10-6-14
I loved General Conference! It's seriously better than Christmas to me out here! Taking two whole days to just sit and hear the leaders of the church give us council through revelation and then to teach in between the sessions is awesome. I love it! We haven't watched Meet the Mormons yet, but we are watching it tomorrow. I'm excited for it! You had asked me how many times we pray in a day. I would say that it is around 50 or so times a day. We pray for EVERYTHING!!!! Before we even get out the door in the morning, we have already prayed about 6 times. I'll have to count it one of these days and really see how many times we do pray.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, October 12, 2014
The Work is Hastening!
9-29-14
These past seven days have been busy, and different. Last Tuesday we had interviews with our Mission President up in Sarasota where we received a lot of new instruction from him, as well as the Assistants. They have been talking a lot about having a vision for the areas that we serve in, and what it is that we are really trying to shoot for as missionaries. They had us come up with a number that we prayed about for baptisms that we would have before the end of 2014. As a companionship, we determined that we could reach 4 baptisms by the end of the year. So, in order to reach our vision, they gave us areas of improvement that the mission will be focusing on as a whole. The first thing that we are no longer doing is shaking hands at the door on Sundays. Instead, we are going around and inviting every member to do missionary work that comes in our path. We are not suppose to talk to a member without leaving them some sort of commitment. The second thing is that we are no longer teaching anyone who is not progressing. We had to drop all of our investigators and less active members who were not keeping commitments so that we can focus the Lord's time on finding the "elect".
These changes have made it pretty difficult to stay busy teaching, but now we have a lot more time to be finding those who are truly prepared to hear the message of the Gospel. The first question that we are asking people on the street is if they have been baptized. This way we are getting straight to the point and we are stating our purpose from the beginning. We have already seen a lot of great blessings come from these changes. The Lord's work is truly Hastening!
The other great thing that happened this last weekend was a baptism that we had for one of our investigators, K. Smith. His wife has been a member for over two years, and now her husband has joined as a member of the church. K. already seemed like a solid member from when we first met him. He always comes out with us on splits and is always looking to serve others. He is a great example of what a member should be.
For the service itself, our Ward Mission Leader baptized him and Elder Swallow and I got to do the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. I usually don't enjoy giving talks, but I actually loved giving this one! The Spirit was strong during the service, and everything worked out great. Hopefully, we will be having more people brought into the fold of God here soon!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Here's a little big of information from Elder Whaley's companion:
On Tuesday we had the coolest experience ever! We went to our church building for wifi to send an email to our mission president and all of a sudden we hear someone knocking on a door. We open the door and this lady asks us for a Book of Mormon. Both of us are caught off guard....because no one likes to give us the time of day for the most part and now we have a random lady show up and ask for a BOM. So, we give her the BOM and she tries to give us $50 for it. We declined the money. She was completely shocked at turning down the money and started to ask more questions about our elision. We come to find out that she heard about the BOM through someone and has been looking for it for a super long time visiting several book stores. She told us that she just felt that she needs to read it. So, we were more than happy to explain to her about the BOM and what we believe in. She just kept asking questions. After an hour of talking to her about religion, we asked her for her phone number to contact her and she refused to give it to us. We gave her ours and she said she would cll us...so we'll see what happens. But, at least we planted a seed!
These past seven days have been busy, and different. Last Tuesday we had interviews with our Mission President up in Sarasota where we received a lot of new instruction from him, as well as the Assistants. They have been talking a lot about having a vision for the areas that we serve in, and what it is that we are really trying to shoot for as missionaries. They had us come up with a number that we prayed about for baptisms that we would have before the end of 2014. As a companionship, we determined that we could reach 4 baptisms by the end of the year. So, in order to reach our vision, they gave us areas of improvement that the mission will be focusing on as a whole. The first thing that we are no longer doing is shaking hands at the door on Sundays. Instead, we are going around and inviting every member to do missionary work that comes in our path. We are not suppose to talk to a member without leaving them some sort of commitment. The second thing is that we are no longer teaching anyone who is not progressing. We had to drop all of our investigators and less active members who were not keeping commitments so that we can focus the Lord's time on finding the "elect".
These changes have made it pretty difficult to stay busy teaching, but now we have a lot more time to be finding those who are truly prepared to hear the message of the Gospel. The first question that we are asking people on the street is if they have been baptized. This way we are getting straight to the point and we are stating our purpose from the beginning. We have already seen a lot of great blessings come from these changes. The Lord's work is truly Hastening!
