Don de Lenguas y Investigadores

Hola! Buenas tardes familia y amigos! Una otra semana en Ecuador! :)

Another great week in Ecuador in Guayaquil with my cute little companion. She´s growing up so fast, we almost have 4 weeks together now! wow. where has the time gone? and i cant believe its been over 6 months since i left for my mission! :) wow. i am so grateful for the opportunity i have to be here and to share the gospel and be a missionary. thank you for all of your constant support and prayers.

This week we found some new investigators! One of them is named Michel. He is from Cuba and recently moved to ecuador to try and find a better job. he is probably about  27 years old and he is very Catholic. Well now most people here say they are Catholic... which means their parents were probably Catholic, but they dont actually ever visit the church. But this is not the case wit Michel. He was actually like an assistant to the pastor of his church and knows a lot about the Bible. Which means he has A TON of questions about everything!!! Sometimes im not sure how to even answer some of his questions... let alone his cuban accent is suuuppper hard to understand at times!! haha. but the neat thing is, he has come to church 2 times now, on his own will. we are not dragging him to church, but he comes by his own will, and says he finds peace in the church! At times its a little hard to teach him, but i have found that it doesnt matter who knows more about the Bible, its that we need to share our testimony with him, and then he can choose and find out for himself if this Church is true.

Another new investigator we found this week was named Paulette. She is so cute! she is 20ys old and we just contacted her as we were walking down the street. she let us come in and share a short message with her, and she accepted a day to be baptized! :) Wow! 

We are still preparing the Familia Amalia to be baptized and working hard with this great family! :) They constantly make me smile! this past week we were teaching the 8 year old Gabriel, and his mom, and Gabriel said the closing prayer... and during the prayer, his little 2 year old brother Andres smacked him in the head with water bottle HARD, so andres in turn received a hard smack by Gabriel... all during the middle of a prayer. Hermana Vargas and i could not contain our laughter!! 

Yesterday my companion and i both spoke in church... both of our first times speaking in church in the mission! (haha funny because i have 6 months and she has 3 weeks). We both talked about missionary work, and mine was about how we can hasten the work of salvation. I truly was helped, because i was able to give about a 10 minute talk in espanol! wow! :)

I know that God is in this work and that He has a plan for each of His children. i am so grateful to be part of this work, and helping to bring others to Christ. I had some neat gift of tongues experiences this past week, where i was able to speak Spanish easily and fluidly for several of the lessons. i know my spanish isnt perfect, but i had moments this past week, where spanish came so easily to me. i know its near impossible to learn a new language in less than 6 months. i have no doubt that i have been helped so much every step of the way to learn this language and to understand the people here. i am so grateful for the love that God has for me and for His children, and when we trust in Him, He will not let us fail, because He wants us to succeed. I love you all lots! thanks for everything you do! :) Cuidese mucho!

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Warburton

me and my comp with carlita (miembro)and hermano chacon (our leader misional)

my TERRIBLE sunburn.... suuuuuppper bad ( i had an intercambio with hermana vasquez .. comp de hermana childs... friday and got this bad sunburn!!)  ...haha you can even see my watch sunburn line! hahah

me and my cute little companion, Hermana Vargas

me and my comp with paulette.. miembro that accompanies us to our visits

Noche de Hogar y Fe

¡Buenos días!

So good to email and talk to you all again! 

This week hermana vargas and i have been working hard! and my cute little daughter is growing up fast and becoming such a great missionary! i am so proud of her! its so neat to watch someone from day 1 grow and learn new things as a missionary. :)

This past week i learned a lot from the people here in ecuador. there really are some great people who have helped me become a better person. This week we visited a less active member - Rina Fernandez and talked to her and shared a scripture about the stripling warriors and the importance of mothers. i am so amazed at her dilligence and willingness to go to church with 3 little kids all by herself! she takes them to church herself and does it with such grace! for me, her example of perserverance was so great to see.

yesterday we had a family home evening (noche de hogar) with the Familia Amalia! (Amalia, Karla, y the grandsons Gabriel y Andres-- our investigators) It was sooooo fun!! but it didnt start out like that. Acutally the night started out pretty much like a nightmare!

Before the noche de hogar my companion and i were in the church with the relief society practicing a song they are going to sing for stake conference. (somehow i am now the designated piano player at all functions). Amalia and her friend Miriam (who is a member) were there practicing, and we had all planned that after the practice we would go to Amalia´s house and have the noche de hogar. At 7pm when the choir practice ended, it started raining like crazy! Down pour!! sooooo much rain. its not like the little rain we sometimes get in utah.. the rain here is CRAZY!! and because of the rain nobody wanted to leave, and Miriam wanted to postpone the noche de hogar for another day.... 

