Week 16 in Hopi / Ya'at'eeh Kesh-Mesh

December 29, 2014

Polacca, AZ

Ya'at'eeh Kesh-Mesh 

Merry Christmas

It has been a wonderful week here in Polacca. The snow has come and gone everyday this week and it is still very cold here, at night it's sitting around 4 or 5 degrees. Christmas was wonderful, thanks for all of the thoughts and gifts, and it was even better because we didn't focus on ourselves but upon others. We spent the day going about trying to talk to people about "He Is The Gift" and gave people we know pictures of Christ as a gift. The best part of my day was when we went to visit a sister whose sons are all with their dad for the Holiday break. As soon as we walked in you see she just needed a visit. We talked to her for a minute and then gave her a couple of different pictures of Christ (because she's awesome) and she began to cry.

Another awesome thing that happened this week was Leroy's baptism. I've been working with him my entire mission and it has been amazing to see his growth. The baptism was awesome but the even better part was to see the family together again. Leroy's son just turned 8 and wanted for his father to see him get baptized so they decided to have the baptism here in Polacca. This is what gave Leroy the motivation to go cold turkey on all of the addiction that he was battling. On Saturday they were both baptized and confirmed, Leroy by me and his son by Bro. Polacca.

Elder Tippetts, Leroy, Elder Warnick, and Leroy's son and daughter

We're teaching lots of lessons and have a lot of people who are wanting to grow closer to their Father in Heaven. We are both doing very well and I am growing each day. I was told my first week in the mission that this is a advanced level course on life. It is so true, not only have I learned so much about myself, but I have also learned so much about others. I can see what kind of thing works in peoples lives and what doesn't. It's kind of funny as a missionary everyone who doesn't slam the door in your face (there are plenty of them) opens up to you and spills their life story to you. I've heard and learned lots out here. Hopefully I'll be able to apply that in real life.

Well that's it for this week. Happy New Year everyone.

Elder Warnick

(This was a reply to Melissa's email.)

Everyone,

Sounds like you all had a crazy Christmas. So many awesome gifts! I'm glad that you are all having a good break. I am also happy Luke likes my present so much. (He gave Luke an Origami Yoda book, Emperor Pickletine Rides the Bus,--which is Luke's favorite series right now.) I hope that you have all been having good dreams. (He gave all the boys dream catchers to hang above their beds.) You boys all looked so old I can't believe it! Well have a great week.

What A View

The Beginning of the Storm (also the new truck and the nicely insulated trailer)

Hopi Swag

P.S. to It's Almost Here!

December 22, 2014

This week was a bit slow because Friday through Sunday was Prayer Feather ceremonies. Everyone traditional or not was on the mesa involved in it (it's much more cultural than religious). They are an eagle feather that after prayers gives you protection, you put one in your house, in your car, some people even put them on their dogs. Well Anyways just a little insight.

It's Almost Here!

December 22, 2014

Polacca, AZ

 

Christmas that is. Christmas is just around the corner. As a missionary that doesn't mean it's much different than any other day except we get to Skype with our families and even less people will be around than usual (everyone is heading into Phoenix).

But what I'm even more excited about that is happening this week is on Saturday. Leroy, a guy I have been teaching my entire time out here, is getting baptized! He's gone through a lot of adversity and has turned his life around. We are so excited for him to be able to make those covenants with our Father and to see him finally reach the goal that he's been working toward for so long.

I went on exchanges this week and got to go to a Christmas program in Tuba City. It was awesome! It was beautiful to see people mixing their culture with Christmas. I heard a song that some kids danced to. It was a traditional song but it was Christmas oriented. "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Ho ho hooo, ho ho hooo, ehh-ya ehh-ya" and so forth it was so cool. There was another song as well this was the 12 days of Christmas Rez Style.

     1 sack of BlueBird flour

     2 mutton ribs

     3 pieces of ach'ee

     4 fry breads

     5 Kneel-down breads

     6 bags of Pinions

     7 cans of Spam

     8 ears of steam corn

     9 rez puppies

     10 text messages

     11 bowls of mush

     12 bales of hay

The Branch Christmas Dinner went off with out a hitch. There was a lot less people than for Thanksgiving but it was just as good. Lots of fellowshipping and a cute program by the kids. It was awesome.

Well I met my Grandpa this week... Elder Merrill who trained Elder Hooton and Elder Hooton trained me so he is my grandpa. He served in Polacca over 2 years ago and came back to visit. He was at sacrament meeting and very obviously a former missionary (how many other white men in their 20's come to church on the Rez?) Well we got to talking and figured out a connection. He's a cool guy and it was a neat experience, not very many missionaries get that opportunity.

Well everyone I wish you a merry Christmas. Have a wonderful week.

