Sunday, October 25, 2015

Re: Nice Win Aggies!

October 19, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

(Note to the family, but such a description of rain--just wanted to include this)
I am so proud of all of the wins this week, especially the doughnuts! (Kuna and Aggie football wins--family won a huge platter of doughnuts from the Troop 183 auction) This week has been good, I am overcoming a small stomach sickness but all is well. It is really starting to cool down in Kaibeto, in fact last night there was a huge storm. Now normally rain helps me sleep better at night, but not this time. This was one of the heaviest rains I have ever seen, and on our metal roof it was equivalent to the sound you experience when you are standing at a railroad crossing as a train zooms by. Well I have got to go I just thought I would shoot an email to the family while I could. Love you guys!

Okay

October 19, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

Not much to say this week. We have been getting a ton of referrals this week. The turn around in Kaibeto these past few weeks has been awesome! As seems to be the normal in this mission we have been working with a ton of Less-Active members and this week we had quite a few come to church this week. That was great. In a couple of weeks we will be helping to make the "Haunted Forest" at the church, that will be fun. This week I went on exchanges with the Zone-Leaders in Page. We had a great time. Oh we now have one more Elder with them, it is now a trio of Elders. Elder Peterson, Elder Hancock, and the new one Elder Houston. They are a lot of fun. We had a wonderful zone conference this week, I was able to learn a lot. This week I will be going on another exchange with the Elders in Echo Cilffs, or Bitter Springs, and doing a baptismal interview out there. That area is really booming. I am very proud of my district. Well that's it for this week.
Elder Warnick

Dam



October 12, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

This was a good week. Today we got to tour the Glen Canyon Dam. The one that holds back Lake Powell. But this was no ordinary tour, it was a special tour that a member who work as the head of security for the Dam took us on personally. We got to go to places that normal people don't. Before hand we had to have a background check as well, that was an interesting thing to know you were having done on your mission. Well things are going great in Kaibeto! This week was some of the highest numbers that the area has had for at least 2 years. Tomorrow is Zone Conference in Tuba City, it will be fun to go back again. Hopefully I will get to see some members from Polacca randomly in Tuba City. Saturday was pretty awesome, If you remember from last week the girl that I interviewed for baptism... Well she was a baptized, and I had the priviledge to do that. It was an awesome experience to do that, and also to get into water again. (; Well I can't believe that this transfer is already half-way over. It has gone by very fast. This week we picked up some more people that we have began to teach

(That was the end of the e-mail--then a few minutes later the rest came.)

It's not finished yet!!!!!
they are great! Oh Happy Columbus Day, by the way. No one here seems to care about it, but last year people were angry about it. Some refused to honor it because it was the beginning of the white men in America. Well now I think that I am finished.
Tune in next week for another marvelous Adventure of Elder Warnick


Okay they are as follows

Observation Point, from a restricted area


If you can guess I kind of enjoyed this tour
in the generator room, people are usually only allowed to look from the out side but are not allowed in here



view from the bottom


Into the canyon wall, not allowed here

Secret Places

On the side of the dam, restricted

Our guide touching the generator shaft

 Maybe some day I will take a selfie without awkwardly opening my mouth.

Hard Day

October 5, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

8:40 p.m. (Super late for the normal missionary e-mail)

Yes I am alive! The details will be coming soon, just give me a few minutes to try to explain what went down today... (:

 9:27 p.m.

Okay so here is the scoop for today. It all started last night when we decided to climb Navajo Mountain again. It sounded like a wonderful idea. We stayed the night with the Inscription House Elders and our plans were as follow.

5:00 wake up
6:00 drive to mountain
7:00 arrive and begin hiking
9:00 summit the mountain and begin studying
11:00 begin down
1:00 finish hike and drive home
3:00 arrive home and email
4:00 dinner
5:00 drive to Page
6:00 baptismal interview for page sister's investigator
7:30 arrive home and teach a lesson.

Well this is how the day went.

5:00 wake up and realize it is raining
6:00 breakfast
7:00 breakfast
9:00 decide that the sky has cleared up enough and drive to mountain
10:00 begin hike
12:00 realize that where we went last time was not nearly as close to the top as we thought (only half-way)
12:10 decide we still have time...
1:00 decide that it is only half an hour to the top.
1:30 realize we were wrong
2:00 walk into a cloud
2:15 get hit by a huge rain storm (that made us fear for our lives)
2:45 summit. Couldn't see anything because of the storm we were in...
3:50 reach bottom and begin our way home
5:00 get home and change clothes
5:15 drive to Page
6:00 baptismal interview for page sister's investigator
7:30 arrive home and have a lesson cancel on us...
7:35 email and dinner

Yeah it was all because of bad planning on our part, poor time judgement, and the storm (which we only got hit by because of our poor judgement).

Lots was learned today. Won't be getting near that mountain for a long time.


