Week 8 - First Transfer

This week was kind of hectic.  Along with our baptism not going through, it was also the last week of the transfer, and we didn't know for most of the week if Elder Wible was going to leave or not.  Well, Saturday he got the call that he was going to go ZL and so that wasn't fun news for me.  Not only that but we've had another set of Elders in our apartment because theirs is infested with Hobo spiders and we were being nice.  But now with Elder Wible and Elder Clark going ZL, and Elder Greenwood going trainer, I'm going to have to send Elder Greenwood and his son somewhere else.  It's gotten us out of our routine and we can't afford to drive them into their area everyday.

I'm staying, as you probably guessed.  My step-father will be Elder Nielsen, I think he's from the south somewhere.  I'll try to find out tomorrow.  We've been trying to have a lot of fun during our last week together though.  We showed up to district leader training in half pros, wearing shorts instead of slacks but still rocking the shirt, tie, and coat.  Needless to say we won the high priesting competition.  I'll send a picture.

We should definitely have a baptism for sure this week though.  Our nine-year old, Travin, is all set to go.  So I'll have my first baptism then.

I've been really tired, I can't fall asleep, so last night I started taking sleeping pills again, and that seemed to help.  I woke up twice this morning and I only fell asleep once.  I got up and went into the bathroom to get ready and all of a sudden I woke up on the floor and my head was hurting really bad.  I was really confused and the other Elders were calling from the bedroom because they heard a loud crash..... I guess I passed out somehow.... That's never happened before.  The Elders said I was super pale and they insisted on giving me a blessing.  I felt a lot better afterwards.  I'm fine no worries, just thought I'd testify of the power of the priesthood.  I also got to give Sister Cox a blessing of comfort, it was a great opportunity.

We did service one day and Elder Wible and Elder Clark caught grasshoppers during break and ate them.  I have video footage that I will send.

Anyway, I love you all, I want to hear from all of you :)

I'll leave you with my testimony, that this is the true church, and our Savior Jesus Christ stands at its head.  I know that through the power of the restored priesthood, we can receive many blessings and revelation if we ask for it.  I encourage you all to develop a strong foundation in Christ, and if you already have one, make it stronger.  We are all working toward perfection, we won't get there in this life, but let's all try to see how close we can get.  I love this work and I encourage you to help the missionaries back home.

Elder Walker

Week 7 - Keeping Busy With the Work

Hellooooooooo Everybody!

I am absolutely stuffed, we bought way too much food before our Zone hangout.  We're at the singles building playing pool, ping pong, and basketball.  This week has gone really well, although for some reason I'm having trouble remembering specific events.  We have about 3 people on date for this month, and Mark is going to be baptized on Saturday as long as everything goes well, hopefully he can withstand the adversary for a week, and then things will go more smoothly.

We were eating lunch yesterday, and a lady was wheeled up in a wheel chair by her daughter so that we could cheer her up.  Her husband had died on Wednesday, so we just talked with her about the plan of Salvation and managed to get her to stop crying.  She thanked us and when her daughter came back she gave us a smile and they left.

Things have been going awesome though, we have been teaching a lot of lessons and it's been great, I believe we led our zone this week.  I am enjoying myself a lot, and I appreciate all the emails I have received, it's been really nice hearing from home.

I'd just like to leave you all with my testimony, that I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is Christ's true church upon the earth today.  I know that Christ's atonement is real, and that through him, we can all be cleansed from sin and return to live with our Heavenly Father.  I encourage you all to focus more on the spirit in your lives, and to listen to him, he will not lead you astray.  I know that as we work to develop our spiritual in-tune-ness? that we will all see our lives improve and we will be able to handle any trials that we are given.

I love you all, keep Oregon strong!

Elder Walker

Week 6 - Greetings From Smithfield

Greetings!
This week went well.  We were able to meet up with the parents of one of our nine year old investigators who's date was set for this week.  Apparently he's still solid and wanting to get baptized, but they might not do it this week, just because they need to get family contacted ahead of time and they need more time to get ready.  So, it may still happen on Saturday, but it will likely get pushed to the 29th , which will happen for sure.

We have another investigator who apparently is all ready to be baptized, he just needs to meet with us once or twice, but the parents have canceled the past 3 weeks lessons, and it's been really frustrating, because he could have been baptized weeks ago.  We also have a few more investigators but I won't go into that.

I hope everything is going good back home, I'm still loving it out here.  My companion and I have a new hobby.  Lip Syncing.  We now have six fantastic videos, which include Let It Go, a Lion King song, Tron Legacy, Wise Man Built His House Upon a Rock, and a few others.  Oh, our last one we did was a duet between Anna and Elsa, it was mighty fine.  Don't worry, we don't waste time, we make them on the way to appointments, so there will probably be a lot more, but I think I'll send a flash drive to my mom containing the sensitive film that can be used at her discretion.

We went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders last night, so I was up in Preston.  One of the people we bumped into was an inactive man who was very friendly, and informed us that he had fallen away because of baptisms for the dead.  He started talking about Indian burial grounds and how we need to respect the dead, and he started on a 666 tangent, and lots more interesting ideas that he had, that we politely listened to for a bit.  Before he started talking however, he said "Hold on, let me grab a beer", and went back inside.  Luckily, the house we visited beforehand had given us cartons of chocolate milk, the juice pouch style with bendy straws, so we prepped those, and when he came back out we said we'd join him, so we popped in our straws and started sipping away while he drank his beer. That made him laugh.