Luckily a member had his car and took the people in the church by groups to the house of Amalia. After some arranging of food and chairs, we were finally able to have the noche de hogar!! It was a miracle!! And a lot of members in the ward came and joined us, and also our zone leaders came! We probably had around 20+ people there!

We played Jeopardy with questions about the gospel from the 5 missionary lessons. and it got pretty intense!! haha! i was actually suprised! but amalia and karla (our investigators) were so cute and had such a fun time playing and being competitive. and of course we ended with some delicious food! :)

The noche de hogar that started out like a nightmare, ended up to be such a great night! :) Wow. i had a fun time, and the members and investigators that were there did as well. But my favorite part of the night was not the games or the food. My favorite part of the night was actually towards the beginning when we sang the opening hymn "I am a child of God" (Soy un hijo de Dios). As we sang with 20+ voices singing that they are a child of God, with such a strong conviction, i couldnt help but feel the Spirit, and realize that wow. we are children of God. And these people here in ecuador are great people who, also, are children of God and have truly seen the blessings of the Gospel in their lives. I felt so blessed to be in that room singing I am a Child of God with the people in this ward!

This week we talked a lot about faith! almost with every person we taught! how important is faith!! i read a talk this past week by neil l. anderson about how faith does not grow by chance, but by choice. The way we live will either help our faith grow, or diminsh it. Prayer, obedience, honor, purity in thoughts and works will help our faith grow. without doing these things, our faith will diminish. i have seen great faith in the people here. its amazing to see how they will have faith despite their adversities and trails. its their faith that carries them through their trails. Their love and faith in Jesus Christ is amazing! :)

Gracias por todo su amor y oraciones. Sé que Dios es nuestro amoroso Padre Celestial y nos ama. Él nos da mandamientos para guiarnos y ayudarnos tener mayor felicidad en esta vida. Sé que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y podemos lograr mas paz y gozo cuando seguimos a Él. ¡Tengan una buena semana!

Translation: Thanks for all your love and prayers . I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and loves us. He gives us commandments to guide us and help us to have greater happiness in this life . I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and can achieve more peace and joy when we follow Him.Have a good week !

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Warburton

the noche de hogar with amalia (in the pink) , karla (in the blue dress), miriam (on the end in the brown skirt), and amalia´s other daughter anita

our sad faces when friday we didnt have lunch.... haha :)

Training and Families

¡Feliz St Valentine! ¡Feliz dìa de amor y amisad!

Wow this week was cool! Everything got changed up because.... I am now training a new sister missionary!! :) I am training Hermana Vargas from Peru! She is 19 years old, and super sweet. Its such an adventure to be training a new missionary, and watching her experience her first days as a missionary.. which seems like it was just a week ago for me! :)

On monday and tuesday i was working with another hermana.. hermana dominguez in my sector until we both received our "daughters". We had some fun in our sector as we taught my investigators, and laughed as we watched one of our investigators feed her 2yr old grandson a huge bowl of soup, and just to have the little kid throw it all up! haha!

On Wednesday we went to the temple to do a session and receive our new companions! We arrived at the temple with president and hermana riggins and the 3 new missionaries (1 elder and 2 hermanas). right when we got there, president riggins told us who our new companions were... mine is hermana vargas! after we had breakfast, we did an endowment session at the temple. it was so beautiful! wow! Heavenly Father loves us so much, and every time i am in the temple i am reminded of this great love. How great it is to know that we are children of a loving Heavenly Father! after the temple we had training at president´s house all day... luckily we had some good food too! :)

Thursday was hermana vargas´ first day in the mission! :) We had a good day and were able to teach various amounts of people. It was fun to teach with a new companion, and help her learn the sector and investigators a little bit. We taught few families, and contacted many new people!

Amalia and her daughters are doing well! I just love this family! Amalia is so smart! :) i love teaching her, because she understands, and realizes the importance of the Gospel, and has a great love for Jesus Christ. and amalia is so sweet and gave me a compliment on the way that i teach! it made me feel so happy... that even though my spanish might not be the best, at least she is understanding! :)

Funny thing....Remember how i love "Good Luck Charlie" from disney channel.... haha so we were walking down the street yesterday, and i put a goal in my mind that i would contact a house, and that we would get a new investigator from this contact. So i started looking for any type of clues or things i could comment on so that i could start up a conversation with someone in the street. As we were walking i saw through a window that someone was watching "Good Luck Charlie"...just my favorite Disney Channel tv show!!! Perfect!! i thought. i will contact them! and i know it will be a family because this is a family/kid show! ... so i ring the door bell and this old old man comes to the door! i start to talk to him and he is a Jehovah Witness (which are not too good of friends with the Mormons here... ) and basically it was really awkward and we left after inviting him to the church... haha! it was not a family. just an old man watching disney channel!! :) haha!

