O.o

Hello everyone!

This week was jam packed with stuff so bear with me, because my emails are mostly for my Mom. 

Monday was not crazy. We just did boring P-day stuff, and then boring missionary stuff. 

Tuesday we did service. We helped clean a house that a family moved out of last week. I cleaned the dishes. Visiting certain homes and doing service in some of them really makes me not want to have any stuff. When I get home I'm going to purge even more of my stuff. Because I don't want to have a house full of useless stuff that someone else ends up having to clean up one day. 

We went street contacting in Vader and met this lady named Rachelle. She is a young mom of 4 and she was so sweet. We sat out on the grass with her kids and played with them and taught the restoration. She's really interested in learning more and strengthening her family. Her son has this disease that ruins his muscles, and he will probably pass away in a few months. Which is really sad, but I am excited to teach her about God's plan for our families and for us to find true joy. So that she can know that her family can be together forever. 

We also visited this couple that lives right next to the train tracks. (69 trains go through Winlock every day. It's pretty loud, but kind of fun.) They've designed their house to look like an old fashioned train depot and he sits outside, drinking old fashioned soda, and waves at the train conductors. They aren't interested in learning anything but they love talking to missionaries. 

We met a couple that are in our ward, the Quinlans. Sister Quinlan is close to my age and she's from Brigham City Utah, she knows Adam and Levi (her cousins)! I thought that was cool. 

On Wednesday we had District Meeting. I taught the first half of the lesson. I found out that I'm the oldest person in my district....and my hair is darker than everyone elses. Those are two things that are uncommon. Also, we came up with a District name "Guerreros de Verdad" It means Warriors of Truth. Pretty fancy. :) 

We knocked doors on a LOOONG road without many houses or any "road side" to walk on. We ended up walking in the ditch for a little while. Nobody was interested. :( At one point a sheriff drove by and slowed down a lot like he was going to stop and talk to us, but then he probably noticed our name tags and thought "OH, these dummies that are walking on this long road are missionaries. That explains it." Then he sped up and moved on. 

That night we went to mutual and scouts and the youth were playing life sized hungry hungry hippos. We were asked to help keep control of the balls going all over the place. That was pretty fun. Our bishop really makes an effort to go to all the youth activities, as well as seminary, and it's fun to see how much he interacts with the youth. Him and the rest of the bishopric took a turn playing hungry hungry hippos. That was hilarious. 

Thursday we weekly planned for a LONG time. Mostly it was brainstorming what we can do to get this area going and to get the members excited about missionary work. We talked about it and changed our baptismal goals from really low goals per month, to 6 baptisms a month. Since the Ward baptismal goal for the year is 18 and so far there have only been 2. We know that there are 16 more people that are prepared and ready and waiting for the gospel, but it's going to take a lot of effort from us AND the members. But I have faith that we will be able to find those souls who are ready for the blessings that come from being baptized, and making those covenants. 

That evening we were feeling pretty excited and bold. It was our park day though so we were a little bit hindered. We asked the member that was feeding us to give us a ride to their home for dinner. Then being a grandma without any grandchildren around she took it upon herself to be ours. She told us that after we finished knocking to come back and she would take us where we need to be. 

While knocking we met this guy named Lyle. He lives in an RV on this long road in the middle of nowhere and he was willing to listen to the Restoration. Then I, trying this week to be more bold, invited him to be baptized. He said he'd have to pray about it, but I was feeling pretty pumped about inviting someone on the doorstep to be baptized. He's one of our new investigators this week. 

After that we went back to the members house and she gave us a ride to downtown. Which is about a mile from our house. We didn't have any set plans so we were just going to visit a few members that lived nearby and then street contact, then walk home. She didn't feel too great about letting us do that, so she was going to wait until we knocked on this members door to leave, but we said "if they don't answer, we're going to street contact anyways. We have been asked to keep working until 9, so that's what we'll do." (adopted grandmas kind of get in the way of being exactly obedient. But we appreciate them anyways.) So she left and the member didn't end up being there, but we had some pretty awesome contacts! We met one lady who likes to hear messages and get pamphlets, then she introduced us to one of her neighbors, Renee, who has a friend in California that is Mormon, and the two of them have been reading the Book of Mormon for a few months now. She's in ALMA! And hasn't talked to missionaries yet! So, we are going to start teaching her too! Then we shared a message with another person who has had a really hard life, her name is Candy. She has some kids that she loves, and tries to teach them to follow Christ so they don't make the same mistakes she did. She seemed pretty hopeless, but we let her know that God loves her and is aware of her, and Jesus Christ is here to give us hope, then we said a prayer with her and went on our way. It was a night of miracles, and on our way home the member that dropped us off called us and made us tell her where we were so she gave us a ride home. Because she just didn't like the idea of us walking home in the dark. And would not stand for it. 

