June 26 Email

Dear wonderful people!

Well, overall, this week has been pretty fun. Getting to meet my final companion, as well as learning from him. My new companion is Elder Woolley. He's from North Carolina (but he was actually born and grew up in Utah) and he's awesome.  We get along very well. He's the first southern companion I've had.  That's always great.  It's definitely going to be a good last transfer. :)

Well! On to my week!

Wednesday - Well, today we went into London for transfers. I dropped off Elder Meier and picked up Elder Woolley. We then went to the office to do a few things. It was fun to see lots of my old missionary friends. Then we made our way back home. Elder Woolley did a tiny bit of unpacking. Then we went to the library for an appointment. They didn't show up, so we went finding. Then we went back to the library for another appointment, but she didn't show up either, so we went finding again. Then we went home so brother pan could pick us up to take us to the garage to pick up our car. Then we went home to do some studies. Then we went shopping. Afterwards, we went over to Berny's house so Elder Woolley could meet him. Then we came home for dinner and call ins.

Thursday - Today was really good. Busy as well. We had our district meeting in the morning. It was really good. Then we went back to Braintree for a lunch correlation with Berny. We made some interesting sandwiches, then Berny showed us some interesting instruments. Then we looked at my "power of everyday missionaries" training PowerPoint. Then we went to Witham to oil the Gough's deck. We ran out of oil at the very end of the project. So we never got the last steps of the deck. Then we changed and they made us dinner. They made something called Poppy Seed Chicken. It was really good. Then we had some sundaes for dessert. Then we shared a message about sharing the gospel. Then we went to the Bowles club. It was really fun. Then we went home.

Friday - Today was fun. We did service for Tina Austen. We finished at about 2:00. Then we went to the English-Frys to help out Derek in the garden. Then we went to see Sue Jackson. We started teaching the plan of salvation. We'll finish up next week. Then we went back to Braintree to go finding. We saw jazz while we were in town and talked with her for a while. Hopefully we can see her next week. Then we went to the Sagripantis for dinner. They made paella. It was delicious. Then we shared a message about sharing the gospel. Then we went home for companionship study and call ins.

Saturday - Well, today was fun. We did weekly planning in the morning. Then we went to the English-Frys for some service. We were helping them build a chicken coop. After a few hours, we went finding. We tracked a nearby street and then we came back to their house for dinner. After dinner, we played Uno, then had a spiritual thought about sharing the joy of church. Then we went home.

Sunday - Today was church. I like church. After church, we went straight to Colchester so Elder Woolley could do a Baptismal interview. Then we went straight back, and gave the sacrament to the Pews. Then we went to the chapel to fill up the font for the baptism of one of the children in the ward. Then we attended the baptism. It went very smoothly. No re-baptisms or anything. Then we mingled with some of the members and friends afterwards. Then we went home and had dinner. All in all, a pretty hectic, but very good day.

Well, there you go! I love you!

Love,

Elder Warburton

June 20 Email

Dear wonderful people!

This week was quite eventful! I'll start off by mentioning that this is the beginning of my last transfer! So yeah, I'm officially old now. The oldest in the mission (with my MTC group, of course). And I'm staying in Witham. Elder Meier on the other hand is leaving for Canterbury, and I'll be receiving elder Woolley. Also, today, I have officially been out for 22 months. Well, on with my week! 

Tuesday - Today we had district meeting in the morning. That was really good. Sister D'Costa gave a training on developing charity. After district meeting, we went to KFC for lunch. Then we went home and picked up some supplies for lessons we were supposed to have later. Then we went and saw a less active lady and taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and the word of wisdom. Then we went and contacted some of our investigators. Then we went to Braintree to have a lesson with our investigator Sam, but he was busy, so we rescheduled for Thursday. So we had companionship study instead. Then we went finding. We met lots of strangely quiet people. Normally everyone wants to talk about their mom, dad, dog, and trump, but they were only giving really quick one word answers for everything. Weird. Then we were supposed to have a lesson with someone else, but they didn't show up, so we went home and ate dinner.

