6-9-14
Thank you so much for the birthday package! It was great! I did take pictures, so I'll have to get them to you! We didn't do much of a party with the things that you guys sent to me, but it was still a great day! I did get two letters from Grandma and Grandpa, which was really nice of them! We had 7 investigators show up to church and we actually set a baptismal date for one of them this week on the 28th of this month. It is a family of 4 and they absolutely love everything about the church. They are all excited about baptism and the dad is already asking about getting the priesthood. After church, later that evening, we went over to one of the member's homes to do a family home evening with the family who has a baptismal date, and we played a Bible/Gospel trivia game. Everyone got really into it and they enjoyed it! It was a great day!
This week was also exhausting, too. We went on two exchanges in a row. I stayed in the area for the first one and we had 6 lessons that day. That was also the day that we set the baptismal date for the family. The next day, right after district meeting, we went on the second exchange and I went with one of our Zone leaders to their area and it was kind of a slow day, but we actually did some tracting for an hour or so. That was fun to do again. That night, one of their investigators took us out to Chili's and he let us order whatever we wanted. I got some shrimp tacos. We taught him the Plan of Salvation with a puzzle that I have and he loved it.
Yesterday, we had a big Zone Conference that lasted 6 hours and there was a General Authority, Elder Clarke, who gave most of the training. He is actually from Rexburg, Idaho, so when we all got to shake his hand and introduce ourselves, I told him that I was from Sugar City. He said, "Me too. Don't you dare misrepresent Idaho! Don't do it!" It was funny. I told him that I wouldn't. His wife is from Twin Falls. President and Sister Cusick gave talks as well as Sister Clarke. Elder Clarke did about 3 hours of the training, and it was hilarious! He is such a funny guy. He talked about so many good things and now I have a list of things that I am going to try and do better on in the work. Towards the very end of the meeting, right before we were going to start the hymn, President Cusick came down to me and told me to stay after the meeting because Elder Clarke wanted to visit with me. That was all he said, and he was very serious when he said it. I was so scared and nervous because he didn't tell me why he wanted to meet with me. When we finished and got out in the hall, President waved me over to him and pointed me to the room where Elder Clarke was waiting. He still didn't tell me why I was meeting with him and I was pretty much shaking at this point. When I got int he room Elder Clarke asked me to start our visit with a prayer and I could barely think about what to say. Once we started talking, I was super relieved because he just was asking me about my mission, how I like it, what I felt was the hardest thing about it, and what I learned in the Zone Conference that day. Then he asked me about my family and about all of you individually and what Dad did for work and stuff. Then, we just started talking about Rexburg and he was wondering if I knew certain people there. Apparently, Lexi Belnap is his granddaughter and he is also related to the Larsen family. After a few minutes, he asked if I had any questions for him and I couldn't think of any right then. So I just asked him about where he grew up in Rexburg, but I couldn't think about anything else. I was frustrated because after I left, I had a bunch of questions that I wanted to ask him. Who knows, maybe I will get to see him again. It was really cool. He is now my favorite General Authority.
I hope that you have a great week. How is your health doing, Dad? Love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Loving the Rain!
6-2-14
Mom, I haven't gotten the birthday package yet, but it might be here in the next day or two. Hopefully, you got your birthday card that I sent you a few days ago. How is Dad doing? There is a guy in our ward that we have been visiting and in the past two months he has gone from having no feeling in his legs and no movement with them, to being able to extend and move them and now he has not pain in them. The only thing that he has done is swim in his pool everyday and see a chiropractor. So, help Dad just be healthier if you can.
This last week was pretty slow, but we still reached our goal of 20 lessons. It rained pretty hard everyday this week and it was great! I love the rain! We are now officially in hurricane season so it's going to be raining a lot more. Nothing really exciting happened this last week, but this week is going to be crazy. We are going to be doing two exchanges. One with someone in our district and then another one the next day with our zone leaders. I've never really liked exchanges, but I guess they are good learning experiences. I hope that Dad gets better soon, and I hope that you enjoy being out of school. I love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Mom, I haven't gotten the birthday package yet, but it might be here in the next day or two. Hopefully, you got your birthday card that I sent you a few days ago. How is Dad doing? There is a guy in our ward that we have been visiting and in the past two months he has gone from having no feeling in his legs and no movement with them, to being able to extend and move them and now he has not pain in them. The only thing that he has done is swim in his pool everyday and see a chiropractor. So, help Dad just be healthier if you can.