On Friday we went on an exchange with our Sister Training Leaders. Sister Bigley came here with me, and we had a blast! She went back to her area saying "This is the most interesting exchange I've ever been on!" (haha you can determine if that's a good or bad thing.)

We didn't have many set plans, but that's okay, we just did a whole lot of finding. Like knocking doors, and street contacting, and knocking some more and street contacting some more. At one persons home they gave us some ferrets to hold. And it's funny because I don't think you could tell how grossed out we were because we kept saying things like "awww, they are so cute!" or "Wow this cage that you made really is cool!" And stuff. But as soon as we were both in the car we looked at each other and said "Gross, I didn't want to hold those! Now WE probably stink!" And we washed our hands as soon as possible. 

Another interesting thing (that took about 10 years off my life): I got pulled over by a cop for the first time! D: It was the most stressful thing. I had NO idea what I was doing wrong. Sister Bigley just said "Hey, I think you're getting pulled over." And I was like "What?" So I pulled over and it was super dark and I hadn't been speeding and I didn't run any red lights or stop signs so I had no idea what was happening. Then it took FOREVER for the cop to come over to our car. And I just didn't know what to do. So he came over and told me that my tail lights were out. (PHEW) but then he started asking all these questions, and I don't know about you but when people ask me suspicious questions I start to FEEL guilty. And then I was stressed that I LOOKED guilty. I don't think so, I probably just looked super stressed out. Anyways, I guess I've been driving without tail lights the whole time I've been in Winlock because you have to manually turn them on, and I wouldn't have ever thought of that. So he took my license and I gave him the blue card that says I'm a missionary and I'm allowed to drive this car, and then he went over to his car to look at it. THEN this OTHER cop came over and told me that the blue card meant nothing to him, and it was dumb of me to give it to him. He was pretty rude. Then he took my license. and a few seconds later the other cop came over and said "He forgot to give you back your license. You're good to go." So, that was my first experience with cops. I didn't get a ticket or anything. Thank goodness. That probably would have killed me on the spot. 

THEN we had a few minutes left over and we still needed to talk to 4 more people to reach our goal, so we decided to street contact. Sister Bigley wasn't thrilled with the idea because Winlock is not exactly the best place to be after 8 pm, but we decided to FEAR NO MAN. And God provided MORE than 4 people for us to talk to. We walked to this group of people and they were all smoking and drinking and offered us some and we were like, "um no thanks, but do you want to learn about Jesus?" And some of them were prettyyy rude and said some preettyyy inappropriate things, but one girl came running down the stairs and sat down and started asking us questions about where we're from, and why we are here, and why we are doing this, and her brother came down too and was really nice to us. She said she would really like to introduce her mom to us because her mom really needs to strengthen her faith. So it was a pretty cool tender mercy. Sister Bigley told me "Every time you step out of your comfort zone, Jesus Christ is grateful" and I love that. And I think, not only is He grateful, but He also blesses us and helps us as we do hard things. It was scary to walk up to this group of people, and I didn't really want to do it, but God has asked me to talk to every person I see, and to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them, and as I do that, He will provide a way for me to accomplish that, and in this case, He provided on listening ear. And a  really nice but very drunk guy that kept telling us we were beautiful was there too. haha. 

WOW this is super long, and I"m not even finished. Sorrrryyyyyyyyyy. 

I'm just going to quickly rush through the weekend. We were brave Saturday night too and talked to these two men in downtown Winlock and taught them the restoration, and gave them each a Book of Mormon, and then invited both of them to be baptized. Never in a million years would I think Sister Kinsey Elizabeth Warburton would be brave enough to talk to two men, in a dark old town, at 8:30 at night, teach them a whole lesson, and then invite them to be baptized. AND bear her testimony to them. It's crazy. And missions really change a person. 

