrals! We had our meeting with the other missionaries on Wednesday and we set a challenge for each of us to find 3 new people to teach before Sunday and so we all were out and working hard to find people a...

This week was so good and full of blessings! It started with New years eve at Bob and Wanda's. We went and they had all kinds of party toys to celebrate the new year. There were lots of people and as we were sitting there talking with our recent convert and his family (people we are trying to teach) and then these people behind saw us and talked to us for a minute and then later that night they gave us their phone number and addresses and told us to stop by soon. It was amazing!  Tuesday we had interviews with our mission president and his wife and it was wonderful. It's so good being able to talk to them. We can tell how much they truly love and care about us which is super good. That night we had our big group lesson and we were on exchanges so I took our greenie that's down here and it was such a great lesson! At first, it was crazy and chaotic. There were so many people and lots of different t conversations at once. But after we said we would like to share a messag...

Hey y'all!!  This week was so great! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and spent it with our branch president and his family. They have a family tradition of acting out the Nativity story and we got to be a part of it. So cool! I thought it was very special way to remember the reason for the season. Also it was fun and we got to be the wise men! (:  Christmas was AMAZING! I got to talk to my Family!!! YAY! It was crazy because it was my companions 1st call and my last call home. But it was such a wonderful time talking to them and we spent most of the day at the Duffins. They are such an awesome family! We opened presents, opened oysters for Pearl's, ate lots of food, talked really loud, shared fun memories, and laughed a lot. It was a very good time. It felt like I was surrounded by family (: then at night we went to go do service, but it didn't work out the way we planned so instead we went to a neighborhood and handed out "Thank you for your Christmas lights...

It's been an adventure of a week!  It started with our fun skit lesson we did with the elders. We have a family that feeds us every Tuesday and her sister lives in the Alma ward and her niece is being taught by the Elders so they asked if we could all do a lesson together at the church so we did! We (missionaries) acted out the scene of 1st Nephi when they go and get the plates. It was so much fun! It was a great to bring the scriptures to life and they all loved it. Plus, I got to be Laman and Lemuel so that was fun. After the skit we had a discussion about the faith that Nephi had for them to get the plates and how Laman and Lemuel repented from rebelling and they had to act on their faith as well. It was really special because then the lady who feeds us, both of her sisters aren't members and they were talking about baptism and learning more as well. So amazing!!! It was a great night. We are going to have another big lesson with them on Wednesday and I'll let y...

Woohoo! It's almost Christmas!!! One of our favorite songs right now is Christmas everyday by David archuleta. It you haven't heard it, I encourage you to go listen to it and his whole album. Ah. So good! It's been an eventful week as well!  We had MLC in bentonville which is where we went and talked about plans for our zone conference and future district councils. It was so much fun! Sister Rosenberg was called to be the other sister training leader so we get to go to that meeting together and we were able to do exchanges all day Wednesday and I stayed in Prairie Grove. It was so cool!!! I got to see a lot of the people I love and miss from that area. It was a blast being able to see them and be in their homes again. We had zone conference on Thursday and it was so fun! Since its Christmas it was a 2 hour meeting and the rest was just games and a talent show. Super cool! There are a ton of talented missionaries here. There was singing, kickboxing, roller skating, piano...

Yay! It's Christmas time!! I hope all y'all had a wonderful week!  First off, I am staying here in Van Buren with Sister Buhler for another transfer! Woohoo!  It's been an adventure this week and we are so grateful we will get to spend Christmas here!!  Another thing that has happened this week is Light The World has started! Yay! It started with the worldwide day of service and we were able to do so much service that day! Sadly, there was a tornado Friday night that hit part of Van Buren, but gratefully no one was hurt and we were able to go and help the people whose houses were ruined. It was sad to see the damage, but amazing to see everyone working together to help one another. There were many miracles that happened to the people who were right by the tornado. One man left to go to Walmart to get more batteries in case the power went out and when he came back home his house was gone. It was a blessing that he left. He has a wife who is pregnant as well. Lu...