Mustache Pics of Cortez Missionaries

August 3, 2015

Cortez, Colorado

Here's pictures from this week. Followed by an email conversation between Elder W, Mom, and Thayne. Mom and Thayne were busy shopping at Wal-mart and reading the missionary emails at the same time Elder Warnick was in the Dolores Library sending the e-mails.  (smart phones are pretty cool for instant e-mails from the missionary!)

Elder W:

Mustache pics. The Cortez Missionaries

MW: Hahaha! Thayne says that you should forget being a cop. You should just be a P.I. aka Magnum P.I.
Elder W:  Thank you! I thought Magnum PI but my companions both said that I look like Hitler. I guess I can kind of see it in the scary picture of me.


MW: Thayne wanted you to see his swaggin shirt and ties. He's dressing up the first day of school. 

Elder W: Swag!!! Here is me right now wearing one of my purple ties

Thayne: Lookin' good, I'm proudest of thee. :p  Have a great week bro. 

Elder W: U2

FIRE!

August 3, 2015

Cortez, Colorado




A great week in Cortez. We have been super busy with all sorts of lessons and lots of service. Our investigators Paul and Shirley are doing great. We are very impressed with their progress and were impressed to move their baptismal date a week sooner. They are going to be interviewed this Saturday and baptized the next, yes they are the ones being baptized in the river. They have been learning a lot and have truly humbled themselves and have opened their hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Last night we had another lesson with some more of our investigators Katrina and Larae. It has been a huge blessing to be able to teach them in a member's home Not only have the distractions disappeared but the spirit of love is so much more abundant there. We just  taught them part of the Plan of Salvation and that went very well considering how slowly we are moving through the lessons. It is not bad the pace that we are enjoying, actually I have enjoyed it much more personally, they just have some very good and very deep questions that I have had a lot of fun discussing. They are things like "Will the Earth be restored during the Resurrection?" It is pretty awesome. Everyone here is on FIRE! Well the other fire thing that happened is that when we at the Nursing Home visiting Bill a recent convert, the fire alarms went off and we had to help evacuate all of the old people. It ended up only being a drill but it was eerie in there. I hope that the attached video plays. I really am loving it here in Cortez but the longer I am here the more that I miss the Reservation but I know that I am where the Lord wants me at this time. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Week of Wonders

July 27, 2015
Dolores, Colorado

Well first I would like to apologize for any distracted thoughts in this letter. I am currently at the Dolores Library and I am sitting next to a guy who keeps talking nonsense to himself. It is pretty stinking hilarious. First off thanks for all of the Birthday wishes and other things, it really made me feel like I was at home, the members our here helped with it too and I had a wonderful week.

This week Mr.P whose real name is Paul came to church again. That was awesome. When we saw him this week though we realized that the tables had turned. Instead of us dreading going over there, he can't handle what we are giving him. He can't spiritually digest all of the doctrine that we are showing him and so we have decided to take it a little bit slower with him than we have been. I guess the tactic of Shock and Awe really worked in this case.

If you have seen my birthday pictures from the Cooks' house you will see a woman named Larae. We have been teaching her and her friend and then we found out that the Cooks are friends with her so that was awesome to have her in their home for a meal and then a small lesson afterwards.

We had 2 parties this week for the 24th of July celebration. They were both great. The 3rd Ward party was at one of the member's lake. We barbecued and just had a blast. Well everyone else had a blast. We just sat, ate, and watched everyone else swim. The 4th ward party was Friday evening and we had a pig. But before that we helped some member butcher the pig which was an awesome experience. They even gave me the heart so I cooked that for lunch on Friday.

Well that's it for this week thanks everyone.

Elder Warnick

 

One of my companions really like Pokemon, so he assigned all of us a Pokemon and drew them.

 

 

Cortez District Pokemon

Temple of Doom

 

 

Cleaning the Heart

Cooking the Heart

 

The Final Heart

 

Birthday at Home

Birthday Dinner with the Cook Family. Sister Cook said, "Smile! This is for your mom." And Dallin gave her his typical birthday grimace--that he saves just for his mom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bugs but No Bunnies

July 20, 2015

Cortez, Colorado

This week has been a bit different. First we had Zone Conference and that was a wonderful experience. Not just because we won the Car Inspection or because I got to see other missionaries. But because we had a lot of amazing trainings. We learned a lot about Faith and also about our calling as a missionary. This week we also set off some bug bombs in the barn that we live in because we have killed a few Brown Recluses in the past week so the mission decided that this would be a good idea. The apartment that the other Elders were living in before I got here was left by them in a disgusting state and we have been charged with the responsibility. It is a nasty place but it is cleaning up pretty nice. You all know about the trains that I live over, well this week they were running. There was a giant train convention underneath our house and that was quite a sight. Lots of old guys with their toys. Elder Sessions was pretty excited about it and had a blast driving one of the trains. I went for the food. That was good.