I had to speak twice on Sunday, and I only had about an hour that morning to prepare one talk, and after that one, we raced over to another building where we had 15 minutes to prep the next one before sacrament meeting started.  It was hectic.  Oh, and President Price wants me to play my violin in General Priesthood Meeting this Sunday.  Still trying to find an arrangement.  (Note for mother, a book or two of violin solo arrangements would be awesome if you ever get a chance to stop by a music store).  Hopefully I will be able to buy some today if I can find a place.

Anyway, I love you all, hope you guys are safe and have a great week!

Elder Walker

Went on exchanges with Elder Greenwood (at the Benson's)

Week 5 - Interesting Week

Hello Everyone!
This week was pretty interesting.  My first surprise happened when Elder Wible was called up and asked to attend a Mission Leader Council, which is weird because normally only the Zone Leaders and APs go to that.  While he was there I went on exchanges with Hyde Park, and we had a good time. When my companion showed up to get me, he was like "Dude, I totally met your mom".  Well, we joke about each other's mothers all the time so I just assumed he was kidding.  He was like, "No Elder, look in the back".  I looked and saw my violin and I was like, "What the freak, when did this happen." Well, apparently I had missed my mom and Ainsley by about an hour....  But he airdropped me the pictures so I'll send them with the email.

Today we got to go to the temple as a zone, and I was able to receive a lot of answers to things that I have been praying about.  We will get to go quarterly which is exciting!

Anyway, the work is going good!  I miss you all and I'll let you know when the baptisms happen.

He met my mom

Week 4 - Smithfield Utah

Hey everyone!  My second week went super fast, I'm loving it here.  The people are amazing, and we now have so many people that we are teaching, that our week is almost totally booked, which is nice, but exhausting.  Wednesday I get to do my first exchange, and then the day after the Zone Leaders also want to do an exchange so I'll have to make sure I know my area well enough to be effective without Elder Wible.  I'm excited though.

We finally started having dinner appointments!  All the families that we've visited have the most adorable kids, and they are super hyper.  I've figured out how to entertain them though.  I was really bored one day, and while Elder Wible was entering numbers, I clicked on the photo booth app, and took a bunch of pictures that distorted my face.  Well, it turns out that kids love that,  and I've been able to win them over quite easily.  Mwahahahahaha!

I'm still trying to get used to covering 17 wards.  There are too many to attend all of them each Sunday, so we try to squeeze in at least 4 sacraments in each week, just so we can try and get to most of them at least once each month.  I feel like quite the sinner having to take sacrament four times haha.  The mail service here sucks, surprisingly.  I get my letters in a reasonable amount of time, but I still haven't seen the package that my parents sent to me over a week ago.... So....  Yeah.  I hope it didn't get lost.

I hope everything is going well back home, I miss you guys!  I've heard that there has been some sad news in the ward recently, so please let the families that have been affected know that I love them and that they are in my prayers.  I pray for all of you each night too, so don't go thinking that you're left out.

Anyway, I can read any emails I get throughout the week, so feel free to send them, I really enjoy hearing from you all.  My P-days are Tuesdays, so I write a lot of my drafts Monday night and then send them in the morning.

Love you guys!
Elder Walker

Making a list of investigators and their respective wards, to see which wards we need to work on  (My idea BTW) :)

Weekly Planning

 Sleepy Elder Wible

First Dinner Appointment

Week 3 - First Companion - Elder Wible

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to let you all know that the mission is going great, I'm loving it so far. I'm serving in the Smithfield South Stake, as well as the Smithfield YSA, so me and my companion cover 17 wards.  As a result, the work is going great here, we already have two baptismal commitments set and we are expecting to get 3 or 4 more this week.

So far, we haven't had a single dinner appointment, our Ward mission leaders are dropping the ball. But we survive, many of the local restaurants around here serve missionaries for free, or members sitting at other tables will pick up the bill.  Benefits of serving in Utah I guess.

I've also found out that missionaries are treated like rock stars here.  You just walk down the street and almost every car will honk at you and the family inside will wave excitedly.  We get mobbed by groups of kids all the time and so we teach them tricks and ask them which of their friends still need to be baptized.  They give great referrals.  My first day here I was tracting at USU with a temporary companion and we got mobbed by a group of EFY girls who said it was their goal to take a selfie with the Elders, so we stopped and took a few.

On Saturday we got to be a part of the parade in Hyde Park.  Everyone in Cache Valley comes and lines the street while we missionaries run down the sides of the street in the pouring rain, going crazy and high fiving everyone.  I'm pretty sure I managed to get the whole town, hopefully nobody video taped me, I was very energetic.  But yeah, it was awesome, everyone loves us here, it takes a while to get used to it.

So my trainer is pretty awesome, or should I say crazy.   He has a ton of energy and he is hilarious. His name is Elder Wible, like the Bible, and he is my father.  Surprise!  He's also from Oregon!  He lives in Portland, in West Lynn.  Anyway, we have a lot of fun, and we've had a lot of good luck so far.  He had someone videotape my birth, but I think it's too long to send in an email.  We got the Spanish missionaries truck because they were putting way too many miles on it, so a few of the pictures I send are selfies of "Linda" our Nissan Frontier.  I think today we're going to look for a big stuffed animal to Velcro to the bed.  We also blast Disney music while we drive, and rock versions of Primary songs and we sing along, quite loudly...

But anyway, I miss you all, I hope everything is going great back home. I'll attach some photos real quick.  I took some more on my camera that I'll send to my mom and she can put it on her blog thingy.

Love,
Elder Walker

P.S.  I almost forgot!  I went to a Muslim barbecue on Saturday as well.  It was awesome!  Quite a few interesting discussions though.

This is a Hippopotamus Sharpe, I've never seen one before.

Week 3 - Off to Logan! - Nathan Meets His Mission President

Nathan met his mission president and his wife, President and Sister Allred.