AND last night, Sunday, I was blessed to be able to go to a baptism in Olympia for Steven Patton, a man that I invited to be baptized 2 weeks ago, just before I left Olympia. It was the best night I've had in a long time because he is the first investigator that I've worked with who has agreed to be baptized. I've been waiting a long time for this, and I've been working really hard for this, and I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father gave me the chance to be a part of Steve's conversion. I now have someone I can put in my Preach My Gospel. I know that my efforts aren't wasted. There ARE people that need this message that I have to share, and I'm grateful God has trusted me enough to let me help Him help His children. :) 

It's been a good week, and I love being here. 

I love you all! 

Love, Sister Warburton

Pictures:

Bishop Calder saw my shoes the other day and said "Sister Warburton, how long have you been out?" and I told him 7 months, and he said "It looks like you've been working hard!"

Winlock: Week One

Wow. What a week! In Winlock. (Do you like my alliteration?)

So, Winlock is a total culture shock. Just totally different from anything I've ever experienced. 

But I have to tell you about my last day in Olympia and transfer meeting first. Then I will tell you about Winlock, and my new companion. 

We had a really awesome Zone Activity on Monday. (It was my idea, and I think it turned out really well! :) ) We played dodge ball with flour-filled socks. It was so much fun. We started off pretty organized with two teams and a line that we couldn't cross. Then we started a free for all game where every man (and woman) was for himself (and herself) (except our zone really likes contracts and secret combinations, and then to betray those secret pacts, so there were a few "teams" formed. I stuck to myself though.) So that was a blast. I ended up winning. (I love how that happens almost every time we play sports and I don't even have to do anything to win!) Then we finished up and went over to our cars to clean up... however, the socks started being untied and then BAM there was flour everywhere. Right in my face especially. Then when we ran out of socks to untie, the extra bag of flour came out... The church parking lot looked like there were a bunch of hooligans hanging out... Hopefully they didn't think to blame the missionaries. ;) 

I had flour in my ears and my nose and my eyes for the next 3 days. But it was totally worth it. ​

Transfer meeting was fun. We had 30 new missionaries come in! Which meant that we had 30 welcome skits! I thought mine was last, which was really awkward because mine was pretty lame compared to the other ones, but luckily there was one more right after mine that was pretty funny, so it ended on a funny note. I do not like participating in skits... I met Sister Philippi, my new companion and she is great. She is from Carson City, Nevada (Carson's favorite city!) and she has red hair! She went to BYU Idaho for a year before coming on a mission. I didn't realize Winlock was SO far away from Tacoma... but turns out it is a 72 ish mile drive. Hoorayyyy for milessssss. ( I have now driven over 6000 miles in the past 4 months. I think it's almost safe to say that I'm an experienced driver now. Right?) 

So, Winlock. It's a different experience. It's the southernmost part of my mission. I drove to the edge of the mission boundaries the other day. Crazy. Living on the edge! (Literally!)

Things that I have been told about Winlock: 

• "There's only three kinds of people here. Loggers. Rednecks. and Redneck Loggers."
• Winlock is the egg capital of the world. They have an egg festival every summer. And at that egg festival one lucky girl gets to be "Egg Queen". (This one cracks me up.)
• There is a big Meth Problem. We've had multiple people tell us to be VERY cautious. (You probably didn't want to know that did you?" 
• And this town is considered "The Sticks" (Belfair was "The Boonies", Olympia was the town of "Hippies, Hobos, and Homosexuals") ((Please don't be offended, I love all of the people and places I've been! This is just what other people are saying!)) 
• We are the first sisters Winlock has had in 20 years.
• Winlock is a dying town. There aren't many people.

My area covers Winlock, Vader (the Stake President is mayor of Vader), Napavine, and Ryderwood.

Anyways, so that's more about Winlock, than you probably ever wanted to know. But, it's a great place to be. We've been keeping ourselves busy. 

There's a lot of work to be done. It'll probably be an uphill climb... but it will be great! We met an awesome lady last night named Janice who let us teach her a part of the restoration and she was open to talking to us again. She let us pray with her, and I really hope that she will act on the message we shared with her and pray about it, and have a desire to learn more when we come back. 

A good reminder to me, and to everyone else, if you've been trying to share the gospel with your family and friends and they haven't been receptive, know that even Alma the great missionary felt discouraged at times too. Sometimes success comes in ways that we don't expect them too. And know that you will be blessed for your efforts. 

Alma 8:15 "Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him."

