WOW!

Primary songs like to pop into my head while we do things during the week. So, I'm thinking it's inspiration to help me know how to start my weekly emails. :) 

Here's this weeks. 

"The missionaries sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked!" 

This week we WALKED and WALKED a LOT. We are running REAL low on miles this month so we've tried to walk a lot! Unfortunately in this area you can't get too far very fast by just walking. But we didn't use our car at all on Tuesday or on Thursday. And then the rest of the week we walked as much as possible and used our car only for times we had to leave Montesano. (Which we do have to leave, because Montesano is only one of five main towns that we cover.) 

So, we walked a lot and DANG my calves look great! ;) Just kidding. That's not super important. 

Um. Nothing too crazy exciting happened this week besides that because some weeks you just work and work and work with little to show for it. But the harder you work the better you feel. 

On Tuesday we walked around town and picked up trash for service. That was fun! You don't really realize how much trash there is everywhere until you really start to focus on that. It's kind of sad how pretty this state is, yet how much trash is all over the side of the road.... Anyways, later, we walked from our apartment to our ward mission leaders for a lesson, but then our investigator never showed up, so then we walked to our dinner apartment (all uphill by the way) and we got there a little early but we were dying of heat because it decided to be in the 80's the day we didn't use our car. So, we decided to ask if we could come in anyways for some water. She was concerned because we looked a bit sunburned so she made us put sunscreen on. I didn't feel like I had gotten that much sun... but later on the pain hit. haha. Dang!

Don't be mad, Mom!  I learned my lesson!  We have sunscreen now! :)

By the end of Tuesday we were WORN OUT. We felt pretty good but the next day we felt like we had been hit by a train. I am SO grateful to be in a mission with cars, because HOLY COW if I had to walk all day EVERY DAY I would be exhausted! 

On Wednesday we had a district meeting in Shelton. Our district stayed mostly the same. Only one elder was changed. Elder Merideth is the new elder and he came from more city so he's not used to such a small district. Poor guy. We probably freaked him out.. because it was April 20th... which is ... Pot day... so we HAD to celebrate! ;) And by celebrate I mean we got all the pots out of the kitchen and put them all over the relief society room. haha. Elder Merideth looked at Elder Stansfield and said "Do you know what they're doing?" And Elder Stansfield had no idea. So we made them figure it out on their own. They eventually got it. But the new elder probably thinks we're a bunch of weirdo's and that's why President Blatter has banished us to this tiny district in the middle of no where far away from everyone. Poor guy. :)

On Thursday we didn't use our car again. It was just a regular tracting day. No one was too excited about our message. But that's fine. We're building character! :)

On Friday we walked to the food bank and helped out there. Then we did service for a guy in the ward. He just moved out of his house so he could be more downtown and closer to everything. He let us into his house and we vaccuumed everything. He must have had a lot of cats. (typical.) and so there was cat hair EVERYWHERE. I couldn't breathe by the end. But it felt good to make his house look so clean! Thank goodness for allergy medicine! 

We walked the rest of the night knocking and street contacting. While we were knocking doors we got chased by this obnoxious dog that does not understand the importance of personal space! He chased us THREE times. Rude. 

Saturday was a pretty good day this one will make me sound more like a missionary! :) We had a lesson with a girl named Kaytee! She's been going to church in the 2nd ward for 2 years with her boyfriend but she hasn't really been interested in getting baptized, so we never really talked to her. Well, last week her and her boyfriend broke up and she was pretty heartbroken over that and she was thinking about life and how she wouldn't be able to go to church anymore and she was wondering about her future family and how she wants her kids to be able to go to church, and it just hit her that she needed to be baptized. And when that thought came to her she felt the spirit more strongly than she's ever felt! So that night she called her ex boyfriends mom and talked her about it and didn't know what that feeling was. She said "I can't really explain it! I just felt good! Like, peaceful and comforted!" And Sister explained that it was the Spirit. So, we had our first lesson with Kaytee Saturday night! It was great! She is so sweet and so ready and she's planning to go to BYU Idaho when she graduates next year.  We're pretty pumped! 

This kind of showed us this week that missionary work really has absolutely nothing to do with us. Like honestly, we didn't do anything to get her where she is now. We never invited her to church, or to be baptized even. We didn't walk a million miles to find her behind a door. In fact we walked and walked and walked and didn't find a single person that was interested last week. Not one! But then, this one girl who's been being prepared for 2 years, or her whole life just pops out of no where. To me, it feels like Heavenly Father is saying, here you go, here's someone to teach, but remember that you didn't do this, I did. 

