Another week in Cali

5-19-14

Mom,

I don't know if you sent an email or not, I'm guessing you did, but I didn't get it.  (I did send one, but lately they don't always go through).  This last week was pretty good.  We didn't do so great on lessons, but Monday I went to Poly days with Elder Pekipaki since his comp didn't want to go.  We went to Sunnyvale and met up with other Polynesians of the mission, which quite a few of them were ones I had served around in Menlo Park.  We played volleyball, rugby, ate food, and listened to people play guitar and the uke.  It was a lot of fun!!!!!!!  On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference that lasted from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.  It was long, but really good.  They did a Q & A at the beginning so we could ask president and his counselors questions about almost anything. A lot of the questions were about the future like how to prepare for a spouse or family, how to balance family, work, and church, how to get a good eduction, what we should do about college, how to stay focused on the mission, and other questions like that.  It was really good.  I can't remember the answers, but I took notes.  A lot of the advice was really good.  We did that for about 2 hours I think.  That was the best part.  Then we heard from some of the senior missionaries about cars and housing, then had lunch.  We then came back and listened to President Watkins and Sister Watkins speak.  They are both awesome speakers!  They always have really good talks!  On Wednesday, we did service down in Gilroy handing out food to people who need it.  Then, we did some more service after that.  We then went around trying to visit people.  After that, we went on splits with some members of the ward in the evening and visited some more people.  On Saturday, we helped clean up one of the high school's here in town, Live Oak, and were there from about 8-12 and they fed us afterwards.  That night we went to the adult session of Stake Conference and that was really good, as well.  The missionaries had to sing in it.  President and Sister Watkins spoke again and it was really good as always.  They spoke along with the Stake President and his counselors.  On Sunday, we had Stake Conference, which was very good.  President and Sister Watkins came back and spoke again about love, faith, and missionary work.  The rest of Sunday was alright.  We went and tried visiting some people, but no one was home, so then we had dinner with the Faulk family and they made really good chicken!  After that, we went and visited Mama Smith.....it's always fun to go over there-haha.  That was basically my week.  Hopefully, your week went well.  I look forward to hearing from you!  Just so you know, transfer calls are coming up Saturday, so we'll see what happens!

Love ya,
Ofa Atu,
Elder Whaley