Taking on Tacoma: Hello!

Hi everyone!

How are things going?

This week was our first week since Daylights Savings. And I can not wait for Daylights Savings to happen again! It gets dark about 5:30 and it's gotten really cold and wet. You can probably imagine how fun it is to knock doors on boony roads in the middle of nowhere when it's pitch black outside and raining. Some of the people in our ward council made fun of us for complaining so we told them that they should come knocking with us so they can understand. Haha. I'm sure that none of them will take us up on that offer.

This week we made it our goal, just jokingly at first, to invite 100 people to be baptized. To give you an idea of how big a goal that is, last week we only had 1 1/2 baptismal invitations. So, we wanted to increase our average by like 100 percent. (If that math is wrong, just ignore it, I don't do math anymore.)

With our goal and our plan to accomplish it we made a contract with our district leader that said "I, Sister Warburton, along with the help of Sister Philippi, will invite a whopping 100 people to be baptized this week." And then I signed it with a red pen (because real contracts have to be signed in blood. It wouldn't be official without the red pen.)

We just made it our door approach during knocking. We said "Hi, we're the local missionaries and we are inviting everyone to exercise their faith in Jesus Christ by being baptized! Would you like to be baptized?"

And that was kind of awkward but most people were pretty nice. No one was interested, but I had faith that we would have miracles as we worked toward our goal. We got 8 invitations on Monday. 10 invitations on Tuesday. 12 invitations on Wednesday. And so by then we were about 30 invitations short of where we should be. I didn't have much hope of reaching 60 by Thursday, but we were going to have interview with our mission president that night so we decided to just aim for at least 50 before our interview. With our determination we shot past that and had exactly 60 when we had our interviews. President Blatter was impressed and thought it was awesome that we were trying so hard to focus on baptism, so the next day he texted us asking where we were at and we were at 82.

On Saturday we only got 3, because the road we picked was LONG and DARK and only 3 people talked to us. We did meet a really nice couple at the end though. They weren't interested in being baptized but they invited us in from the rain and gave us some food which we greatly appreciated. (For some reason no one signed up this week to feed us so we ate a lot of quick, easy food. Grilled Cheese, corn, rice, mac and cheese, candy, etc) They had just gone moose hunting and pheasant hunting, and they grew their own beans and picked some wild mushrooms from the forest and made this moose meat, bean, mushroom stuff and some pheasant curry. And it was SO good. They also asked us a lot of questions about missionaries and what we do and how we do it, and asked us to share our message with them. People NEVER ask us to share our message with them. So that was nice. They are very devout Catholics and aren't interested in changing, but we got to teach them about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, so hopefully it's something they'll think about.

Oh, back to Monday night! We finally had a lesson with an investigator, Carlos. We've been trying to teach their family since we got here, and we finally had a lesson. Since we were so baptismal focused we made sure to invite him to be baptized and he said yes! And he's actually always wanted to be baptized. His mom was baptized when he was about 3 or 4, but he remembers it and has wanted to be baptized since then. (He's almost 14.) Since he's been to church before, and has fellowship, and just needs to be reviewed the lessons, we put him on date to be baptized November 14th!

We weren't able to meet with him throughout the week because he got the flu. (Typical Satan.) So, we got to go back Saturday night and he was feeling better and we got the information for the baptism all figured out. So it's actually like 95 % set in stone! Unlike most other people that we've had on date in the past. So we are super excited for him. I get to fill the font for the first time since coming on my mission and I'm really excited! They say that this mission is one of the top baptizing missions in the United States, but I haven't been able to see that and my faith has wavered a few times, but I guess Heavenly Father just wants to make sure I continue to have faith in Him even when I can't see any results of my efforts.

So, that's the miracle that came from our goal. :) I'm sure more miracles will happen, I just can't see them yet.

On Sunday we just needed 15 more. So we knocked doors for like 3 1/2 hours and tried to find people that were at home. We had a young women with us and she was able to invite the 100th person to be baptized! He said no. But that's okay! It was awesome! And then we invited TWO more! So all in all we invited ONE HUNDRED AND TWO people to be baptized this week. And we have one actual baptism coming from it! :) So exciting!

President Blatter was so impressed that when we had our mission conference call Sunday night he gave us a shout out for reaching our goal. :)

Other fun things that happened this week:

- I saw an eagle flying. I think that's the first time I've seen an eagle just out and about in real life.

- We finally stuck our feet over the mission border. And got pictures, of course.

- And while we were doing that we were watched by about 50 llamas that were just hanging out on their little llama farm. (Or Alpacas) Llamas/Alpacas are hilarious because when they notice you walking by they just look at you. They stare and their eyes follow you the whole way. So, imagine 50 llamas all holding still and just watching your every movement.... It's funny.

- We met the Mayor of Napavine. So we have now met the Mayor of Vader (who is our Stake President.) The Mayor of Winlock (The one we were talking to last week, we also ran into him at Walmart. That was kind of funny.) and The Mayor of Napavine (who has a lot of Mormon friends, so he was glad to finally meet "the first sister missionaries in Winlock in 20 years!" )

And I think that's all that was exciting that I can think of. Oh, we also went into a house that had 12 Pomeranian dogs and like 10 cats (at least). Washingtonians are weird.

For my spiritual thought I'll just share a quote from Preach My Gospel. (page 211)

"The Lord sets His standards so that He can bless us. Think about those blessings; He promises those who meet the standards the help of the Holy Ghost. He promises personal peace. He promises the chance to receive holy ordinances in His house. And He promises those who endure in living His standards that they will have eternal life... Because we love the people we serve, all of us want to do better in lifting our Heavenly Father's children to the faithfulness and purity they need to have all the blessings of the Lord... You begin by holding up the Lord's standards clearly and without apology. And the more the world drifts from them and mocks them, the bolder we must be in doing that." - Henry B. Eyring

I think this applies with some recent announcements and with EVERYTHING that we believe. We have high standards because the Lord has set them for us. And those high standards bring us peace and happiness and true joy. So, we need to make sure we hold up those standards "without apology." Because if we love others, the way we should, than that's what we'll do.

I love you all and hope all of your wildest dreams come true this week!

Love,

Sister Warburton

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