Loving his new are/Companions!

4-13-15

Thank you for writing me and letting me know about what is going on at home with Grandma and you guys.  Things are going great for me here.
   This last week has been a lot of work and a lot of fun!  Throughout this last week we biked about 150 miles to get around our area.  The entire mission is on full bike right now because President Cusick feels that we are missing too many opportunities to talk to people and teach them on the street, so no one is allowed to use their car for the next 3 weeks, except for shopping on P-days and going to meetings.
   We have found a few new investigators this last week that we have been teaching and two of them are working towards baptism.  They are both youth and they are completely solid in the Gospel and keeping commitments.  The only obstacle would be to make sure that their parents are supportive of their decision.
   Elder Reynolds and Pond are great!  I talk a lot about hunting and doing outdoor stuff with Elder Reynolds and I talk about a bunch of random other stuff with Elder Pond.  Elder Pond's main source of food is rice and he eats a ton of it.  He got really use to it in Africa, so that is all he eats here.  He has a giant 20 lb. bag of it and he always eats some for lunch and dinner.
   Yesterday, Elder Pond and I were asked to give talks in sacrament about the temple and about why they are important and how we can work towards the Temple.  I'm glad that I was given this topic because I honestly haven't thought about the Temple that much since I haven't been able to go to one for such a long time.  I learned so much and both of our talks ended up very well.  It's pretty much a tradition for me now that whenever I go to a new ward, they always have me speak within the first couple of weeks that I'm there.
   Tomorrow we have a Zone Conference in Tampa and I will get to see Elder Baumgartner and my other trainee, Elder Swallow to see how they are both doing.  I'm excited for that.  I hope that you all have a great week.  Love you!

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

New Area and Companionships!

4-6-15

Hello,

I'm sorry that it has taken so long to update you all on everything that has been happening the past few weeks, but most of it is irrelevant compared to what happened this past week, so I will just talk about that.
   On Tuesday, we had interviews with President Cusick in Sarasota and that was kind of interesting and on Wednesday we received a call from him telling us that both Elder Baumgartner and I were getting transferred to new areas with different companions.  There wasn't necessarily enough work going on in the ward to keep two companionships in the mission.  Elder Baumgartner got reassigned to serve in Sarasota, and I got reassigned to serve in the Riverview ward up in Brandon.  The zone leaders took us to our new areas on Friday morning and I got to ride with Elder Nelson, my MTC companion and talk with him for a while.  It was fun.  I met my new companions, Elder Reynolds and Elder Pond around 2p.m. that afternoon.  Elder Reynolds is from Vernal, UT and Elder Pond is from Pennsylvania.  Elder Pond goes home with me, but he did not come out with me.  He started his mission in Africa, but was transferred here because of the whole Ebola outbreak over there.  Elder Reynolds has been out 8 months and he is a really outdoors kind of guy.  I talk about hunting and camping and all of that stuff with him.  Both of them are really fun companions.
   My first night here we had an awesome ward Easter party where I got to meet a lot of the members. The following day we went to a member's home for the morning session of General Conference, and before the session started we got to try their "salmon ladder" that they had made in their backyard.  That's what the video is of.  We didn't film my first attempt, but I managed to make it up two rungs successfully, but in the video with this second attempt, I fell pretty hard.  The cards in my pocket went flying everywhere.  I think I might try out for the American Ninja Warrior show when I get home-haha.
   This whole weekend was great with the talks that were given and the people that we got to spend it with.  I think that I am really going to love this new area, and I am going to do all I can to strengthen it and to work diligently through the remainder of my mission.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley


                        Elder Whaley trying the Salmon Ladder

Favorite/Hardest part of Missionary Work!

3-30-15


    I would say that my favorite part of missionary work would have to be the opportunity to study the Gospel every morning, when we have big Zone or Mission Conferences, and especially when I get to see others gain a testimony of the Gospel message and act upon that and see it change their lives.  The hardest part of missionary work is when my faith and patience is being tested in a number of ways.  It's difficult when I feel that I'm trying hard and nothing is happening, but something always eventually does and I understand that I am not going to witness the results of most of the work that I am a part of out here.  That will come down the road at some point.
    Luckily, I feel the Spirit most of the time, but the last time I felt it very clearly and strong was Saturday when I actually received a package from the ward with the Easter eggs.  I read the scriptures in the New Testament that lead up to the Atonement of Christ and opened the eggs that held the little memorabilia symbolizing it all.  When I got to the last scripture that said, "He is not here, for He is risen" and opened the egg and found nothing in it, I don't know why, but it really sunk into my heart that He lives and that he is literally somewhere.  It's not just a message of hope, but it is the truth!!!!!


Love,
Elder A. Whaley

:(

3-30-15

Sorry, I know that I have not really said too much in my emails lately and I will do better next week, but I ran out of time.  Some cool things happened this week, but I will have to let you know next week.  Love you!

Love, Elder A. Whaley

Short Update!

3-23-15

I haven't heard anything as far as a release date yet.  Yes, I got brown shoes just to be stylin' and I use the black ones when we bike because they are pretty scuffed up.  Things are going alright for us here. We have started doing the Insanity workouts again, and it has been helping, especially since Elder Baumgartner hates working out in the morning.  I don't think I need anything.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Elder Austin Whaley's ties!

Elder Austin Whaley with his ties!

