All That Is Asked is to Do Your Best

This week was really good. We got to visit a lot of people that I hadn't met still. Robert is doing great. He is excited to keep learning and takes notes in church and when we teach him (haha its the best) He got confirmed this week in sacrament and a member gave him a new quad which was really nice. 

Our other investigators are doing good but not really progressing. Hopefully we can get them going because they like being taught but don't keep commitments. 

We picked up a great new investigator this week. A member in my last ward referred us to her friend. We went by and she is one of those people where if you didn't know she was Mormon you would think she was Mormon. She's christian and she has family members who are Mormon but didn't really know anything about what we believe. She had lots of questions and the first lesson about the restoration answered them all. You can tell she has felt the spirit before and this church would just give her the added truth that is missing. We really hope that she keeps learning cause she was eager to read the pamphlet and Book of Mormon we gave her. Hopefully she doesn't get anti-ed or anything.

This week we had our ward picnic which was awesome because i feel like I'm starting to get down who is who in the ward. We had a young women come out with us who just turned 16 so that was super fun.

This week we have a mini missionary!!!! Her name is Sister Lavea and she just graduated high school and she is from Compton and she is Samoan. Our mission has the mini missionary program where youth over 16 in the stake can come live with the missionaries for a week or 2 and see how mission life is. So she is with us for the week seeing how mission life really is. Today we went to the temple which was awesome as usual. Also I saw my old bishop from the Fountain Valley ward which was cool. There were a couple of boys going through the temple for the first time and it reminded me of when I went through for the first time. 

This week was a lot better mentally/emotionally. Sometimes I think that I think too much. I got to go on exchanges with Sister Perry who I have pretty much served with my whole mission so it was just really fun and I learned some good teaching tips from her. We ended up going with her and Sister Bauer and Sister George to get Yogurtland. It was really fun we were singing Newsies and High School Musical and Annie. Ya I know they weren't hymns but sometimes you just have to have fun too!! 

This week in church there was a great talk by one of the sisters in the ward. She talked about how in life there are lots of different doors that could lead us different ways. We might open one door and see that God wants us to scale a huge cliff. Some of us might just start recklessly climbing others might not try to climb at all thinking they are inadequate. But if we rely on the Lord he will help us make it to the top. I also like that she talked about stripling warriors and how they weren't stripling they were young boys who didn't know how to fight and they were weak but the trusted God and had unshakable faith and that made up all the difference. Then she also told a story of this baseball player who was the last hitter of the game and they were going to loose. His first two hits he didn't really even try. Then he found out that his son was watching in the crowd. He wanted to be a good example so on the last hit he really tried but he missed and they still lost of the game. Afterwards he didn't really care that he hadn't hit the ball he just felt bad that he hadn't tried his best the first two swings. I think that this totally applies to a lot of things in life. Sometimes we are too focused on hitting the ball that we feel like a failure if we didn't hit it when all that matters is that we tried our best. Sometimes we hold back and don't give our all thinking "what's the point" when in reality as the long as we try we have already succeeded. I just really liked this because I think that it is easy to hold back sometimes from reaching our full potential. Whether we are too scared of failure or we think we aren't good enough to try, or our expectations are too high, or we aren't confident in ourselves. I love that all God asks of us is to try our best. He doesn't demand perfection and he understanding of our weaknesses. Someone told me not too long ago that the best missionaries they know aren't afraid to mess up. I love that. I think sometimes we hold ourselves back because we think that we will look dumb, or we won't accomplish what we want, or we want things to go a certain way and they don't. We just have to be willing to do what we should and not be afraid to mess up as long as we are trying our best. 

Well I hope you all have a good week.

Love,

Sister Washburn

With Sister George at the temple

Nina (the member that took us, she is going on her mission to Houston Texas in a month) sister George, Sister Lavea (mini missionary), me

Knottsberry Farm- we drive by every day

BAPTISM!

This week was pretty awesome because we had our BAPTISM!!!!!! It was so good. Robert was so excited the whole day. He was like "I feel like it's my birthday or something." He was just really at peace and ready to be able to follow Christ more closely. He even got up and bore his testimony in sacrament meeting. Man it was the best! Sister George and I felt like proud parents (even though Robert is way older than us). The baptism went really well. There was a ton of support from the ward and 2 of Robert's cousins came. I was so nervous the whole time for some reason, Robert wasn't even that nervous. I guess I just knew how important this day was and I really wanted everything to go well. After the ordinance I was finally able to just enjoy the service. He was just so happy the whole time and that just made me so grateful to be a part of it all.

