Time is cruising by.

December 9, 2013 The time is cruising by. its kind of weird how short the weeks are going by. we are starting the last week of this transfer so by next week i think i should know if my comp leaves or not. I am staying in my area for at least four and a half months. but i am predicting six. So this weeks news in Argentina. We had our zone meeting in Rosario on Saturday. well earlier in the week or like the day before, Cordoba, which is this big city down here, in another state, their whole police force decided to go on strike and not work for a day. well you can imagine what happened. so we get to our meeting and Elder sisk comes up and we are talking and he tells me that Santa Fe, my state, every cop in the state was going to do the same. haha what are the chances. the one day i left my sleepy little Casilda is the day that happens. so they told us just what to do if something went down and all that. but dont worry, i got back to casilda just fine and we are all good. ha nothing bad ever happens in casilda. everyone says so too. oh and i am writing this in rosario. we are here for two days. we have a zone practice for something were doing tomorrow for our christmas party. so im with elder sisk again. so this week our senior couple moved from out of the church to the pench of the sisters and the sisters moved a little further up. but the crazy thing was that we found out we needed a pench at 800 that morning. i cut my hair at like 800, so we talked to the people about it, and by like 3 we found the pench like 10 meters away from the sisters old pench, like they are connected. the old occupants had moved just days before. how cool is that. but then came the move. it went easy till we had to move the fridge, bed, dresser thing, and the frame to the bed. so what we did is called a "flete" which is their version of a moving company. or when translated just means, "guy with truck" haha i kid you not. all he did was pull up, WE loaded it, he drove us like four blocks, WE unloaded, and we paid him 50 pesos. algo de easiest job ever?? =) oh but while we were driving i got to stand in that back with everything. totally took me back to the days with steve and all of us hauling hay with scott telling me that if i locked my knees i would instantly pass out. hahaha so this story, i havent laughed so hard in all the time with my compaion. but we got talking about what he did in Paraguay, like he was a full on cowboy but also partied in the city, its complicated, but yeah, like he carried a pistol in his belt cause they had had problems with their neighbors!!! ha i thought it was for like animals, but no. so he was telling me that his cousin was or her moped and she hit a cow, like bumped it. well she just jumped off and shot it like six times with her pistol hahaha! but thats not the funny one=) so one day he and his bud were out in the fields playing with a machete, throwing it and sticking it in the ground. like just wing it straight up in the air and it would stick. so they were playing with it and there was a cow about thirty or twenty yards away ish. well they are playing and he throws it, well it comes down and sticks in the cow!!!!! hahaha it died instantly. like three weeks later. hahaha but that is what started the war between the two families hahahah oh my gosh. too funny. but i am being summoned to leave. so hope all is still awesome. thanks for the pictures. i forgot my little deal so i will send some next week. loves!!

December 2, 2013

i completely forgot to write my family letter. my bad

so this week was fun. turns out the walk to Julios was a lot farther than i thought. turns out we were walking like four miles every day to his house for like three weeks. but yeah nuts. Julio and Maria were baptized on saturday. that was really fun. we were running around the whole day putting the font together was fun and just worked a ton. but yeah. their daughter was also baptized. she was our investigator till the sisters came and they took over like two weeks before her baptism. 

so the coolest thing ever happened. We were contacting in Fonabi just talking to like seven kids about socer and the clubs in the area. well i said that i wanted a jersey and all that and that i was going to get one before i left the area. well we were knocking doors and this little kid ran by and told us to wait. he came back and GAVE ME HIS JERSEY!!! how cool is that! so i am going back this week and am going to give him my Iowa hat. but yeah it was awesome. 

uh the baptism was great. really cool. ha we have to create a splash zone. the last one just went limp as she went backwards and hit really hard and water exploded every where!! it was super funny. 

oh my funny thing... they sweep their dirt. and not the dirt inside... the outside dirt. hahaha cause that dirt is not good enough to be with the other dirt so they move it. haha when they started sweeping i giggled, on the inside of course. but yeah. just funny things they do. 

oh so my comp and i have a goal. we are going to baptize a tribe. 