The other great thing that happened this last weekend was a baptism that we had for one of our investigators, K. Smith. His wife has been a member for over two years, and now her husband has joined as a member of the church. K. already seemed like a solid member from when we first met him. He always comes out with us on splits and is always looking to serve others. He is a great example of what a member should be.
For the service itself, our Ward Mission Leader baptized him and Elder Swallow and I got to do the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost. I usually don't enjoy giving talks, but I actually loved giving this one! The Spirit was strong during the service, and everything worked out great. Hopefully, we will be having more people brought into the fold of God here soon!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Here's a little big of information from Elder Whaley's companion:
On Tuesday we had the coolest experience ever! We went to our church building for wifi to send an email to our mission president and all of a sudden we hear someone knocking on a door. We open the door and this lady asks us for a Book of Mormon. Both of us are caught off guard....because no one likes to give us the time of day for the most part and now we have a random lady show up and ask for a BOM. So, we give her the BOM and she tries to give us $50 for it. We declined the money. She was completely shocked at turning down the money and started to ask more questions about our elision. We come to find out that she heard about the BOM through someone and has been looking for it for a super long time visiting several book stores. She told us that she just felt that she needs to read it. So, we were more than happy to explain to her about the BOM and what we believe in. She just kept asking questions. After an hour of talking to her about religion, we asked her for her phone number to contact her and she refused to give it to us. We gave her ours and she said she would cll us...so we'll see what happens. But, at least we planted a seed!
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Short Update
9-22-14
It sounds like a lot of great things are happening back home. That's awesome to hear that Vanessa was in the homecoming royalty. This week we saw a lot of great blessing and were able to get a lot of work done. I'm glad to hear that Dad is doing better, and hopefully, Sundays start going well for him. Sorry I have not been replying personally to your letters, but I have been just trying to write a nice, long letter to everyone that includes everything that happened in the past week. So far, it has saved me on time. The only downside is that I don't get any replies from anyone besides you. Haha. Elder Swallow is doing well and he definitely has a lot of support form friends and family. He has gotten about 1 to 2 packages a week so far with candy and whatever other goodies are in it. It's been nice because he doesn't eat a lot, so he splits it with me. I hope that you have a great week and I will talk to you soon.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
It sounds like a lot of great things are happening back home. That's awesome to hear that Vanessa was in the homecoming royalty. This week we saw a lot of great blessing and were able to get a lot of work done. I'm glad to hear that Dad is doing better, and hopefully, Sundays start going well for him. Sorry I have not been replying personally to your letters, but I have been just trying to write a nice, long letter to everyone that includes everything that happened in the past week. So far, it has saved me on time. The only downside is that I don't get any replies from anyone besides you. Haha. Elder Swallow is doing well and he definitely has a lot of support form friends and family. He has gotten about 1 to 2 packages a week so far with candy and whatever other goodies are in it. It's been nice because he doesn't eat a lot, so he splits it with me. I hope that you have a great week and I will talk to you soon.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Loving Training and Miracles!
9-15-14
We had a pretty great week full of fun and interesting things. This last Monday we went up to the Sarasota area for a big Zone Development day where we played some games and sports and had some training to finish it off. On Tuesday, Elder Christensen went on exchanges with me in our area to work for the day. We didn't have any appointments planned, but we ended up getting six lessons and a new investigator.
The sisters in our ward had a baptism this week for a Phillipino lady that they have been teaching and they asked if I would give the talk on baptism. The program went well and when it came time for the baptism, they called Elder Swallow and I up to be the witnesses for it. As soon as she came up out of the water, she started chanting something in Phillipino, and it sounded like she was trying to speak in tongues, so we hurried and closed the curtains. I kind of expected that she would do that, but I guess that it was probably because of her previous religious background. Haha. She was confirmed on Sunday and we were invited to stand in on the confirmation.
That same day, during third hour, Hunter Mooney received the Aaronic priesthood and was ordained to the office of Priest. He had Elder Swallow do the ordination. Hunter is doing an amazing job at taking initiative to get himself to church and being active. Now his goal is to get to the temple to do baptisms.
The last big miracle that happened this weekend was back on Saturday after the baptism. We met with one of our investigators, Kevin, and talked to him about his upcoming baptism. He has been progressing so well and keeping every commitment that we leave him with. His original date was set for October 4th, but because he want to make sure that I am here for his baptism, he asked if we could move it up a week sooner to the 27th of this month. We didn't have any problems with it, so that is what we did. Now he will be getting baptized in two more weeks. I'm so excited for him!