The fourth of july was fun. We did some service walking Libby who is the dog of this awesome lady in our ward who has leg problems and can't really walk. Then she took us out to eat at Farrells which is a really cool restaurant. It is like an old ice cream parlor and they have hamburgers and sandwhiches too. The waiters and waitresses sing for you if you are eating there for your birthday/anniversary/ect. or if you order one of the crazy things on the menu. It was Sister Matsen's birthday this week so they came and sang for us. The food and the ice cream was so good. You guys should go there if you end up going to Knottsberry farm. Then we had a practice teach with our district leader and our zone leaders. After that we went to our dinner appointment. It was a barbeque with a couple families in the ward. Then we went and visited this old man in the ward named Brother Murdock. He plays the harmonica and the ukelele and loves to sing. Good thing Sister George is a good singer so she sang for him (dodged that bullet). Afterwards the fireworks started and things got crazy so we just went home and visited with Sister Roper (the widow we live with). There were tons of fireworks the rest of the night. People go to Mexico to buy the illegal ones that you can launch in the air. There were so many fireworks going on around where we live that we didn't even really see the ones Knottsberry Farm does. All in all it was a good day.

On Monday night we had a really fun FHE with our investigator Jesse and his semi active girlfriend Ellie and her 7 year old son. There was 3 other families too. The Mapas are the family that hosted the FHE and the dad is from Tonga and made these super good teriyaki chicken burgers. Seriously thought they were so good! Then we had an activity where all of the kids had to find these letters we hid that spelled the word happiness. We taught a lesson about how obeying the commandments brings happiness. Then we talked a little about how being kind is following the commandment to love one another. We showed the mormon message about the 2 little boys who hide silver dollars in the poor farmers shoes. Love that one. It was a fun FHE and helped our investigator and his family to have some good fellowship. 

Then we also got to visit with Brother Collings. He has had a crazy life. He is paraplegic because he hurt his spine when he was younger because he and his friends were jumping of the roof into the pool and someone pushed him in and he landed wrong. So ya but he was less active for 20 years and the sisters were able to reactivate him just before I came. It was good to visit him, we practiced the first lesson on him and it got him thinking because it has been a long time since he has heard these things. We will probably teach him the rest of the lessons too. 

We also saw Sister Eves. I just love visiting her. This time when we came over she was making these fruit juice drinks and dancing to Guatemalan music that she got when she went on a trip there. She does weaving and spinning (like using a spinning wheel to make yarn) so she has traveled around to learn about it. We had a good lesson with her on the Book of Mormon. She also says the best prayers like "God you're fantastic!" or "Thank you for letting me visit with these godly women and please help some of it to rub off on me." It's the best.  

Sister George and I are getting a lot better at teaching together. Also we are being a lot more honest with each other. Communication is really key in a companionship and if one or both of the companions are keeping things in that bug them or that they wish would change then nothing will ever get better. I think it has been really good because we have been able to support each other more and help each other with our challenges. 

This week I have been thinking a lot about the atonement. For some reason I was just getting really bugged about things that happened to me earlier in my mission. I guess I was just comparing myself to Sister George. She had a really good trainer and started in a good area and I was just like "Why didn't that happen to me?" I guess I just felt like if things had been different I would be a better missionary by now. I was reading the talk by Elder Bednar from conference about "Bearing our Burdens with Ease." On my mission I have really realized how to use the atonement and how faithful members of the church who are striving their best can really use the atonement just as much as the people with "big sins." The part I really love says "Thus, the Savior has suffered not just for our sins and iniquities—but also for our physical pains and anguish, our weaknesses and shortcomings, our fears and frustrations, our disappointments and discouragement, our regrets and remorse, our despair and desperation, the injustices and inequities we experience, and the emotional distresses that beset us."  

I realized that on my mission I have literally experienced every single one of these things and I have been able to use the atonement to help me overcome them. I am grateful that my mission has been hard and that things have happened not that way that I would have planned. Because of the things I have experienced I have been able to use and understand the atonement in a way that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. I know that the Lord truly has been leading me along. He has been able to allow me to learn in grow by overcoming specific challenges. I am so grateful for the atonement. I am grateful that Christ loved us enough to literally experience and thoroughly understand everything we go through. I am grateful for the sacrament that allows us each week to be cleansed of our mistakes and burdens and that gives us the strength to try harder the next week.  

I am so excited to work hard this week. I know that the Lord has great things in store for us. I love being a missionary!!!

Love you all!!
-Sister Washburn

With Robert on his baptism day!

Robert got these cookies for us during our last lesson and then one of the members brought a bunch to the baptism

                                                       This is us in red white and blue for the 4th of july.

Great Week!!!

So this week was really crazy because so much happened. On Monday we had 2 FHEs. We had it with a new family in the ward and then we had fhe with our investigator Jesse his girlfriend who is recently reactivated and her 7 yr old son and a family from the ward. We had cut outs of the tree of life dream and for the activity we tied rope around in the YWs room and they had to follow it in the dark and me and my comp were trying to get them to let go by saying things like "we have candy" "we"ll give you a million dollars" "free tickets to Knotts Berry farm." I think that the families really liked it. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday I was sick. Since we live with a member I stayed home with her and my comp went out with another sister. I had just gotten new medicine for my sinus infection and it wiped me out. But now I am way way better so I think I am finally over that nasty sinus infection. 

