24 May 2010

So this week was really good. And I’m going to try to attach pictures again. I think it’s going to work.

So, here’s the miracle that describes the pictures. There is an old inactive man who lives in Rocha. The missionaries from 50 years ago would give him these “remember me” cards, with the Articles of Faith on the back, and a picture of the temple on the front with the missionary’s address and the mission office’s address. Well, believe it or not, I found Grandpa’s and Elder Richard G. Scott’s cards.

I couldn’t believe it at first. It’s funny, because I’ve shown other missionaries the cards and the Elder Scott card just blows their minds, but Grandpa’s card is more incredible to me. I’ve had them both laminated and I use them as bookmarks for now. I’m pretty sure if I went back I could find some of Grandpa’s companions’ cards. Cool, right? I also visited where Grandpa lived and took pictures of the house for him. I don’t know if it’s changed a lot, but the members say that’s where they lived and the remnants of the baptismal font are in the back yard still. Happy Father’s Day, Grandpa. Being able to live where Grandpa served has really taught me one thing. I’ve learned a lot about tender mercies and how God really loves each and every one of his children. In Grandpa’s journal you learn that when he was 20 years old he loved genealogy and family history. He’s loved that stuff all his life and now the Lord has been able to bless him even more. Neat, right?

Thanks for all the letters and emails. I love hearing from you all. Thanks for praying for me.

Love, Elder Whitaker

FYI, this house is now an old person home and a less-active member works there. That’s how we got in. We sang to the people there before we left. It was fun.

17 May 2010

So this week I found an incredible talk that I recommend to anyone who lives in a home, from the June 2009 Ensign, a talk by Elder Callister called Our Refined Heavenly Home. It’s a really good talk about preparing our home to be more like the celestial kingdom. This talk comes from a website speeches.byu.edu, and I’ve read a lot of good talks that reference that site. It would be cool to go look there. I think it’s where they post the Marriott Center talks.

Grandpa, apparently in your "sea sick six" was an Elder Millet. The Rocha family here knew him. And Elder Millet came back later for a second mission here. I also found the daughter of a sister in one of the photos in your journal. It was really cool, because yesterday was Mother’s Day here in Uruguay, and this sister got to see her mother at church.

So here’s a really weird miracle that happened this week. It was a tough week and our spirits were a bit down. I realized that and decided Saturday to change my attitude. Saturday I also decided for some reason to make my bed really well. I always make my bed, but I do it in my way and it wouldn’t pass anyone’s inspection except mine. It’s hard to make a top bunk bed, but I did it. I made my bed and changed my attitude, and Saturday was an incredible day. We had 6 lessons and watched the restoration movie with 3 families. Stunned in shock, I made my bed really well on Sunday too. We found 7 new investigators on Sunday. That has never happened in my mission, and 6 of them were young men within the ages of 17 and 30. There was a message sent and received. Kind of funny though. You repent and get blessed. But I repented from not making my bed well. Cool.

Hey, but I love you all a ton. Thanks for all the support, emails and prayers. This week I shared my testimony with an inactive member. I told him that what we were telling him is what Jesus Christ would be telling him if he were here in that moment. The Spirit testified to me that what I told him was true. I am a representative of Jesus Christ. It has been a huge blessing in my life. I thank you all for helping me get to this point in my life.

Love, Elder Whitaker

26 April 2010

First off, thanks for the email, Weston. “Be the missionary Mom thinks I am” was some of the first advice I got from my mission president in the mission.

Also, thanks a ton for the birthday package and wedding package. I got them both this week. I would like to send some photos but we’re pressed on time today.

I really appreciate Grandpa’s missionary journal. Words can’t describe what it’s like to get to know my grandpa through his mission experiences. Words can’t describe what it’s like to walk in the same cities that he visited, ride busses on the same roads he did, and associate with the descendents of the people with whom he associated 50 years ago. On Sunday at district conference a counselor in the Montevideo Temple presidency spoke. He served here in Uruguay 50 years ago. I asked him if he would have known Grandpa. His name sounded familiar – Richard A. Kenny. I found his name later that night in Grandpa’s journal. Grandpa baptized an Amaral. I baptized Nilsa Terra Amaral. She’s like 75 years old. Can you believe that? It’s overwhelming. I hope you’re doing okay, Grandpa. I hope this raises your spirits.