This last week was pretty slow, but we still reached our goal of 20 lessons. It rained pretty hard everyday this week and it was great! I love the rain! We are now officially in hurricane season so it's going to be raining a lot more. Nothing really exciting happened this last week, but this week is going to be crazy. We are going to be doing two exchanges. One with someone in our district and then another one the next day with our zone leaders. I've never really liked exchanges, but I guess they are good learning experiences. I hope that Dad gets better soon, and I hope that you enjoy being out of school. I love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
11 Months Out!
5-26-14
This week has been pretty good. We just had transfer calls Saturday and I will be staying here with Elder Lawless. Yay! I'm glad. That way I don't have to have my birthday in a brand new area. This last week has been pretty exhausting because we went on 3 splits and we had a lot of lessons, which was great! There was also a baptism this weekend that the sisters in the ward had and we helped out with that. We also got to be in the confirmation circle on Sunday. We had two investigators show up to church and it was a little strange at first. They had all of the seminary students that were graduating speak and they were suppose to each give 3 minute talks, but they were all about 4 seconds long. The last person that spoke, though was great. He is about to put in his papers for a mission and he did a really good job. He talked about his seminary experience and bore his testimony of his favorite scripture Helaman 5:12. I was kind of scared that bishop was going to have Elder Lawless and I fill in the last 15 minutes of the meeting, but he had the seminary teacher do it and he talked about how we are able to receive personal revelation. It was really good.
For the past week, we have been eating some pretty boring food because we ran through our funds this month pretty quickly. Luckily a member gave us a big box of food yesterday, so that should last us till the beginning of this next month.
Also, lately we have had the opportunity to give members and others blessings a lot. Almost on a daily basis. The oil vial that you guys gave me was starting to leak because the rubber seal was breaking. A member gave me one of his, so that was nice. A lot of great things have been happening.
Something else that happened that was funny and kind of stunk at the same time is that while we were in our apartment last night, we were throwing around a frisbee and trying a bunch of trick throws and Elder Lawless threw the frisbee into one of the light fixtures and shattered it all over the place. It was pretty funny, but now we have to go replace it. Haha.
I can believe that I have been out that long, but it feels weird. It feels like I'm just stuck in the middle, like I've been out for a while and I still have a long time left, but it also feels like it's not that much longer. It's weird. I'm sure that it will start flying by once I pass my year mark.
I love this area and I love the things that I am learning.
I hope that you have a good week and I'll talk to you later. Love you, bye!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
This week has been pretty good. We just had transfer calls Saturday and I will be staying here with Elder Lawless. Yay! I'm glad. That way I don't have to have my birthday in a brand new area. This last week has been pretty exhausting because we went on 3 splits and we had a lot of lessons, which was great! There was also a baptism this weekend that the sisters in the ward had and we helped out with that. We also got to be in the confirmation circle on Sunday. We had two investigators show up to church and it was a little strange at first. They had all of the seminary students that were graduating speak and they were suppose to each give 3 minute talks, but they were all about 4 seconds long. The last person that spoke, though was great. He is about to put in his papers for a mission and he did a really good job. He talked about his seminary experience and bore his testimony of his favorite scripture Helaman 5:12. I was kind of scared that bishop was going to have Elder Lawless and I fill in the last 15 minutes of the meeting, but he had the seminary teacher do it and he talked about how we are able to receive personal revelation. It was really good.
For the past week, we have been eating some pretty boring food because we ran through our funds this month pretty quickly. Luckily a member gave us a big box of food yesterday, so that should last us till the beginning of this next month.
Also, lately we have had the opportunity to give members and others blessings a lot. Almost on a daily basis. The oil vial that you guys gave me was starting to leak because the rubber seal was breaking. A member gave me one of his, so that was nice. A lot of great things have been happening.
Something else that happened that was funny and kind of stunk at the same time is that while we were in our apartment last night, we were throwing around a frisbee and trying a bunch of trick throws and Elder Lawless threw the frisbee into one of the light fixtures and shattered it all over the place. It was pretty funny, but now we have to go replace it. Haha.
I can believe that I have been out that long, but it feels weird. It feels like I'm just stuck in the middle, like I've been out for a while and I still have a long time left, but it also feels like it's not that much longer. It's weird. I'm sure that it will start flying by once I pass my year mark.
I love this area and I love the things that I am learning.