We finished teaching the commandments to Robert. He is doing so well. He has just totally been prepared because he is so willing to do whatever the Lord asks of him and wants to follow the commandments. We went over the baptismal questions and so he should be good to go for his baptism on Sunday!! We are so excited for him! Also he talked to his parents the other day and they said that if this church makes him happy then they are glad for him. That was so cool because he was so worried about how they were going to react because they are strong Catholics. 

Also this week there was a baptism in my old ward that I really really really wanted to go too. It was the son in law of a family I love and so I wanted to go and to get to see people from the ward. But in order to go we had to bring an investigator. We asked all of our investigators and none of them could go. So then we were asking everyone all over the place. Like literally we asked everyone but no one could come. So 2 hours before the baptism on Saturday one of our investigators called and said they could come and then like 20 minutes before another investigator said she wanted to come. Miracles happen people!! It was a great baptism and it was fun to get to see everyone and most importantly our investigators both really felt the spirit. 

Sister George is great. I can't remember what I told you about her in the last letter but she is from Rexburg Idaho. She is a quadruplet and one of her other sisters is on a mission in South Africa. She already graduated and was working as a nurse before her mission. She a good missionary and we get along pretty well. Our teaching styles are really different so that has been kinda hard to get more on the same page but it will work out just fine. 

So things are moving right along and are going really well. It is amazing to me how easy it is to talk to people on the streets here and everyone has been so nice so far. It's weird. But awesome. But there are also some crazy people. 

But overall I just know that God just so totally knows us. I feel like I have had so many tender mercies after coming to this area, I mean coming to this area in the first place was a tender mercy. The Lord is always guiding us through the hard times and the good, because there are things we need to learn in every moment. This week I got a blessing for being sick and in the blessing it said that the Lord knows my struggles and has given me trails at certain times so that I can learn the things he wants me to learn. I know that as we trust in the Lord's timing He will make more of us than we could ever make of ourselves. Love you All!!
-Sister Washburn

Awesome Week!

Oh. My. Goodness. This week has been crazy and awesome. So this is like the first time on my mission where I have been sent to an area that hasn't been struggling and it has been a major blessing!!! We have 5 investigators right now. One of them is Robert Ruiz. He is this middle aged mexican man who they met on the street and he is totally open to the gospel and to learning. He was really willing gave up coffee and this week we had the tithing lesson which went over really well. We also talked a lot about baptism since he has a baptismal date for July 6. His main concern is that his family won't understand since they are strong catholic. Also a few of his friends have made weird comments about mormons to him. We tried to clear up his concerns and help him to know that as long as he keeps trying his best and staying close to the Lord his friends and family will see the good changes in him and his happiness and will know that the church is good. Our other investigator is Sister Eves. She is this spunky 93 year old lady. She is actually getting rebaptized because years ago she had her records removed from the church over a misunderstanding. She searched for another church to go to but never found on she liked. Then a few months ago she met a member of the church at a sewing class and she brought her to church. She realizes that this is the church she has been searching for and wants to get baptized so bad. So right now she is just working on her letter to the prophet and stuff so she can be cleared to get baptized. She has such a good testimony and wants so badly to follow Christ and to do what is right. The other investigator we have is Jesse. He is in his 20s and is the boyfriend of a less active who is coming back to church. He already has a strong belief in Christ and so for him it is more of just gaining a testimony that this is his true church. He has already had all of the lessons and so right now he is reading the book of mormon. He says he just hasn't gotten his answer yet, so will have to help him keep having good spiritual experiences that will help him to get the revelation he needs. Our fourth investigator is Josie. We actually found her this week while we were out tracting. We were on our bikes and started talking to her. She has been raising her grandson because her daughter is on drugs and she wants him to have God in his life. She wanted us to help her learn how to pray. We taught her the first lesson and really focused on the atonement and prayer. She really felt the spirit and kept telling us that she will never forget meeting with us for the first time and the way she felt afterwards. Her main concern is that her husband just wants them to stick to their old church so we will see what happens. Our last investigator we have right now is named Lorraine. She is an older lady who is friends with a member in our ward. She is open to learning and is a little hard to get to know to understand what she really needs but she wants to have a better relationship with God. 

It has just been crazy going from a really slow area to an area with so much work. We have people to teach, there are a lot of less actives in the ward, and there are some members that are really good about missionary work. Also finding is a lot easier because there are a lot more people in this area whose lives aren't so put together and they are a lot more willing to listen. Our ward area is pretty big. We live in a little house with an old widow who is pretty home bound and just basically watches tv all day. We help her out sometimes when she needs things. Our church building is literally right across the street from Knotts berry farm. We also live just down the street from Knotts berry farm so sometimes when we are out at night we can hear people screaming from the rollar coasters. 

