Elder Whaley, the next Steve Irwin!

  10-28-13

Having you write and send letters during the week is working well.  I LOVE getting letters.  It's like a birthday whenever I receive something in the mail.  The lady who sent the animal pictures is going to get baptized next month, but she is pretty much a millionaire and she has been around mormons all her life.  She has a house in Utah, so she has tons of mormon friends.  I heard from Jenifer and she said that they were going to drop off the ipod sometime today.  I'll try to get some pictures of us biking or in the car, but I've taken plenty of pictures of other things.  We swap car/bikes every week, so it's half and half.  This last week has finally cooled down and we are now in the low 80's.  We haven't been eating at members' homes for awhile since our mission president made the rule that we can only go over if there is an investigator or less active there.  But, the Dyers in our ward bought us a few groceries this week so we didn't starve.  When they came over, Bro. Dyer asked if I would give a 5 minute talk in Sacrament the next day.  The talk was on prayer, and I prepared it the morning of on a little 3 x 5 card.  It went really well and a lot of people complimented me on it.  Sister Brower (Senior couple Sister) came up and was so proud of me.  It was funny.  She was like, "Oh, I'm just so full of pride.  I wish your mother could have seen it!"  transfers are this Tuesday, and I got a good companion.  His name is Elder Lott, from Idaho Falls, and I will be serving in the Vanderbilt Beach A.  Haha.  So, in other words, both of us are staying here.  We haven't carved pumpkins, but I did, however, carve an avacado, and it looks sweet.  I'll put a picture of it on Dropbox.  This week we also got to go play sand volleyball right next to the beach, but not on it, which stinks, but it was still fun!  As you saw already, we also went to the Skunk Ape Museum and saw some alligators, snakes, and birds.  We stopped by the World's smallest post office and got a post card.  Hopefully, you got it already.  It was a great P-day!  I held many of the animals and took plenty of pictures.  The guy at the museum even put the head of the snake in his mouth and kissed the mouth of the alligator.  It was crazy, but I wasn't nervous to hold any of the animals.  It was pretty cool.  All is good here.  Love you guys!

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

*We got an email last Wednesday from a lady who is apparently getting baptized next month.  She took the missionaries to the Skunk ape Museum and said they all had a great time.  She then proceded to say what a fine young man Austin is and that we should be very proud of him.  Here are the pictures she sent us.

A cool moth that they found.

The moth with "eyes."

The smallest Post Office in the U.S.  ( in Ochopee, FL)

Future alligator wrestler.

Elder Whaley holding an albino snake.

Elder Whaley and his pet bird.

Elder Whaley and his "other" pet bird.

Crazy missionaries holding a python!

That python is huge and scary!

Elder Whaley looks like he's enjoying holding
that python a little too much!

Mmmmm-Kangaroo!

....and Alligator?  Tasty!

The Everglades

Here, let me help you with this huge, scary, snake!

Beautiful Florida Sunset!

Volleyball fun!

The start of the carving of the avacado!

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Add some color

Insert a minion

Adjusting to No Tracting

10-21-13

My Worst:  Elder Lott and I biked 106 miles in 4 days this last week.  It was a little cooler when we had the car, but it decided to get up to about 94 degrees when we had bikes.  We had not set appointment for most of the week, so we had to bike and look for less-actives and members to visit.  Since we aren't allowed to knock anymore, we haven't found anyone new to teach for over two weeks because all of our investigators come from referalls and no one has given us any.  Also, P-day was kind of a drag since I got about 5 minutes to email.  The internet was not working on the computers we use and so we just sat there trying to fix them.  When we had about 10 minutes left, one of the computers started working and we shared the time we had left to email.  I saw that I got a bunch of emails from friends and Grandma and I didn't have time to look at any of them.  Hopefully, the computers work next time.
My Best:  We got to have dinner with some members that moved here from Mesa, Arizona.  We stopped by to get to know them and to offer a peace & blessing and they had us come over Sunday for lunch to do it.  Their name is the Marlers and Brother Marler is way cool.  Their whole family was so fun and nice.  I guess the dad (Bro. Marler) snowboarded a lot at Targhee when he went to BYU-I, and he even taught the advanced snowboarding class at the college.  I talked a lot about snowboarding with him.  It was nice because this was the first time that I could contribute anything to the conversation.  Normally, all of our dinner conversations end up being about sports and I just don't say anything because I don't know anything about sports.  But, it was a really fun time.
My Funniest:  We ran into this lady who says that she is an Earth-Mother.  She told us that she use to be a Presbyterian and Methodist, but then became an Earth-Mother.  She told us that she does rain ceremonies to grow her "garden" and to make sure that it doesn't rain on Tuesdays because her neighbor plays tennis on Tuesdays.  So I guess she does it as a favor to her.  Right when we pulled up on bikes, she put her hands in the air and said, "You are both very good energies.  I can feel your good energy."  She asked us what our birthdays were and made some weird prophecies of what was going to happen to us over the next year.  She looked at me and told me that I was a "Heart-Baby".  Whatever that means!  She asked what I was going to study and I told her possibly something like dentistry or optometry.  Then, she said, "Yes!  Optometry!  You must have the vision to work with the eyes.  Anyone can do teeth, but you need to have a vision for the eyes!"  Then she told me that I was a better "feeler" than Elder Lott, and she said she could tell by my energy.  She asked us what we are doing and we told her.  She told us to leave the presence of our energy wherever we go, even if we don't talk to anyone.  Besides, all of this, she said a bunch of other stuff that didn't make any sense.
My Spiritual:  General Conference was amazing!  I took 5 pages full of notes in my tiny hand writing. I got so much out of it, and I loved it.  Love you!