Love, Elder Warnick

Week 15 in Hopi

December 15, 2014

Polacca, AZ

Well everyone on Saturday I hit 4 months...

It has been a good week out here in Hopiland. We are making some great progress with those we are teaching and with those that we are not.  We should have a baptism coming up here at the end of this month. It has been incredible to see him turn from being a known drunk and trouble maker, to living a completely sober life. Now he doing so much better. I have seen his health and countenance change completely. 

This week we had an experience like no other. A member invited her friend over to a lesson with her son at her house. Then her friend came to church this week, and he was the first one there! He spoke to us after the meeting and very emotionally said that "the way you teach and speak is like you personally know God and Christ. You guys speak with power and the spirit, it is so comforting. I just want to know where I can start." We are teaching him tonight. He is such an awesome guy.

As we get closer to Christmas we are trying as hard as we can to serve others, doing anything and everything from chopping wood, setting mouse traps, and fixing leaky roofs. It actually snowed this week! If gave us a break from the fog that we have been constantly experiencing for over a week now. It had been raining for 2 days straight and finally on Saturday morning it turned into a very heavy snowfall. It was funny seeing all of the people going 20mph when they could have been going a lot faster, but I guess that's just because I'm from Idaho and know how to drive in snow. Well the snow only lasted for a few hours but it was here and awesome while it was. It stayed on the mountains in the distance and makes for some beautiful scenery. 

Now here is something strange, we've knocked into a ridiculous number of southerners this week. Elder Tippetts loves it and they do too. They love to talk about things and places back east that I have no idea about. However it is awesome because we've got a lot of people that we've met this week who we really hit it off with. We also got to have a great discussion with a Jehovah's Witness about our beliefs and about her's. We had a good in depth discussion and came out respecting both sides, we also have been invited back to talk a little more with her about what we believe. The best part is that there was a very minimal amount of bashing and a lot more of just talking.  

Well this week has been great I wish you all happy holidays.

Love, Elder Warnick

Me and Tippetts

December 8, 2014

Polacca, AZ

Everyone,

This week has been different than any other. Elder Hooton is gone now and will soon be home, now it's me and Elder Tippetts. We are both loving it in Hopi and are getting along just fine. He is from North Carolina and he brought the rain from there. He says every time that he gets transferred it rains for a couple of days. Well he was right when we got back Tuesday night it started raining and it didn't stop until halfway through Friday, and ever since then there has been lots of fog. I am blessed to know how to drive in foul weather because some of these Arizonans scare me on the roads. I am also driving if you couldn't guess. We got a new truck just over a week ago it is an awesome color of Nissan frontier and right now it is brown from all of the mud that we have to drive through. We have a lot of things in common and also like a lot of the same things so we are getting along pretty well.

As many of you know it was the christmas devotional last night. It was awesome and really helped give me a spiritual boost for the week. I really appreciated Elder Christofferson's talk during it.  Afterwards we had a good branch social. Snacks and fellow-shipping, you can never go wrong with those.

This week we have really been pushing spreading "He Is The Gift" if you guys haven't watched that yet you should it is really powerful.

We have seen some great miracles this week. One of them is a new investigator named John. He is awesome. He used to be a preacher and was also pretty involved with the Kivas. He got in a car accident that destroyed his body and he has been making a slow recovery during the years. He knows so much of what we have been teaching him and it is awesome. He told us that he knows the true church was taken from the earth and many other things that were amazing knowledge! He has certainly been prepared by the Lord.

Well it was a slow week so not much more happened.

Thanks for all of the prayers.

Love, Elder Warnick

Thanksgiving

December 1, 2014

Polacca, AZ

Everyone,

Well here is transfer news. I am staying in Polacca for at least 6 more weeks. Elder Hooton is headed to Farmington for the last 2 weeks of his mission so today is my last day with him. We are headed to Page today to drop him off, where he will go with another elder to Farmington. After that I am picking up an elder then driving back to Tuba City. Where we will stay the night where he will bed with his new companion, and I will have to wait in Tube for my companion to come in from Kayenta. His name is Elder Tippetts and he is serving in Kayenta. He's not going very far to come to Polacca, he is staying in the same stake. He's a good guy I know him already because we are in the same Zone. It seems like it is going to be a lot of fun.

We had a great Thanksgiving and even got a thanks giving gift from the mission... a new truck! It is a Charcoal 2013 Nissan Frontier. Now we can sneak up on people's houses because no one knows who we are now, except for the fact that we are 2 white guys dressed up really nice.