This is when Alma had just been kicked out of the city Ammonihah, and the people refused to listen to him, refused to accept the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ from him. They were mean to him and rude and kicked him out of their city. As he was walking away, discouraged, I'm sure, an angel came to him and told him, what this verse says. 

I think I need that reminder so often. People have their agency. People have the choice to accept this good message. And we can try as much as we can to bless them with it, but ultimately we are only responsible for our own personal success. WE will be blessed for our righteousness, and our willingness to serve our God. But be of good joy. Be happy, and be grateful that YOU know the truth. Even if no one else does. And keep bearing your testimony. Because eventually, it will touch the heart of someone. Probably when you least expect it. 

I love you all. Keep being yourselves....and know that you are beautiful, amazing, important children of God. Don't forget it. :) 

Love, Sister Warburton 

Sister Philippi and I. :) 

Sister Phillipi

A bird of this lady that got mad at me my first day in Winlock. She got really mad at me. She's less active. I forgot to talk about it in my email. But she was talking about how she doesn't need to go to church so I, trying to be more bold, read Moroni 6:4-6 with her and asked her why she thinks the Savior would ask us to go to church. (In a loving, and not judgmental way) then she said the only thing she was missing was the bread and wine, so I told her that was the most important part of church, and then she got MAD and told me that I was a judgmental person and a bunch of other stuff. Good first day in Winlock. 

A llama.

A bird that flew into our window while we were planning. I picked it up to see if it was okay. Just call me Snow White.

Hello Everyone!

This week was crazy! 

I guess I lied about the cold because it got super hot this week. 

The sun was shining like crazy. But it's cold today so, maybe the cold is coming. 

Monday was fun! It was Labor Day and we got together as a third of the mission and played sports, and had a water balloon toss... that turned into a water balloon fight, and then we made a pyramid with all the missionaries that were there. The pictures are on the mission blog.  Haha. 

It was a blast. 

Tuesday had a lot of cool stuff happen. We got to do service for an investigator. Then we ate dinner with the Holdaways. Sister Holdaway had to go so we just ate with the 3 kids and they were really calm for the beginning. I was really surprised. They worked together to get dinner on the table and they were nice, but then throughout dinner they got crazier and crazier until at the end they were literally chasing each other on the ROOF (the roof over the porch) and holding the dog off the edge and throwing sticks and I tried to share a spiritual thought but they just weren't having it. Haha. I love that family. 

Wednesday was a zone meeting which got us really pumped and excited to do missionary work. Then we went to dinner and a member had invited this guy she met on a walking trail to dinner at the same time. She is an AWESOME member missionary. So we started talking to him about what we do as missionaries and asked him if he's been looking to strengthen his faith in Jesus Christ and see the peace that comes when we have a Christ centered life. and he really does want that change so we set up a time to meet with him again and taught the Restoration. And then he came to church on Sunday and LOVED it. :) It's awesome! 

I don't think anything too exciting happened Thursday or Friday BUT we met this one guy Thursday night while we were knocking who opened the door and said "What you are doing is useless. Going door to door and using your voice to spread the gospel is a waste of time. If you want to make a change, go do *blah blah blah*" Then he told us to never come back. Ever. 

So anyways, that was super pleasant. But THEN on FRIDAY we were knocking a totally different street. Totally different area, and this guy opens the door and starts saying the SAME EXACT things. And I'm just having a huge deja vu moment. So I ask "Did we knock on your door yesterday?" And he said "Yes. You did." and I asked "Was it the... same house?" Because I was SURE it wasn't, but I was so confused. And he told us that it was a different house. Anyways, at that point I couldn't help but just start laughing and laughing. Sister Evans wasn't really pleased but I just felt like God was playing some joke on us and it just made me laugh. 

Saturday was a crazy day. We had a much needed service project where we pulled black berries roots for 3 hours. It was hard work and it was dirty work and it was painful but MAN I needed to work out some stress because it felt great! Almost our whole zone was there and by the end we were having so much fun, we threw dirt at each other and were filthy but we got a ton of ground cleared. It was so fun. 

But right when we got home President Blatter called to give us our transfer calls. Which was stressful. 

Sister Evans will be staying here and training, which means that I am going somewhere else (that made me sad) and I am going to the Winlock ward in Centralia. I'm taking over an area that has been Elders for years and I'm going to be training.... Heavenly Father and President Blatter I guess trust me quite a bit, but I don't think I totally trust myself as much. I was pretty overwhelmed right away because I don't know the area, I don't even know who my companion will be, I'm going to be in charge and I also have to make the foundation for my new companions mission. I feel like I'm going to be alone, but I know that I won't be. 