So, my companion and I saw a miracle this week, lots actually, but one in particular. I always loved the story of the brother of Jared. Jared is a thinker and his brother has a ton of faith and spirituality. I wanted to try what they did. One day this week I had a righteous desire to find a family to teach. I told my companion to pray that we could be able to find a family to teach that day. And we did. We were in an area where I had never been and a grandma let us in and two of her granddaughters were there. We’re going back later.

This will be the last you hear from me before the wedding, so Happy Marriage Dave and Elizabeth. I love you lots. I’ll wear the tie on Saturday.

But I think that’s it for now. The church is true. It’s an awesome feeling to know that on the same exact streets where Grandpa’s testimony was sealed to him, mine is being sealed to me. I hope that future generations will be able to know how this feels one day.

Love, Elder Whitaker

20 April 2010

Wow, this week was really awesome. We had 2 baptisms in our branch – 2 teenage girls. The other Rocha branch had a family of 4, and the other little town’s branch, La Paloma, had one. We did them all together – 7 baptisms and 6 baptizers. The picture is really cool with 13 of us in white. The service went great. I got to baptize our branch’s 2 girls and I baptized first so I was changing while the others got baptized. It was way cool.

We also had a miracle of an investigator going to church when we didn’t expect him to go. He got to see 2 confirmations. Daniel. I love this guy. We’re visiting him tomorrow.

The other huge news is that my new companion, Elder Gomez from Mexico, arrived today. I’m training!!!! I’m so excited. I’m not district leader any more, but I’m stoked to work with a new missionary. He’s from Mexico City, the first missionary from his family. He was baptized with his whole family in 2002. I’m excited. Can you tell?

Oh Steven, did you know in Uruguay I can buy a 3 kilo bag of cornflakes for like 8 dollars. It’s glorious. I think of Steven when I enjoy my frosted flakes in the morning.

So, I was studying Alma 42:26 and I had a thought. The plan of salvation saves the righteous and destroys the wicked. Another name for it could be the plan of destruction. Just a random thought I had studying.

And another think I like about studying is I’m studying in a new Book of Mormon and I have ideas that I want to mark in the scriptures I use, but it’s weird that some of the stuff I want to mark is already marked. So sometimes as I read I have the same thoughts I had the last time I read. Just something I noticed. I don’t know if others have noticed the same thing.

But I love you all. Have fun getting married and watching tv.

The church is true and the “r” in this keyboard is broken. Sorry. [So you can be glad I re-typed everything.]

Love, Elder Whitaker

12 April 2010

So, I’m glad everyone is doing well. Congrats, Brad, on getting married. Good luck with that. It’s just a shame that everyone is getting married and not graduating from high school while I’m here. I hope you get that one.

So, what happened this week? I read in the beginning of Alma this week and was thinking about Amulek and the guy who offered him 6 onties or whatever to deny Christ. I was just thinking about how that was 42 days of pay for a governmental judge. That’s a lot of money. If a judge these days makes like 150,000 dollars in a year, that’s like offering 17,000 dollars like nothing. It just made me think. It’s interesting.

It’s interesting to read letters as a missionary, because often people write things they’ve written before, but don’t realize it. I might do the same thing, who knows? But it was cool that Steven gave the family a huge compliment today about how good our family is. It’s true. And David reminded me the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Good advice. And more than once Dad has shared how much he loves the story of Abraham. And Megan apologizes for not writing much. JK, love ya, but it’s cool to see this side of the family as a missionary.

Thanks for all of the support. I love being a missionary. It’s really hard sometimes but it’s what the Lord has commanded, and it’s all worth it.

I think I’m about out of stuff to write. The church is true. The Book of Mormon is true. The plan of salvation is true.

Oh yeah, I just remembered a miracle of the week. I’ll share it right quick. This Saturday I fasted that we could find a family to teach. I wanted to find a family or realize which family we had would progress in the gospel. Saturday night we visited a family that we’d been trying to visit but were never home. We were about to give up on them because we thought they were avoiding us. Saturday they were home and we had a great discussion and my fast was answered. God works miracles when we fast.