Training is going great and I am really coming to love it! It has helped me grow a lot in regards to missionary work, and especially in my personal life and testimony of the Gospel. I love the work, and I love the Lord! I hope that you have a great week and I will hear from you soon!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
We had a pretty great week full of fun and interesting things. This last Monday we went up to the Sarasota area for a big Zone Development day where we played some games and sports and had some training to finish it off. On Tuesday, Elder Christensen went on exchanges with me in our area to work for the day. We didn't have any appointments planned, but we ended up getting six lessons and a new investigator.
The sisters in our ward had a baptism this week for a Phillipino lady that they have been teaching and they asked if I would give the talk on baptism. The program went well and when it came time for the baptism, they called Elder Swallow and I up to be the witnesses for it. As soon as she came up out of the water, she started chanting something in Phillipino, and it sounded like she was trying to speak in tongues, so we hurried and closed the curtains. I kind of expected that she would do that, but I guess that it was probably because of her previous religious background. Haha. She was confirmed on Sunday and we were invited to stand in on the confirmation.
That same day, during third hour, Hunter Mooney received the Aaronic priesthood and was ordained to the office of Priest. He had Elder Swallow do the ordination. Hunter is doing an amazing job at taking initiative to get himself to church and being active. Now his goal is to get to the temple to do baptisms.
The last big miracle that happened this weekend was back on Saturday after the baptism. We met with one of our investigators, Kevin, and talked to him about his upcoming baptism. He has been progressing so well and keeping every commitment that we leave him with. His original date was set for October 4th, but because he want to make sure that I am here for his baptism, he asked if we could move it up a week sooner to the 27th of this month. We didn't have any problems with it, so that is what we did. Now he will be getting baptized in two more weeks. I'm so excited for him!
Training is going great and I am really coming to love it! It has helped me grow a lot in regards to missionary work, and especially in my personal life and testimony of the Gospel. I love the work, and I love the Lord! I hope that you have a great week and I will hear from you soon!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
Metro Training
9-8-14
So, this last week was pretty steady for the most part, except for Monday and Tuesday. On Monday evening, we drove up to central Tampa for our Metro training experience. It is something that they do for all of the trainers and trainees to have some experience street contacting. We worked up there for part of Monday and all of Tuesday. We didn't get much done Monday because we had to take shelter at a nearby Presbyterian church for about 2 hours during a severe thunderstorm. After the storm stopped, there was about five or so fire trucks that drove past us to a site where lightning struck and caused some major damage very close to us. Tuesday felt extremely long because we were out from 10a.m.-9p.m. talking to people all day long. We got to go into the downtown area and see all of the massive buildings they have. It was pretty easy to pass out cards to people who were passing by us, but difficult to stop them and talk to them for even a minute or two. Everyone had somewhere to go and something to do it seemed like. It got pretty hot during the early to mid-afternoon, so we planned our route to what the next place could be where we could stop for water. Throughout our day, we met a lot of interesting individuals. Not too many who were interested about the Gospel, but did know a thing or two about the church. Something that was also going on there was the "Book of Mormon" play. So, whenever we would tell anyone who we were, they would just start talking to us about the play. It doesn't sound like a very accurate portrayal of the church or the Book. Oh well. Overall, it was a pretty fun experience. I feel bad for all of my friends who are in missions where all they do is walk all day, everyday. Haha. I'm sure they are us to it, though. I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you later.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
I heard from Elder Swallow's mom. Here's what she said:
Elder Swallow (Logan) loves Austin! He says Austin is a great trainer and he learns new things everyday from him. He really respects him. He also said Austin is a super smart guy! Logan told us a funny story. He said they were in Tampa tracking and they were super hungry and there wasn't anywhere to eat. They looked at a GPS and saw a McDonalds, but it was two miles in the wrong direction. They were so hungry that they decided to walk to it anyway. When they got there, it was the Ronald McDonald House. Logan said he's pretty sure he cried. But, they walked back to where they came from and 2 hours later, they got food at a store. Logan said they sat down outside to eat and it started to pour down rain on them. He said it was pretty funny!
Austin is truly a blessing to Logan. We are so thankful for him being trained by such an obedient, hard working young man!
