10-21-13
Things are going great. The lady who was in the baptismal suit was a woman that Elder Dalton and I taught, but found out she didn't live in our boundaries, so we gave her to the Stake Sisters. We set up a baptismal date, then handed her over and the guy next to her is her son who baptized her. Yes, I am loving life! Especially this area! I can't see myself leave this area and I know I'll be sad when I have to leave. The work continues to go on. The little girl in the picture, is the Makasini's granddaughter at a birthday party that they had for one of their grandson's, Kaianu. It was pretty fun. I'm excited for this week to go to the ward Halloween party. It should be fun! Man, it sounds like pretty good weather there for this time of year. It's cold here since it's in the 70s (haha-JK):P It's actually super nice weather. I don't think I've worn a jacket since I've been out here. This past week was good. We had interviews with our president, that went pretty well. We also played some volleyball and got up pretty early to go to Seminary, which was pretty fun-really good, too! I made some cookies for Brother Makasini's birthday and supposedly their kids got some and now they want me to make some for them...dang it! haha I'm glad everything is going well for ya back home and I hope it continues to go well!
Love ya,
Elder Whaley
ofa atu!
Monday, October 28, 2013
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Crazy man at Wendy's
10-14-13
Ceipe,
There's a tongan sister there? Cool! There was an Elder Kaffi that served in my area-his name tag is still in our apartment. I was upset that I missed Penny. We were at the apartment having lunch and I ate my food super fast so I could take a power nap because I was super tired. All of a sudden, my companion came in with a box and said, "This is from your mom." I was like, what the heck? He said a lady dropped it off. I told him he should have woken me up-hello! So yes, I got the stuff and the card-THANK YOU!!!!!!!! There were cupcakes and peach rings and other candy-it was nice. I wish I could have thanked her, though! My companion is from Sugarland, Texas and he likes to run. :/ He is probably going back to the Spanish program this next transfer, though. The pictures I sent last time, were from touring the google campus. Ohhhh-I have a story. So this week we went to Wendy's to visit a less active, but we got there before him. There was a homeless man in there asking us for money to buy food. I had a free frosty coupon, so I gave it to him. He just sat there and started talking to us about how his life stunk and he was really depressed and started crying. Then, he started saying, "I'm going to kill myself....I'm going to go run into the road and get hit by a car." He kept saying that and we told him he shouldn't, then all of the sudden, he gets up and runs outside of Wendy's to the road. So my companion and I chased him down and stopped him from running into the road and made him sit down while the manager of Wendy's called the cops. While we were waiting for the cops, he kept crying and saying, "I'm going to kill myself" and tried running to the street, but we just grabbed him and made him sit down. Finally, after awhile, the cops showed up and took him away. Quite the story huh? This last week was good! A lady and me and my last companion, Elder Dalton, taught, Sheila, got baptized, but we handed her over to the sister missionaries since she wasn't in our ward boundaries-but it was still cool! Everything here is going good and the work is going great. We had an investigator come to church for the first time and have another with a baptismal date, so things are going good! The people here are awesome! Sounds like you had a good week and hopefully it goes well for you this week, as well!
Love ya,
Elder Whaley
Ofa Atu
Ceipe,
There's a tongan sister there? Cool! There was an Elder Kaffi that served in my area-his name tag is still in our apartment. I was upset that I missed Penny. We were at the apartment having lunch and I ate my food super fast so I could take a power nap because I was super tired. All of a sudden, my companion came in with a box and said, "This is from your mom." I was like, what the heck? He said a lady dropped it off. I told him he should have woken me up-hello! So yes, I got the stuff and the card-THANK YOU!!!!!!!! There were cupcakes and peach rings and other candy-it was nice. I wish I could have thanked her, though! My companion is from Sugarland, Texas and he likes to run. :/ He is probably going back to the Spanish program this next transfer, though. The pictures I sent last time, were from touring the google campus. Ohhhh-I have a story. So this week we went to Wendy's to visit a less active, but we got there before him. There was a homeless man in there asking us for money to buy food. I had a free frosty coupon, so I gave it to him. He just sat there and started talking to us about how his life stunk and he was really depressed and started crying. Then, he started saying, "I'm going to kill myself....I'm going to go run into the road and get hit by a car." He kept saying that and we told him he shouldn't, then all of the sudden, he gets up and runs outside of Wendy's to the road. So my companion and I chased him down and stopped him from running into the road and made him sit down while the manager of Wendy's called the cops. While we were waiting for the cops, he kept crying and saying, "I'm going to kill myself" and tried running to the street, but we just grabbed him and made him sit down. Finally, after awhile, the cops showed up and took him away. Quite the story huh? This last week was good! A lady and me and my last companion, Elder Dalton, taught, Sheila, got baptized, but we handed her over to the sister missionaries since she wasn't in our ward boundaries-but it was still cool! Everything here is going good and the work is going great. We had an investigator come to church for the first time and have another with a baptismal date, so things are going good! The people here are awesome! Sounds like you had a good week and hopefully it goes well for you this week, as well!
