New Companion - Sister Holt

Well this has been such an awesome week, truly we have witnessed miracle after miracle.

We found 5 new investigators!  We didn't find 5 new investigators for the past 2 transfers combined, what a miracle!  We found Carla tracting, she met with missionaries in the past, in Everett and recently moved here.  She is Marshallese and so so so sweet.  We meet with her on Tuesday.  Then we visited the Irwins, they were former investigators in the area book, at the end of the lesson they asked US for a Book of Mormon to start reading, we meet with them Friday.  We went to visit a less active we are trying to reactivate and had a great gospel discussion with her and her roommate Shannon, who accepted the invitation to take the lessons as well, we meet with them Saturday.  We met Gary, he comes from a LA/PMF family and had a great talk about God with him.  He has had lots of trials in his life that has weakened his faith but he is open and willing to try and build it.  We meet with him tonight. 

So if those were not enough miracles already... Robert came to church yesterday even though we dropped him last week, and hr pulled us aside and said he wants to start taking the lessons again, beginning on Tuesday, to prepare for baptism! We will be setting a baptism date with him on Tuesday night! 

It was just an amazing week.  Sister Holt and I work really well together, she is obedient, diligent and hard working.  She makes me want to be a better missionary and work as hard as I can.  We have seen so many miracles already and I can't wait to see all that this transfer has in store. The work really is picking up in the Lake Stevens area!  What a blessing and a miracle.

So, Sister Holt is great.  This is the first time on her mission since training that she has been junior companion... and she's been out awhile, she only has 4 months of her mission left, so yeah - I'm senior and I drive and everything, but we have had a good week.  We get along great.

And yeah get this, Sister Adams went to Whidbey Island!  Isn't that crazy??  What are the odds.

Mom - camp sounded like a lot of fun!  Maybe I can come next year and help!  :)

Love you Lots!

Sister Carina Wawro

PICTURES:

Driving to transfers! full car!

My new companion
Sister Holt
She is 24 from Utah. (they are all from Utah..... LOL)

Transfers - I'm Staying Here!

(Mom:  I'm publishing TWO weeks, since I was out of town for our church girls' camp and missed last week).

Monday, June 16th
Well, we got the transfer text today and I am staying in Lake Stevens for another 6 weeks!  My companion, Sister Adams, is being transferred.  Pray for my new companion, I'll pick her up tomorrow at 4pm. :)

Well, this week we had to drop our investigators because they are not progressing, it sure took a lot of faith.  But we are following the counsel of our leaders and I know as we show The Lord we are going to spend our time working with those who WANT to learn, that don't just want to talk about life, we will be blessed to find those who are prepared.

We got to sub in primary yesterday for the 3 year old sunbeam class, so fun! I love primary and singing the songs, and they gave snacks to everyone it was awesome.  Haha, but in all honesty, I truly loved it and I hope to one day be a teacher or music leader or something in Primary because it was just so much fun, and the spirit of those little kids are just so sweet!

Not much else is new here, although I want to share a neat experience I had this week, slightly embarrassing, but we all learn from our mistakes right?

I had a "come to Jesus" moment this week, where I think Satan was just really working on me.  I was feeling easily frustrated and short tempered.   And then... I was humbled.  I just felt this overwhelming feeling of "Sister Wawro, its not even about YOU."  Truly, this mission is not about me.  I didn't come on a mission to serve myself.  I didn't come on a mission to think about me and my needs.  I came to be a representative of Jesus Christ, the perfect example of a selfless master in all He did.  He constantly turned outward instead of inward, and He constantly looked for ways to serve others.  Even after he had fasted for 40 day and was tempted by Satan, angels were sent to minister unto Him, and what did he do?  We learn in the JST that he sent them to John, who was in prison.  What an example of selflessness.  After the garden of Gethsemane, after taking on all the sins and pains of the entire world, all of mankind, he healed the man's ear that had been cut by one of his disciples.  This man was coming to take Jesus, to arrest him, essentially he was an enemy, a traitor, but nonetheless...Jesus healed him.  So I have really been trying to just reach out to others and to minister to others just as Christ himself would.

So I am looking forward to implementing this in my missionary efforts with everyone. To be more Christlike in all aspects. With investigators, members, companions, and everyone.

Happy Father's Day to everyone!  I learned that in 1910 a woman in Spokane, Washington came up with Father's day to honor the men, and in 1972 it became a nationally recognized holiday.  Shout out to Washington!

Love you all!

Sister Carina Wawro

PICTURES:

Here I am with my companion, Sister Adams, by the Lake Stevens sign

Here is my district, the smaller one, and my zone - the bigger one.  We meet as a district of missionaries every Wednesday and go over training on how to be better missionaries.  We meet as a zone, which is multiple districts and also receive training as well from our leaders.  They are sure fun people!

 

This is my ward mission leader Wilson Quist.  He is THE BEST.  He served his mission in Denton, Texas. What are the odds?  And he makes gourmet hot chocolate!  We meet with him every Wednesday as well to discuss what we are doing and how we can get other church members involved in the work.

 

We ate lunch at the park and these cute ducks were everywhere and they would come right up to us!

Then we saw these cool golden berries everywhere!  Apparently they are a northwest rarity.  It was awesome - I have never seen anything like this!

Two sweet members that I just love!

 

These are the Sudholts', our mission office couple, their mission ends this week.  SO SAD.  I love love love love them, they are truly the sweetest couple ever.  Also another small world, their daughter, Bethany Pabst, is from Denton, Texas!  So they can come visit me!

Navy Opportunity!