no joke. were finding a tribe. not a big one. just like 70 people. but we are asking members if they know of any in the area, friday we got our bikes and rode way out in the sticks looking for some places to find some. hahaha it was really fun. so hopefully that works out. 

but we are going to be doing a lot of clapping and contacting. we were riding the elevator before our baptism and now have no one to teach but thats chill. we are working hard. we need to find some people soon if I am to hit my goal of one baptism a month. so working hard. constantly exhausted but enjoying it. oh an i figured out how to skinny ties!!! the big fat ones i can know make them wearable! i will send you pictures next week when i start mine. i did four for Elder Sisk this week. but yeah. oh and i killed my first cock roach in our pench. i killed some my first day in the mission home. ha those ones were mean!!!! we hit it like four times with a shoe and it wouldnt die! it literally tore up a kids shoelace! ha we dont know how. but yeah

Well we are heading out. 

its super hot. i woke up sweating ha that was new. 

but love all of you. the pictures and videos are extremely awesome so keep them coming!! loves

Elder Whitaker

Life in Argentina

November 25, 2013

So i dont remember but i feel like i didnt write much last week. Honestly the days are so weird. like pday is more of just a random day where you do laundry and write stuff. and then you go back to work, like it never even happened. 

so we were in a members house last week talking. oh!! thats what it was. everything cool that happens is on the monday right after i email. and then by the next week i forget! so i started writing stuff down. sorry for the tangent, anyway, they had the tv on. and one, no i wasnt watching it, technically i was looking, but to really watch you have to hear right?? and those werent words leaving that thing... but the entire country or argentina has banned Justin Bieber!!! hahahaha apparently he came here, they paid a ton, sang three songs, felt sick or something, puked on their flag and swept it off the stage, then left, like the whole deal was a disaster or something like that. how funny is that though. and i think they banned his music but... that could be totally wrong as well. for sure he as a person and his people are no longer allowed in the country. HA!!!

so we had a huge sisters conference last week. and our sisters we just got were supposed to go. they left at like seven AM, and never got there..... so we had to start combing the city. went to their pench, nothing. well then we finally got the call they found them. out side of the mission. they got the wrong bus and went way out there. hahaha too fun.they were super embarrassed and i of course didnt waste the chance to poke some buttons. they get lost a lot... =)

so yesterday we had our invs come. everyone calls them the abuelitos. or little grandparents. hahaha but yeah. anyway, we walked clear out in the sticks for no reason cause we told these people we would come pick em up, as in walk near them, to church. well of course they werent there. when we found them they were just visiting. no one is ever in the house they own i swear!!! but on the way back this dog started following us. and continued for like 2 miles till the church. that was at 9 in the morning. we walked out at 4 in the afternoon and he was still there!!! sleeping in the street. as we (the last ones out) walked away i gave a little chirp whistle, he jumped up and followed us home!! hahaha then i went in to get my camera to take a pic of scooter, just like that, gone. i whistled, nothing, as we were walking into the house we looked back and there he was!! haha too funny. some of these strays are really cool. a lot of boxers and german sheperds, the germans scare me.... they wait in the bushes next to the fence and when youre not expecting it just freak out and bark. oh my gosh so scary. 

there are AC units that people have, just covering the whole sidewalk at head level.... just a matter of time. i was scratching my head and railed my hand cause it was sunny and was looking down, so one close call already.... 

so imma probably buy clippers and take my chances. my hair... oh goodness.. coulda done better blind folded, left handed, with a weed whacker. haha its so bad. but oh you should see the weed whackers here. they dont mess around. like two joysticks, straps, ha legit. 

but thats about all i got this week. i am on exchange right now with elder sisk from springville, its so fun. we are basically business partners now. we played golf together in high school and just talked about that and people from home. ha so fun. 

hope all is well. doing great. 

oh and he said he is 100 percent on packages. just sometimes they take like 4 months but he said he gets em so thats good. 

enjoy much turkey!!!

talk to you in december!!!

Elder Whitaker

so nothing really happened this week...