The work is moving forward again. We have 2 people on date to be baptized. One is a 12 year old boy who is really excited about everything, he also has ADHD and his mom (formerly less-active) tells us that the gospel is the only thing that he can actually focus on. I know that this is the Lord helping him on this path. The other person on date is Leroy. He is working hard to be baptized on by the end of this month. I am pretty confident that they will both make their dates, but I also know that the adversary will be working as hard as he can to prevent them from making it.

This was kind of a slow week so that's all that I have for now. Hope you all have a good week.

Love,

Elder Warnick

November 24, 2014

Here are three pictures from this week. The first is just me standing in front of white mesa. The next is a random lake that Elder Lake and I came across while on exchanges in Tuba City. And the third is Elder Scofield (the zone leader) and I. We were trying to turn our shirts red with the color change setting on my camera but our white faces turned red instead, it was funny so I kept it.

Elder Warnick in front of White Mesa

Random Lake in Tuba City

Elder Schofield and Elder Warnick playing with the camera. The white is supposed to be red. Just picked up their white faces!

Week 13 in Hopi

November 24, 2014

Polacca, AZ

This week was good. I went on more exchanges and the end of the transfer is almost here. Now here is some good news to start this off. After Interviews with President Batt I know that I am staying  here in Hopi Land! It is so wonderful out here and I am picking up on a decent amount of Hopi it's one of the toughest languages that exist (along with Mandarin and Tewa [which I'm also learning a bit of]).

We had our Thanksgiving party this week and over 200 people came. It was a moment like the loaves and the fishes. We don't know how we made that food stretch that far.  We were so busy setting up tables and chairs for the unexpected crowd that we didn't even get to eat before all of the food was gone. 

This week we have had some really great experiences with lessons and investigators. We are teaching 2 very awesome very solid families. Everything is going well with them and it is always awesome to be in a lesson and just have the spirit take over.

Yesterday was the primary program. It went very well. I just love little kids they are so adorable, especially little Hopi kids. I've never seen more adorable kids than our here.

Well we have been very warm in our newly equipped camper. However on Tuesday our pipes in the camper froze then the next day the church pipes froze and broke. But thanks to Papa Ed (Mr. Edwards) (Dallin's Ag Teacher that taught him welding at Kuna High) I know how to solder and I was able to help fix the pipes to the church that same day and we were able to have the water running in time for the church party that night!

I am doing fine out here and I miss all of you!

Love,

Elder Warnick

Week 12 in Hopi

November 17, 2014 

Polacca, AZ

Lolo ma (hello) everyone,

Well I hit three months this week... It's strange to think about.

I thought that it was supposed to be warm in Arizona! This week was cold. We have been waking up to 45 degree temperatures in our trailer and outside the temperatures are below 10 degrees. However the Housing Coordinator, Elder James came out today and helped us with our trailer now it is ready for the winter and we should be good. We put lots of insulation in and did a ton more stuff. He told us that our "trailer is honestly the worst in the whole mission."  Then he told us that we also have the least complaints than anywhere else in the mission. Boy we are awesome!

That's how cold it got inside... it's frost!

This week was the legendary exchange. I was in Polacca with Elder Christensen from Boise all week but Hooton was in multiple areas. We started a legend with this. Now on my side of the week Elder Christensen broke his glasses so we called President and Sister Batt and they said since we are only an hour away from Holbrook to go. So we did. It was awesome there were people!!! We also ate at Carl's Jr. 

Eating at Carl's Jr.

Elder Christensen

But that's not all. We were driving around killing time until the eye doctor opened again when we came across a couple of elders tracting. So we put on sunglasses and covered our name tags with our hands and followed them. They kept looking back at us and they knew it was a mission truck (a white Tacoma with New Mexico plates) but they don't know who it was. Hopefully they think that is was the Assistants to the President checking up on them.

Elder Christensen and I also got to eat dinner on the Mesa! We went to the feast with a member of the branch and we ate! Just like you do anywhere on the Hopi reservation, but we got to eat deer and elk Hominy stew. It was awesome!

This week was the Phoenix Temple dedication. It was so hard telling people that they can't come to church this week. ): But it was such an awesome experience. We also watched the last half hour of the cultural celebration. There was one part of it that was awesome. At the end the kids all sang 'Called to Serve' and all of the missionaries in the Phoenix Mission marched out carrying flags of where they are from and they stood there as the song went on. It kind of moved me, just thinking about how awesome it is to be on a mission.

Elder Hooton and I also did a lot of tracting this week (our mission is one of the few that still knocks doors as a regular activity). We love walking around on dirt roads and trails trying to find people to talk to...especially when it is 20 degrees with 16 mph winds. But I really do love it out here.

Tracting

Elder Hooton Tracting

Tracting with an awkward face

Well that's about it for this week. Kwa kwai (thank you) for all of the prayers!

Love,

Elder Warnick

Random Mountain

Rare Patches

Sheep