February 28, 2022 - we had a GIANT butterfly as our friend at church this week

 Week 27

“The process of bringing new people into the Church is not the responsibility alone of the missionaries. They succeed best when members become the source from which new people are found.” - Preach My Gospel

Elder Nash gave a great talk about “Holding up your light” in the last General Conference, and I loved the advice he gave to anyone who is trying to share the gospel. “Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. He will finish, He will complete, our exercise of faith - however imperfect - in holding up the gospel light. He will work miracles in our lives and in the lives of all He gathers, for He is a God of miracles.” I invite everyone to exercise what faith you have to invite one person to come a little closer to Christ. And I know it works because after reading this talk, I did just that. I exercised my faith and did what I could to hold up the light I have as a member of the church just a little more. We saw miracles in the contacts we made that day and the lives we were able to touch with our light. 

I loved this last week as we were working a little more with members. We had a great lesson with a less active family and I love how the member who accompanied us extended the invitation to this family to attend church. While they said no, for the moment they are ok, they did explain why they weren’t ready to come back to church and now they know that this member along with others want them to come back. And we left them a Book of Mormon and some were reading it before we were out the door!!

We also had a great member lesson yesterday. We were honored to be the first missionaries in the house of these members after 2 years of COVID. We loved hearing all about their family and conversion story. As we were leaving we asked if we could kneel and pray with them, and the sister looked at us and said “Thank you, I have always loved when missionaries pray because they do it in such a humble way, the right way.” Who would have thought such little things as leaving a Book of Mormon or asking if we could kneel to pray would have such a spiritual effect on members. It really is those little promptings such as bringing an extra Book of Mormon or kneeling to pray that can lift another's burden and bring them a little closer to Christ. 

We have two great people we are teaching. They both are reading the Book of Mormon. We receive many questions from them haha and they are such good questions! One night this week we had a back and forth text message conversation with one of them where we were literally spewing out doctrine in every word because they were asking us so many questions about our fundamental beliefs. It was actually a lot of fun! The youth we are teaching is also doing great. She is so cute, a little quiet, but she is reading the Book of Mormon, coming to church, and has a great relationship with some members, so we are so excited for her to continue to progress. 

Oh and shoutout to Èlder Warburton who is now in BOLIVIA!!! Suerte con tu Español hermano!

Mucho amor,

Hermana Warburton

preparing to record a video invite

Pretty church

Pretty flowers

cookies for members (thanks mom!)

February 21, 2022 - hola hermanas que tal?

 Week 26 

This week a big highlight was our multi-zone zone conference. It was so much fun to see so many missionaries together. And we were really together all day long. I also got to celebrate my 6 months with some people I flew in with so that was fun! One thought from our conference that I loved was Faith is a decision. 

Our president shared Alma 32:17-18: “ Sí, hay muchos que dicen: Si nos muestras una señal del cielo, de seguro luego sabremos; y entonces creeremos.Ahora yo os pregunto: ¿Es fe esto? He aquí, os digo que no; porque si un hombre sabe una cosa, no tiene necesidad de creer, porque la sabe."

We discussed how if we were shown everything we would know and we wouldn’t have to use our agency to make that decision to believe. Faith is such a powerful thing and really it can be hard to describe because everyone can show that they believe in Christ and have hope for the future in different ways. But what is important is that we are always looking forward to the future with faith. The assistants also gave a great training about really being prepared for lessons, because if we are even just a little nervous in a lesson it is that much harder to be led by the spirit. In the Uber home I also had a conversation for an hour with our Uber driver because we were stuck in traffic. It’s honestly such a fun challenge to connect as many parts of our conversation back to principles of the gospel haha.

On Thursday we had our first in person lesson with an investigator in a while. It was so much fun and she is so cute. She is the friend of a member and is 12. She loves coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and writes down questions as well. 

Another person we are teaching will send us questions every so often about random things such as the trinidy or if all angles have bodies… things like that. And really it’s great because he texts them to us and then we can doctrinally back up our answers. 

We’ve had another few great calls with people, and we hope that the people we are teaching will continue to progress. 

Sunday we sent invitations to church to almost all the contacts in our phone and we had 3 interested people come to church as well as quite a few less active members!

