Conferencia de Zona y Progression

Hola Hola! Feliz Semana de Pascua! :) Espero que todos puedan recordar a Jesucristo y su resurrección durante esta semana santa.  (Hello Hello! Happy Easter Week ! :) I hope everyone can remember Jesus Christ and his resurrection during this Easter.)

This week we were able to visit some new families. Some families that are part members... One member of the family is a menos activo, and the other is an investigador. I enjoy teaching PF (part member families) because its neat to have a perspective of another person who has been a member, and then realize how much they love the Gospel, and how the Gospel has helped them in the past.

This week we had a zone conference and training with Presidente Riggins and all of our zone and another zone. It was a great training! We always start our zone conferences with a trip to the temple, and a temple session. As always the temple was so nice, and i love being able to go and feel the love of God all around me. :)

After the temple we had our training for the WHOLE day. but it was good! we received some exciting news!! An apostle is coming to our mission in june!!!! but... we dont know who yet. presidente riggins knows, but he wont tell us!  :) haha... so i guess we will find out a little later on! 

Second big news... our schedule of our mission has changed!! (the horario que tenemos). Before, we woke up at 6:30, and prayed, excercised, showered, prepared, ate breakfast, and then at 8am we started our 4 hours of study... but now! its different. we have an extra half hour in the morning to prepare. because the nurses of our mission were finding that many people were skipping breakfast or exercise because there was not enough time. so now we have from 6:30-8:30am to exercise, get ready, eat breakfast, and then start our studies now at 8:30. i have to say im super excited for the change, and the little extra time we now have to exercise and eat a good breakfast! :) and im already feeling a little sore from the extra excersises! haha

Amalia, our recent convert is doing great! Yesterday she received the Holy Ghost (because the week before we had a stake conference). I was so happy to see her receive the Holy Ghost and be confirmed a member of the Church! :) it was such a neat experience! :) She is a wonderful woman. I feel so blessed to be able to teach her and watch her progress in the Gospel.

Also Michel (the investigator from Cuba) has his baptismal date planned for this saturday! ah! its kinda crazy, and this day came up fast! but he is a good guy, and progressing well. he reads ALL the time different things from the Church. He is always reading his Book of Mormon, Liahonas, the manual Gospel Principles, and all the pamphlets we give him. its great! so really he is studying and learning himself too. He even said he invited people through facebook to come to his baptism! :) we are excited for him and his fast progression. But i will say.. his accent is still a little hard to understand at times!!

I am so grateful to be a member of la Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ulitmos Días. i feel so blessed and so happy that i have this Gospel in my life. yesterday we were sharing with an investigator about baptism and the Holy Ghost. as my companion was sharing her experience of baptism, i was reminded of when Rachel was baptized, and how happy i felt that day for her and for my family. that day i felt the Spirit tell me that this Church is true, and that families can be together forever. As we talked to our investigator i was reminded of this experience and realized how sincerely grateful i am to be a member of this Church. the Gospel of Jesus Christ has brought me such happiness and hope throughout my life. Sé que el Evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadero y esta es la única iglesia verdadera en la faz de la tierra. Estoy muy agradecida ser una misionera en ecuador! :)   (I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and this is the only true church on the face of the earth . I am very grateful to be a missionary in Ecuador ! :)

Les amo mucho!

Hermana Warburton

One of our investigators

this cupcake that is exactly like a hostess cupcake.. haha we got it for free too!! :)

a menos activa with her son after church

Testimono y Plan de Salvacion

HOLA! ¿QUE TAL FAMILIA Y AMIGOS? Espero que todo este bien y éxitoso con todos :)

Another week come and gone! wow. the longer i am here, the faster the weeks fly by! i felt like it was just monday, and here i am again, writing about the happenings of the week!

This week we worked hard! We pushed for 70 contacts this week, and had quite a lot of lessons!! On thursday we had 7 lessons, one right after the other... it was a day jam packed, but also super great, because we were finally able to teach a lot of people. also we did our visits with my converso Cindy Tenordio... who was baptized my first week here in November. she is preparing for a mission.... and WOW! she is amazing!! she has a testimony and a spirit about her that is incredible. she is able to help others feel the Spirit and recognize the importance of the gospel with everyone we meet! 

This past Sunday we had a fireside and Cindy and Amalia shared their testimonies and their converstion stories. it was really neat! the Spirit in the meeting was so strong and i realized how grateful i am to be a missionary and help others here come unto Christ. Well.. this meeting not only strengthened my testimony... but also the testimonies of the investigators we had there as well!! Because our investigator Michel from Cuba was there, and I know he felt the Spirit in that meeting!

We taught Michel Tuesday and i asked him if he had prayed and recieved an answer. And he said YES! i so i said... "and... what was the answer??!" and he said he believed the church was true!! he said he recieved his answer when he was at the fireside and Cindy shared her testimony! Wow!! i didnt really know what to say i was soooo surprised! Because when we first began teaching him he said that he would have to investigate the Church for at least a YEAR before being baptized.... and now he has a baptismal date for the end of this month! for the 26 of march!! :) AND he even has decided who he wants to baptize him! it was so neat! This made me realize the power of testimonies! how powerful are our testimonies!? Really truly our testimonies can change lives and help others find the truth. Gracias al testimonio de Cindy, Michel found his answer! :)

This week i had an intercambio with Hermana Childs and i got to go and work in her sector for a day while her comp went with my comp in my sector. it was fun to work with her again, learn more things from her, and meet new people!

