1 February 2010

Thanks for all the emails. I love hearing from you all.

Dad and Brad had questions about being a district leader. Here are the answers. My district has 10 elders. 4 of us live in the same house, which means I only have to call 3 houses every night. The zone leaders live with me and are part of the district. My companion is just a junior companion, but I’ve learned that being the companion of a district leader means you’re a stud. I love my companion. He’s from Provo. It’s weird that Brad or Dave could visit his family in like 10 minutes if they wanted to. He lives by the temple close to that park with the huge bowl where people go sledding. Cool, eh?

So the sad news is that Raquel couldn’t go to church this week. But she’ll come next week. This week we found her 19-year-old son who plays the guitar in a Mexican mariachi band. Cool. He can also play Mario really well. Steven would be excited. It means a lot to me that you are praying for her. It will probably mean a lot to her.

And I have an amazing miracle for you all about how the Spirit speaks to us. Last night I was talking to one of the zone leaders (Elder Bulloch, who has a brother studying CM at BYU, fyi Dave) and I was telling him what I thought we needed to be working on this change. I said unity in the zone and praying specifically for others and the work in their area. They made a zone plan for the change and that was the first plan. My next idea was that we need to make plans each week and remember them. We have plans at district meeting to make us better, but we never think about the plans during the week. And my third idea was obedience because we love the Lord. Those 3 ideas were the 3 things they had already made as the plans for the zone. I don’t know if I explained myself well, but it was really interesting.

And yeah, we get along really well with the three new elders here. I’m way excited. I can tell you next week about how the Lord is answering your prayers.

And I know it’s been a while since I told you all that I know God lives. Jesus Christ is our Savior. Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration. The Book of Mormon is True. And President Monson is our prophet today.

I love you all.
Elder Whitaker