Well, it was a pretty good week.  We had an awesome thing happen this week!  So, last week our whole ward and our missionaries in the Marysville zone were fasting for us and our area, and help with finding people to teach.  We are on week 12 and still have found no one that is interested.  We tract and street contact and do service and try and do all these things to find people, but no one has accepted the invitation to learn.

But...this week we street contacted this lady while we were walking around the Navy Military-owned housing.  She told us she is the president of this program in the neighborhood and they are doing this big meeting on Tuesday where they talk about the community and different things and they always have guest speakers.  So she invited us to come and be a guest speaker and talk about our missions and explain what we are doing and why we are here and what services we can offer to the navy community!  She's like "I think they would all find that very interesting and bring pamphlets or cards or things to pass out!"  So that is a miracle!  So exciting.  So tomorrow we will go talk in front a large group of people about our mission!  What a perfect opportunity to find.  If nothing else, it just might spark their interest or curiosity about 'Mormons'.

I sang with Sister Arave in her ward Sunday and that was a neat experience.  She is my workout buddy every morning - we have lots of fun!

Not much else is new, we have transfers next week so I'll be curious to hear the outcome of what will happen.

This week is a full week.  Zone conference, the navy conference we are speaking at, enrichment night on Tuesday, and an investigator potluck on Friday that we are inviting people to come to.  The potluck will be three wards combined, so hopefully between the members coming and inviting non-member friends, etc., we will have a pretty good turn out.

Thank you for all the letters of support.  Love you all!

Sister Wawro

PICTURES:

Singing with Sister Arave

Sinus Infection AND Bronchitis!

Well, this has been an interesting week to say the least.  What started as a sore throat that was bugging me, turned into a doctor visit in Seattle, a diagnosis of sinus infection with a secondary infection of bronchitis.  Now I'm on multiple medications, antibiotics and probiotics, sinus rinses, and now over-the-counter cough suppressants, and with that I'm taking four horse-size pills a day every 2-4 hours.  It's been a little cray cray here! But hopefully this sickness will be over with VERY soon, as in...a few days.  I'm ready to get back to 100% dedication to missionary work.

But the best part was our sweet mission president's wife, Sister Bonham, made me some homemade chicken noodle soup and drove it over to me!  It made my whole day, I just couldn't believe it.  Of the 250 missionaries in our mission, she thought of ME personally, she knew me and my needs personally.  That experience helped me to better understand Heavenly Father's love for me as well.  Of the millions and trillions of people that have been on the world, and are still on the earth, at the end of the day he STILL knows me, by name and my needs individually.

Its been a rough week, I am so sleepy.  I haven't slept for the past 3 nights because I cough so much at night. I am still feeling a bit under the weather, my throat is much better and sinus drainage has gone down, the problem is, for some reason at night everything goes wrong.  I won't cough all day but the second my body realizes it's time for bed, it goes into a cough attack and continues all night, literally all night, allowing for no sleep. This makes it tricky because my body NEEDS the rest so it can get better.  But today Sister Bonham told me to get some over-the-counter cough medicine and Alka Seltzer Plus.

I didn't let the sickness get me down this week, we still taught some lessons and found a new investigator, "T"!  She has a loooooong road ahead of her and has had quite the past, but everyone needs the Savior and we are here to invite EVERYONE to learn and accept the gospel regardless of their past.  She told us up front that she will never be a Mormon, and so when I asked her what her purpose in meeting with us was, she said that she just wants "to draw closer to God."  I can work with that!  I'm sure Saul never thought he would one day be a follower of Christ, and one day be known as one of the greatest missionaries, the well-known Apostle Paul.  And I'm sure Alma the younger who went around destroying the Church, didn't think he would one day teach and baptize many and BRING many into the church instead of destroying it.  There is a path for everyone back to Christ, so I am excited to work with her.

Other than that, I am doing well. I've been thinking so much about faith lately.  Our area is just so dry right now, we just can't seem to find people to teach or who are interested, and my faith has just been tested over and over again.  And then it occurred to me, faith HAS to be tested, to be faith!  What is faith without challenges?  Many times when a miracle happens, it is AFTER the trial of our faith.  When blessings of healing are given sometimes the person gets worse before they get better.  Just as it is in our area - we may have this long stretch of nothing just before we find ALL these people who are ready and prepared.  I know the Lord has great things in store for this area.  I know that if this is the place that He wants me to be, then He will help me achieve what I need to do here.

Remember the missionary serving in Denton in Grandma's ward, from Everett, that I met and took a picture with?  Well, I was at dinner and telling the story to the Dupapes, and then later at the end of dinner they were telling us about their daughter (who is on a mission in Oklahoma, coming home next month), and they were telling us about her friend that comes home the same time she does, and they're like "its fun because she's in OK and he's in TX serving in Dallas, and then showed me a picture and I was like "THAT'S THE MISSIONARY I MET!!!!!!!!!!", and she's like "his parents meet at the same building we do for church!"  So I HAVE to get that picture!  His name is Nathan Proffitt (see picture below that I - mom - dug for and found on Carina's Instagram account.  LOL!)

I am excited to see what this week will bring.

Sister Wawro

PICTURES:

Here are the Sudholt's.  I LOVE THEM.  Their mission ends soon.  :(   

I had to take a pic with them before they left.  Such a small world - they are Bethany Pabst's parents, one of my old young women leaders from home!!!!!

This is Elder Nathan Proffitt - he was serving in Grandma Betty's ward here in Denton, and when she found out that he was from Everett (where Carina had just been called to serve), she called up Carina to come over and meet and talk to him.  Such a small world!  I'm sure his parents will LOVE seeing this picture.  :)