November 18, 2013

so nothing really happened this week. 

we had a super awkward district meeting. our senior couple goes to their house every weekend and didnt come back in time so it was just us and the new hermanas. oh i have stories about them.... but yeah. cause in the old districts. when you gave a training on somehting. it coulda been anyone. well now its basically, heres what you are doing wrong. so fix it. yeah just awkward. but i played the hymns and nailed it!!! the first was with one hand so only half nailed it... but the last was hope of israel.

the hermanas basically just steal our people haha. we split our area and gave them the safe parts, well turns out that two of our investigators dont live in the houses where we keep finding em. so now instead of having five invs at church we just had two and they had three with out doing anything hahaha it was just a funny story. but yeah every cool person we find i just start assuming they live in the hermanas area hahaha fun stuff.

uh... we are the secretaries in our branch. and the second counselor. its fun, not really, just math to do. oh. so we did that yesterday and the senior couple decided to go to Rosario, to their house, which they werent going to. well when they got there, the hermana like, as i understood, had a huge drop in blood pressure and her heart stopped. but they got her to the hospital and all is well. crazy. if they hadnt have gone she might not have had the required care. i have been in our hospital here... its sketchy. haha

but Julio y Rosa came!!! we are teaching and finding every member of that family. i feel so bad. her brother is basically getting robbed by his church. and is like sick  cause of all the stress they are bringing to his life. but yeah. julio and rosa are the parents. and they came to church again and their daughter!!!! they can all be baptized on the 30. julio and rosa are so pumped. they are funny. rosa i think had a stroke a while back. but when you try to get her to talk, she just squints, grabs her head and oh my gosh, i just cant explain it but its too funny. i love them, they are so funny. 

but we are trying to find new people. i am worried we are on the elevator and not the escalator... i will explain that later like next week. im outta time. but yeah. all is well. the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. 

oh and one last thing i forgot to tell you. our rule in this mission is that the Elders are not to physically dunk anyone.... sad huh. our mission motto is fruit that stays. and they want the members to have those experiences and build the relationships with invs. which i get but its just sad too... but all we do is for the good of the person. so thats what matters. 

i love this gospel and guess what. The scriptures are such a blast!!! so fun. i have started to read the doctrine and covenants. its a blast. just finding new things and attributes of people and of the father. but i am just having too much fun. 

love you all too much. 

adios mis cariños.

Elder Whitaker

Culture Shock

The title tells you all. 

this whole last week was a bunch of just weirdness. but i am getting used to it and things are looking up. this week flew by. we are now just a normal companionship, the other got transferred. they do transfers in the bus station in rosario, you just get there and go. which is kinda cool i think. 

Contacting is fun. especially when all they do is reapeatedly tell you that they know everything that is holy or religious haha. or that god is great but religions arent and they are all of the devil. ha met that guy in a bus station. 

uh, we had zone conference this saturday. Oh if you want to tell Mrs. Anderson from the high school, she is a counselor. her nephew is here. he is my zone leader and i played golf with him a few times in high school. its nice at least having some one down here that i know. but yeah that meeting was really good. taught me a lot of what i needed. just give your mission to the lord and say what he wants you to. i read today in helaman 13 and 14 about samuel the lamanite how he got booted out of the city. well he was told to go back and teach what came to him. not teach this and this then say that. he even had to climb a wall!! the scriptures are just too fun. 

so we had investigators at church yesterday!!! that was the best. my companion went out to pick them up with a member, so i stayed at church. i wasnt sure if they would come but they did!!! apparently they had gotten up at 6 and gotten ready and everything because they didnt want to miss us. they are the cutest people ever. they are about 85 and just say si si si to everything. even questions. but then we learned its cause they have some health thing. but they understand us, just cant really speak too well. i love them so much. Julio is too funny. he made his first joke yesterday. hahaha he said yeah the lord has given me strength, im still handsome. haha hes funny. 

we are learning the language fast. its either learn it or be completely left to my own thoughts, and i can only be with myself for so long. hahaha but yeah i am doing great. everything is doing well. we gotta go buy some stuff. i decided to buy clippers and just figure out how to cut my own hair.... haha i will let you know how terrible that goes. it going well is not even an option...

and i found my card reader so there will be pictures today!!! yeah!!!  but dont worry. i am getting my tan on now and am determined to leave this place with only stage two skin cancer. haha

les amo

Elder Whitaker

well more next week 

love you all so much. thanks for writing. its always a blast to hear from all of you. 

loves!!!!