Wednesday - Today was awesome! We did our regular morning routine, then we did companionship study, contacted investigators, etc. then we ate paella and coleslaw for lunch. Then Elder Meier had his three hours of diving instruction with brother Theed. Oh my goodness. I was on edge for three hours straight! I now have a greater testimony of the power of prayer. It was a lot of fun. We got a great view of the countryside. And there were less tense bits where I could relax a little. We drove up near Bury St. Edmunds, over to near Haverhill, which is in Cambridge ward boundaries, down to a place called Castle Hedingham. There is a castle there, but we didn't see it, because it was surrounded by enormous trees, and the guy at the entrance said that we had to pay to drive on the grounds. So we left and went back to Braintree. Brother theed gave him the okay and now he's allowed to drive. But he won't be driving until I leave. Then we did some finding, stopped by some less active members, and went to a dinner appointment with the Richards. They are an awesome family. They have travelled all over the world. They also love comic con-like stuff. So that's cool as well. We watched the new first vision video. I love that video. It's super good. Then we went home and got ready for bed.

Thursday - Today was good. We did our normal morning stuff. Then we went to contact some of our investigators over Facebook. After that, we had lunch. After lunch, we went finding.  Then we spent forever trying to find this part member family in the middle of nowhere. After nearly an hour of searching, we found it. They weren't home. Sad. But I got some nice pictures. Then we went finding again. Then we went and looked for more part member families in a different part of our area. Then we had dinner. After dinner, we went to Bowles club! I love Bowles club. We had a great time. Then we went home.

Friday - Today was super fun. We went into London for a conference where Elder D. Todd Christofferson came and spoke with us, as well as his wife, president and sister Stevens, and president and sister Kieron. It was awesome! I took lots of notes. (At least, by my standards.) it was in the middle of the day, so we spent our morning getting to London, then our evening getting home, so that took up the whole day. After the conference, before getting home, we took a picture as a mission in front of the royal Albert hall. Then we did some stuff in the office before going home. While we're riding in the tube, we sat and talked with this man about the church. He was super friendly. His name is Edward and he's from Inverness, Scotland. He was awesome. Then I took a freezing cold bath to cool down after a hot day in London. Also, I found a free birds restaurant in London. Yes!

Saturday - Well, today was... strange. It was all pretty normal mostly. We did our weekly planning, then we made lunch. I made some delicious fried rice. Right after sitting down to eat, I noticed a little maggot on the floor. Gross. So I went to pick it up, when I noticed another little guy hanging around next to him. Huh, weird. So I picked them up and put them in a glass, because I didn't know what to do with them. While doing so, I noticed a couple others near a towel on the floor. So I lifted up the towel and there were multiple little maggots growing out of the carpet. Ahh! So I got them out of the carpet and put them in the glass as well. So I started moving all sorts of stuff, and found tons of them all over the floor, growing in the carpet. So we moved everything, picked up all the ones we could find, and put them in the jar with their little cohorts. Then we very thoroughly vacuumed the carpet and cleaned up and rearranged the furniture, making sure that they were all gone. It was disgusting. I couldn't eat my lunch after that. So we disposed of the maggots, took out all of the rubbish, then went finding in town. After a few hours of that, we finally found someone who was interested. Her name is Sarah, she's wonderful. We're seeing her on Tuesday. Then we did companionship study. Then we saw Philip, our good friend and eternal investigator. We taught about scripture study and helped him take pictures of part of his house that he will be renovating soon. Then we stopped by the tomlinsons to say hello. Then we went home and had dinner. After dinner, I took an ice bath because I was sweating all day from the gross heat. So yeah, we were attacked by an army of maggots, then we worked for the remainder of the day. Gross. The maggots were pretty gross, too. ;) I'll put a video at the end to show you the maggots. :)

Sunday - Well, today was a lot of fun. We had church, which was really nice. It was a nice, relaxed day at church. After church, we got some dinner appointments, then sped off to colchester so Elder Meier could do an interview for the Sister's investigator, Isaac. While he did the interview, I played the piano. He passed the interview, and we went home. We quickly got changed then went over to the Pan's house for a Father's Day barbecue. It was awesome. The Cespedes were there and we ate A LOT of meat. I probably singlehandedly ate nearly 2 kilograms of meat. It was awesome. Then we went and saw a less active lady named Leona. She's doing well. Then we went finding. We found two people, Steven, a cool kid with blue hair, and Jarek, a Polish teacher. They're cool. We're seeing them both later this week. Then we went home for companionship studies.