So, this last week was pretty steady for the most part, except for Monday and Tuesday. On Monday evening, we drove up to central Tampa for our Metro training experience. It is something that they do for all of the trainers and trainees to have some experience street contacting. We worked up there for part of Monday and all of Tuesday. We didn't get much done Monday because we had to take shelter at a nearby Presbyterian church for about 2 hours during a severe thunderstorm. After the storm stopped, there was about five or so fire trucks that drove past us to a site where lightning struck and caused some major damage very close to us. Tuesday felt extremely long because we were out from 10a.m.-9p.m. talking to people all day long. We got to go into the downtown area and see all of the massive buildings they have. It was pretty easy to pass out cards to people who were passing by us, but difficult to stop them and talk to them for even a minute or two. Everyone had somewhere to go and something to do it seemed like. It got pretty hot during the early to mid-afternoon, so we planned our route to what the next place could be where we could stop for water. Throughout our day, we met a lot of interesting individuals. Not too many who were interested about the Gospel, but did know a thing or two about the church. Something that was also going on there was the "Book of Mormon" play. So, whenever we would tell anyone who we were, they would just start talking to us about the play. It doesn't sound like a very accurate portrayal of the church or the Book. Oh well. Overall, it was a pretty fun experience. I feel bad for all of my friends who are in missions where all they do is walk all day, everyday. Haha. I'm sure they are us to it, though. I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you later.
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
I heard from Elder Swallow's mom. Here's what she said:
Elder Swallow (Logan) loves Austin! He says Austin is a great trainer and he learns new things everyday from him. He really respects him. He also said Austin is a super smart guy! Logan told us a funny story. He said they were in Tampa tracking and they were super hungry and there wasn't anywhere to eat. They looked at a GPS and saw a McDonalds, but it was two miles in the wrong direction. They were so hungry that they decided to walk to it anyway. When they got there, it was the Ronald McDonald House. Logan said he's pretty sure he cried. But, they walked back to where they came from and 2 hours later, they got food at a store. Logan said they sat down outside to eat and it started to pour down rain on them. He said it was pretty funny!
Austin is truly a blessing to Logan. We are so thankful for him being trained by such an obedient, hard working young man!
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Triple your Income in Life
9-1-14
That's great that you got to see the Ogden temple. This week started out slow for us and picked up pace by the end of the week. A whole lot of crazy things happened, though. This Wednesday one of our investigators passed away, and that was pretty sad. We went over to give him a blessing in the afternoon and he wasn't doing well at all. Later that evening we were notified that he had passed away. When I gave him the blessing, I didn't feel prompted to say anything about being healed, but just that he would be at peace until it was time for him to go, and I guess that it was pretty soon after that.
The next day we had a lesson with one of our other investigators and we set a tentative date for baptism on October 4th. He said that he would get baptized if he knows the church it true. He is keeping all of the commitments, so I'm sure that it won't be long until he gains a testimony that it is true. This evening we have to head up to Tampa to go do "metro training". We basically are going to spend the next two days walking around downtown Tampa talking to people so that Elder Swallow can get accustomed to street contacting. It should be hot and fun! I'll let you know how it goes next week.
Mom, you had mentioned Preach My Gospel. It has everything that we do as missionaries in it. It has the five lessons that we teach and other chapters to help us fulfill our purpose. Pretty much everything I know how to do as a missionary comes from P.M.G. I would definitely challenge you all to read a section or two every night and see how you can apply it because you all are suppose to be "missionaries" as well. Elder Clarke told us that if we want to triple our income in life, we need to become converts to chapter 8 of P.M.G.
Things are going well for us out here and we are staying busy and working hard. I hope that you all have a great week! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
*A side note: We had the wonderful opportunity to meet Elder Swallow's family while we were in Utah. They are an amazing family and we loved our visit with them. I think our sons will do well together and it was so fun to get to know more about Elder Swallow. We found out that he is 5'6", so almost a foot shorter. They also have a son serving in Germany right now. We had a lot in common with them and look forward to keeping in touch with them!
That's great that you got to see the Ogden temple. This week started out slow for us and picked up pace by the end of the week. A whole lot of crazy things happened, though. This Wednesday one of our investigators passed away, and that was pretty sad. We went over to give him a blessing in the afternoon and he wasn't doing well at all. Later that evening we were notified that he had passed away. When I gave him the blessing, I didn't feel prompted to say anything about being healed, but just that he would be at peace until it was time for him to go, and I guess that it was pretty soon after that.
The next day we had a lesson with one of our other investigators and we set a tentative date for baptism on October 4th. He said that he would get baptized if he knows the church it true. He is keeping all of the commitments, so I'm sure that it won't be long until he gains a testimony that it is true. This evening we have to head up to Tampa to go do "metro training". We basically are going to spend the next two days walking around downtown Tampa talking to people so that Elder Swallow can get accustomed to street contacting. It should be hot and fun! I'll let you know how it goes next week.
