23 September 2009

Hey everybody,

Thanks for the emails. I'm glad you liked last week's email. I was feeling good that week. I hope I'm feeling good this week too.

David, thanks for the advice. I'll try to look my best more. And I'm sorry BYU lost. How's your tailgating going?

So my old companion goes home today. He missed seeing Brad and the parents by one week. I would have loved to send Brad a video on his camera, but such is life.

So we had a baptism last Saturday. Laura. It was awesome. Elder Calarco's last baptism in the mission. The spirit was very strong. I hope that I'll be able to go to the temple with her in 1 year. At the end of the baptism we had a musical number. Number 118 in the Spanish hymn book. Brad can tell you which one that is. Good memories practicing. I hate choir practice, but it was fun and the spirit was there as we sang. The choir was Elder Calarco, myself, and the Barreto family – dad, mom, 4 daughters and the other daughter playing the keyboard.

I got a letter from Grandma where she asked about how we get investigators to stop smoking. I only have one instance where we did that. We taught the Word of Wisdom and the next day he stopped smoking. I can't explain it any better than anyone else.

I was studying Jesus the Christ again. I have like 150 pages left still, but I learned something interesting. Jesus said 7 things while he was on the cross suffering. We can study each thing he said and learn a different lesson. I think it would be a very interesting sacrament talk to analyze those things he said and what he taught us in the last moments of his mortal life.

So my new companion is Elder Vargas from Honduras. I met him, but haven't really talked to him much. I'm excited to be able to serve with a new companion. I know that God chooses my companions and I'm excited to learn why Elder Vargas will be my companion for these next 6 weeks.

Thanks for all the letters. Thanks for the photos, Mom. Good luck adjusting to real life again, Brad. And Steven, practice counting; it'll help the calculus. When in doubt, count and pout.

All my loves, Elder Whitaker