29 November 2010

Thanks for all the letters. It sounds like everyone is doing well. This spacebar is wacked. Bear with me. [The spacing is now edited correctly, but it was odd.]

I’m glad Thanksgiving went well. My Thanksgiving was a regular day. We did order pizza at the end of the day to celebrate. It was okay.

Thanks for the brownie recipe Mom. The first time I burnt the bottom; the second time it worked perfectly. The biggest difference is the oven I have does in 50 minutes what the regular oven should do in 25. My companion was a fan of them. And the good part was the ingredients for the brownies are ingredients we often have in our house.

So the other day I bought toothpaste. I bought discount toothpaste to save money. Don’t ever make that mistake. Maybe it’s okay at Walmart, but in Uruguay, don’t do it. It was half the price of Colgate and double the size. Oh well.

That reminds me, how is the family newsletter doing?

So this Thursday, we have our zone leader council in Montevideo. All the zone leaders go and the assistants and President and his wife, but this time it will be even more special because the area president, Elder Arnold, will be there. I’m excited.

But I’m doing very well. Thanks for everything. I love you all.

Elder Whitaker

23 November 2010

Thanks for the pictures of Steven’s eagle project. What does it mean when I don’t recognize anyone in the pictures? I guess I’m getting old. I was planning on sending you some pictures but the USB port is too skinny to let my USB enter. Next time I’ll bring the little cable that eliminates that problem.

Yesterday we went to Montevideo for a leadership training meeting. That was way cool. I learned a lot. From our zone we brought 6 of our 12 missionaries – 2 zone leaders, 2 district leaders, and 2 future leaders. The meeting was composed of groups like this from every zone from half the mission. They had to do this meeting twice. It was cool. The spirit was really strong and we focused on having a hunger to baptize. When the whole mission gets that hunger, the Lord will be able to provide to feed the hunger. This hunger also pushes everyone to live the way you have to to deserve the blessings of baptizing someone.

Another thing I’m trying to do is focus on investigators in my studies. It is selfish to study something I want to study. It shows charity if I study for others. And there are promises made by leaders that if you study for others you’ll learn more than you could studying for yourself. I saw that this week. I wanted to study baptism, our first covenant, from Preach My Gospel, to help an investigator. It was incredible. This section has like 7 paragraphs. In the first 3 it mentions baptism 1 time. Why? To understand baptism you have to know what an ordinance is and a covenant. Duh. Why didn’t I ever notice that? The last 4 paragraphs mention baptism like 17 times, and then ties it all into the sacrament. It was incredible.

Thanks for letting me know your areas in the mission, Dad. It impressed my companion that you were all over the country. Elder Llamín is from the part of Santiago called Florida. Ironic enough, right? I’m from Florida and we’re serving in Floridá.

I read something about Christmas gifts. It sounds good. We’ll see if I can do something about getting a Christmas gift to someone. I needed to be on that yesterday. On another Christmas note, who will be home for Christmas? Who will get the great gift of talking to me?

I think that’s it. I’m doing really well. I’m happy and excited to work and serve. Yesterday we learned about the secrets of missionary work – work and obey - secrets that aren’t secrets that Brad shared with me a long time ago.

I love you lots. Thanks for the emails.

Elder Whitaker

15 November 2010

Today is transfer day. My companion, Elder Vargas, is going home and my new companion is Elder Llamin, accented i. He’s from Chile. I’m excited. He’s relatively young in the mission and for a zone leader young too. He almost has 9 months. I’m really excited to work with him. And, Dad, it would be cool if you could send me a list of all the areas where you served in Chile. That would be cool because there are a lot of Chilenos and my branch’s branch president served in Chile.

We went to the temple this week. That was awesome. It was tough, though. Because I can’t go frequently, I tried to focus on too many things. It’s hard to focus on keeping covenants when you can’t remember them all. But I’m a lot better now. I learned a lot.

We had a baptism last week. Jennifer got baptized. She’s married to a member that recently re-activated himself. It’s really cool to see the way the gospel changed this family.

Thanks for the brownie recipe, Mom. Now I have to go about getting myself a pan. We used to not have an oven, so there would be no need for oven-safe dishes.

And, Dad, I know how you feel. I’m a little overwhelmed also. It wasn’t that hard being a zone leader when my companion had been a zone leader for like 10 months. Now I have to train a zone leader. I’m also the oldest missionary in my zone. Lucky for me my zone is the smallest zone there is, or at least tied for smallest. There are six companionships.

Thanks for everything. I love you all lots. Thanks for the prayers and emails.

Love, Elder Whitaker

8 November 2010

Wow. It seems like everyone is doing well. Thanks for praying that we could find new investigators. We really saw miracles in our area. We wanted two per day, but we set another goal to get 20 “news” in the week. The PMG (Preach My Gospel) definition of a “new” is to teach a lesson and have a return appointment. We got our 20 new on Sunday at 7 PM, just in time. We also saw a great miracle in two new investigators, an unmarried couple, Domingo and Mariana. We found them on Friday, visited them Saturday and invited them to be baptized. On Sunday we stopped by their house and they went to church. It was a huge miracle. If we can find one family like this, why can’t we find ten families like this in a week? I learn that we set our own limits and our attitude has a lot to do with everything.

I saw another miracle in my old area. They had two baptisms this week, a couple got married and baptized. And my old area has four more this week. I really can’t believe the blessings this branch is receiving. I don’t know how or why it’s happening. Weird, eh?

This is my companion’s last full week as a full-time missionary. He’s a great example to me because looking from the outside in you’d never guess that he was almost done. He is working until the end, and he’s teaching me a lot.

We’re going to the temple on Wednesday. I’m super excited about that.

I think that’s it for now. Oh yeah, we’re going to have a baptism this week. Jennifer is getting baptized. I’ll tell you how that goes next week.

Love, Elder Whitaker

1 November 2010

I’m glad it seems like everyone is doing fine. I hope Halloween went well. Cody asked if I had an orange tie. Nope. Halloween is interesting here. At like 3 PM we started seeing kids go out, only a few went out with parents. The costumes consist of masks and witches, little creativity. It was hard to knock doors, though, because the kids were stealing our targets.

Mom said something about Steven’s eagle project and having good examples. It struck me because in my talk yesterday, I spoke a bit about examples. A ward member got his mission call this week and went to the pulpit and spoke a bit. He said he had to be an example to his younger siblings. Then I spoke about the power of older brothers. I am where I am because of that power. Many people don’t fully understand that power. Then I spoke about my older brother Jesus Christ. It was really powerful to me. Then I spoke about the priesthood and how exercising the priesthood in my life has helped me in specific experiences. I chose that topic because our recent covert and an investigator’s husband need to be getting the priesthood shortly. I was happy with how it went because I didn’t have much time to plan either. Saturday I get the message, “And oh yeah, you have to give a talk,” but I didn’t know if it was a joke or an assignment. I remembered Sunday morning, pondered a bit in preparation, and after the sacrament my branch president announced my talk. Fun.

The miracle of this week is being able to be a zone leader over my old area and see the heavens open and change that entire area. Before I got to that branch they had two baptisms in the year. When I left they had three. One month later they have seven, and their goal for this next month is five. Three people got baptized last Saturday. One was a reference I got. Another was a contact on a P-day. The other was a street contact. I can’t believe the miracles. It was sad not being at the baptism, but at least I have the photos.

If you could pray for something specifically for me, those prayers would help us a lot. Our goal this week as a zone is to find two new investigators every day. We’re looking for the people that are prepared to be baptized now.

Thanks for everything. I love you lots. Have fun working, Dad.

Elder Whitaker