I hope that you have a good week and I'll talk to you later. Love you, bye!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Wise Words from Elder Whaley
5-19-14
Wow! It definitely sounds like you all have been getting hit pretty heavily with a lot of things. I think that the best thing to do is just keep doing what you know you should. Keep reading, praying, going to church and the temple, and fasting. All of those things are what help cultivate your faith and having faith in God includes having faith in His timing. Dad has been able to pull through all of these things in the past and he will continue to make it. Something that has been hard, but helpful for me, is focusing on what you can control. It's extremely easy to get frustrated or stressed over things that we have no influence over, but we shouldn't let that affect our mood or emotions. Just focus on what is in your influence to control.
This week we had a great amount of work that we were able to do and yesterday was especially awesome! Even though we have been having a lot of lessons for the past 6 weeks or so, we have hardly ever had anyone of them show up to church. Yesterday though, there were two entire less active families that showed up as well as 2 of our investigators and they all loved the Sacrament meeting. All of the talks were powerful and centered on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yesterday, was probably the best Sunday that I have had on my mission. I honestly didn't expect for that many people to show up, because not that many ever had before. As a missionary, I think that I can kind of relate to how you feel, just in a different sense. To me, sometimes I just feel frustrated that we are doing all of this work, but nothing ever seems to be happening. We are doing all we can on our part, but for some reason things just fall through or don't happen the way you want them to. All you can do is keep trying and focus your efforts and your thoughts on what you can control and leave the rest to Heavenly Father.
I hope that this week turns out a lot better for you all and that Dad starts to get better. i love you and I'm praying for you all!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Wow! It definitely sounds like you all have been getting hit pretty heavily with a lot of things. I think that the best thing to do is just keep doing what you know you should. Keep reading, praying, going to church and the temple, and fasting. All of those things are what help cultivate your faith and having faith in God includes having faith in His timing. Dad has been able to pull through all of these things in the past and he will continue to make it. Something that has been hard, but helpful for me, is focusing on what you can control. It's extremely easy to get frustrated or stressed over things that we have no influence over, but we shouldn't let that affect our mood or emotions. Just focus on what is in your influence to control.
This week we had a great amount of work that we were able to do and yesterday was especially awesome! Even though we have been having a lot of lessons for the past 6 weeks or so, we have hardly ever had anyone of them show up to church. Yesterday though, there were two entire less active families that showed up as well as 2 of our investigators and they all loved the Sacrament meeting. All of the talks were powerful and centered on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yesterday, was probably the best Sunday that I have had on my mission. I honestly didn't expect for that many people to show up, because not that many ever had before. As a missionary, I think that I can kind of relate to how you feel, just in a different sense. To me, sometimes I just feel frustrated that we are doing all of this work, but nothing ever seems to be happening. We are doing all we can on our part, but for some reason things just fall through or don't happen the way you want them to. All you can do is keep trying and focus your efforts and your thoughts on what you can control and leave the rest to Heavenly Father.
I hope that this week turns out a lot better for you all and that Dad starts to get better. i love you and I'm praying for you all!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, May 18, 2014
The Power of Faith
5-5-14
That picture you saw of me was Elder Lawless and I roleplaying a street contacting scenario at our Zone Development Day. We haven't had any flooding down here yet, it hasn't rained enough. The rainy season is coming soon, though.
That's awesome that you and Dad got to go to the temple. I think that that is pretty significant that you came across that scripture in the temple! That also leads into a really cool experience that I had yesterday. We stopped by a less active member's home to visit him and his family, and when we got there, the dad wasn't feeling too well. He had a terrible headache and he was light-headed and just pale and woozy. We visited with him for a few minutes and as we talked with him, he was just getting more and more sick. He asked us if we could give him a blessing right then, and we did. Literally, 5 minutes after we gave him the blessing, he was almost perfectly fine. All he had was a little headache left. It was so cool! It was simple, but clear that it was a blessing from Heavenly Father because of his faith. He told us that he has had multiple occasions where he has been deathly sick, and has received a blessing, and then within a day or two, he is perfectly fine. It was just really cool to see a blessing work that fast. I wasn't really expecting him to get better while we were there, but he did.
Noooo!!!! The Chalmer's can't move! I'm going to miss them so much! Do you know where they are planning on going after he is done with school? You should send me their mailing address so that I can write them.
I will write down some questions and things to talk about on Mother's Day. We are going to be face timing you with our iPads, so tell me what the number or username is that I need to now to call you. I think that we might plan for 7 o'clock our time-so 5 o'clock your time. Let me know if that will work as soon as possible, because I can't reply after 6 o'clock tonight because that's when our p-day ends. Have a great week! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
That picture you saw of me was Elder Lawless and I roleplaying a street contacting scenario at our Zone Development Day. We haven't had any flooding down here yet, it hasn't rained enough. The rainy season is coming soon, though.
