History of Relief Society: Linda Kjar Burton

Linda Kjar Burton

2012-Present

Linda Kjar was born to Morris Ashton and Marjorie Castleton in Salt Lake City.  She is the second oldest of six.  She was born of goodly parents and was raised in home that taught her a love for the gospel.  When she was 13, her father received a call to be a mission president that would take the family to New Zealand.  Her parents lived in Wellington while her and her sisters attended Church College of New Zealand located 6 hours and 10 minutes away.  When Linda was homesick she would look out her dorm room and look out at the New Zealand temple and feel the peace that it brought.  During a Missionary Testimony meeting she had a sudden realization that the gospel was true and that she had always had that testimony. 

She attended the University of Utah where she met her husband, Craig, at a devotional on Temple Square.  Although they didn’t know each other when they met, their fathers served together as young missionaries in western Canada.  Craig Palmer Burton and Linda were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple in 1973.  They had their first child almost a year after their marriage.  They have 6 children.  Linda has been always grateful for the opportunity she had to stay home with her children while going to school and starting a career.       

Things were not always easy. Just as the couple's fourth child was born and while Brother Burton was serving as a bishop, the U.S. economy collapsed and the real estate market fell apart. The prime rate went sky high. No one was buying. They went one year without an income.

“We lived off our food storage and got down to almost the last can of food,” said Sister Burton.

The Burtons turned off their furnace and used a wood-burning stove to heat their home. In the spring, an inspired but unknowing ward member asked the couple if they would be interested in taking over a garden plot. “That was a gift to our family to have fresh produce,” said Sister Burton. “We grew a huge garden that year and lived off that.”

One day they came home and found a box of frozen meat sitting on their counter. To this day they don't know where the meat came from or how someone got into their house, which was locked. But “it was a blessing to us,” said Sister Burton. “It was an assurance to us that Heavenly Father was aware of our needs and our efforts to be self-reliant.” Then, when it seemed they couldn't make it any longer, “a wonderful job came. It was an answer to prayers.”

Ultimately, Sister Burton said, the experience taught them to look to the future with confidence, “because we learned that if we do all we can and put our trust in Him, the Lord makes up the difference.”

Sister Burton has served on both Primary and Relief Society boards.  She worked as a LDS seminary teacher and has had numerous Primary, Young Women, Sunday School, and Relief Society.  She served along side her husband while he was called to the Korea Seoul West Mission for three years. 

“I invite us all to put a higher priority on preparing ourselves and loved ones to worthily partake of sacred and eternal temple ordinances and blessings. May we accept the invitation written on the assembly hall of the abandoned Nauvoo Temple as the Saints headed west. It simply said,‘The Lord has beheld our sacrifice: come after us.’ I testify that no sacrifice will be too great to claim the blessings of eternity that await as we worthily worship in the temple, keep our covenants, and help others to ‘grow up in the Lord.’”