Yesterday at chuch was the first time the ward got to meet my new companinon, and they all loved her! She is adorable! But.. normally we dont have to teach the Sunday School class of Gospel Principles... but i got informed the minute we walked into the class that the teacher was not there and the missionaries had to teach the class!... which really meant I would have to teach the class! ah! i had about 3 mintues to prepare the class on....The Law of Chastity!!!! 

But somehow, i was thankfully really calm. the class is full of investigators and recent converts, and they participated really well! Honestly a miracle happened. i was helped, and given the words to say.. and in spanish! i was able to teach the class in a way that the people understood and could feel the Spirit. I focused a lot on the family, and how the Law of Chastity helps us find happiness and peace within the family. I shared pictures of my own family and how much they mean to me! :) But my favorite part of the class was when i started talking about my mom and dad. I showed the class the picture i have of just my mom and dad, and explained what a great example they are to me. They are an example of the type of parents i want to be, and the type of parents that have found happiness by keep the commandments of God. I showed them the light that was in their faces, and how each of us can find this light when we are living the commandments of God. I will admit that i was getting a little choked up at this part of the lesson, and i look over to one of the investigators in the class, and he had tears streaming down his face! i felt so touched that the example of my parents had helped an investigator in my class feel the Spirit! :) Thank you mom and dad! :) you are changing the lives of people here and you dont even know it! :)

i love this Gospel! i know that it is true! I know that Christ is our Savior and loves us so much! We always have the chance to change and be better. This gospel is a gospel of hope and love! :) i am so grateful for the opportunity i have to share it with the people here!

les amo,

Hermana Warburton

Hermana Vargas' first day in the mission field

Me and my new companion

"What-e'er thou art, act well thy part"

Hola hola familia y amigos! Buenas tardes.. espero que tuvieran una buena semana con mucho felicidad y tranquilidad!

For me, this week we worked hard! But sometimes even when we work hard... success is not always knocking at our door... but i know its just outside and one day it will come in!

this week we had a lesson with Angel Valencia and his family. His son and wife are members (and have been for 18 years) and he has basically been investigating the church for 18 years and never been baptized! We showed him part of the Jose Smith profeta de la restuaracion movie and then talked about the importance of priesthood. We explained that we are the only church that has the authority and permission from God to baptize, and even Jesus Christ had to be baptized with this same authority. We bore testimony multiple times of the priesthood and the restoration... but he still would not accept a baptismal date... But we are praying that one day he will accept one! He knows jose smith was a profet and the church is true, but i think it is him that needs to decide that he wants to be baptized!

This week we also taught a group of young women who were menos activos and non members. we sang for them, i sang a couple of opera songs for them, and we all shared our talents. Then we talked about how much God loves each one of us and has blessesd us with an opportunity to better our lives and be the best we can. Each of us has a plan and we are super special to our Father in Heaven. it was so fun to teach them! It reminded me of Lindsey (cause they were her age) and also me when i was that age! The gospel was soooo important to me when i was younger. it was what really helped me through school and any problems i had! i have a testimony that when we trust in God, even when we are young, He will direct our paths for the good! He knows who we can become, and He will help us become those people we need to! :)

This past week was fast Sunday, so hermana childs and i started our fast with a prayer... and well the prayer hermana childs said was just a little long. and i was super tired... and i accidently fell asleep during her prayer!! i woke up like a minute after she was done and said "amen!! " ahh! oops! but it was a good prayer, and im so grateful for the opportunity we had to fast for our investigators this past week!

We are still teaching the familia Amalia and her daughters Karla and Sahiana and her nietos. Ah! they are so cute! and Amalia is so smart! Wow! She is probably about 60 years old, and she is super quick and reasonable. yesterday we explained about profets, the restoration, and jose smith, and asked her if she believed jose smith was a profeta. she said "Of course he was a profeta!! of course!!" haha! we were so suprised! she knew it, and had no doubt! :)

This week i got proposed to. So we stopped by the bakery that always gives us free bread this past week, and as we got up to the window, there was another customer buying bread there. When the owner saw us, he said to the customer, "Hey step aside! (and pointing at me) I want to marry that girl!! Ah!! And then we got 3 pieces of free bread...  hahaha! 

