Taking on Tacoma: Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Hey Family and Friends! :)

Hope you are all staying warm!

I'm struggling to stay warm. But that's nothing new. I'm ready for Summer to come back.

This week was great, I can't remember much of it, but it was really good I'm sure!

On Tuesday I reached my half way mark. Some members were going to come get the beehive couch off our porch so we could burn it for my half way mark, but then the wind was pretty crazy so they told us it wouldn't work out that night. But they told me I could come burn something small like a skirt. So I brought a kind of ugly skirt over and they dipped it in gasoline, and hung it from their garage. It took me about a million tries to catch it on fire because I was afraid but I eventually got it and it went up in flames! And melted! And then was gone. I have a funny video of it, but it's too big, my email won't let me send it.

On Wednesday we had our district meeting. and then after that we visited the Jerome family. They are an interesting family, some of them got baptized about a year ago, but the youngest girl, Aurora wasn't. Also, the dad wasn't, and they have a 17 year old girl living with them too who loves church but never got baptized. So we asked them what was holding them back and then set up a time to come back and teach them. The dad and the 17 year old weren't there to listen, but when we came back on Friday we taught Aurora the first lesson and she really wants to get baptized! So we put her on date for December 4th! She's super sweet and we're really excited for her.

On Thursday we had our park day. We planned most of the day, but then we had dinner with a couple in the ward. They fed us the equivalent of a horse or an elephant. But it was really good. We just had to roll out of their house. It was funny, we asked her to give us a ride to where we were knocking, in downtown Winlock, and she was worried about dropping us off there. But we were thinking "Are you crazy? Do you see all the sidewalk that we have here? And there are at least THREE streetlights! This is wayyyyy less scary than knocking most of the roads we knock." haha she wouldn't have let us get out if she had dropped us off anywhere else. We had a pretty good time knocking. We both had to go to the bathroom pretty bad, but we found a few teenagers that were willing to listen. They both said we could come back and teach them. And one of them already has a ton of friends that go to our church. So, hopefully we'll be able to find them at home again.

It wasn't too cold while we were walking everywhere on Thursday, but then we stood and talked to Carlos for a while and by the time we started walking again my feet were numb. So, the 40 minute walk home was a bit rough, but I just sang some Christmas songs, and it was all good.

On Friday we did service for a family in the ward, they are trying to get their house built before Christmas so we helped them move wood and clean up.

In the evening we helped at the senior center. They had an awards night for some 1st Responders or something and a dinner, so we helped clean dishes. It's funny because you know you have been in a small town for a while when you show up to a community service project and recognize a lot of the people. Even when they aren't members. We knew half of the people working in the kitchen, and none of them were members of the church. We didn't even know they would be there.

Saturday was also a good day. We knocked into a family earlier in the week, the Bradshaws, and they have no religious background. But they have researched different beliefs and they bought a few bibles. And they have a TON of really good, but pretty deep questions. So, they told us we could come back. We had a great time teaching them and answering their questions. We were 40 minutes late to dinner, but it was a good lesson and they told us we could come back.

We didn't do any proselyting on Sunday. We had meetings in the morning before church, then a pretty stressful few hours of church. One lady showed up with her daughter who has autism, and we were so glad she came, but we weren't very prepared, and we were trying to make her happy and comfortable but her daughter just wasn't having it. Sacrament meeting went well. She made noises, but I noticed that there were lots of kids making noise just as loud. And one kid, even ran up onto the stand during the sacrament. Haha I'm sure his grandma was embarrassed, but it was kind of a tender mercy to make this mom feel better. The problem was primary. She didn't want to be separated from her mom. Plus, she is in the one class that already has 2 other kids with autism in it. Our primary president was pretty stressed out. We did a bit of running around, silent prayers, etc, and they ended up going home early. But they will try again next week, and so will we.

We were able to breathe much better after they left though. That's bad.. but having people come to church is probably the most stressful thing ever.

We had lunch with some members and then we drove an hour to the Elma Stake Center for a musical fireside. It was pretty fun. I got to sing in a musical number with 5 other sisters and I think it sounded really pretty. We sang the Hymn 316, The Lord is my Shepherd.

Soooo that was my week. It was great. It's getting really cold. I'm sure I'll learn how to drive on ice sometime this coming transfer. Keep me in your prayers. :)

I'm holding up a lot of people that need to email their families, so I'm just going to skip on the spiritual thought... sorryy. Next week I'll have a really good spiritual thought. :)

I love you all and I miss you!

Love, Sister Warburton

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