28 March 2011

This week was cool. I met my new companion, Elder Peña. He is from Santiago, Chile. He is a third generation member, the first missionary from his immediate family. He has an uncle or two that were missionaries. He is the oldest son in his family. He has three younger sisters and a younger brother. He’s really good. One of my biggest worries was that I’d have to lower my level or speed with my new companion. That won’t be a problem at all. So far we’ve been getting to know the area and the members. The other elders left some good directions and a good map to get us up to pace really quickly. [Note: he replaced Elder Thornton, and you can find his blog here.] And yeah, we did have a baptism our first Saturday. Valeria married Javier on Thursday, and Valeria got baptized by Javier on Saturday, and I got to confirm her on Sunday. We have a branch and this Sunday there were like 30 or 40 people. The other missionaries were working well and we inherited an excited branch. They trust us already and are excited to help us. My area is located in Montevideo, but it’s at the border. Our area ends where Montevideo meets Canelones, and the main highway is called Camino Maldonado. It’s on the way to Pando, a little town Grandpa opened for two weeks and then realized they didn’t have any success and got shipped out. My district leader is in Pando; maybe I’ll be able to go visit one day. I’m excited for general conference. I’m in 3 Nephi 18. I need to read about 100 pages more before Sunday. Oh, and Megan, the other day you wrote that you gave a Book of Mormon to a friend. I forgot to tell you what we do. We learned this from Elder Arnold of the Seventy. When we introduce the Book of Mormon for the first time, we read the first paragraph of the introduction and let them tell us what they got out of it. Then we read the second to last paragraph and discuss a bit, then the last paragraph. Then we invite them to be baptized and place a specific date. It would be cool to get a referral that already has a baptismal date. I don’t know if regular members can set baptismal dates; I don’t see why not though. I think that’s it for now. Thanks for the support and prayers. I love you all. Elder Whitaker

21 March 2011

Thanks for the emails. It sounds like everyone is doing well. We had a good week. We keep finding new investigators, and families at that. We broke our 0 investigators at church streak finally – 5! Heavenly Father is very generous. We changed our prayers; that helped. Instead of praying for investigators to get to church so we could have a great number we started praying that they would come so that they could be baptized and enter into the Celestial Kingdom and that investigators would help excite the ward to help us. After working like crazy, we made our list Saturday night of people that could make it to church. 19 people were on that list. 2 of those people came, and 3 more came – part member families we visited weeks earlier. Heavenly Father doesn’t need missionaries. He can do it all by himself. I didn’t even need to leave my house this week and 3 investigators would have landed in church. But I’m grateful for the opportunity that I have to grow and help those that wouldn’t have made it alone.

The other BIG news is transfers came. It was interesting being in the zone with the offices. They knew the transfers on Thursday; we found out Sunday night. It’s weird verifying each night with a district leader who really knows your future. My companion is leaving the area to be zone leader over another zone, and I’m leaving to train a new missionary. 2 new zone leaders are coming into the area. It was the last thing we saw happening, but we’re super excited. It made us wonder, though, because usually they only take two elders out at the same time if they’re doing bad things, or if they want to put in or take out sisters, but we know we were working our tails off and doing things right. The Lord knows what he’s doing. Because I’m training my comp, we will get to our area both new. That’ll be fun; it’ll be the second time I’ll get to do that. It’s a good way to learn. I’m excited. I’ll find out tomorrow who my new companion is.

It’s kind of sad that I won’t be able to continue being a zone leader. I’m going to miss that calling. I’ve learned so much. It’s interesting that as a zone leader we say the opposition is a lot stronger than before in my mission. The better you get, the harder your trials have to be so that you can keep growing. I’m thankful for the opportunity I had to serve in that capacity, but I’m excited to serve as a trainer. Instead of focusing my service and help towards 12 missionaries, I will be called to focus on helping one the whole time.

What else can I say? I’m still reading the Book of Mormon. I’m in Helaman. Helaman’s a good book. Nephi and Lehi were really good missionaries. I want to be encircled by fire, but as I meditated on that story, yeah, I’ve done that already. If you interpret the fire symbolically as the Holy Ghost, I can say I’ve felt that. I’ve learned recently that when I feel that, those around me feel it too. It’s real.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. I love you all lots.