This week hermana childs had the stomach flu... so i had lots of time to read my scriptures and past conference talks. :) This week i read a talk from the april 2013 conference by Elaine S. Dalton called "We Are Daughters of Our Heavenly Father." it was amazing! Wow i highly suggest reading this talk, especially women. she talked about how important women are in the world, and that women have such a divine purpose in this life. We are each unique and different, but our part matters, because we matter.  I espeically loved a saying she repeated a couple of times that she had found when she was in scoltand. it says, "What-e'er thou art, act well thy part." Whoever we are, we all have a proposito y part to play in this life. Whatever it may be, we need to act well our part! we matter, and God trusts us to do our best, and when we remember this, i think we can realize that truly we can do anything, because God is on our side. What a great blessing we have to know that we are children of our Heavenly Father. He loves us, and wants us to have happiness. When we follow Him, follow the teachings of our Savior, we will find this happiness and fulfill our part in this life. I am so grateful for this plan of happiness and for my Savior Jesus Christ.

gracias por todo su amor y oraciones! les amo muchisimo!! tengan una buena semana! :)

les amo!

Hermana Warburton

Put Off the Natural Man and Become a Child

¡Buenas tardes! 

Wow the first month of the year is gone... and we are into february already! :) I am so grateful for the experiences ive had on my mission so far, and for the good month of jaunuary ive had. the baptism and wedding of joffre and katti were some of my highlights of the month! :)

Right now we are teaching a couple of families with little kids that are super adorable. Family Amalia and her daughters and grandkids, and Katty Viteri and her kids. Teaching families is so fun! But.... its also WAY hard. Because these kids can be CRAZY!!! like running around, yelling, stealing everything from our bags! haha! so hermana childs and i have bringa bag of candy to give to these kids during lessons and church to hopefully keep them under control a little bit!! 

But its also fun to involve these kids in the lessons, because its amazing to me how much they already know about God and Jesus Christ. As we were teaching Katty Viteri this past week (a new family), we had her 7 year old son help us "build" the church of Jesus Christ.... he helped us construct with blocks the foundation of the church of Jesus Christ (blocks that are labeled with "revelation", "profets", "priesthood", "scriptures"). At the end of the lesson the 7 yr old said the prayer! I love the faith that little kids can have. they believe in God, and have no doubt. Just as in the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin taught us that we need to put off the natural man, and become as a little child! :)

On Wednesday we had a training with presidente riggins and a bunch of other zones that are around the guayaquil city area. it was a training of all the things we learned last week in the world wide missionary training broadcast. it was good to review the things we learned, and also learn soooooo many new things!! Presidente Riggins is such an amazing teacher, and i learn so much from him every time we get to listen to him talk and teach us.

On Saturday we had a baptism.... well not really. the zone leaders had a baptims... but we basically set the whole thing up for them! the zone leaders couldnt use the baptism font in their church, so asked us to fill up the font in our church for them. So hermana childs and i went to fill up our baptismal font for them.... and to our surprise... the font was still full from the baptism of joffre, 2 weeks ago!!!!! needless to say.. it was super nasty!!!!and we had to clean it out and re-fill it for them!! and even though it wasnt our baptism, we were able to bring one of our investigators- Sahiana, to the baptism so she could see it, which was really neat! :)

The food here really is pretty good! i am learning to love all the dishes that they make here for us, including the rice!!! :) But sometimes we get fed SOOOOOO much food!!! its incredible the amount of food i am able to put in my body. this past week i found myself singing "The Eye of the Tiger" twice during the lunches.. because man. i felt like a winner when i finally finished all the food!! haha! but really the people love us, so they feed us, and its delicious food!

Also there is this tradition in ecuador that they make little paper dolls of people and put them at the end of pencils. so this past week a hermana in our ward made a pencil paper doll of ME!! She said it is EXACTLY just like me!! :) haha so ill send you all a picture to judge if it is EXACTLY like me! hermana childs told me that they make the dolls just like they see you, so to them thats how they see me! (with blonde hair and long eyelashes)!!

This past week we were able to teach a lesson with our district leader about priesthood and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. As he was teaching, i found MYeing the one that was being taught! I was reminded of how true this church is. It is the SAME church that Christ established with the SAME priesthood power of God. The priesthood power is the power and authority that we have in this church to perform ordinances, heal, and preach the gospel. we have the permission from God to baptize, and these baptisms will not only be written here in the earth, but in the heavens as well. I am so grateful for a loving God who sent His son to the earth so that we can be saved. And through baptim, other ordinaces of the true church, and the atonement, this is made possible!

I love you all lots! Gracias por sus oraciones, apoyo, y amor. Se que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y nos ama. Se que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ultimos Días es la iglesia verdadera. 

les amo mucho,

Hermana Warburton

The doll that is EXACTLY like me