If you think back a week to Mr.P there is some news on him. We went over with our Ward Mission leader and really laid down the law for him. We really hit on Priesthood Authority and a little about Church as well. Well it worked, when we went over with the Bishop a couple of days later his wife told us that she went and bought a Skirt for her and a tie for him and that they would be at church the following day. Well they both came and they loved it! Their testimonies are continuing to grow and it is just so wonderful to see this kind of progress with them.

We also met a wonderful Hispanic family whom we were referred to. As we approached the door they were extremely hostile toward us and started bashing us. It only took us a second to realize that they thought that we were Jehovah's Witnesses. We quickly cleared up that problem and went on talking to them. They asked us a couple of questions about what we believed and they agreed with everything that we said. We had a great conversation with them and they told us to come back so that we might share more of what we know about with them. They have a lot of potential and I am very excited to meet with them again.

There are a lot of amazing thing happening here and the hand of the Lord has truly manifested itself in our lives. One more miracle to share with all of you. We went to see a Less-Active member in Dolores and he wasn't there. Now we were really counting on seeing him to make our day work our, but we decided to move on and try one of the backups that we had planned. When we got to the house and knocked on the door a young woman named Querita came to the door (she is also a less-active member). At first she seemed mad but once she saw who it was she began to cry. After a little talking with her we found our that 3 of her best friends had passed away in a car accident not 12 hours prior and she was really struggling with it. We came in and talked with her. I shared some of the feelings that I had when our community was hit pretty hard with tragedy my senior year, and how I was able to get through it. We said a prayer for her and she really appreciated what we did, but that is not the point, the point is that if the we had not been directed to go to her house at that time then she would not have been able to receive the peace that the Atonement can offer. It is great to know that even if we do not plan exactly what the Lord wants us to do, we can get close and he will help us pick up the slack. Well that is it for this week. I know that through prayer the Lord will manifest himself in your life as well and if you look for it you will find him.

Love,

Elder Warnick


Oh and we got first place in the Car Competition. And I won the naming contest for the car competition so I got a pretty nice flashlight. It went from The Up to "Batt" Award to The Up and "Adam" Award

Winners

 Selfies with the Utah Zone

Elder Butterfield

Elder Gruenwald

Elder Means

Elder Hudson

Elder Nichols

 

Elder Middleton

 

Crazies

July 13, 2015

Cortez, Colorado

Well the past couple of weeks have been full of some interesting people, not all of them are necessarily crazy. Everyday we go to the nursing home and visit Bill a recent convert with Parkinson's Disease. He is such a great guy but some of the people there are there for a reason. We were walking in one day and there was a little old lady sitting in her wheelchair near the door, as soon as we stepped inside she began to scream "Help! Help me! Please save me! Get me out of here!" We just hurried our walk and hoped that one of the staff would take care of it. But on our return from visiting with Bill there she was again and a very similar thing happened but we tried to stop and talk to her again, but with no avail since her response went something like this "What!? What!? I can't hear you! My ears aren't good!" We has to just wave and walk away. That broke our hearts, scared us and made us laugh all at the same time. But the story doesn't end there, later in the week when we returned there she was again yelling the same thing to us.

On to the next one. We are teaching a guy who I will not name. I will just call him Mr. P.  Well, Mr. P is very well versed in the scriptures, in fact when we met him he had a fully marked Quad (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) and he believes in and abides by the principles taught in them. Well here is where it gets interesting. As a wee lad he was baptized by the hand of the Lord in the Waters of Mormon (Lake Huron he believes it to be) at the age of 17 he left home and all he had and traveled the country 7 times preaching the word of God. He grows a grade for charity and also grows medical marijuana for those who can't afford it and gives it away for free to them. Oh he also has one of the 16 Jaredite stones. It is a 35 pound crystal that posses a positive and a negative charge which supposedly allow it to glow under the correct conditions. Well it is pretty interesting all of the things that he believes but we will continue to go over and to teach and talk with him. It seems every time that we do so he gets more and more down to earth. As of now he has committed to be baptized once again, this time by proper Priesthood authority, and it is planned to happen in the "Living Waters of the Dolores River". We have some very interesting things happening here, please continue to pray for me.

Well that will be it for this week.