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's kind of humbling to me, to know that no matter what, I am not the one that finds these people, and I'm not the one that teaches them, and I'm not the one that baptizes them or anything. That's God, and Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. We just get the blessing of participating in it and seeing the gospel that's blessed us, bless her. 

Sunday was a regular Sabbath day, except I did play my one piano song, "I love to see the Temple" in sacrament meeting. And I messed up a bunch. So that was humbling too. Luckily, the Elma 1st ward is a pretty small town, humble ward as well. So, I don't think anyone judged me too much. 

One last thing, that kind of goes hand in hand with the dog that chased us. We decided to keep track of all the dogs we saw this week. And the grand total was: 

187    

As Sister Rosenvall would say, "BARFMA" or "That's disgusting." or "Throw up in my mouth!" or "I'm puking on the inside!" (I make fun of her mercilessly for the phrases she uses.)

So, if I did the math right. By the end of my mission I'll have seen about 14,586 dogs. Yup. Never getting a dog. 

Anyways! Thanks for all your prayers and for those of you who said Happy Birthday to me! Thanks Sister Luckett for the birthday package! I LOVED IT! Thanks Krista and Sister Sasser and Granny and Papa and Sister Boulton for the mail too! :) 

I finished the Book of Mormon again this week, so once again I'll share one of my favorite lines in the Book of Mormon! "Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him." (Moroni 10:32)

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Onward and Upward! 

Love, 

Sister Warburton

Round Rock Donuts....from Sister Luckett!

Do you see the white spot way up on the hill? It's a house. That's the house we hiked up to last transfer, when I was wearing my rain boots.

Also, Sister Rosenvall tried to make me a smoothie on my birthday but it wasn't blending so she stuck the spoon in the blender (while it was still on) and it sucked the spoon in and then the smoothie exploded everywhere.  Haha.  This is one of the places that the smoothie got to.

Sister Rosenvall made a list of my talents.  I thought it was pretty nice. :)

Us saying "WOW"!

Our makeshift fanny packs.

{insert something fun here}

HEY EVERYONE! 

You are hearing from a new TWENTY ONE YEAR OLD. Can you believe it? I'm legally able to drink now! (But I'll just stick to water and chocolate milk. (; )

I had a pretty great birthday week! I don't remember much, (I think I say that every week...), but I do remember that it was good! 

We had an ice cream party on Monday with the zone and played chair soccer. While we were playing sports, one of the members that works for the church came in and asked us to come meet this guy. So we went out and he introduced us to Tracy, a man in his 50's that lives in Montesano. He's been doing a lot of family history and just recently found out he's related to.... JOSEPH SMITH! He feel's like he's on a journey or a mission, and felt drawn to come to our church (and it happened to be on a day when a former stake president AND us missionaries were there) to see what he could find out. We haven't met with him yet, but he seems pretty awesome! 

I have no recollection of Tuesday... so.... sorry.... We probably just did lots of missionary work. 

On Wednesday, we had Zone Meeting. Sister Rosenvall and I had to give a training on increasing our faith. That's what I talked about in my email last week. It turned out pretty good. We had a lesson with one of our investigators that night. And then we met with our bishops. 

On Thursday we weekly planned and then had a good night of knocking doors in beautiful weather, meeting a lady named Corina who wants to be baptized (we'll meet with her tonight so updates next week!) and visiting some members of the ward. 

On Friday, we did service at the food bank. I really enjoy working there. We just have a bunch of older people from the community who come every week and are so nice to us. They always joke about how they're making coffee for the girls (us).  They call it the nectar of life, and we tell them that water is better!

Also, on Friday we went and did service for another lady named Robin. She needed help mowing her lawn... I've never mowed a lawn before but I've wanted to my whole mission for the experience! So I jumped on that opportunity! 

....

It turns out I stink at lawn mowing. So, I definitely won't be quitting my day job. It kept stopping and then I'd try to restart it, and then this 70 year old lady would come over and restart it for me. Eventually she said the grass was probably still too damp and had me pull weeds instead. :( We were there to help but we probably just made the job take longer than it needed. She did say though that she enjoys the company. Her husband passed away a little while ago... I'm pretty good at talking. So, I guess that's service.... 

That night we had a lesson with Michelle! She is so awesome! She is addicted to Mormon messages and she really wants to be baptized, she just has a few things she needs to work out. She remembered it was my birthday on Sunday and brought me flowers and cupcakes! :) 

On Saturday we got more sun! :D I LOVE THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Sorry, that's probably way too many exclamation points.) 