But I love you. Enjoy my email like always. Don’t be mad for my comments Megan and Dad and Steven and yeah.

Love, Elder Whitaker

5 April 2010

Wow, conference was awesome. There are a lot of Americans in my district and the other branches don’t have church buildings that get conference, so everyone was at our church. I got to watch in English this time and was excited about that. The two couple missionaries that are serving as branch presidents were there and brought home-made American-style goodies. It felt like home. I really enjoyed it.

I think I’m mainly going to share with you all my personal highlights of conference; hope that’s okay. In Rocha we live in a house of four elders, including Elder Martino and Elder Carter, a Texan and a Floridian. It was way cool, though, because Elder Martino’s uncle, Elder Martino, spoke and gave an awesome talk. And Elder Aoyagi spoke of the missionaries that baptized him. Elder Carter’s grandpa, Elder Carter, baptized that man. I thought that was way cool to see how small the church really is.

I loved Elder Oaks’ talk on healing the sick. An hour before that talk I was able to seal an anointing for a sick sister. It was cool that some of the questions I’ve always had were answered.
I loved what Elder Packer said about power comes from keeping our priesthood and temple covenants. It was cool because I’ve taught the same thing to missionaries before. It was really interesting to hear something I’ve taught come from the mouth of an apostle.

Elder Eyring made me want to see the new Duty to God program. If you ever get one, I’d love for you all to send me one.

Elder Bednar was really interesting because he talked about acting. Last November he visited our mission and taught us the same principle, using some of the exact same words. He’s been preparing that talk for six months. Way interesting.

And I loved President Monson’s story about the missionary who didn’t get letters. God answers missionaries’ sincere prayers.

I also want to share a quick experience that made me feel really good and I did it because of the way I was raised. Last zone conference we had some complicated travel arrangements and the couple missionaries couldn’t go with us. I took good notes and next district meeting I gave them a copy of my notes so they’d know what our president wanted them to know. I didn’t think much of it, but they were really grateful. They felt good, and I felt really good. Little things really can make a difference.

In good news, it’s getting cooler here. I found a double wide black v-neck sweater in the house left by someone. I sewed the sides and now I have a nicely tailored sweater to protect my cold body. But I ran out of black thread doing it. Sewing kits aren’t made to edit sweaters. I’ll have to send a photo.

This is getting kind of long. Sorry folks, but honestly, you enjoyed it a ton.

I love you all. Thanks for the letters, prayers and support.

The church is true and God loves us. Take some time to look at how the Lord is blessing our family.

Love, Elder Whitaker

29 March 2010

So Dad said it was tough getting all the logistics set up for your trip to Nauvoo. I kind of know how you feel. We had some crazy travel logistics this week for our zone conference. But that’s all done and it went well. I learned a ton. It was really cool because President da Silva shared Alma 22 and the points he wanted to make I already had marked in my scriptures. Either the Spirit teaches us alike or we think alike. It was cool. President also asked us to all read the Book of Mormon in 6 weeks before the next zone conference, and mark everything that has to do with Jesus Christ. I’m learning a ton. I’m marking his works, references to him, and types for Christ. It’s way cool.

And this exercise gave me an idea of a way to read the Book of Mormon as a family. Read it normally, but each person would be looking for a specific topic and marking it all in their copy. Every now and then for FHE you could share what you’ve learned. Some topics I’ve thought of are Christ, 4th Article of Faith stuff, joy, preparation, obedience, promises, God’s mercy (from Moroni 10:3), and hearts. There are a ton of topics I’d like to study, there just isn’t time.

Thanks for the FHE ideas, and Mom, I remember "Don’t Eat Pete." I’ve done that here in Uruguay. We call it "come Pedro." Good stuff.

The other day in my studies I was thinking about Alma 48:17, the “if everyone was like Moroni” scripture. I was thinking about what you’d have to do to get a prophet to say that about someone normal, that isn’t a Book of Mormon prophet, and I got to thinking it wouldn’t be that hard, because most of the temptations come from other people. If those temptations stopped coming, Satan would have very little power. I really think you could put anyone’s name from our family in this scripture and it would be true.

I love you all. Until next week, Elder Whitaker