Elder Dallin Warnick

How Having a Missionary Has Blessed our Family

July 13, 2015

Nampa, Idaho

This is Melissa's (Mom's) response to the question poised by President Adams: 

So I asked Thayne if he had noticed any blessings of you being on a mission. He said he's sure he's had some but he had nothing to compare it to.  I think one blessing I've seen is your younger brothers' love for you had grown.  They are super proud of you.  They also pay more attention to missionary work.  They pray more.  As a family we are more mindful of missionary work too. It is easy to talk to others about your missionary service and the gospel blessings in our life too.

P. Adams and Plenty of People

July 6, 2015

Cortez, Colorado

This was a great week in Cortez. I am getting much more used to white people once again and I really am loving it. As it was President Adams' first week in the mission he is still getting settled in but he has a very crazy schedule. He has a couple of "Get to Know You" Zone Conferences a week and later in July will be have more regular Zone Conferences. He is a wonderful man and has taken upon himself the mantle of the President of the New Mexico, Farmington Mission. Many missionaries mentioned this and I experienced it as well, as President A. spoke he reminded all of us of President Batt. He sounded and even looked a little like him. The Lord has truly set him apart to watch over the missionaries in this mission, it was cool to have an experience similar to the one that the Saints had with Brigham Young.

Well the other people from this week was the 4th of July. While fun for many other people it was not so fun for us, at least not at first. While everyone was out and about having fun we were trying to find people who weren't at the lake or somewhere else. Well it was slow at first but it ended up being a good day. Once we had our first scheduled lesson the day began to flow. We had 3 lessons and while we weren't having lessons we went to the park, where everyone was parked early to see the fireworks. We talked to quite a few people and I also got to see 2 people from Bluff that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to, so that was great. We also threw knives this week at the same place we threw tomahawks last week. 

All is well. Thanks for everything.

Love, Elder Warnick

P.S.- My Mission President suggested that I ask this. What blessings have you seen in your lives since I have gone on a mission?

Knife Throwing

Bulls-Eye

They give free meals at the library for anyone 0-18 and they wanted everyone who could to come and help them boost their numbers so a member of the ward stopped us on the way out of emailing last week and asked if any of us were 18 and I was so I helped them get some more funding.

Kids Meal

'merica

 

 

Pictures from Members in the Area

These pictures have been emailed, texted or posted to the New Mexico Farmington Mission Families Facebook page. (From a mom's prospective: It is REALLY fun to get a picture of our missionary in real time! It almost feels like we're spying on him.)

June 6, 2015  

From Bluff, Utah 
This is what we posted on Facebook:

We just got this picture from Chad W., Lance's brother. It was sent to Chad by one of his high school students that is visiting her aunt or the aunt sent it to the student in Delta who then sent it to Chad--we're not sure. We just know it has something to do with one of Chad's high school students from Delta and her aunt, who's house Elder Warnick was at when the picture was taken. #firstmissionarypicturesentbystranger #mom'sheartishappy 

 

June 23, 2015

These pictures are the first time Elder Warnick was on anything on the mission families' Facebook page. From there it has just exploded with more pictures. He is off the reservation and I think that might be the big difference. (He missed the reservation though.) These pictures are from transfer day on June 23, 2015. They were taken at the Farmington, New Mexico stake center.

Okay, so this looks like a picture of Sisters, but do you see Elder W.'s backside behind the sister on the right?

Later that same afternoon Sister Palfreyman, who lives in Farmington, had two different groups of missionaries over for lunch at her house before they all headed out to their areas. 

New Companions for the June 23 transfer

 Elder W. second on the left of table

June 24, 2015

"Los Tres Misioneros en mi casa" is what Sister Cook titled her facebook post the next day when the trio went to her house for dinner in Cortez, Colorado.  She also says, "The three amigos! Elder Sessions, Elder Warnick and Elder Castro! So happy to have them serving in our area!!!!"

June 27, 2015

 A few days later on Saturday both Lance and I got these pictures in a random text with only this information:
"Pig heart"
"They washed it down with ice cream. Elder Warnick was the only one who enjoyed it :)"

Lance was a bit freaked out to get text from a total stranger. I find them fun! I had to remind him that the only way the members get our cell numbers is from Dallin. 

July 10, 2015 

This one is from Sister Palfreyman posted to the fb families' page. It was a "live" shot. The Palfreymans were on their way to Utah and had the elders meet them at Denny's.  Elders Sessions' mom asked if they were doing service that day (because they aren't in white shirts and ties, probably) and Sister P. said "No, we interrupted their studies. They are headed back to their house to get ready for their day."

Me and Middleton

Our last moments together before my transfer to Cortez, Colorado