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Spiritual Feast!

10-7-13

I thought about many of those same things that you mentioned, as I watched Conference and how many of the talks applied directly to loving and serving those that are in this mission.  I got so much out of Conference and I can't wait till the next one.  I also can't wait for the Ensign to come out so that I can review the talks I really liked.  Also, thinking about the things you have said about missionary work, you are called of God as well, being a member Missionary.  I know that almost everyone there is a member and that the work is different, but there is still work, and you can help.  I loved the talk given by president Monson on home teaching and the important and noble calling it is.  I have gained a greater desire to more fully magnify each and every calling that I receive in the church to my fullest abilities.  Being out here, working and learning, has made me greatly realize how much time I used unwisely, when I could have done things like study the scriptures more, help others always, and strengthen my testimony and knowledge of this Gospel to share with others.  I can say that I will definitely be different when I return, with a greater appetite to do good and do as the Lord would have me do at ALL times.  I am grateful for yours and mom's love and support, and all that you have done to prepare me for this mission.  After the Sunday morning session of conference, one of the sisters in our district came up to me and asked if I would give her a blessing.  She has been having problems with her heart and she wanted a blessing that would help comfort her because she is going to the cardiologist in a few days.  It was a great experience and I felt very grateful that she said she felt that I needed to give the blessing.  Those feelings were magnified even greater when the following talks about the priesthood were given and how we receive the blessings of the priesthood as we exercise the authority given to us worthily.  Mom-I am sorry to hear that you have to work at night cleaning, on top of teaching all day, but all I can say is to make wise use of that time.  You may listen to music when you work, but instead, try to listen to a talk, or something that will inspire and uplift you.  At times when I am working or riding my bike, I try to think of a talk or something that I studied that morning to gain a better understanding of it.  This way, I don't focus as much on being tired or bored or have meaningless thoughts fill my head.  I still have trouble not thinking of songs that I liked to listen to at home, but instead I need to think of songs that have meaning to this work.  Thanks for that email you sent about the service of a mission.  I feel the same way.  Though it is hard, I would not trade the challenges and difficulties I have faced accompanied with the knowledge and testimony that I have gained for anything else.  I learn new things everyday and I grow deeper in my knowledge and testimony constantly.  Though, my communication skills are still pretty dormant, I am able to bear testimony of the truth more boldly than when I first arrived.  I love you and I hope all is going well.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

My Needs

9-30-13

So, last week I said I didn't need anything.  This week, I figured out what I do need.

-Insurance Card-in case I ever have to go to the doctors or get injured.
-I can't think of anything food wise.  I basically live off of Ramen, Eggo waffles, Toaster Strudles, cereal, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I don't really make anything because it takes too much time and we don't have enough money to buy a bunch of stuff to make actual meals.  If we did, we would have a bunch of left over food supplies that would never get used.
-Videos that I made with Taylor and Keegan put on a flashdrive if possible.  I want to show some of the Elders and Sisters some of the stuff I do back home.
-The  Ipod with music on it that I asked Vanessa to put on for me.
-A messenger bag (by January).  They are having us switch from backpacks to messenger bags by January.
-This is a long stretch, but a GPS would be really nice!  I know it's a luxury, but it would really help out here!

 These are the people that I've heard from:  Marianne, Keegan, Taylor, Corbin, Rhett, Kaleb, Kolten, Rebecca, Bishop Galbraith, and Brother Stewart, and Grandma.  I haven't heard from any other family yet, but I hope to soon!!!!!  (hint, hint)

I really appreciate all you do for me.


Love ya,
Elder A. Whaley

Adjusting to a new schedule

9-23-13

Sorry, last week I only had 10 minutes of email time because we left for a few minutes to help someone, and when we came back, a bunch of people got on the computers for Facebook and other dumb things.  This week has been really exhausting because we are done with training and now we have to head out at 10 in the morning instead of 12, and doing an extra 2 hours of biking is making me so tired.  I've been taking short 15 minute naps at lunch to help, but I'm just trying to adjust.  It's still about 90 degrees + here, and I can't wait till it finally cools down.  It's suppose to cool down in about 3 weeks, so I'm excited for that.  This Thursday, we are going to have a Zone Conference with Elder Teh from the Seventy and I'm so excited for that.  We have pretty much stopped tracting over all.  We are now focused on finding all of the less-active members in the ward and updating the ward roster so that it is accurate.  It's really frustrating because many of the members are in gated communities and we can't get into them or get ahold of the people.  The houses that we can get to, the people will look at us through the window and completely ignore us and not answer.  We have found more people to teach, though.  Tonight we have 2 lessons to teach and we are going to invite both of the investigators to be baptized tonight.  Hopefully, that will go well.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have really begun to enjoy my studies and I feel like I am getting a better knowledge of scriptures and other things.  I know Preach My Gospel pretty well, but I have been struggling to know scripture references and stuff, but I am slowly adding onto my memory more and more scriptures.  We have started a Bible study class that we do on Tuesdays and I taught it last week.  We are going over the New Testament, and that's good because I don't think I've really read through it that much.  I still struggle with speaking up at times and being really "social".  I talk and teach whenever I need to, but I'm just trying to be more comfortable with speaking up and having conversations.  I just don't know what to talk about most of the time.  Anyway, I have definitely grown and learned a lot, and I am continuing to do so.  I hope to hear from you again this week, and I will pray for all of you.  Let me know how things are going, and I don't think I need anything yet.  Thanks though.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Looks like Elder Whaley found a scout buddy!