Monday - Well, today was fun. We went to stop by our new investigator from yesterday, but he wasn't home. Darn. So we went to the library to contact some of our investigators. While doing so, president Stevens called. He released Elder Meier as a district leader and is sending him to Canterbury to train Elder Gago as a district leader. Then we went home to have lunch. We made delicious burgers. Then, we went finding in the town. We didn't find any new investigators. We just melted from the heat. Then we went to Witham to contact people. We saw the smiths. They gave us ice pops. Then we went to see the Fingletons, but they weren't home and they had a sign on their door that said, "NO CHURCH PEOPLE." So we went into town to go finding. We talked with this really nice Muslim girl for about 30 minutes. She holds nearly the same beliefs that we hold. And we got her phone number, but she lives in London, so we won't be the ones to teach her. Darn. Then we went to the Asioli's to pick up dinner, since bishop Asioli was stuck in London. Then we went home. On the way home, the car started to freak out. The battery wasn't charging, and all of the electrical stuff in the car started to stop working, so I was driving nearly 4 miles with no power steering, anti-brake locks, and traction control, and the gears weren't changing, so I was stuck in 5th gear, even though I was driving 30-40 miles per hour. Also no air conditioning and the music wasn't working. So we finally got home by some miracle, and we called the RAC (emergency car repair people), and they told us what was wrong and how to fix it. So we probably won't have a car for the next couple days. Also, we ate the dinner that sister Asioli made, and it was delicious. 

This is the Smiths' cat. We turned it into a model. Or maybe one of those weird Snapchat filters. :)

Well, there you go! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Warburton 

P.S. Here's the video. If you're squeamish, I wouldn't recommend watching it.

June 12 Email

Dear wonderful people!

In my normal fashion, I'm going to leave you guys with a very (un)detailed description of my week. Enjoy! 

Tuesday - We'll, today was a lot of fun. We went shopping in the morning at Lidl. Then we went to Freeport. I got a new suit! It cost 26��. Then we went to the Sagripanti's as a district for lunch. We were supposed to have a barbecue, but it was raining so hard that we just had a normal lunch instead. It was fun as always. Brother Sagripanti made fun of everyone, as always. He's so funny. Then we went to the chapel to do our emailing. Luckily it stopped raining while we were emailing. After emailing, we went to the English-Fry's for dinner. After dinner we played Uno. Then we burned Elder Meier's shirt for his one year mark. Then we went back inside to play pick up sticks. It's a lot of fun. Then we went home and went to bed.

Wednesday - Well, today was good. We had companionship studies in the morning. Then we went finding. Then we stopped by people. After that, we ate lunch. Then we went to sue Jackson for a lesson. We taught about faith and repentance. Then we went back to Braintree to go finding. We met a lady named Naomi. She has a few kids. They seem cool. She really likes the idea of repentance, so we'll teach that when we meet her next. We invited her to the barbecue on Saturday. Then we went and stopped by some people. We met DJ Manfredi and hopefully we'll be able to meet him on Friday. Then we went back for dinner. After dinner, we drove to Berny's so he could drive us to correlation at the chapel. It was a really good correlation. Then we went back and Elder Meier did call ins.

Thursday - Today was fun. I was sick when I woke up, so I slept in a bit. After that, I got ready and did some studies, but I started to feel sick again, so we got halfway through companionship studies, and I went and took a nap. I woke up at 1:30. We then ate lunch and went finding. After finding, we waited at the flat for the guy to come and fix the doorframe of our flat. He never came, so we called him and he said that he forgot. So, we did our gaps and then went to our dinner appointment with the pans. They're so fun. We ate coronation chicken, then played a bit of air hockey. After that, we jumped on their trampoline. Then we shared a message about prayer, then we went to the chapel to open up for Bowles club. So we played some Bowles, then we got a call from a member asking if avoiding marriage was a sin. So we got home late because she talked to us for so long. Then we did our daily evaluation, and got ready for bed.