We had a meeting with the stake president, mission president, missionaries, and ward mission leaders so that we could work better together.

Then we had a break for a little while before the Adult Session of Stake Conference. It was a good meeting, but holy cow, sitting for 2 hours was a struggle that night. Sister Rosenvall and I were very squirmy. Don't know why. (It could potentially be because we always have an ice cream party with President and Sister Blatter after Stake Conference and we were starving to death.) 

It FINALLY ended and we had a fun ice cream party with the zone and P. Blatter. I really enjoyed it. 

On Sunday I turned TWENTY ONE. WOW I'm so old. 

Sister Rosenvall woke up early to decorate the apartment with a bunch of sticky notes saying Happy Birthday! She also drew all over the mirror and the windows with dry erase markers. 

Also, we had stake conference, so another blessing was only TWO HOURS of church and ZERO meetings. We normally get to church around 7:30 am and leave at 2:30 pm. So, getting out by 12:30 was niiiiiiicccceeeeeeeeeee. 

After church, the Nielsens threw a birthday lunch for me. :) Sister Nielsen is Philippino, so she made some Philippino pot stickers and noodles and lumpia. :) She ALSO remembered that I love sweet rice so she made that for dessert and put candles in it. :) The Ocean Shore elders were there because they had to be in Olympia that night, to save miles they decided to just work in Elma after Stake conference until they needed to head to Olympia. They didn't have lunch so we invited them. 

We had a musical fireside in Olympia that night so we went there. We had to be there to practice by 5. Our musical firesides are really fun. I love them, you can always feel the spirit really strong there, even when we're just practicing. 

Before practice, Sister Taylor and Sister Skousen came up to me with a birthday bag that had balloons tied to it. Inside she had a bunch of mini bottles of sparkling cider that had the labels covered up with things like "Belfair beer" and "Winlock Wine" and "Elma Liquor" It was funny. They also put Nutella and candy and a giant pen and a bubble gun inside. It was super sweet of them! 

Sister Stirling and Sister Bird ran up to me yelling "Happy Birthday!!!" and then throughout the night said it at least a million times. They made sure EVERYONE knew it was my birthday. Because of them, all the missionaries that were there made me get in front of them all (during practice) so they could sing happy birthday to me. By some miracle, I managed to keep my face under control and my face DIDN'T turn red. I wish I knew how I did that, because later President and Sister Blatter sang happy birthday to me again and my face DID turn red. And President thought that was funny. 

I got to see a few of my favorite members from Olympia that came. (not Sister Holdaway!) but Silem and Yani from the Oly 1st ward were there! 

It was a fun night! 

After Conference call, Sister Rosenvall and I had a small birthday party with the two of us. We drank sparkling cider out of champagne glasses, ate a champagne flavored truffle that Krista sent me, blew ginormous bubbles with the bubble gun (and sang "Sweet Sweet Nightingale from Cinderella") and then sucked helium out of one of my balloons and talked in a southern accent. It was way fun! We know how to party like a 21 year old! :) 

And so, that was my week. 

I'm trying to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the week, so I'll share a scripture that I read this morning. 

"Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth." Mormon 9:21

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I love you all! 

Love,

Sister Warburton

Our zone.

Some Snickers that Brother Shultz got us.  :)

Harmony.  She got baptized one year ago on her birthday April 16 so since her birthday is almost the best day ever, we made her a gift and visited her.  She's a cutie.

Birthday stuff.

Silem.

Yani.

Sister Krebbs.  She's going home this week.

Birthday party.

Bubbles!

Tshirt from Elder Webb.

Blowing out candles at night.

A picture of me right before it's not my birthday anymore. :)

Our matching neon shirts.

My studies.
I forgot to tell this story in my email...I decided to try that Clean Care stuff for my contacts and I just assumed that it was like regular contact solution (BOY did I think wrong).  In the morning, I put one contact in my eye but it felt kind of dry, so I got the other one and poured some of the Clean Care into it and stuck it STRAIGHT into my eye.  Bad idea!!  My eye caught on fire and I quickly took my contact out of my eye and washed it out with water.  I had to wear my old glasses for most of the day because my eye was sooooooooo red.  It was on Wednesday when I gave the training so I told the missionaries that this was the ONLY time they would see me wearing my glasses.  So....that's why I had my blanket over my head.

My eye. :(

A stylish hat.

Pictures by the nuke towers.

Working hard by jumping on the trampoline.

Birthday pictures.

More birthday party.

Saturday ice cream party.

Them singing to me.  Awkward!

President Blatter