Dear Mom,

I'm going to be honest with you, this might be a rough email because not a whole lot happened this week that was crazy. Honestly, I am having a completely different experience with nearing the end of my mission than most people have described to me. Most people say it's super bittersweet and all that.... But honestly, my experience has been pretty much totally sweet with pretty much no bitter at all. I am getting more and more pumped to go home, and more and more pumped to be on the mission at the exact same time.... Kinda hard to explain, but it's a pretty good feeling.

Nothing crazy happened this week except for one thing that was kinda funny but in a weird way. Elder Shah and I were sitting in Elder's Quorum this last Sunday when suddenly a sister raced into the room asking where the missionaries were. She looked panicked. So we went up to her and she said that a man had wandered into the foyer, sat down on the couch, and just started sobbing and telling everyone that he didn't feel worthy to be in the building. So we go into the foyer and meet this guy who reeks of weed and beer. The poor guy was sobbing his guts out, so we took him into the only vacant room in the church: The Nursery. I actually feel kind of bad because now the nursery room in our chapel smells like pot.... lol. But we helped the guy out as much as we could, we got him some water and some food and tried our best to help him out long enough for him to get a hold of his family. It was definitely an interesting contact. He even turned out being a less active member from Northern BC. Pretty crazy!

I love you all! I hope and pray that you're all doing well!

-Elder Warenski

Mom!

Well, here we are again at another p-day :) Congrats to Jonah on his homecoming! He's accomplished his mission and I'm proud of him! What a guy! I'm glad that he's with his family now and is starting a brand new chapter of his life!

This week was pretty cool! I began what is called the "My Plan" program that the church has created. It's definitely interesting. It is trying to get me to sign away my life :). Hard to describe, but whatever! It's all good! It sure does get you thinking about home. President also told me this week that I will be finishing my mission in Chestermere with Elder Shah. That's so exciting! Elder Shah is incredible and I really couldn't think of a better way to be finishing my mission. We're finding lots of people to potentially teach out here in Strathmore, and I have a feeling that this area will be where Elder Shah and I will be doing a lot of "seed-planting". There are so many people here that could be taught.

I don't really know what to say more about this week. I'm living the dream! The mission is incredible and I am loving every second of it! I am dedicating all I've got to the time that I have left. The Lord is my best friend and my testimony of him and conversion to him become greater every day!

I love you all!

-Elder Warenski

That's crazy that Jonah is having his homecoming soon. I can't believe it. He sent us his "final testimony" on the group email and it was pretty surreal. I'm glad that you and Cierra got your passport request forms! That's legit! We'll be in Scotland in no time at all ;) That is seriously something that I am really pumped for.
I'm going to be honest, I'm hearing a LOT of things that are happening in the world. Shootings in Texas, Minnesota, and Louisiana, as well as another in Bangladesh.... The world is getting messed up. And Mr. Putin's law is certainly going to do nothing to help Russia.... that's sad. The gospel could help their country so much!

Anyway, this week was miraculous! Elder Shah and I have been praying really diligently to be able to find some investigators, and the Lord is answering our prayers in incredible ways! This week we literally got a call from a person who called us just to tell us that they wanted to take the discussions. Never met them before in our lives. Then there was another lady who we had been doing service for who straight up asked us if we would teach her the discussions and we had the opportunity to teach her and her husband yesterday. There have been miracles happening and I'm so grateful that God is a God of miracles!

That's all for this week! Love you all!

-Elder Warenski

So...big oops. When I started to do this week's post I realized I forgot to post the blog for last week! Sorry, here it is!



As for the work here in Chestermere, things are going pretty decently well. This week we are having significant improvement. We have an investigator now, we're teaching a few less-actives that are really coming along, and we're walking LOADS. On Saturday my fitbit said I walked 20,000 steps.... Oi. But hey! Here's a funny story for this week!

So Elder Shah and I were walking back from our dinner yesterday evening. Thunder clouds were threatening in the distance, but we were pretty sure that we could make it home before it hit because it looked super far away. We had been walking for around 20 minutes when all of a sudden, hail began to fall. Elder Shah and I ran for cover next to a utility hut that was next to a park. It was starting to really come down hard and we were carrying a bag of left-overs that Sister Maund had given us. We had to do something because things were getting pretty rough. The hail was getting bigger. Elder Shah peeked around the corner of the shed that we were taking cover next to, and he couldn't see any type of shelter. Except for one thing: Two Port-a-potties in the parking lot of the lake parking. SALVATION! Neither of us were wearing jackets and we were already getting soaked, so we ran for it. It was probably around 100 yards to the port-a-potties. So we booked it as fast as we could, all the while getting pelted by hail stones. It was pretty intense! I almost tripped a bunch of times. But we took shelter in the port-a-potties until the storm started to slow down. Then we just walked home in the rain. :) It was good times! Our left-overs remained intact!

Anyway, make this week a good one! I love you!

Elder Warenski