Friday - Today was a lot of fun. We did our weekly planning in the morning. Then we made lunch. We made rice, but we used too much water, so we had to use Elder Meier's shirt as a sieve. That was fun. Then we went to the library to contact investigators. We were supposed to see Abi as well, but she had to cancel. Then we went to Witham to find. Nearly everyone was horrible to us, but that's pretty normal in Witham. So after an hour of abuse, we stopped by some less actives. We briefly met the Smith family. They seem super cool. They asked if we could come back on a different day, so hopefully that will go somewhere. Then we went to the chapel to grab some tables and chairs for Yann. He's doing this lunch thing tomorrow, so he needed them. Then we went to have dinner with the asiolis. I love them. They made a bunch of food. It was awesome. We had corn, jacket potatoes, LOTS of chicken. Yum! Then we ate some dessert and we shared a message about prayer. Then we went home and Elder Meier did call ins.

Saturday - Today was sick! We went finding first thing in the morning. Then we did companionship study. After that, we went to Witham. There is a less active member who's birthday was today, so we bought her a birthday card. Then we stopped by a family and shared a message about prayer. Then we went to the WARD BARBECUE!!! It was super awesome! There was an insane amount of food and people. Probably more than half of the people there were nonmembers. We played sports and ate loads of food. It was amazing. Then we went home and died from the sheer amount of food.

Sunday - Today was awesome. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. It was about preparing to enter the temple. Then we had the rest of our classes. Those were all really good. Then we went home and ate lunch. After lunch, we went finding. Before finding, the sisters in colchester called us and gave us a challenge to find two new investigators while finding. So we went out and, to cut a long story short, we found two new investigators. Then we saw the pews and gave them the sacrament. Then we met with Leona. We talked about the power of faith. Then we saw sister hall and her son. We shared the same message with them. Then we went home and ate pancakes for dinner. 

Well, There you go! Hope you enjoyed! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Warburton 

June 6 Email

Dear wonderful people!

This last week is a bit hazy in my memory, but luckily, I keep a journal just for you guys! Lucky!

So, here's my week!

Tuesday - Today was fun! We did our companionship studies in the morning. After our studies, we went to visit a less active member named DJ, but he wasn't home. While we were walking back, we met a really nice girl named Natasha. She was kind of interested in meeting with us. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her again soon. Then we went to the store to pick up a couple of things we forgot yesterday, like cleaning supplies. Then we ate lunch. After lunch we went finding. We met another girl named destiny. She was really nice as well, but she is really busy, so we didn't get a specific return appointment, so we'll have to try again later. After that we went to Witham to do a bit more finding before we helped out Derek with his garden. We turned over the soil and planted some ginger, onions, and tomatoes. We also cleaned up a little bit more. Then we went inside and had dinner with them. After dinner we played our usual Uno, then shared a message about teaching gospel truths. Then we went home and called Bobbie to read with her.

Wednesday - Today was pretty busy, which is good when you're a missionary. We had our normal morning routine and companionship study, then we went out to visit a few less active people. We stopped by one lady who was just super awkward. We knocked on her door, and when she answered, she just stared at us like a deer in head lights. We tried talking to her a bit, but she would only give inaudible, one word responses. Later on, we went to have lunch. We made fried rice burritos. They were delicious. We wrapped up the extra burritos into aluminum foil and saved them for dinner. Then we went to Witham to see Sue Jackson. She's doing well. Our lesson was really good. We brought brother Gough, who's a great teacher. We shared bout the plan of salvation. Then we went to the chapel to sync our area books. While we were there, we got two referrals from the Stevenage sisters. Thank you, sisters! After setting up return appointments, we went to Braintree to eat dinner. After dinner, we went to Karen Hall's house to mow her lawn. While we were mowing, the lawnmower stopped working, so we had to borrow the neighbor's. After that, we had a spiritual thought with them. We spoke about keeping the Sabbath day holy. By the end of the lesson we were talking about deep doctrine. It was good. 

