Washington is going great this week! Lot's of things are going on!
On
Monday, after emailing I played volleyball for the first time, with my
zone. I stink at volleyball. But the good thing about missionaries, is
that we really just want to have fun, if I don't do very well it's okay,
because no one else is either! :) I think the rest of my zone just
appreciates that Sister Harris and I came because we are the only
sisters in the zone and I imagine that without us, there would not be a
whole lot of good decision making going on. haha.
On
Tuesday I went on my first exchange with the Sister Training Leaders.
We don't really know what the point of these exchanges are. Sister
Heaton, the one I was with, said she doesn't really know what she's
supposed to do, but I guess STL's are mostly just supposed to love the
rest of the sister missionaries and make sure things are going alright.
Sister Heaton is super nice and a lot of fun, and really spiritual. I
learned a lot from her. One thing that was super helpful that I learned
while knocking on doors from her was one phrase that she used. Are you
ready for this? It's genius.
We
knocked on a door that said "No Solicitors" just like every house in
all of Belfair says. Then the lady opened the door and just pointed to
her sign. Sister Heaton looked at it and then said "We're proselytors,
not solicitors. If you had put no proselytors or solicitors, then we
wouldn't have knocked."
GENIUS!
People tell us all the time
that solicitors aren't allowed in the neighborhood, and we know that we
aren't solicitors, but we don't ever know what to say and it gets really
awkward! But NOW WE KNOW! So great. I actually said it last night. But
he just got mad at us and shut the door. Oh well. :)
Also
on my exchange we went to visit, Judy, an investigator of hers who is
really down in the dumps right now. She recently lost her job, her home,
and her husband. And I guess she had to move into this small apartment
by herself and then her pet bird/best friend died. She
was crying and asking why God would take everything away from her and I
felt so sad for her. But it was a little funny because she was more sad
about the bird than everything else. She said "Have you ever seen such a
beautiful bird? (While showing us pictures) It's amazing that God could
make a bird so beautiful." Then later she said "I can't wait to go to
Heaven. It'll be cool to see Ernie(her husband) but it will be even
better to see my bird!" Poor lady. We were able to share a few talks
with her about moving forward and knowing that God loves us and that we
can learn and grow from our trials.
On
Wednesday we had dinner with this lady ALL the way in Tahuya. It took
us 45 minutes to get there. She lives in the woods in this cute little
house on some water. She's this little 75 year old lady who I can tell
grew up full of spunk and fire. She drives a giant truck and when we
were talking about how long it takes to get here she said "It's not that
far, just a 20 minute drive." We looked at each other and were like "20
minutes!" haha Anyways she made us dumplings and banana cream pie and
had some bread and butter. This is so sad, Sister Harris and I had some
bread and butter, and then more bread and butter, and then more.
Afterwards we were like, "This is the best thing I've ever tasted!" The
reason is: The sisters before us left some of that "I can't believe it's
not butter!" in the fridge and so we've been using that on toast, and I
totally can believe that it isn't butter. It is disgusting! Also, if it
isn't butter then what is it?! Because there is literally nothing else
written on the tub besides "I can't believe it's not butter!" No
nutrition facts, no ingredients, nothing.
So, Sister Russell gave us a box of butter. Which was super awesome of her. I've had toast for every meal since.
We
then went to Young Women's and played Family feud with them. One non
member girl was there and so it wasn't a waste of time... man! I missed
Young Women's! Those girls are so fun!
One
night this week we went and picked up food for dinner from a member and
she's very... organic. She puts the food in Jars and it's totally
organic. It was some kind of soup with beans and meat and stuff and then
there were two jars of farm fresh milk and then some cookies. It
smelled super good so we were excited, we took pictures of it and said
"Wow, we're so healthy! This is awesome!" Then we said a prayer and took
a bite... it was SO BAD. I feel bad saying that, but it was just a huge
shock. Sister Harris, said "I think my mouth has just been violated."