Mom, you had mentioned Preach My Gospel. It has everything that we do as missionaries in it. It has the five lessons that we teach and other chapters to help us fulfill our purpose. Pretty much everything I know how to do as a missionary comes from P.M.G. I would definitely challenge you all to read a section or two every night and see how you can apply it because you all are suppose to be "missionaries" as well. Elder Clarke told us that if we want to triple our income in life, we need to become converts to chapter 8 of P.M.G.
Things are going well for us out here and we are staying busy and working hard. I hope that you all have a great week! Love ya!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
*A side note: We had the wonderful opportunity to meet Elder Swallow's family while we were in Utah. They are an amazing family and we loved our visit with them. I think our sons will do well together and it was so fun to get to know more about Elder Swallow. We found out that he is 5'6", so almost a foot shorter. They also have a son serving in Germany right now. We had a lot in common with them and look forward to keeping in touch with them!
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| The Swallow's and Whaley's |
It's a Boy!
8-25-14
My new companion is doing great! He is a humble elder and he has that greenie fire! Things are going well with training, but I have definitely been stressed out with it all. It's been a little exhausting trying to do everything, but it's getting better day by day as I involve Elder Swallow a little more and more. He is from Clinton, UT. He likes a variety of things, but something that is cool about him is that he speaks German pretty fluently. He took it all throughout high school.
Well, this week was crazy with all of the changes. Elder Lawless left Monday morning up to Tampa and got home Tuesday evening. I stayed with the Venice elders for all of Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, they dropped me off in my area where I worked all day with one of the priests in the ward, then I went back to Venice for the night. I went up to Tampa on Thursday morning and picked up Elder Swallow and came back down and worked. We still managed to get in a good number of lessons with all of the time that I was gone for the week. I have felt somewhat lost and unprepared for the past few days, but so far I have been able to manage and keep everything moving. We had a pretty cool experience with street finding this Saturday right by the church. Elder Lawless and I hadn't done it in a while, but I decided to do it so that Elder Swallow could get some practice. We parked the car and we didn't even get out of the parking lot before we stopped someone who was riding through on their bike. We talked to him and set up a church tour for this next week. About one minute later, someone honked at us and flipped a u-turn to stop and talk to us. The lady was a young women's president who told us about one of her young women that had just moved to Port Charlotte. The girl's parents are not members and she wanted us to teach her and possibly her parents. This all happened within a hundred yards of the church. A few hours later, we took the same route of travel and ran into two more people right outside of the church parking lot and set up church tours with them. It was so cool to have all of that happen right off the bat for us. I guess those are some of the blessings of training! I hope that this week will go well for both you and me! Love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
My new companion is doing great! He is a humble elder and he has that greenie fire! Things are going well with training, but I have definitely been stressed out with it all. It's been a little exhausting trying to do everything, but it's getting better day by day as I involve Elder Swallow a little more and more. He is from Clinton, UT. He likes a variety of things, but something that is cool about him is that he speaks German pretty fluently. He took it all throughout high school.
Well, this week was crazy with all of the changes. Elder Lawless left Monday morning up to Tampa and got home Tuesday evening. I stayed with the Venice elders for all of Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, they dropped me off in my area where I worked all day with one of the priests in the ward, then I went back to Venice for the night. I went up to Tampa on Thursday morning and picked up Elder Swallow and came back down and worked. We still managed to get in a good number of lessons with all of the time that I was gone for the week. I have felt somewhat lost and unprepared for the past few days, but so far I have been able to manage and keep everything moving. We had a pretty cool experience with street finding this Saturday right by the church. Elder Lawless and I hadn't done it in a while, but I decided to do it so that Elder Swallow could get some practice. We parked the car and we didn't even get out of the parking lot before we stopped someone who was riding through on their bike. We talked to him and set up a church tour for this next week. About one minute later, someone honked at us and flipped a u-turn to stop and talk to us. The lady was a young women's president who told us about one of her young women that had just moved to Port Charlotte. The girl's parents are not members and she wanted us to teach her and possibly her parents. This all happened within a hundred yards of the church. A few hours later, we took the same route of travel and ran into two more people right outside of the church parking lot and set up church tours with them. It was so cool to have all of that happen right off the bat for us. I guess those are some of the blessings of training! I hope that this week will go well for both you and me! Love you!
Love,
Elder A. Whaley
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| Elder Whaley with his son, Elder Swallow |
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| Elder Whaley and Elder Swallow |
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| Elder Whaley and Elder Swallow |
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