That's awesome that you and Dad got to go to the temple. I think that that is pretty significant that you came across that scripture in the temple! That also leads into a really cool experience that I had yesterday. We stopped by a less active member's home to visit him and his family, and when we got there, the dad wasn't feeling too well. He had a terrible headache and he was light-headed and just pale and woozy. We visited with him for a few minutes and as we talked with him, he was just getting more and more sick. He asked us if we could give him a blessing right then, and we did. Literally, 5 minutes after we gave him the blessing, he was almost perfectly fine. All he had was a little headache left. It was so cool! It was simple, but clear that it was a blessing from Heavenly Father because of his faith. He told us that he has had multiple occasions where he has been deathly sick, and has received a blessing, and then within a day or two, he is perfectly fine. It was just really cool to see a blessing work that fast. I wasn't really expecting him to get better while we were there, but he did.
Noooo!!!! The Chalmer's can't move! I'm going to miss them so much! Do you know where they are planning on going after he is done with school? You should send me their mailing address so that I can write them.
I will write down some questions and things to talk about on Mother's Day. We are going to be face timing you with our iPads, so tell me what the number or username is that I need to now to call you. I think that we might plan for 7 o'clock our time-so 5 o'clock your time. Let me know if that will work as soon as possible, because I can't reply after 6 o'clock tonight because that's when our p-day ends. Have a great week! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Ten Months and counting!
4-28-14
That's great that you're going to have the sister missionaries over for dinner this week. We haven't had too many member dinners, but we are beginning to. Something that we are doing with everyone we meet is leaving the "Savior's Peace and Blessing". It is a prayer that we leave in the home by the authority of the priesthood and we pray specifically for all of those in the family. We also pray for the Spirit to be with them in their home and that they may be able to recognize missionary opportunities as they come. I love doing them because they are simple, but powerful if the setting is right.
Mom, that's great that you are studying in the Doctrine and Covenants. Something that is great to do is to study something really short and really learn about it, so that it can be embedded in your mind and your testimony, rather than reading a whole lot, learning a whole little, and not being able to recall any of it a day or two later. Going back to the basics of study and prayer is what we tell everyone we teach to do. If you are having a hard time getting much out of your reading, pray, and if necessary, fast to be more sensitive to the things that the Lord want you to learn from what you read. I have days where I will read and get almost nothing from my studies, and other days where I'm mad that studies aren't longer because I just want to keep going on what I'm learning all day. I think the time that I am the most focused and worry free is during studies. I'm so grateful for it, and I really wish that I would have used a lot more time back at home doing it. But, try and see what works for you and let me know how this week goes.
This week has been hot and exhausting, but we were still able to get a lot of teaching done. This week just seemed to float by. It was quick, had a lot of work, but nothing really crazy. Today, though, we are having a Zone training that will last the entire afternoon and night. It's going to start at 2:00 p.m. and go until about 9:00 p.m. We will have about an hour of training and the rest will be eating food, and playing games. I think it will be really fun. This is the first time that our mission president is having us do this.
Everything is going great here. Some days are slower and some faster, but it's all good. I hope that everything is well at home and that this is a great week for you. Love You!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
That's great that you're going to have the sister missionaries over for dinner this week. We haven't had too many member dinners, but we are beginning to. Something that we are doing with everyone we meet is leaving the "Savior's Peace and Blessing". It is a prayer that we leave in the home by the authority of the priesthood and we pray specifically for all of those in the family. We also pray for the Spirit to be with them in their home and that they may be able to recognize missionary opportunities as they come. I love doing them because they are simple, but powerful if the setting is right.
Mom, that's great that you are studying in the Doctrine and Covenants. Something that is great to do is to study something really short and really learn about it, so that it can be embedded in your mind and your testimony, rather than reading a whole lot, learning a whole little, and not being able to recall any of it a day or two later. Going back to the basics of study and prayer is what we tell everyone we teach to do. If you are having a hard time getting much out of your reading, pray, and if necessary, fast to be more sensitive to the things that the Lord want you to learn from what you read. I have days where I will read and get almost nothing from my studies, and other days where I'm mad that studies aren't longer because I just want to keep going on what I'm learning all day. I think the time that I am the most focused and worry free is during studies. I'm so grateful for it, and I really wish that I would have used a lot more time back at home doing it. But, try and see what works for you and let me know how this week goes.