So the week since Thursday... has not bee too eventful. We had weekly planning in Friday and then general Conference on Saturday and Sunday. I learned so much from conference this time around, there is just something special about conference when you are a missionary. The baptismal interview that I did today was wonderful. It was my first time interviewing someone for baptism and it was quite a special experience for me. I interviewed a young girl named Shandriana. She was so sweet and she was so nervous that she wouldn't be able to remember the things that she had been taught. Burt she did wonderfully. She is 9 and has a wonderful spirit about her.

Ready For Round 2
Beautiful Day


Into the Clouds
 Also this week is the first of the month and since people got paid on of our faithful members bought us $30 worth of shrimp. WOW. We are very grateful for Virginia.

Shrimp Dinner from Virginia

Finally

October 1, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

Well I am finally emailing. Things have been great in Kaibeto. The work is progressing and we have some people who are right on the edge of finally becoming investigators, they are just never home... Well one of these people is Kendrick. She, yes she, has a lot of interest in the gospel and seems to really want to know. For a long time she has been trying to figure things out with her life and now she feels good that we are there to teach her. She minored in religion in college so she knows a lot and is quite fun to teach. Elder Emery is a swell guy. We have been together for just over a week now and he is loving it. He is a very prepared missionary, he has studied a lot and really wants to do his best. He wants to be a seminary/institute teacher so he loves the gospel. Another fun thing, he is a thrower. This week we started so children of less-active families and are trying to help prepare them for baptism, I can see the desire to come back to the gospel in their families eyes as we teach. I hope that you all are preparing to hear from the servants of the Lord, this coming weekend is general conference and it will  be a blast. This week is kind of a missionaries dream week with a temple trip AND general conference so close together. I had a great time on Monday going to Monticello and back. We went with our Bishop and drove through Monument Valley on the way, which is where he spent 13 months of his mission. Then we drove through one of my old areas, Bluff it was fun to see everything again. Well it is time to go. Talk to you again soon.

Comp and Story

September 22, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona

Well my new companion is named Elder Emery, he is from Salt Lake. Will tell you more next week.

(the following is an answer to a request from Melissa (Mom). The Kuna 5th Ward Primary is highlighting a missionary serving from the ward the last Sunday of every month so that the Primary children can learn more about missionary work and get to know the missionaries from K5 better. So Elder Warnick sent a little story that can "help the Primary children prepare for missions.")
Okay so here is my story for Primary and it is about being Positive. 

There have been times on my mission when it has not looked very good. The area was struggling and other times when it was hard to get along with my companion. We had a big missionary meeting a couple of months ago and we were taught about always staying positive. I tried this. Instead of looking at the things that were negative, bad and sad we tried to look at all of the good things that we were doing. 

We were given a piece of paper that had 2 columns of lines one side was called; 'NEGATIVE THOUGHTS I'VE HAD TODAY" and the other side was called "POSITIVE THOUGHTS". The challenge was to write down all of the bad things that we thought and to change it into a good thought.Well, as I did this I could see my attitude changing and also the way that I was looking at things. 

Instead of being sad and down and thinking, "Why do we have to ride out bikes everywhere? No body is even home." 

It changed into, "I am so happy that I can get some fresh air and exercise and try to share the gospel with other people that Heavenly Father loves." 

The sadness changed to happiness and the rejection turned into hope that we can help someone else. This works at home too, not just as a missionary. When you are sad just think of all of the good things that you do have. When you are fighting with a brother or sister, think about something that you guys did together that made you laugh. Try it out and you will have an even happier day. 

I don't know how long this was supposed to be but here was a try...
(It was an great story. The children were totally silent and listened intently as Melissa shared this with them.)
Me and Elder Butterfield just before he left for Australia

Elder Warnick and Elder Emery of the Page Arizona Zone
 

Must Have Been In A Hurry--No Title

September 21, 2015

Kaibeto, Arizona
Some of the weeks developments. Well this will be my 8th companion in 7 transfers. I will be Training and a District Leader this transfer. So another companion and a little more responsibility. This came as no shock to me this week, because President has previously told me that I would most likely be training this transfer and since Elder Butterfield is going to Australia today there was an opening for district leader. So our Zone will now be as follows.
Kaibeto: Me-13 months...trainee
Inscription House: Elder Rainey-6 weeks...trainee
Lechee: Elder Williams-6 weeks...trainee
Echo Cliffs: Elder Ericson-6 weeks... trainee
Page Sisters: Sis Navarro-13 months...Sis Meza- 6 weeks
Page ZL: Elder Hancock-15 months... Elder Peterson 18 months.
#YoungestZoneEver
I found out that Polacca is getting closed this transfer. That is pretty sad, I served the first 6 months of my mission there and loved it, so a special part of me is dedicated to the Hopi people. It would be cool to go back in a transfer or 2 and re-open Hopi, but all that I can do is pray for them.
Well Have a good week. I have to go to Farmington.