Love ya,
Elder Whaley
Ofa Atu
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| The lady that Shad and his past companion taught that they handed over to the sister missionaries. |
Saturday, October 12, 2013
8 months out!
10-7-13
It's pretty crazy that it's been 8 months already. Time flies so fast! Everyone was making fun of me because I was asking who won the Aggie/BYU game so they found out that I was an Aggie fan-so I got crap....DANG IT! Oh well. The mission office called today saying that they have a package for me and they're going to mail it to me. Thanks so much! Conference was amazing! We watched all the sessions and a lot of them were really good! I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to read over the talks again to get more out of them! Something I thought of during Conference was to challenge you all to pick one talk or your favorite talk and study it, pray about it (look it up), and try to live by the teachings of that talk or change to the principles of that talk to become better or more Christlike. I know as you do, life will become better and you will have greater happiness. Since it was Conference time, we got to go to the temple and talked to Elder Packer, the area seventy, and got to see the new video-finally! It was really good. It put things into perspective with the new video-there were things I hadn't thought of before! This week was pretty good, kinda slow since we went up to the temple and watched Conference-but it still went pretty well. Something funny that happened this week was: we were helping the sisters teach one of their investigators and at the end the man said to my companion that's from Texas, "I thought everything was bigger in Texas. Did they make you leave?" It was pretty funny, even though my companion didn't quite think so. Well, I hope all is going well for you all back home!
Love ya,
Ofa Atu!
Elder Whaley
It's pretty crazy that it's been 8 months already. Time flies so fast! Everyone was making fun of me because I was asking who won the Aggie/BYU game so they found out that I was an Aggie fan-so I got crap....DANG IT! Oh well. The mission office called today saying that they have a package for me and they're going to mail it to me. Thanks so much! Conference was amazing! We watched all the sessions and a lot of them were really good! I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to read over the talks again to get more out of them! Something I thought of during Conference was to challenge you all to pick one talk or your favorite talk and study it, pray about it (look it up), and try to live by the teachings of that talk or change to the principles of that talk to become better or more Christlike. I know as you do, life will become better and you will have greater happiness. Since it was Conference time, we got to go to the temple and talked to Elder Packer, the area seventy, and got to see the new video-finally! It was really good. It put things into perspective with the new video-there were things I hadn't thought of before! This week was pretty good, kinda slow since we went up to the temple and watched Conference-but it still went pretty well. Something funny that happened this week was: we were helping the sisters teach one of their investigators and at the end the man said to my companion that's from Texas, "I thought everything was bigger in Texas. Did they make you leave?" It was pretty funny, even though my companion didn't quite think so. Well, I hope all is going well for you all back home!
Love ya,
Ofa Atu!
Elder Whaley
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| Temple trip during Conference Elder Perez, Bro. Makasini, Elder Whaley |
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| Elder Whaley's tag in front of the Oakland temple. |
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| Handsome Elder Whaley |
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| Elder Whaley and Elder ? |
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| Elder Whaley with some Elders and Sisters in front of the Oakland temple. |
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| Elder Whaley with Elders and Sisters in front of the Oakland temple. |
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| Elder Perez (Shad's companion) and Elder Whaley (trying to look cool?) |
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| After a service project |
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| Elder Whaley doing a service project? (That's what he said he was doing) |
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| Cowboy Elder Whaley caught himself some dinosaur bones! |
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| Google store (outside) |
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| Google store |
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| More google |
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| ....and more google |
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| Inside the Google store. |
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| Who knows? |
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Busy Week
9-30-13
Sorry I didn't email last week. I didn't email anyone because my email didn't work for some reason. It really stunk, so I just sat there and waited for my companion to email. You finally got into your classroom. Awesome! Remember, even though everything is not there and totally ready, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass! You asked me if I take Vitamins and the answer is "no"-ain't nobody got time for that! LOL. My new companion's name is Elder Perez from Houston, TX. He's been out 13 months. Some members said I need to get the "How to Learn Tongan" book by Brother Shumway. It's a blue cover (Hint Hint). This last couple of weeks have been good. We have taught quite a few non-members and we're trying to take over a big area and not knowing where I'm going half of the time-haha. We have someone with a baptismal date for Nov. 2nd, so we'll see how that one pans out-but it's still exciting! Our recent convert's, Carla, mother just passed away. We gave her a blessing in the hospital, but you can't go against the Lord's will. Other than that, things are going well. I'm still alive and well. Hopefully, all is going well back home.
