Washington - Week 3 or "I can write nice emails but I'm not creative with the title...sorry."

I've now been on my mission for like 5 weeks. I feel like I'm an expert now. haha just kidding. But it's a blast! Being a missionary is fun.

I don't have to worry about school, or dating, or homework, or earning money or anything! All I have to worry about is the salvation of souls! (Which isn't stressful at all! haha)

I forgot to make a list of things I wanted to write about this week, so hopefully, this one will be just as interesting as the others. 

Let's see, the sun kept shining, but in the mornings we've had some super thick fog which makes driving interesting. I feel like most scary movies take place in Belfair. Can someone look up how many scary movies are filmed in Washington for me? (Don't tell me about them, I just want to know if that's a thing.) The fog looks really cool though when the sun comes up and shines through the trees and the fog. There are few things more beautiful than that I think. Actually, I find most nature beautiful as long as it isn't dead grass. 

I say "Oh my goodness, Washington is so beautiful." about 300 million times a day, ask Sister Harris. She's nice though and hasn't gotten annoyed at me yet. 

We got to do a lot of service projects this week which was really fun. One thing that was fun was going to Zion's camp and painting part of the ropes course. The missionaries that work there are awesome and take good care of us. They were worried about us getting paint on our clothes so they came up with a solution:

Try not to be too jealous of how stylish we look. 

I think she turned into Sister Cindy Lou Who

We also got to help in some apple orchards, clean a fridge (and sneakily teach the gospel while doing it).

We taught a lot of lessons this week and found a lot of people to teach. I started to get a little overwhelmed because we have a TON of people to teach and talk to and not enough time to do everything. 

​This is our white board. Those are the people we are supposed to meet with every week. There should be about 3 more people on there.

There are a lot of reasons why I decided to come on a mission. But one of them is because when I was in high school I would read scriptures that said something like "Wicked people will be stuck with fire and brimstone for all eternity if they don't repent." And in high school that scared me because I thought there was no hope for me. Now I read them and I worry for the billions of people who it seems have hopeless futures ahead of them. I don't want ANYONE to be stuck with fire and brimstone. That just makes me so sad. Every person who is on the earth made the choice before to follow Christ and His plan. Every one of those people were born with the light of Christ inside of them. Then they forgot and fell away and made bad choices and so many people don't know what they need. 

I get overwhelmed at this point because I don't want anyone to be lost forever, and I feel like it's up to me to make sure these Children of God know what to do. I want everyone I meet to be baptized, not to build up numbers for the church, not so I can be the best missionary ever, but so they can live with Heavenly Father again, because I love them. 

But I'm trying to remember to take baby steps and go one day at a time. Everything will be okay.

Other highlights from this week:

We had a mission conference on Saturday and Elder Richard G. Maynes from the presidency of the 70 spoke to us. Also, Elder Nielsen and Elder Bussy(?) were also there. It was pretty fun. One thing he said that stuck out to me was "We don't look backward, we always move forward." 

Also, "Missionary work is hard work, but in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we do hard things." 

(If you aren't serving a mission you can still be an awesome member missionary! Remember that everyone is a child of God, we love them and want to help them live with Heavenly Father again! So go out and be missionaries!)

Funny Tracting Story:

Last night Sister Harris and I were walking, at 6:30, down a long dirt road. We were looking for houses to knock on and talking to each other. We said something like, "Wow, Daylights Savings is awesome because if we had been here yesterday this road would be really dark and scary, knocking won't be scary anymore with all this light!" Then we walked past a house that had a reallly large dog chained up trying desperately to get off and eat us. So we said, "Thank goodness for strong chains." We were feeling pretty awesome and determined, when we heard barking and saw two HUGE dogs running toward us. We thought there was a fence but then all of a sudden, they were on the road heading toward us. It was absolutely terrifying. We hugged each other and got a lot closer than we've been so far and prayed that they wouldn't kill us, and then they stopped barking and let us pet them. Phew! Faith works! Anyways, we were really shaken by then and didn't feel safe anymore. Washington is still just as scary even with more light. haha. 

Feel free to pray for a leash law. 

If I didn't like dogs before, I like them even less now. 

We wear these really stylish reflector belts when we are out knocking. It's very professional and hip.

Anyways, Washington is great. Being a missionary is fun because I get to spend my days talking to people, hearing stories, teaching the gospel, sharing my testimony, serving others, and the members feed us delicious food every night. In fact, somehow there was a mix up and next Saturday I guess we are scheduled for 4 meals... Which is going to be really painful. One of those meals is oysters because I think I accidentally gave someone the impression that I like oysters... O.o Wish me luck. 

In Washington you find random art statements and decorations the the unlikeliest places. It says: 'Witch Parking Only. Violators will be toad." hehe.

I love you all and miss you! Keep emailing me and sending me letters! Thank you to those of you who already have! 

(Thank you youth for the minion twinkies and hearts!) 

Lots of love!

Sister Warburton