Things are going well with me and my companion. He had a trial mission to see if he would be able to manage the day to day life and stressors of missionary work, and to see if he really wanted to serve for the full two years. Even though he has gone through the training before, we are going through it again. The most difficult thing is just to keep him on task and focused. A lot of times I just have to stop him in the middle of whatever it is that he is saying and tell him to focus. He has been improving, though. He still isn't a big fan of getting up in the mornings and exercising, but I still get him to do it. My companion is pretty obedient in the work, but he lacks some motivation for certain things that he feels aren't important like waking up and exercising in the morning. I am trying to convince him to shop and eat healthier because so far all he has been living off of is microwave pot pies and Tostino's pizzas, and that is basically it. He is a good Elder, I think that a big portion of my purpose is to help him with sociality and life skills. :)
The most rewarding thing of this week was my personal studies. For the last few weeks, I have been focusing on the Plan of Salvation and I have learned so much from the scriptures and P.M.G. The hardest thing this last week was me eating a ghost chili pepper that a member gave us. That was SO hot!
So what exactly happens when a missionary returns and is released? Does he just have an interview with the Stake President and takes his name tag off, or is that when he reports in front of the whole High council? Shad gave a talk in Sacrament two weeks in a row?
This week we will be having a mission wide conference and a movie night for the ward. We will be watching the Saratov Approach. I'm excited for that.
I hope that this week goes well for you! Love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Monday, February 16, 2015
2nd Son/New Companion
Sorry I don't have much time, so I will give you all a watered down week. We had transfers Thursday and I got my new companion that I am training, Elder Baumgartner. He actually served a trial mission in Arizona, where he is from, so he has already gone through the training process once. He is very different from all of the other companions that I have had, but I'm sure that we will still work well together. He does not like getting up in the mornings and working out, so I have to turn on the light and tell him to get up sometimes. He also gets sidetracked very easily because he has ADHD. He works hard and wants to be obedient, so that's good.
I am no longer the District Leader because Pres. just wants me focusing on training Elder Baumgartner, so I'm good with that. I loved being a DL, but I'm glad that I don't have to do both at the same time now.
I should have some more things to mention in the upcoming weeks because we will be having some mission conferences and big ward activities that will be coming up here soon. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
I am no longer the District Leader because Pres. just wants me focusing on training Elder Baumgartner, so I'm good with that. I loved being a DL, but I'm glad that I don't have to do both at the same time now.
I should have some more things to mention in the upcoming weeks because we will be having some mission conferences and big ward activities that will be coming up here soon. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
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| Elder Whaley with his 2nd son, Elder Baumgartner |
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| Elder Baumgartner and Elder Whaley getting the bike ready for missionary work! |
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Learned A Lot, But Have a Lot to Still Learn
2-2-15
Most of the beginning and middle of this week was nothing special, but the weekend had something really big about it. This last Monday for our preparation day, we played volleyball at the church with some other missionaries and some of the members. We haven't had too much work going on lately, so we have been trying to implement activities to get members to invite their friends to like volleyball. We actually have a lot of ward activities coming up that should be good for missionary opportunities. We have a county fair going on this next week and we will have a booth at it to hand out material and talk to people. On the 20th we will be having a youth movie night where we will be watching the Saratov Approach. On the 26th our ward is going to be having an open house for the community and we are trying to invite as many people as possible to come.
On Tuesday, we had District meeting and it turned out really good. I focused the majority of the training on setting goals and having the vision to achieve them. For the last part of the meeting, we discussed obedience and how we can become the Fourth Missionary (it's from a talk called the Fourth Missionary). The Spirit was strong and all of the missionaries in the district were excited and committed to be an exactly obedient missionary. After the meeting, I went on an exchange to the Wauchula area with Elder Brossa. He is from Spain and he is super blunt and funny. Throughout the exchange, I asked him questions and Spain and what everything was like. He told me that practically no one uses a car because the public transportation will get you anywhere that you need to go. In Spain, they usually eat lunch around 2 p.m. and they have dinner around 10 p.m. The thing that shocked me the most though, was that everyone takes a nap on a daily basis from 3-5 p.m. because it is too hot to be out at that time. The streets are completely empty during those hours. Spain sounds like it would be a really neat place to visit.