Experience With Fasting

3-16-15

Topic: Fasting
Why: Because
  A few weeks ago during fast Sunday, we were working and walking around after church in the downtown area.  We ran into a young man that we have seen pretty often wandering around town looking for help from time to time.  We had helped him out before by giving him a few dollars.  He asked us if we had a few more dollars that we could give him for some food, and I told him that we didn't, even though I knew that I had at least something.  I felt that since we had helped him before that we can't really keep helping him every time that we see him since we are told not to give others money.  So, he went on his way, and we went on ours.  Right after we finished talking to him though, I immediately felt very guilty, and there were a lot of things that were brought to my mind's attention.  First off, it was fast Sunday and I just remembered that I had forgotten to give my offering to the Bishop at church that day, and helping that man was probably Heavenly Father's way of saying that I could give my offering through this means.  Second, King Benjamin's council (Mosiah 4: 16-22) was running through my mind and I felt that it was directed specifically at me at that point because I was saying all of those things in my mind while talking to this guy.  I told my companion that we needed to find him and help him before we did anything else.  So, we spent about 10 minutes looking for him and we finally ran into him again, and we simply gave him a few dollars and he was pretty surprised and grateful.  I wish I could say that this lead him to want to hear our message and come to church and what not, but it didn't.  I was just very grateful that we were able to find him before that opportunity slipped away.  This experience was something that I really needed to help strengthen my testimony of fasting because I have never really had any profound or big experiences with it before.
    I hope that this experience is useful and the what you need at this time.  It is something that just popped up in my mind.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Future Bee Keeper?

3-9-15

This last week's highlights were being able to do some service and the church's hog roast!
   Saturday morning, we went up to the top of our area to go and help one of the members with a service project for a non-member relative.  We were digging out lines in their backyard for the septic tank.  (Don't worry, it didn't stink).  We were there for about 3 hours and we got acquainted with two of the member's nephews.  The older one catches his own snakes, lizards, and tortoises and breeds and sells them.  He showed us his little zoo and I asked if he knew the member out in Port Charlotte that did the same thing as him.  He did.  It told him that I saw him all the time when I was in Port Charlotte.  After we were done with the project, we invited them to come out to the hog roast and they did.
    We had about 5 investigators show up to the event, but many of them came as we were finishing up and cleaning everything.  While we were there, I was talking with one of the members who is a beekeeper.  He was telling me all about how he got into bee keeping and how he was the President of two bee keeping associations in Utah before moving to Florida.  He told me that I should get into it when I get back to Idaho and that he would set me up with Jay Miller, who owns Miller Honey in Idaho.  From what he told me about it, it sounds like a really fun thing to do, so who knows.  I might look into it when I get back.  Haha.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Hoping to slaughter a Hog!

3-2-15

We had some ups and downs this past week.  This last Thursday was pretty event-packed with another mission meeting and later the church open-house.  We had our Zone Conference from 10 a.m.-4p.m. with Elder Zwick from the Seventy again.  All of the training was great and I pulled a lot away from it.  However, we did not expect it to go as long as it did.  As soon as it was over, we drove back to the church as quickly as we could for the open house that started at 6p.m.  We were suppose to be tour guides for the groups.  We arrived at 6:30p.m and we saw that only about 6  people had showed up.  Our Ward Mission Leader's wife and the Bishop had taken them on a tour and all that was left to do was basically stand in the gym to talk to them and answer any questions.  A few of the people who took the tour seemed to show some interest in learning more, so we will see what happens with them.
    The rest of the week following Thursday was extremely slow for us.  From Thursday to Saturday, we managed to teach one lesson.  For some reason all of our appointments kept falling through and we had to drop just about every one of our investigators because they were not progressing.
    Today we have an appointment scheduled with someone that we met at Dairy Queen a few weeks ago.  We are going to be showing her around the church building and having a lesson with her.  We are going to try and set a date for baptism with her, so I hope that it goes well.
    This weekend we have the ward's annual "hog roast", and I am going to see if we can help with the butchering of the hog.  I did it last year when I was in Port Charlotte, but we had to leave early because the sisters crashed the car and we had to go help.  I don't think that Elder Baumgartner is too thrilled to do it, but we will see.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley

Loving Missionary Training

2-23-15

This last week was really great!  We got to play volleyball with some of the other missionaries in the District for P-day.  One of the Elder's is from Mexico and he use to play a lot back home, so it was a pretty good match-up between he and I.  We were able to stay fairly busy throughout the week working, but the best part was this last Friday.
     We woke up at 4:30 AM in order to make it up to Tampa by 8:30 AM for a mission-wide conference that we were having.  It was 32 degrees when we woke up.  I think that is the coldest it has ever been since I've been here in Florida.  The meeting started at 9 AM and we had Elder Zwick from the Quorum of the Seventy and Brother Hemingway from the church missionary department.  We received about 2 1/2 hours of training from each and it was all amazing!!!  Everything that I came with a question about was answered, and the spirit was so strong.  Even when the meeting had closed and everyone was filing out of the building, no one spoke or broke the silence.  It was really neat.  When the meeting was over, we only had enough time to drive home, have a quick dinner and then go to the church for the movie night.  We did this in the gym and had a bunch of chairs and couches set up.  We had about 18 people show up and I absolutely loved it.  The movie was really great and inspiring and at the conclusion of the movie, we did a question and answer segment where anyone could ask a question to the missionaries about their missions or missionary work.

Post movie night!

    On Saturday morning, all of the missionaries met at the church with the Ward Mission Leader to go over the outline for the church open house that will be going on this coming Thursday.  Hopefully, that will be a good turnout for us.
    I hope that you have a great week and that all goes well.

Love,
Elder A. Whaley