Love ya,
ofa atu (I'm guessing this is Tongan)
Elder Whaley
Sorry I didn't email last week. I didn't email anyone because my email didn't work for some reason. It really stunk, so I just sat there and waited for my companion to email. You finally got into your classroom. Awesome! Remember, even though everything is not there and totally ready, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass! You asked me if I take Vitamins and the answer is "no"-ain't nobody got time for that! LOL. My new companion's name is Elder Perez from Houston, TX. He's been out 13 months. Some members said I need to get the "How to Learn Tongan" book by Brother Shumway. It's a blue cover (Hint Hint). This last couple of weeks have been good. We have taught quite a few non-members and we're trying to take over a big area and not knowing where I'm going half of the time-haha. We have someone with a baptismal date for Nov. 2nd, so we'll see how that one pans out-but it's still exciting! Our recent convert's, Carla, mother just passed away. We gave her a blessing in the hospital, but you can't go against the Lord's will. Other than that, things are going well. I'm still alive and well. Hopefully, all is going well back home.
Love ya,
ofa atu (I'm guessing this is Tongan)
Elder Whaley
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Last week with companion and baptism
9-16-13
The weather has been great! It's warm with a nice crisp breeze from the bay. It feels perfect and great! We have the fans going at night and the windows open, too! The baptism was a great success! It went super well! One of her friends, that she invited, is interested so that was cool! My companion is flying home Wednesday morning and it really stinks! He's super awesome and I really enjoyed serving with him. I wish he had another transfer at least-but oh well. Hopefully, my next companion will be good. There's still quite a bit of work to do here, which is awesome! I did get reimbursed for the Red Lobster charge that someone made from my card, but not the other Body Builder.com. Oh well, the work must go on! (Someone got ahold of his debit card number and made several large charges-he didn't catch the Body Builder one in time and so he has to eat about $230-I really dislike dishonest people!!!!) Dad-that's interesting that you mentioned the advice from Colton because I was just thinking about that this week! (Before Shad left-his cousin-in-law gave him the advice to remember that he is called to that particular mission because of his personality, and to have fun and "be a better you", and you will be fine). Things are going good here. They want us to change to a carrier bag in place of a backpack in the next while, but my backpack works fine, so it's not going to happen unless they force me. Haha. We probably could go to a football game on Monday if there WAS one on Monday, but when is there ever a game on Monday?! Today we are going to check on google to see. Other than that, nothing too exciting has been going on. I hope all is going well for you back home! Love ya!
Elder Whaley
The weather has been great! It's warm with a nice crisp breeze from the bay. It feels perfect and great! We have the fans going at night and the windows open, too! The baptism was a great success! It went super well! One of her friends, that she invited, is interested so that was cool! My companion is flying home Wednesday morning and it really stinks! He's super awesome and I really enjoyed serving with him. I wish he had another transfer at least-but oh well. Hopefully, my next companion will be good. There's still quite a bit of work to do here, which is awesome! I did get reimbursed for the Red Lobster charge that someone made from my card, but not the other Body Builder.com. Oh well, the work must go on! (Someone got ahold of his debit card number and made several large charges-he didn't catch the Body Builder one in time and so he has to eat about $230-I really dislike dishonest people!!!!) Dad-that's interesting that you mentioned the advice from Colton because I was just thinking about that this week! (Before Shad left-his cousin-in-law gave him the advice to remember that he is called to that particular mission because of his personality, and to have fun and "be a better you", and you will be fine). Things are going good here. They want us to change to a carrier bag in place of a backpack in the next while, but my backpack works fine, so it's not going to happen unless they force me. Haha. We probably could go to a football game on Monday if there WAS one on Monday, but when is there ever a game on Monday?! Today we are going to check on google to see. Other than that, nothing too exciting has been going on. I hope all is going well for you back home! Love ya!
Elder Whaley
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| Elder Dalton (Shad's 6'7" companion from Arizona) at the baptism |
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| Elder Dalton, Bro. Makasini (Carla's Father-in-law) Carla Makasini, and Elder Whaley at the baptism of Carla Makasini |
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| Carla Makasini and her family |
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| Elder Dalton and Elder Whaley (Shad looks short compared to his companion) |
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Getting ready for first baptism!