The rest of the week following the exchange was pretty normal. We struggled quite a bit to find people to teach, so most of our days were spent either finding on the streets or trying to work with the members as much as we could. Nothing else exciting happened until Sunday morning when we got transfer emails. We found out that Elder Dardon is going to be transferred this coming Thursday, and I am going to be training a new missionary again! I am not as nervous about it as I was the first time, but I am wondering how I am going to balance everything I need to do as a District leader and train at the same time. It's going to make it difficult with things like exchanges, but I'm sure that it will all work out. That means that I am going to be in this area for the next two transfers and I will only have one more left, so I'm guessing that I will just die in this area. I was hoping to serve in one more area, but now it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
This last transfer has felt so long because of all of the things that have happened with being a District leader. There are so many fun aspects to it and I love, but also so many things that I wish I didn't need to do. I know that it is all good, though, and that it has a purpose. I know that I have grown a lot this last transfer because of the responsibilities that I have been entrusted with, and that I still have a whole lot to learn. I hope that you all have a great week and that everything goes well with Elder S. Whaley's return.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Most of the beginning and middle of this week was nothing special, but the weekend had something really big about it. This last Monday for our preparation day, we played volleyball at the church with some other missionaries and some of the members. We haven't had too much work going on lately, so we have been trying to implement activities to get members to invite their friends to like volleyball. We actually have a lot of ward activities coming up that should be good for missionary opportunities. We have a county fair going on this next week and we will have a booth at it to hand out material and talk to people. On the 20th we will be having a youth movie night where we will be watching the Saratov Approach. On the 26th our ward is going to be having an open house for the community and we are trying to invite as many people as possible to come.
On Tuesday, we had District meeting and it turned out really good. I focused the majority of the training on setting goals and having the vision to achieve them. For the last part of the meeting, we discussed obedience and how we can become the Fourth Missionary (it's from a talk called the Fourth Missionary). The Spirit was strong and all of the missionaries in the district were excited and committed to be an exactly obedient missionary. After the meeting, I went on an exchange to the Wauchula area with Elder Brossa. He is from Spain and he is super blunt and funny. Throughout the exchange, I asked him questions and Spain and what everything was like. He told me that practically no one uses a car because the public transportation will get you anywhere that you need to go. In Spain, they usually eat lunch around 2 p.m. and they have dinner around 10 p.m. The thing that shocked me the most though, was that everyone takes a nap on a daily basis from 3-5 p.m. because it is too hot to be out at that time. The streets are completely empty during those hours. Spain sounds like it would be a really neat place to visit.
The rest of the week following the exchange was pretty normal. We struggled quite a bit to find people to teach, so most of our days were spent either finding on the streets or trying to work with the members as much as we could. Nothing else exciting happened until Sunday morning when we got transfer emails. We found out that Elder Dardon is going to be transferred this coming Thursday, and I am going to be training a new missionary again! I am not as nervous about it as I was the first time, but I am wondering how I am going to balance everything I need to do as a District leader and train at the same time. It's going to make it difficult with things like exchanges, but I'm sure that it will all work out. That means that I am going to be in this area for the next two transfers and I will only have one more left, so I'm guessing that I will just die in this area. I was hoping to serve in one more area, but now it doesn't look like that is going to happen.
This last transfer has felt so long because of all of the things that have happened with being a District leader. There are so many fun aspects to it and I love, but also so many things that I wish I didn't need to do. I know that it is all good, though, and that it has a purpose. I know that I have grown a lot this last transfer because of the responsibilities that I have been entrusted with, and that I still have a whole lot to learn. I hope that you all have a great week and that everything goes well with Elder S. Whaley's return.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Working Hard!
1-26-15
So, I can't think of anything too exciting that happened this week in the mission. There was definitely a lot of fun and weird things that happened, but no huge events or occurrences.
Last Tuesday for District meeting, I had one of the other companionships in the District take about 10 minutes to give a training on working with members and they did a really great job. For the remainder of the meeting we talked about ways in which we could more effectively find in our individual areas studying from chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel. After the meeting, I went on an exchange with one of the Spanish Elders in the Lake Placid area. He is originally from Mexico and so English is his second language. It was kind of hard to understand him, but he is so funny! On the exchange in the evening, we went to an investigators house who is watching one of the member's dog while she is gone on a trip. We helped her walk the dog to the members home for the night to tie her up to sleep, but we had to coax her with hot dogs because she kept growling at us. It was a fat pit bull. After we took care of the dog, we had a lesson with the lady, but she only spoke Spanish, so I just sat there for most of the lesson.
