1/25/2016 P-Day #66

1/25/2016

Hellooo!!!

Thanks Danielle for the letter this week!This week was fantastic! The time is going by like crazy! We went on two exchanges this week and I stayed in Eastvale both times. The first was with another elder that speaks Chinese, so that was good! The second was with our district leader, Elder Heelis, who does not speak Chinese! Nobody was home that day, so I didn't really have to use that much Chinese! Just a little bit while we were talking to people in the park. My Chinese is getting better, though! The Lord has really helped me learn quickly. Sometimes my brain gets stuck in Chinese mode, so I'll start speaking Chinese to English people! Haha

We started teaching this awesome lady named Sunny this week! She's from Taiwan and visited Temple Square a few years ago and got a Book of Mormon and was talking to missionaries on the phone. But she changed her phone number and lost contact with them. Then we talked to her on the street the other day. We taught her about the restoration of the gospel, and it went really well! She came to church on Sunday and loved it!

Lucy was baptized on Sunday! It was an amazing experience because Antonio was able to baptize her! The spirit was really strong at the service. She got up at the end to bear her testimony and it looked like she was glowing. Now they get to start preparing to go to the temple!

I love you all and miss you! Have a great week!

Elder Warren

1/18/2016 P-Day #65

1/18/2016

Hello everybody!

Thanks Omie and Papa for the letters this week, and thanks Alison for the package!

This week was pretty slow. Elder Zeng and I decided that the Lord must be trying to teach us patience, because we work so hard this week and nothing happened until the very end! I guess that enduring to the end is a real thing!

Lucy should be getting baptized this upcoming Sunday! She had her baptism interview this week and hopefully everything will go smoothly! Her husband will be able to baptize her, which is awesome! Antonio had his Aaronic Priesthood interview with our bishop this week and I got to go and translate for it! Thankfully he understood all of the questions, except one! So I just kind of sat there! But that's okay!

We took Antonio with us to go visit Shirley this week! She hadn't read from the Book of Mormon since we visited with her last, so we sat down and read with her. We read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and talked about what we need to do to come to know it's true. First we have to read from it, and then we need to ask God whether or not it's true. I think this is one of my favorite parts about the message we share. We don't ask anybody to just trust us, or to take our word for it. We don't try and convince people this is true. But they must come to know for themselves our message is true. Through the Holy Ghost, they can receive a personal witness about Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith.

Since this week was slow, I don't have much to email about.. But this upcoming week will be super busy! So look forward to a longer email next week!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Warren

1/11/2016 P-Day #64

1/11/2015

Hello All!

This week was amazing!!! It was super spiritual and super exciting!

Thanks Noel for the package and Alison for the letter! I finally got all the thank-you notes into the mail for the Christmas presents! Haha they have been sitting on my desk for a week or so now.. I decided it was about time to send those out!

First off, we had to stop teaching a few of our investigators this week... :( the Ding family, and Rocky/Melissa. They weren't progressing towards being baptized and weren't willing to come to church or read scriptures. Hopefully within the next few months, they will be able to feel what they're missing! We also found out the Levy's parents took him back to China. Hey may be coming back soon. I hope so! But we'll see. He's been in my prayers a lot lately!

Yoyo and Antonio were confirmed yesterday! Antonio is meeting with our bishop tomorrow to be interviewed to receive the Aaronic priesthood. Then he can baptize his wife in two weeks! We're super excited for their family!

We started teaching a lady named Shirley this week. She came to English class for a few weeks and stopped coming after that. We randomly ran into her at the park this week and asked if we could come by and teach her about Christ! She seemed to accept the message of the restoration, and was willing to pray and come to church! She was a little hesitant to be baptized, but over time as she reads, prays, and comes to church she'll feel more prepared! She came to church with her two little boys (one is 6 and the other is about 8 mos) and it seemed like they all enjoyed it! Her son really enjoyed Primary and wants to come back again!

It rained quite a bit this week, so we got to experience the "joy" of knocking on doors!! Haha it wasn't too bad, but it definitely wasn't very effective! People aren't as friendly when you come knocking on their door asking if you can share a  message about Christ with them. Thankfully, we only have to do that when it's raining! Otherwise, we walk around and talk to everybody that we see out and about. It's much better!

On Friday, Elder Hamula (of the Seventy) came to visit our mission. It was an awesome meeting! We got together with the east half of the mission and met with him for most of the day. He gave some really good training on the Plan of Salvation and repentance. We talked about how any "why" question can be answered through the Plan of Salvation. The whole purpose of us doing missionary work (the why) is so that when our Heavenly Father's children return to His presence to be judged, they can stand clean before Him and be able to stay in His presence. So basically the "why" of missionary work is repentance. Being able to become clean and return to live with our Heavenly Father. All of us will return to Him, but not all of us will stay with Him. It was an interesting thought. I hadn't thought of the Plan of Salvation in that way. We also talked about how the world has taken the word "repentance" and made it sounds like a chastisement. But that's not the way it is to God. It's Him desiring us to turn away from whatever is distracting us from Him, and turning back to Him. Leaving behind whatever is holding us back. Letting it all go. It made me really think about what are the things that I need to let go of. It's not necessarily big sins, but small and simple things that are slowly pulling us away from our Heavenly Father. Whether it's music, a TV show, maybe the language we use. It's a lifelong process of preparing ourselves to return to Him.

This upcoming week we get to meet with Elder Hamula again, and next week we will get to watch a worldwide broadcast for all missionaries and mission presidents! It should be awesome!

I love and miss you all lots! Keep going strong and remember the reason why you're here!

Lots of love,

Elder Warren

 Cole didn't send any new pictures this week so for fun here is the MTC Map picture from October 2014 and below is Cole at the Redlands Temple in December 2015.

1/4/2016 P-Day #63

1/4/2016

Happy New Years! 

My week was fantastic! Deep cleaning was good! President Mullen gave us a checklist of stuff to do and we finished it all! But we didn't have time to do much else. It basically just needs to be tidied up and then we'll be good! I'm realizing that I have a tonof stuff. Well not really, but in missionary terms I have a lot. It's not necessarily junk, but it's stuff that I may need eventually, that I don't want to spend money on later haha. I realized that I sound like a really big hoarder!! 

It's super quiet now that there are only two of us around! It's kind of sad! I got used to just always having other people to talk to! Whenever Elder Zeng is cooking, writing letters, etc.. Or when we get a little annoyed with each other haha (not that it happens all the time, but I think it's inevitable in a companionship!) We have two bedrooms, but the white handbook says we need to stay in the same room as our companion. So we moved the extra set of bunkbeds into our bedroom, and turned the other room into a study/office space! It's quite nice. We both have a top bunk, and we each have our own bathroom! Except we share one of the showers, cause the other one has super crappy water pressure!

New Year's Eve was fun! We got together with our zone and played some volleyball and board games! Elder Zeng and I were super tired and were in bed before 10:30! Other than that, it was a normal working day for us!

Levy still hasn't gotten baptized.. We haven't even seen or talked to him since the day after Christmas. We've called, texted, stopped by his house... and nothing. His uncle told us a week or so ago that he might be going back to China with his parents? But we have no idea. He's basically disappeared. I've kind of come to peace with the whole situation. It obviously wasn't his time to be baptized, so maybe this was just one of the steps on his way to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Maybe one day in China, he'll make friends with a member of the church and realize what he's missing out on. I don't know! But I know it's in God's hands and He's taking care of everything! That's a pretty reassuring thought.

I love and miss you like crazy! Have fun in Disneyworld! Take lots of pictures, and don't forget to email your son! Haha! :)

Lots of love,

Elder Warren