This week has been hot and exhausting, but we were still able to get a lot of teaching done. This week just seemed to float by. It was quick, had a lot of work, but nothing really crazy. Today, though, we are having a Zone training that will last the entire afternoon and night. It's going to start at 2:00 p.m. and go until about 9:00 p.m. We will have about an hour of training and the rest will be eating food, and playing games. I think it will be really fun. This is the first time that our mission president is having us do this.
Everything is going great here. Some days are slower and some faster, but it's all good. I hope that everything is well at home and that this is a great week for you. Love You!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Easter fun!
4-21-14
I got the Easter package-thank you so much for that!! We ate through the candy pretty quick and I really enjoyed those "Last Days of Christ" papers. Those were neat! It was a fun Easter Sunday out here! The message that we shared with people this week was the church's Easter video that they put out, "Because of Him". You have probably seen it multiple times because it is all over the church's websites and they even bought out the youtube banner so that it would be on the home page and a lot more people could watch it. It was awesome to just talk about the Savior and His atonement this entire week and study it a little more thoroughly. This Easter Sunday was great, too. Everyone was super happy and nice at church. We had a few investigators show up, and they really enjoyed it. We went to a member's home for lunch and dinner, and at our dinner appointment, they had a 3 year old son, and we helped them set up an Easter egg hunt for him. When they let him start hunting for the eggs, he was screaming the entire time, especially whenever he would find an egg. He is such a hyper kid. I wish I would have caught it on my camera. He just screams when he gets excited. It was so funny. That was the highlight for the week. It sounds like you all had a nice Easter, even though the week was a little rough.
Dad, I have heard of that "Everyday Missionaries" book a lot. Everyone says that it is really good, but I don't think a lot of the members know about it here. Tonight we are going to be going to our ward mission leader's home with another family for family home evening, and we are doing a short lesson on how they can do member missionary work. We are going to talk a lot about Elder Ballard's talk in this last conference and how they can use Preach My Gospel to learn how to become member-missionaries. Hopefully, it all goes well. That is awesome that you are studying up on how you can invite others to hear the Gospel. I still feel apprehensive about approaching someone to learn about the gospel, but once you get past the first few seconds, it's easy because either they just say no and walk away, or they say sure and you just start going into your message. The key is to just grab their attention really quick and to ask them some question that really gets them thinking, in which you can provide a few quick answers.
Let me know if my letter ever got to you because I think that after I sent it off, I might have messed up the address, so it may not have gotten to you. I'm sorry if it didn't! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
I got the Easter package-thank you so much for that!! We ate through the candy pretty quick and I really enjoyed those "Last Days of Christ" papers. Those were neat! It was a fun Easter Sunday out here! The message that we shared with people this week was the church's Easter video that they put out, "Because of Him". You have probably seen it multiple times because it is all over the church's websites and they even bought out the youtube banner so that it would be on the home page and a lot more people could watch it. It was awesome to just talk about the Savior and His atonement this entire week and study it a little more thoroughly. This Easter Sunday was great, too. Everyone was super happy and nice at church. We had a few investigators show up, and they really enjoyed it. We went to a member's home for lunch and dinner, and at our dinner appointment, they had a 3 year old son, and we helped them set up an Easter egg hunt for him. When they let him start hunting for the eggs, he was screaming the entire time, especially whenever he would find an egg. He is such a hyper kid. I wish I would have caught it on my camera. He just screams when he gets excited. It was so funny. That was the highlight for the week. It sounds like you all had a nice Easter, even though the week was a little rough.
Dad, I have heard of that "Everyday Missionaries" book a lot. Everyone says that it is really good, but I don't think a lot of the members know about it here. Tonight we are going to be going to our ward mission leader's home with another family for family home evening, and we are doing a short lesson on how they can do member missionary work. We are going to talk a lot about Elder Ballard's talk in this last conference and how they can use Preach My Gospel to learn how to become member-missionaries. Hopefully, it all goes well. That is awesome that you are studying up on how you can invite others to hear the Gospel. I still feel apprehensive about approaching someone to learn about the gospel, but once you get past the first few seconds, it's easy because either they just say no and walk away, or they say sure and you just start going into your message. The key is to just grab their attention really quick and to ask them some question that really gets them thinking, in which you can provide a few quick answers.
Let me know if my letter ever got to you because I think that after I sent it off, I might have messed up the address, so it may not have gotten to you. I'm sorry if it didn't! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)