9-9-13
Well, Carla is super solid and we have everything set up for the 14th. It's exciting! It sounds like you've had a good and crazy week. Dad was telling me about Pres. Crapo's comments at Stake Conference. That's pretty cool and it's so true. This week was pretty normal I guess...just teaching people lessons and finishing up teaching Carla last night. We were at her in-laws (who are Tongan) and had tons of food! I was super full! It was super good! It got pretty hot on Saturday and we were on bikes not having a lot of luck, but it's just one of those days. Life moves on. Nothing new or exciting really, but hopefully you guys have a great week and things go well for ya. Love ya.
Elder Whaley
Well, Carla is super solid and we have everything set up for the 14th. It's exciting! It sounds like you've had a good and crazy week. Dad was telling me about Pres. Crapo's comments at Stake Conference. That's pretty cool and it's so true. This week was pretty normal I guess...just teaching people lessons and finishing up teaching Carla last night. We were at her in-laws (who are Tongan) and had tons of food! I was super full! It was super good! It got pretty hot on Saturday and we were on bikes not having a lot of luck, but it's just one of those days. Life moves on. Nothing new or exciting really, but hopefully you guys have a great week and things go well for ya. Love ya.
Elder Whaley
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Best Moment So Far!
9-2-13
This week was super good. We had gotten a new investigator who committed to a baptismal date for the 21st of September so far and another for the 14th of September. She was the one that got moved back because of the funeral. The one on the 21st, Carla Makasini, is a non-member married to a member who has just gotten his Melchizedek priesthood and his patriarchal blessing this week. I think that really helped, but the main reason she is taking the lessons is because her sister-in-law just passed away and she saw that members of the church had comfort about it that she wanted and she wants to live with her family forever, also. So it's pretty cool and she has been talking to a friend who may be interested also! She is swaying between the 14th and 21st to get family members and ward members there, but she is excited to be baptized and she is awesome! The first lesson/discussion with her was super spiritual. It was amazing! We invited her to be baptized and she said YES! Oh man-that was probably the BEST moment so far! It was just an overwhelming sense of joy when she said yes. I had never felt like that before. The next day, during personal study, I read in D & C 58 about how great will your joy be if you bring one soul unto me and that was really cool! We met with a lot of non-members this last week, so it was really good! Things are going well here.
Ahhh-man everyone keeps talking about the new temple video, but I have to wait until General Conference! The Tongan families keep feeding me or keep trying if I say I am full. I haven't gained or lost-I think biking is helping me maintain my weight plus I have been trying to lift every morning. Oh man-football season has started! It really STINKS! Everyone talks about it and yesterday we got offered tickets to go to a Stanford game for this week! There is also a high school football field next to the road we take a lot and they had a game Friday night! Man I miss football! Oh well!
Hopefully, all is going well at home!
Love ya!
Elder Whaley
This week was super good. We had gotten a new investigator who committed to a baptismal date for the 21st of September so far and another for the 14th of September. She was the one that got moved back because of the funeral. The one on the 21st, Carla Makasini, is a non-member married to a member who has just gotten his Melchizedek priesthood and his patriarchal blessing this week. I think that really helped, but the main reason she is taking the lessons is because her sister-in-law just passed away and she saw that members of the church had comfort about it that she wanted and she wants to live with her family forever, also. So it's pretty cool and she has been talking to a friend who may be interested also! She is swaying between the 14th and 21st to get family members and ward members there, but she is excited to be baptized and she is awesome! The first lesson/discussion with her was super spiritual. It was amazing! We invited her to be baptized and she said YES! Oh man-that was probably the BEST moment so far! It was just an overwhelming sense of joy when she said yes. I had never felt like that before. The next day, during personal study, I read in D & C 58 about how great will your joy be if you bring one soul unto me and that was really cool! We met with a lot of non-members this last week, so it was really good! Things are going well here.
Ahhh-man everyone keeps talking about the new temple video, but I have to wait until General Conference! The Tongan families keep feeding me or keep trying if I say I am full. I haven't gained or lost-I think biking is helping me maintain my weight plus I have been trying to lift every morning. Oh man-football season has started! It really STINKS! Everyone talks about it and yesterday we got offered tickets to go to a Stanford game for this week! There is also a high school football field next to the road we take a lot and they had a game Friday night! Man I miss football! Oh well!
Hopefully, all is going well at home!
Love ya!
Elder Whaley
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