When I returned from the exchange, the next day Elder Dardon told me that they had to break into the apartment again because they couldn't get the key that we had left. (We had stopped by to grab something from the apartment on the way to Lake Placid and we left the key under the door). So, they had to climb up the patio and break in through the sliding door like I did a few weeks ago when we locked ourselves out.
On Wednesday night, when we were on our way home, the road was completely blocked off right at the intersection that we needed to turn at to get to our complex. There was a really bad car wreck a few hours earlier and they were still cleaning everything up. The next day we found out that one of our new investigators was in that wreck. We had given her a blessing a few days earlier for some upcoming heart surgery. The person that we found this out from lived with her and she told us that she was just bruised and banged up, but nothing severe.
On Saturday we had a super awkward and uncomfortable lesson when we were trying to contact a media referral that we had received. The person had requested a Bible for her daughter, and so that's what we came by to do. When we pulled up and got out of the car the mom was outside in the backyard and she asked who we were. We told her and asked if we could share a message with her. She said, "Ya, that would be great! Let me go grab my daughter and niece and I will be right back." I was surprised that she even said yes. When she came back out with them, she said, "Now these two gentlemen are going to teach you about God's word and I am going to be out back making dinner." So she just left us alone outside with her daughter and niece, who were both in 9th grade, and she didn't even really know who we were. So we quickly shared a message about the restoration of the Gospel and asked if there would be a time that we could come back when the mom could sit in on the lesson and listen to what it was that we were teaching them. It was all super awkward? I just couldn't understand how some mom would just trust two men that walked up to their door to talk to her girls alone.
This Sunday we had a big ward Conference and a lot of the members from the Port Charlotte ward came to church and it was nice to see them again.
I hope that you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
So, I can't think of anything too exciting that happened this week in the mission. There was definitely a lot of fun and weird things that happened, but no huge events or occurrences.
Last Tuesday for District meeting, I had one of the other companionships in the District take about 10 minutes to give a training on working with members and they did a really great job. For the remainder of the meeting we talked about ways in which we could more effectively find in our individual areas studying from chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel. After the meeting, I went on an exchange with one of the Spanish Elders in the Lake Placid area. He is originally from Mexico and so English is his second language. It was kind of hard to understand him, but he is so funny! On the exchange in the evening, we went to an investigators house who is watching one of the member's dog while she is gone on a trip. We helped her walk the dog to the members home for the night to tie her up to sleep, but we had to coax her with hot dogs because she kept growling at us. It was a fat pit bull. After we took care of the dog, we had a lesson with the lady, but she only spoke Spanish, so I just sat there for most of the lesson.
When I returned from the exchange, the next day Elder Dardon told me that they had to break into the apartment again because they couldn't get the key that we had left. (We had stopped by to grab something from the apartment on the way to Lake Placid and we left the key under the door). So, they had to climb up the patio and break in through the sliding door like I did a few weeks ago when we locked ourselves out.
On Wednesday night, when we were on our way home, the road was completely blocked off right at the intersection that we needed to turn at to get to our complex. There was a really bad car wreck a few hours earlier and they were still cleaning everything up. The next day we found out that one of our new investigators was in that wreck. We had given her a blessing a few days earlier for some upcoming heart surgery. The person that we found this out from lived with her and she told us that she was just bruised and banged up, but nothing severe.
On Saturday we had a super awkward and uncomfortable lesson when we were trying to contact a media referral that we had received. The person had requested a Bible for her daughter, and so that's what we came by to do. When we pulled up and got out of the car the mom was outside in the backyard and she asked who we were. We told her and asked if we could share a message with her. She said, "Ya, that would be great! Let me go grab my daughter and niece and I will be right back." I was surprised that she even said yes. When she came back out with them, she said, "Now these two gentlemen are going to teach you about God's word and I am going to be out back making dinner." So she just left us alone outside with her daughter and niece, who were both in 9th grade, and she didn't even really know who we were. So we quickly shared a message about the restoration of the Gospel and asked if there would be a time that we could come back when the mom could sit in on the lesson and listen to what it was that we were teaching them. It was all super awkward? I just couldn't understand how some mom would just trust two men that walked up to their door to talk to her girls alone.
This Sunday we had a big ward Conference and a lot of the members from the Port Charlotte ward came to church and it was nice to see them again.
I hope that you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
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