25 April 2011

I’m sending some cool photos – one of our Easter celebration, 2 of our baptism, and one of my companion and I doing our post-baptism celebration jump,but a better caption would be “putting on our game faces.” There’s proof that there’s still room to mature more.

So we’re teaching a Jehovah’s Witness who is a life long friend of our branch mission leader. I’ve wanted to baptize a Jehovah’s Witness all of my mission. We’ll see what happens with Ana Laura.

Easter was a really good day and I was able to have significantly spiritual experiences. While I was showering the song “Tell me the Stories of Jesus” came to my mind and got me thinking about a talk Elder Andersen gave Easter morning in last year’s general conference. I read it while I ate breakfast. That led me to a wonderful confirmation of Christ’s resurrection.

During sacrament meeting Maria Elena was confirmed. I felt the Spirit really strongly when she was instructed to receive the Holy Ghost. That was cool. And Elder Peña and I got to pass the sacrament.

I’ve been working on repenting daily and that helped me have a better experience as I renewed my covenants.

As I was studying my patriarchal blessing the word “special” called my attention. There are four specific special things in my blessing. They were interesting to note.

But thanks everyone. I love you all lots. I hope you all enjoyed Easter.

Love, Elder Whitaker

18 April 2011

This week went really well. We found some cool new investigators on Saturday night. Unfortunately, it rained Sunday morning. We got our legs wet walking to church. It was really windy too. Interestingly enough, once we walked into the gate of the church all the wind stopped blowing. Interesting. But we did have one investigator at church this weekend and it was Maria Elena whose pareja died when we got here. She’s getting baptized next Saturday. We’re excited for that.

Because of the rain, an already small branch became smaller. There were 18 of us at church. I got to say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and bless the sacramental bread. That was a wonderful experience.

So I’m still studying hearts in the Book of Mormon. I’m categorizing the huge list I have into feelings of the heart, actions of the heart, and states of the heart. I also counted the specific phrases that show up the most – hardened hearts, hard hearts, pride for your hearts – it’s interesting.

So yesterday I woke up early at like 6:23. I still had 7 minutes so I fell asleep again. In those 7 minutes I had a dream. I dreamed I was teaching a man about tithing, and right when I woke up I was about to teach him the eternal principle of budgeting. I never tried teaching someone how to budget. It was interesting – the dreams one dreams as a missionary . . .

Oh, and something that I was wondering last week. I’ve gotten a few “run through the finish” emails recently, but if I remember correctly I started sending Brad “run through the finish” emails when he had six months left. I was kind of getting ahead of myself, Brad, sorry. But I was wondering if you have any of my old letters hanging around. It would be interesting to get a letter from myself from 2 or 4 or 6 years ago, maybe not 6 years, I don’t remember writing to Weston, sorry.

I think that’s it for now. Thanks for all the support. Thanks for the prayers. I love you all.

Elder Whitaker

11 April 2011

This week was good, but there’s a lot of opposition. The bapsisms that we were supposed to have last Saturday will be postponed even more. Now they’re married, but aren’t going to church and still smoking. We really need the spirit now to find out what their real problem is. The first excuse never is the real problem.

But we did have an investigator at church yesterday. Her name is Silvia. She’s 15 years old. Her cousin, Javier, just got married to Valeria, and Valeria got baptized our first week here. She’s good. We don’t really have to do much to keep her going.

So Sunday morning at 3:30 AM something interesting happened. What was a drippy pipe behind the sink became a fire hose. I’m in the middle of a wonderful dream when my companion wakes me up with the lights on asking for help. We worked all we could to get that thing to stop. We live behind the owners and we didn’t know where the water line was. We thought it was the same water for the two houses because there’s just one bill. After a while and a few prayers, Elder Peña grabs a white pencil and sticks it in the wall. He fixed it. Cool. It worked for more than 24 hours. And today we fixed it for real. The owner loves us because we didn’t make him do it. That was the adventure for the week. So I decided today that it was time to follow the advice President Uchtdorf gave in the priesthood session. if I don’t do it now I’ll forget. So I read D&C 20 today and I still have to read 84 and 107 and 121. I learned a lot. I didn’t realize it talks so much about baptism in the Doctrine and Covenants – the doctrine of the priesthood.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting. My companion and the branch mission leader did too. I spoke about the doctrine of Christ, 2 Nephi 31 and 3 Nephi 11, and the conversion of Sanford Porter Senior. In Preach My Gospel it says that the best way to help members trust you as a missionary and have enthusiasm for doing missionary work is to help them understand the doctrine of Christ. That was the idea behind the talk.

We found a new family this week. We’ll see what happens with them. I’m still finding all the different references to hearts in the Book of Mormon. I’m on like the 5th page. I got to Helaman this morning. But I think that’s it. Thanks for everything. I love you all. Keep doing what you’re doing. I was going to send a picture or two, but the computer doesn’t read that I have my pen drive in it. Oh well.

Love, Elder Whitaker

4 April 2011

This week was a good one. Something really interesting that marked this week was one of our investigators passed away. Gualberto passed away the day after we got to our area and the day after we met him. We met him our first Wednesday, he passed away on Thursday, and we visited them the next Tuesday. That was unexpected. But we only met him once so we were less affected than the other elders would be. Ironically, the fight with him and Maria Elena was getting to get married. That’s not a problem now. We are helping Maria Elena. She really surprised us by coming to three sessions of conference. I felt that a lot of the talks were directed to her. She should be getting baptized the 23rd of April. Unfortunately, she was the only one who went to conference, so the couple that is getting married this week will have to postpone their baptism. It’s tough. We couldn’t contact them yesterday so they don’t know they’ll have to wait more, but I feel good with the counsel Elder Christofferson gave – divine correction. Hopefully, we will be able to convey a lesson that has an everlasting impact on their lives, and they react in a way to make it a good one. I finished the Book of Mormon. I found like 424 references to the heart. I miscounted; I think it should be more like 422, but you can get the idea. I invite you to check for me . . . . And now I’m making a list of the specific phrases that are used. I have four pages and I’ve only gotten to Alma. Corazon endurecido is a big favorite (hardened heart); it has more than 30 hits already. So I really enjoyed Elder Christofferson’s talk and the one after his about being and doing (Elder Robbins). President Monson’s priesthood session talk was interesting. You can only guess what I got out of that. General conference is to guide us for the next six months of our life. He made things really clear. I also thought it was interesting that they made two references to the fact that the father is the head of the family and the mother is the heart. I never thought about that before. I think that’s it for now. Thanks for everything. I love you all lots. Love, Elder Whitaker