One of our lessons also fell through Sunday so I had the idea that we should just stop by some member’s houses and ask them if we could do some type of service for them to make the best use of our time. Well we went to a few houses and they were all not home. But as we walked back we passed a member's house again and they were just getting home. So we went up to their house and they were like "hola hermanas que tal?..." "estamos acá para servirles" :) We were let into their house and we swept a clean floor, cleaned some shelves and tables, folded some laundry, and then played some cards with their 8 year old. We played uno two times which I won, so then she made up another game with the uno cards… and I still won. We will be going back on Thursday to continue uno or some other made up game. It was a lot of fun to serve this family and really we were in and out of there so fast because we only wanted to serve them. Well then an hour later we got a message from that family asking if we were in our house so that they could bring us dinner. The people here are so nice and humble and we try so hard to serve them, but they always serve us back!

I hope everyone is getting to eat just as much rice and beans as I am…

Mucho amor, 

Hermana Warburton 

Us in a bus

just ignore the car because the view is great

Zone Conference

Back in Tibas and my fave restaurant to celebrate

celebrating Hna. Gonzalez's birthday 

6 months!!! 

February 14, 2022 - We believe in the gift of tongues...

 Week 25 

“Heavenly Father was really proud of His Son, wasn’t He?

Last Monday Pday was pretty crazy because we were preparing one of my companions to go to her original assignment in Peru. We went to the other mission here in Costa Rica so that she could get her covid test. We also were escorted home by the assistants that night because we were out kind of late.

Tuesday was the first of many days to come of just my comp Hna. Pope, and me. After each lesson this week, I gained another witness of the reality of the gift of tongues. In lessons, I teach the whole lesson, answer questions, and things like that. Then when she can, my companion will add her testimony. We are so excited because we have two people this week praying about the Restoration. Pray for them to pray!

Sunday we had miracles in a big way with 60 people attending church! We had one person we are teaching attend in person. After only one lesson about prayer he said he wanted to come to church, and he left the church building with a Book of Mormon in hand. A member of our ward brought her neighbor who is 12 to church. She’s not a member and this is her second week at church. This youth actually asked the member if she could come to church this week. The member came up to us after the meeting and told us that this girl was interested in baptism but she told the girl, we have to do this right, we have to get the missionaries involved!

Then we had a small family of 3 people visit our ward. They are being taught by other sisters in a different area far away from ours, but they were visiting this area this weekend and decided to come to church. The other fun thing that happened at church was that we had a member talk for 40 minutes in our ward about the family proclamation, which only left the next speaker with 7 minutes. That next speaker was me haha. Luckily I didn’t spend time writing out a talk and had time to share a couple scriptures and a story I had been thinking about. 

“I would want Heavenly Father to be proud of me too. I guess if I want Him to be proud of me then I better do what He wants me to do.”

God shows his love for us daily. Are we remembering and recognizing the depth of that love? I loved these thoughts about the love of God from Preach My Gospel. I know that as I am serving each day I want to make sure I am not just serving my mission, but that I am helping Him in His work and glory.

Sending my love this Valentine's Day from Costa Rica, 

Hermana Warburton

a delicious lunch from members 

Hna. Pope 

another delicious lunch 

Us with the assistants 

Pday with the hermanas 

In the other Mission

Look what they have in the mall

February 7, 2022 - Who will you bring?

 Week 24

We had transfers this week! I spent the last week getting to know my new area and preparing one of my comps to go to her original assignment in Peru. So nothing too exciting happened because that's really all we did, but there was some fun throughout it all. 

Tuesday during transfers there was some miscommunication in the offices so we ended up being in the offices all day waiting for a third bed. Well in the end, WE RODE IN PRESIDENT'S CAR to go get a blow up mattress in pequeño mundo and then he drove us to our house afterward. He also brought us some peanut butter m&ms and made stickers of us in WhatsApp. 

We called through a few of the interested people we have in our area to see if they are interested and it's such a great feeling when people actually answer our call and want a lesson in the coming week. Miracles! and we still have many more people to call so we are hoping for more. Other news, I talked to a cool guy outside the Peruvian embassy, had an 8 year old in my new ward thinking I worked at a Casino before my mission, and led the area for a day in exchanges! 

"The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just nice, it is essential for all." 

I loved studying Bonnie H. Cordon's talk this week. We have seen that in a lot of our areas after COVID many people are now less active, and it's so sad. That's why we're trying to look for them all! One question I loved that she asked is "how can you support your parents as they continue to come unto Christ? They need you just as much as you need them. Then look again at your siblings, friends, and neighbors. Who will you bring to Christ?" Members who share the gospel experience joy and have the spirit more abundantly! Who doesn't want that?!  And I love that we can start in our own homes. We are all family, children of God, and it's so important that we remember our family so that we can continue to help all to come unto Christ.

Mucho amor,

Hermana Warburton

Peruvian food my comp made

 Dinner with the bishop's fam 

 When president dropped us off at our house

 President's car! 

My first trio