Thursday - Today was really good. We had companionship study in the morning, then we went finding. While finding, we met this interesting girl named Bryony. She wanted to learn a bit more about life after death. We will be seeing her next Tuesday. After finding we had lunch and contacted some investigators on the phone. Then we traveled to Witham to do some more finding. After finding for a few hours, we went to the Gough's house for dinner. They are a lovely couple in the ward. Very missionary minded. We shared a message with them about sharing the blessings of keeping the Sabbath day holy. They have a friend that they want to share with, so hopefully it will go well. Then we went to the chapel for Bowles club. That's always fun. Then we went home.

Friday - Today we had district meeting in the morning. It was a good district meeting. Afterwards, we all went to Pizza Hut for lunch. It was alright. Then we began our exchange with the zone leaders. We went to the flat to drop off our stuff and do companionship studies. Then we went finding. It was super fun. After an hour or so of that, we went to the library to contact some of the people that we're working with. Then we needed to go back from town to the flat to pick up the car. When we got out of the library, we realized that it was pouring rain outside. And I left my umbrella in the car. So, after getting completely soaked while talking to some people in the rain, we made it back to the flat and drove the sisters to the university campus, then we drove all the way to tendering, which is a completely different area. We went and had a pizza party with the branch president and some less actives and nonmembers at his house. It was really nice. After dinner, we shared a message about the restoration with everyone. Then we had to go home. I went to bed while everyone else did call ins. 

Saturday - Today was awesome. We started off the day by playing some football with the colchester Ward and all of the missionaries. Then we drove home from the exchange. Then we had companionship studies, cleaned the car, went and went finding. We talked to this Muslim guy who went on and on about how we need to pray to Allah. It was a complete waste of time. Then we went to see Philip. He's doing well. After Philip, we went home to do our weekly planning. Then we had pancakes for dinner. I ate way too many. They were too delicious. 

Sunday - Today was a lot of fun. We had church in the morning. It was fast Sunday, so we had our testimony meeting. The last testimony was given by a man from the Chelmsford ward named George. He's about 90 years old, and he might be the happiest man in the world. He's also not all there. As he walked up to the pulpit, he was talking to everyone and telling them to smile, because it's free! Then he got up to the pulpit and said, "Smile, it's free!" He also said a bunch of other really positive stuff and repeated himself a bunch. It was awesome. Then we had the rest of our meetings. Those were fun as well. Then we went home and I ate lunch, then we went to our appointment with our investigator, but he wasn't home, so we went finding. We talked to lots of people, but no one was willing to meet with us again. We talked to this really nice lady named Joyce, but she didn't want to meet with us. So we went home. While we were going home, we talked to this lady because she had a really cute dog. It turns out that she lives in our flat complex, and she wants to meet with us again. Yay! Then we visited a  lady named Leona. She's doing well. We shared the prince of peace video. Then we gave her the sacrament. After that, we gave the sacrament to the Pews. They are a lovely couple in there 90s. Then we went to visit another lady in the ward. She wasn't able to meet with us, so we went home and I made biscuits for dinner. Yum.

Monday - Well, today was long. We had our zone conference. We had to be in Ipswich, which, by the way, is over an hour away, by 8:00 am. When we got there, Elder Meier went into a district leader council meeting, and I hung out with the missionaries there. Then I picked up some other missionaries from the train station. The meeting was really good. Really spiritual as well. Then we had pizza for lunch. Then we had a few more trainings by other missionaries and president Stevens. Mostly about how to use the Book of Mormon and centering our message on Jesus Christ. Then some of the soon to be departing missionaries gave their departing testimonies. Then we went back home and did a bit of finding before we went back for dinner.

Well, there you have it! I hope you all enjoy!

 I love you all!

Love,

Elder Warburton