This week we also started teaching english classes for kids in this summer camp that the church put on.... and its kinda fun!! its a little hard to teach english to 6-12 year old kids... but its fun too! we sing songs and do little games or quizzes, and i think that keeps them involved. But whats even more fun is when i see the kids after the camp in the streets and they recognize us as the missionaries and they come up and talk to us! its so cute! :) i have realized that little children really have such good spirits and they are great examples of happiness and learning. 

This week we seemed to focus a lot on the Plan of Salvation! how grateful i am for the plan of salvation!! :) wow! it is a perfect plan for us that is full of hope and the love of God in every part. i have actually come to love to teach this lesson. this lesson is HARD to teach because it is soooo long and a little complicated, and can produce so many questions. but its also really cool! :) its amazing to me how every part of this plan is carefully crafted and designed so that we can come back and live with our Heavenly Father again. Gracias to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, this plan is made possible. I am so grateful for my Savior. I know that this life is not easy, but we always have hope, and we can always recieve help when we rely and trust in Christ. My invitation this week is that we can all remember this plan of happiness that is given to us, and remember our great purposes and the opportunites we have in this life! :)

have a fabulous week! ¡les amo mucho! tengan un buena semana. Recuerdan que Dios les ama y quiere bendecir su vida :)

con amor,

Hermana Warburton

Sunday with a hermana in our ward... Belen

a coconut that we ate for lunch Sunday

Surprises and Miracles

Wow! What a crazy week! A week full of surprises!

Surprise numero 1: We found a new family that is awesome! Actually the mom in this family reminds me a lot of my own mom! :) She is young, married, and has 2 sons. She is really interested in the church, because she wants her 2 sons to be good people with good morals. She even cried in the lesson, because she wanted so badly the  best for her sons. We taught her about the basics of the Gospel, and about God. It was so neat to find a family that was accepting, and wanted us to teach them! :)

Surprise numero 2: AMALIA GOT BAPTIZED!! rememeber the familia amalia? the cute 60 year old lady with lots of grandchildren and 3 daugthers? Ya well, she got baptized, and its a crazy story how this all happend!!

Last week she had her baptismal interview and we were planning on having her be baptized the next saturday (5 de marzo). but when we talked to her tuesday, she said she couldnt be baptized saturday, because she had the high school graduation of her daughter to attend. so we decided on the next saturday (12 de marzo) for her baptism. We taught her throughout the week, and her mom from another province in ecuador was staying with them.. and other family members too. so the week was a little crazy at the house of amalia!

On saturday, we passed by the house of amalia at 7pm, to teach her a lesson. when we stopped by she told us that her daughter karla was going out of town for the rest of the whole month, and that she wanted to get baptized now! I was like... uh ah! what? .. can we do that? Amalia really wanted ALL of her daughters and mom to attend the baptism, and this weekend was the only weekend that all of them would be home..... 

So we made a few phone calls.... and decided that amalia could be baptized the next day!!! Sunday the 6 de Marzo! So after running around like chickens with our heads cut off for about an hour and a half, we organzied the baptism, and got someone to make a cake, and people to help us get this ready!

On Sunday we talked to Amalia before her baptism and she told us her testimony of the Gospel. She told us that at first, she never wanted to enter a Mormon Church, because they only believe in Jose Smith, and dont believe in Jesuscristo. But one day she went to the LDS church with her neighbor Miriam (who is a member), and found that the Church was ALL about Jesuscristo, and only taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As she met with the missionaries she learned more and more, and learned that Jose Smith was a prophet, called to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ on earth once more. Amalia told us that it was not US (THE MISSIONARIES) that "convinced" her that this was true. She said that she has felt that this is true, and that is why she wanted to be baptized. even her mom told her to be sure about it, and her mom disapproved of the decision. but amalia felt that it was true. She felt that it is true, and while we as missionaries were there to help her, we were did not convert her, but the Spirit did.

Wow. We felt so happy and proud of Amalia. After a few more hours of running around,(like crazy missionaries) and getting everything set up.. at 5:30pm , amalia had her baptism! :) and it was really nice. her cute neighbor miriam who brought her to the church and has fellowshipped her all the way spoke, and it was so sweet. my companion and i sang a song too! also amalia gave her testimony after and it was so sweet! :)

After we had cake and cookies and candy.. and it was so neat because all of amalia`s daughters and grandchildren were there... and they are not members, so they got to see a baptism for the first time!! 

and to add to the craziness... we had a fireside that night too! right after the baptism with the missionaries and members in the stake... AND! amalia bore her testimony at the fireside too! :) i was so proud of her! what a great woman. 

i love amalia and her family so much. they truly are amazing people. amalia has taught me so much about love and service to her family. she takes care of all her little tiny, crazy, grandchildren everyday, and she can barely walk with 2 operated knees. she is so loving and happy. she has such a great faith. she knows that God really does answer and listen to her prayers. every time she prays, i know she is praying to her Heavenly Father. She expresses her thoughts and feelings so simply and beautifully. i love this great hermana!

And i truly witnessed a miracle this week. The fact that we were able to organize a baptism in 1 DAY was a miracle. im really not sure how we did it and how everything work out so nicely. we really didnt even have a problem. I know that God was helping us and watching over us every step of the way.

I know this church is true and that God has a plan for every one of His children. We are truly children of God, with a divine nature and purpose. This life was not meant to be easy, but thanks to our hard times, we can learn and grow. we can become better. Thanks to Jesucristo, we can become better everyday, and realize our divine potential. How great we are loved! We may not see it in the moment, but i know that the plan of God is perfect, and when we trust in Him, and follow His path, we will be blessed! :)

¡Les amo!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Warburton

bautismo de amalia!! 

amalia and her 3 hijas:)

the CRAZY RAIN! the whole street was like a river! its crazy. 

when it rains it pours!