Elder Whitaker

14 March 2011

Thanks for the emails. It sounds like everyone is doing great.

Hey Brad, I ran into Juan Pablo Rodriguez yesterday in stake conference. He remembered you. You were the assistant when he go to the mission. He’s from Montevideo. And interestingly enough, the elder I trained is in his ward. He got home 2 months ago. Weird, I’m now where you were when I entered the mission. Holy cow.

At stake conference I also ran into my trainer. That was weird. He actually lives in my area, but he goes to a different ward. Weird. I ask myself why the Lord put him in my life in the very beginning of my mission and now. There’s a good reason and when I find out I’ll let you know.

Stake conference was cool. A newly called mission president spoke, our mission president spoke, the temple president spoke, the stake president spoke, 3 returned missionaries spoke. It was pretty good. Unfortunately, we didn’t have investigators for the third week in a row. We’re finding families, but it’s tough to get them to church. Looking back, it’s incredible how many families we are teaching now. And all of them were found thanks to following the Spirit.

It’s interesting that as my companion and I read the Book of Mormon, searching for the word “heart” we feel ourselves changing. We are more sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit. And we’re only half way through Alma. President da Silva times it perfectly so that we’ll be finishing just in time for general conference, which would be a great moment to have a soft heart. It’s cool to be able to have a 6 week preparation for general conference. I know it will be an amazing experience.

We have had a lot of success recently in our work with less actives, though. We’ve gotten more less actives to church in this area than investigators, which is not normal. I feel like we’re the bishop’s special forces. We go in, find their problem, share a scripture and help them feel the Spirit, and then get out. It’s interesting. We are able to do in one visit what the home teacher should be doing and accomplishing in months. I guess the Lord knows we don’t have months so he makes us more effective. It will be interesting to see if I will be able to help in the same way when I’m not a full-time missionary.

But yeah, I’m doing great. We’re preparing our area for next transfer – one week from tomorrow. We could be staying together; it would be my companion’s 4th transfer here. We’ll see.

Thanks for all the prayers and support. I love you all. Elder Whitaker

6 March 2011

with Elder Salisbury

Thanks for all the letters. I got a lot today, which helps because I was in a grouchy mood. I just waited 90 minutes so my comp could cut his hair in 10 minutes. Uhhhhh. In Uruguay Monday is the traditional day off for barber shops. There are like 5 around where we live, but only one is ever open on P-day. At least I got a few letters written.

This week went way, way better than last week. I’m tempted to make a blasphemous comment about how someone must be praying harder, but thanks to my increased level of maturity I’ll refrain myself – Alma 38 something, refraining passions.

We started the week with 2 baptismal dates and ended with 11. On Saturday while we were fasting we found 2 families – 7 new investigators. We invited them all to be baptized, and put specific dates with 5 of them. We visited another couple from earlier in the week and set baptismal dates with the 2 of them. Cool

We had a zone leader meeting on Tuesday. It really helped me to change my attitude. After I did that success came naturally. It is interesting how it all went down. The day after this meeting there was a leadership meeting for half of the mission. It was for the zones that aren’t in Montevideo. So they don’t have to travel hours home and come back the next day, they stayed in Montevideo. They did divisions with the elders in my zone, so on Tuesday we had 10 zone leaders working in our zone and we got double the work done. That was a huge blessing and a tender mercy for me.

Hey Grandpa, if the gossip I heard is right and accurate, Elder Arnold of the 70 went to 33 yesterday and made 33 a stake. I hope that makes you happy. It’s interesting that my current companion was in 33 and Pando, just like you.

My old area had another baptisms this week. Unfortunately, we didn’t. Hopefully we can get investigators to stake conference next week.

I’m kind of stressed out and in a hurry after spending 90 minutes in a barber shop, so this one will be done now. I’m not used to doing nothing for 90 minutes. It’s weird. I love you all. Thanks for the prayers. Keep up the good work.

Love, Elder Whitaker