Church on Sunday was made just for my I think because all of the talks and all of the lessons helped to ease my fears. One return missionary gave his homecoming talk and it was all about having faith and not having fear. Something he said was that "fear is something that is unworthy of a Child of God.... fear destroys that feeling of confidence God's child should feel in a loving Father." 

He continued to encourage us to CHOOSE to be happy in whatever situations we are placed in. Which I definitely need to work on. I started praying to be happy, but now I think I need to start by praying for the desire and the motivation to be happy and positive. Because sometimes I find that I just want to dwell in my bad mood. Which isn't something that a Child of God should do.. but it happens. 

So I know that God wants to push me and stretch me and help me overcome ALL of my fear. And the only way to do that is to do things that scare me and overcome them. So, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to accept it, and I'm grateful that God is in charge and knows what I need better than I do. Any prayers you want to send my way will be much appreciated. :) 

I love you all and I'm grateful for the prayers that are already sent my way. And I'm grateful for all the support and encouragement I receive. 

Have a great week! 

Love, Sister Warburton

Pictures:

This is the Holdaway family! I LOVE them. 

Camille Holdaway. She reminds me of Kinsey Hale 

We went to Izzy's for dinner one night this week. 

The McOwen Family. My Ward mission leader and his wife and the cutest child in the world, Lydia. 

Emily Henry and I. She goes knocking with us a lot. 

At the Holdaways so I could say goodbye. 

Happy Labor Day!

Hi Everyone! 

Ryan did not get baptized on Saturday... but I have faith that he will sometime soon. At this point all he has to do is call us and tell us he's ready and we'll get the font filled up that day. Haha. So we'll keep praying for him. 

We had a mini-Zone Conference this week to encourage us to have more faith, hope, and charity. Our missionaries have gotten really good at focusing on goals and being obedient, but I guess we need more faith and more of an understanding of our purpose. So that was really good. It gave me a good boost for the rest of the week. 

It's been awfully cold this week. Like in the 50's and 60's. Christmas songs keep popping into my head. I have to fight them though because Christmas is 3 months away... 

We started teaching Frank this week and he is awesome. They have a crazy family situation. But one of his daughters is determined to stay active even though the rest of the family isn't. He desperately wants to change his life so he can help his children. It's hard for him to live the gospel but he is doing it. We gave his daughter a bunch of Jesus cards to tape all over the house to try to bring the spirit into their home. 

Yesterday was Fast Sunday, and I got the courage to bear my testimony. Being a missionary, I should be bearing my testimony EVERY Fast and Testimony meeting... but I don't. So, that was pretty cool. 

Other than that nothing tooooo exciting happened, so that's it. Next Monday, I'll have more exciting information to share. Transfers are next week and I think a lot of changes will be made. :) 

A scripture that I've made my mission motto is Moroni 8:16. I've probably shared it before, close to the beginning of my mission but I've been focusing on a different part of it. 

"Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."

At the beginning of my mission I focused on casting out all fear. Because I had a lot of it. I still do, but I've gotten way better. But now I'm focusing on having perfect love. 

The only people who have perfect love are Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I don't expect to ever have PERFECT love, but I know that as I strive to have perfect love for God and Jesus and for every person I meet, any fears that I have truly will be cast out, and I will be able to speak with boldness because I would love people so much that I'd be able to say whatever they need to hear. 

Well, I love you all! 

Have a great week! 

Love, Sister Warburton

Here's a cute story she included in my email:

Yesterday we had break the fast with the YSA branch and I got to sit at a table with Sam, the guy with down syndrome who just got home from his mission with his parents. I asked him what his favorite thing about his mission was and then he laughed and told me his favorite thing about "Missiomary" work was "work work work!" He was fellowship for the college students that were learning and he loved teaching them lessons. He loved tracting and telling people that he was a missionary from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

Then he showed me that when he was on his mission to get around not being able to hug the sisters, he would give them a hand hug....haha....and he said "I can give you a hand hug" and then he said but the Elders, I would give a "BIG hug" Haha. 

He's so sweet. I hope Carson gets to go on a mission. 

Pictures!!

These are some pictures from today, we found a pretty field of purple flowers: