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