She pushed her bowl away and went for a cookie. She took a bite of that
and was like "Are these supposed to be cookies? I don't think they are."
They turned out to be little organic bread things disguised as cookies.
But the farm fresh milk was really good!
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| This is the organic food. Doesn't it look pretty? |
That
same day we had had like 4 appointments and we were feeling pretty good
about the day but then all of them were cancelled. So we were feeling a
little bummed. We went to visit a potential but she wasn't home either.
Then we saw the house of a lady from our ward whose husband is in a
nursing home, and she is having surgery in a few weeks. We decided to
visit her, because, even though she is an active member of the church,
our job as missionaries is also to love and serve all of God's children and to lift them up. So we stopped by and talked to her and she was
just feeling so sad and downhearted and even though she's an old lady,
she still has low self esteem, which is so sad, so we lifted her up and
told we loved her and that she is beautiful and a daughter of God and
reminded her of her divine nature. We told her that every thought that
comes to her mind that is mean or harmful is not of God. Satan puts
those thoughts into our minds. Not God. So, what she needs to do, when
she thinks unkindly of herself is to say "Get thee hence, Satan" and
remember that God loves her.
Saturday was an interesting
day. We went to another old ladies house for lunch. At dinner a few
weeks ago we mentioned that we liked seafood and she was really excited
to feed us oysters. We were a little worried about that because we've
never tried oysters and honestly, they sounded disgusting.. but we went
over and ate them, and they turned out to be delicious! Isn't that
crazy? I guess the trick is to get them really fresh, like right out of
the water, and then roll them in flour and fry them in coconut oil and
butter for a few minutes. That's it. And they taste good. Just don't
look at them while you eat them.
Then
we went and did service at Zion's camp again. I love that place.
Washington is so lucky, they have SIX church camps! We got to go and
look at the lake and go inside one of the cabins that has bunk beds from
a submarine instead of normal bunk beds. It's pretty nifty.
After that we went to visit
the family we helped move a few weeks ago. The boys answered the door
and the younger one, who speaks very loudly and dramatically said "YOU
DO NOT WANT TO COME IN HERE! THERE IS A SNAKE ON THE LOOSE!" But we came
in anyways and there were 5 little boys running around, a ginormous
albino/blind/deaf great dane/horse running around and one other dog that
was barking and running around and another lady that we hadn't met
before and Chris, the dad, using a walker because he just had back
surgery. We tried to help them find the snake but things were crazy. A
lesson obviously wasn't going to happen then. The mom came home and
looked at us and just kind of apologetically smiled at us haha we looked
for the snake for a little while more and then set up another
appointment and left.
The RLDS lady that we are teaching had a church tour on Wednesday and
said that if it rains on Sunday she would come. So, we prayed for rain,
obviously and our prayers worked. It rained a whole lot. BUT SHE CAME TO
CHURCH!!!! Her grandson is not very good around new people or at
sitting still so she was going to sit with him in primary, but then we
sent her to Relief Society and we stayed in primary with him. It was a
long hour, but Andi loved Relief Society! She was smiling when she left
and we were so glad she stayed the whole three hours!
Sadly, the rain continued,
which just goes to show how much faith we have, haha. and knocking was
interesting. We were drenched by the end and no one liked us on that
street. More people than usual got mad at us, but it's okay. Afterwards
we went to a members house and asked for hot chocolate. Luckily, they
love us and gave us some. :) My dream is to be knocking one day and to
knock on the door of a lonely old lady who loves grandmothering and to
have her say "Oh, you poor dears, come on inside and share a message
with me, also, I just pulled these chocolate cookies out of the oven,
would you like some?"
Is that so much to ask?
Haha, I love it here. I love being a missionary. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to spend two years loving people!
I love you all! Send me emails/letters and keep me updated on your lives!
Be safe and stay dry! :)
Sister Warburton
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| Mushrooms! Aren't they cute?! We found them at Zion's Camp. |
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| SNAIL!!!! |
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