Sunday, April 20, 2014

Wanting their Car Back!

4-14-14

Dad,

So you gave the Book of Mormon to that lady huh?  That is a really cool experience!  Hopefully, she will read the highlighted parts and feel the Spirit and hopefully, through you planting a seed and her daughter, she can see the joy and blessing the gospel brings!  That's really cool you were able to do it!  Just remember back to those people you helped and the joy you felt!  You can feel that same joy even though you're not a full time missionary, but that same joy comes from helping others and serving them and bringing the light of Christ into their life!  Just remember back to your successful moments in your mission and try using them somehow!  Good luck with the rest of your missionary work!
Well, this week was alright.  We have been on bikes the last 2 weeks since our car is in the shop since a previous missionary cracked it and didn't fix it.  Our area is big, so we were full car before, so we haven't been able to go up into the hills at all really, so the work has taken a hit and this week wasn't that great with lessons and things like that!  We had meetings throughout the week, as well!  This week was a little slow!  We are starting up splits with the ward this Wednesday, so that should be awesome and we'll hopefully get the work to pick up from the low weeks!  On Friday, we just walked around Morgan Hill all day looking for people to teach since we didn't have anyone for the day, but we were able to teach the 1st lesson to a couple of people on the streets, but they weren't really interested, though!  We only really have one family that we are teaching right now-the Falcon family-but they look ready, so we'll see!  Last night was great!  They had the outgoing fireside for the missionaries going home and my trainer was one of them and basically gave his last testimony!  It was super good!  It's super weird that he will be on a plane on Wednesday going home!  Time flies by super fast!  Another Elder that I lived with, Elder Anderson, is also going home, as well, with some other sisters I served around!  They were great testimonies!  Those firesides are the best!  Man, it's weird watching people you served with and around start to go home!  Ahhhh!  The sisters I came out with go home in August.  It's super crazy!  They only have like 4 months left!  Hopefully, this week goes better for us and hopefully, we'll get the car back this week!  Well, I hope all goes well for you and you find great success!  Love ya!

Elder Whaley

14 Months and Counting!

4-7-14

Nooooooooooo!  Don't remind me how long I've been out!  I don't know what you're talking about.  I have only been out 6 months-haha!  I'm going to extend-hopefully!  :)  Things are going alright with my comp and the other elders.  There's always things that come up, but they usually settle down.  I just found out that one of my companions, Elder Dalton, is getting married this month!  It's crazy!  Man, I didn't read the whole April Fools thing at first and it scared me-haha.  It sounds like you had fun going on a spontaneous drive!  I loved General Conference.  All of it was Super Good!  I especially liked the priesthood session!  We tried to invite people to come and watch, but no one came.  We watched the first session on a computer in the Family History Center, then we watched the rest of the sessions in the chapel and it was basically just missionaries!  There were lots of scriptures that I enjoyed, but I can't remember them right now.  They're more of in the moment scriptures, I guess.  Mother's Day is 5 weeks away?  Wow!  Time is going by too FAST!
This last week was really good.  A missionary before me, had cracked the bumper on our car, so we had to take it in to get fixed on Monday and it was supposed to be done Friday.  We were on bikes all week, which kinda killed the work since we couldn't really go into the hills.  We've already done it once and it stunk.  It was WAY too steep.  It rained a lot and hard the first part of the week-so that was fun.  We ended up getting to go to the temple on Wednesday with Elder Pekipaki and Elder Jenkins!  We stayed overnight at their place since we were leaving early in the morning with them and that was lots of fun!  Going to the temple was super fun!  I LOVE going to the temple.  It is soooooo great and VERY uplifting!  We got to see the new video-it was really good!  I enjoyed it!  The air was clear this time, so you could see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, and other cities from a distance-it was pretty cool!  Then, we went to eat after with the member that drove us up there and we just went to In-and-Out Burger and McDonald's and killed 4 burgers-it was super good!  On Saturday, we watched Conference basically all day and had pizza delivered to the church.  Then, on Sunday, we watched conference for most of the day-it was great!  Oh-I forgot-we found out on Friday that the car wasn't finished when we called in because someone messed up on the paperwork and got the wrong bumper or something, so it will be in there another week!  Dang it!  My camera is in there so I didn't have it when we went to the temple!  That means we are on bikes again yahoo.....not!  We'll see how this next week goes!  The sister missionaries stopped by huh?  Interesting!  Maybe there was a reason.  Maybe it was a sign to do more missionary work or something.  Especially with the prophet and apostles just talking about sharing the gospel!  Hopefully, you guys can help them out by finding someone and feeding them!  I'm sure they would appreciate it!  It definitely takes stepping out of your comfort zone!  You guys can do it!  Good luck and keep me updated!  Hopefully, all goes well for you guys back home and you have a great week!  Love Ya!

Elder Whaley



Golden Gate Bridge

Oakland Temple

Elder Whaley and other Elders!

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Rainy, slow Week!

3-31-14

Wow!  It sounds like a crazy week with Jr. Miss and all.  That's cool that they tore down the grain silo?!  Dang, that would be cool to see!  Why was my football cleat in the Jr. Miss?  It doesn't make sense-haha!    Hopefully, everything goes will with the lady at your work!  This week was alright.  It rained a couple of times, so there wasn't a whole lot of people to contact this week at Walmart!  haha. We decided to go into Baskin Robbins because I was freakin' hungry and there was just one worker in there and no one else-probably because it was raining.  We started talking with the worker and we found out that she has a less-active boyfriend in the other ward and she kinda talked with missionaries before and so we talked to her for about 45 minutes and told her she should become a missionary.  She said "no" because her grandma would have a heart attack since she is Catholic!  It was a good conversation and the Sisters are going to see if they can try to teach her!  Well, the guy from Walmart that I told you about last week, his name is A. Falcon and he has 3 kids and it was a good meeting getting to know them.  Basically, he wants his kids to be involved with activity's and develop a faith or foundation in Christ.  So, it seems promising.
Dad, you mentioned the lesson you had in Priesthood/Relief Society meeting.  I've had people come and bring that up.  We basically tell people that families are ordained of god and that a man and a woman are ordained of God and that same sex marriage goes against God's plan and destroys or hinders that plan.  It's definitely an interesting topic to talk about-especially on the streets.  In California people come up to us sometimes and bring that subject up and then get pretty mad.  Our mission president has showed us the website in Zone Conference a while back.
Other than that, the week was pretty slow.  We basically have been going through the less active list to try to find people to teach, so hopefully, we can find some people to teach so we can do better on lessons!  It sounds like things are going well and hopefully, they continue.  Love ya!

Elder Whaley