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.