My companion is Sister George. She's from Rexburg Idaho. She is 23 and she already graduated from college and was working as a nurse before her mission. Even though she just got out of training, she is really motivated and knows what she is doing in the area and stuff so that has been a big help. She is a pretty good missionary already and I think that it helps that she is an older sister because she is just able to take control of things better than some beginning missionaries. The only hard thing is that she was trained a lot differently than most missionaries. Her trainer had them so "go by the spirit" a lot which is great and important but she doesn't know how to make lesson plans or switch of in lessons or how to plan as effectively. But she is really willing to learn so we will be able to figure it all out. It is just been nice to have a companion who is on top of things and who is really motivated and positive. 

This transfer we decided that our goal is to really help everyone we serve to recognize and use the atonement in their lives. This can be for members as they use the enabling power of the atonement and look for missionary opportunities. It can be for less actives as they rediscover their testimony and how the Lord can change their hearts and help them come back to church. It can be for the non-members who don't understand their relationship with God and Christ and how keeping the commandments and repenting can relieve their burdens and help them to to be truly happy. 

Mostly I am just really grateful to be in this area to to be able to grow more as a missionary since we are actually teaching a lot and are always busying with helping people to progress. There are just a lot of things I will be able to learn from this area and my companion so I am really excited.

You all are the best! Have a good week!

-Sister Washburn

Pictures from Cypress

With Sister Griswald

With the Matsuos- they always take us out for sushi and other good Japanese food.

With Sister Okanoue

 Walking the streets of Cypress

Sisters in our zone- the blond on the end will be my new companion

our zone

Lots of Appointments & Changing Wards

This week was really good. We had lots of teaching appointments. Even though some of them were just teaching members I think that they are starting to get a lot more missionary minded just in the small time we have been working with them. We taught this single mom and her son the lessons and she really appreciated it. She recently got divorced and her son has been struggling a little so she really loved getting to hear the restoration lesson and have that good influence for her son. 

We also talked to a TON of people. We started passing out family history pass along cards to people who are already really religious. It has been working great because sometimes they just aren't interested in letting us talk about what we believe but they will let us talk about their ancestors and how they can learn more about them. Also getting non members to do family history is like double hastening of the work so that is cool. I heard that family history is the number one hobby in america so a lot more people are interested in it than you think. 

We meet a few more less actives that we didn't know and they were really nice. One is an RM who graduated from BYU and his girlfriend isn't a member and they are super nice so hopefully we can get them to church. Also we met another guy who we thought didn't want contact from the church but as it turns out his daughter is really active and he wants us to come over for dinner. 

Sister Okanoue and I have just been working really hard and trying to recognize all of the things that we have to be grateful for. I think that helped us out a ton this week because we envisioned things working out and going better and they actually did. Also it helped us to realize all of the small tender mercies and good moments that we have everyday. I read President Uchtdorf's talk this week about being grateful in our circumstances. It just really hit me that a lot of times we are in situations where we are doing our best but maybe we aren't seeing amazing results. Even in those times there are still lots of great things happening.

Also we got a new investigator!!! Her name is Yvonne and we've gone by before and talked to her but she usually wanted to read the Book of Mormon but didn't really want the lessons. This time when we went by she told us she really wanted to come to church with us. We also ended up talking about baptism and she thought that it was really cool and sounded really interested and open to it all. We have a church tour scheduled with her this week so hopefully it all goes through! 

And then to end this great week we got transfer calls. And boy they were totally not what I expected. First of all we found out that they decided to take sister missionaries out of our ward. We were so sad to hear this because we just got together as companions and we really love the ward and there were a lot of members and single women we were working with. But our area is pretty small (there is only one ward smaller in our mission) and now that the Elders in our ward don't cover the singles ward anymore just our ward, there isn't as much work to go around. So we are sad but we realize that it has to happen. And then we found out that we are both getting moved to other wards in our same stake. So we are still going to be in the same zone and even the same district just different wards. So that is kind of cool but kind of weird at the same time. I am going to the Buena Park ward with Sister George who just finished her training. It took me a couple days to get over the fact that I am leaving but now I am starting to get excited. And since my old ward is so close I will probably still get to see people sometimes.  Hope you all have a good week!! Love ya!

-Sister Washburn

One year in the mission field

So for my year mark we were going to go to this ice cream place to get Belgian waffles but when we got there the waffle machine was broken, but i really wanted waffles so we went to IHOP instead (also my hair is gross but we were biking all day= helmet hair) 

My lovely japanese companion sitting on a bench- Sister Okanoue