Elder Whitaker

October 29, 2013 Elder Bryce Whitaker - "Hola Rosario Argentina!" At LAST!

Week Ten North Carolina! (Last week there...)

So today was crazy. this whole week been massive and really long. just one big massive blur. but i will try to figure out what happened which day. and this letter will probably be short cause its 850 and we gotta leave soon so.. sorry in advance. 

Tuesday, we had zone conference. it was really cool. that was the day i learned that i was staying here longer. also i have to do MORE paperwork without my mom doing it for me. so tomorrow we gotta get that all figured out.  the rest of the week i barely remember.

These two are of my English District after they cancelled our Spanish Districts which was a sad day.

           Weexchanged with the assistants. it was really fun but sad too. i didnt get to watch the assistant that came with me teach because it was our best spanish day ever and he doesnt speak a word of spanish.... oh if you didnt know i am doing whats called "zebra work" where you mainly teach english but if you find hispanics its fine to teach them too. but yeah that was fun. i enjoy working with the assistants. they for sure know what they are doing, in english any way;) 

Our desks in my old house, haha guess which one is mine:) I promise i was the clean one but after studies I just never put everything away because the next day i didnt want to have to waste time to find it all again. 

i just thought of this just barely. but we were walking down the street and there were two guys standing on this deck a ways up, with the cop near his car with the lights on a ways up the street. hopefully you can visualize that but oh well. so as we were walking, we were right across this tiny backroads street from two guys on their porch and i was like, yeah lets try and talk to em. so i waved and basically yelled, how yall doin!? well instead of looking at us they looked confused down the street behind us. so we were like ok??? weird but i guess they are just ignoring us. well we are still right in front of them when that cop car drove up and asked them if they had called the cops about two guys walking around the streets. and both of them looked at each other and were like, "no we havent seen anyone all night" 

we were literally ten yards from the people and i could have slapped the cop car, but no one ever even looked near us or anything. so either i am just that sly, or something was going down and we just had a little cloud around us like "these are not the droids youre looking for" it was just kinda funny as we walked off and talked about it. 

So that brings us to Saturday. I dont know if any of you heard about the Elder that died in Cali from a bike crash. but he was from Charlotte which is thirty minutes from where i am serving. so our mission president asked us to go to the funeral and support the mother, who lost her husband as well about five years ago. well one of the 70, Elder Zwick, came and presided over it and it was amazing. he had all of the full time missionaries (FTM) stand and said that he and his father were now serving as companions and were with us. it was just really cool and you could feel the Spirit. so then we were asked to go to the burial. all about 100 or so of the FTM's went and after the dedicatory prayer and that, we all sang "called to serve" quietly. It was amazing. the Spirit was so strong and everyone was just sobbing. it was a very cool experience. 

if you want, there is a video a member here found on youtube of it. apparently i am in the center and my hair is shining like usual. 

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-k8J87PNrXk&h=lAQGSBQ5x

Sunday was weird too. this one elder just came back and the guy before him spoke for a half hour, leaving the poor guy like five minutes, well the bishop told him to talk for as long as he wanted. and he did. and FIFTY minutes later we sang the closing prayer and i said the benediction. it was insane!!!! he talked completely through sunday school!! haha 

today, which should have been Pday, was really good. we left at about 740 and went to Ihop with some other Elders, then to a meeting down in Charlotte with that same Elder Zwick and his wife. they taught us and it was just really neat. Sister Zwick told us about their handicapped son that was able to be set apart as a missionary for a week to go work with his brother in tailand!! it was so cool. the only people he could talk to while there that spoke english ended up being baptized!! when she told us that the spirit was so strong. i wont lie, i was battling the tears. i thought of Colton and if he wants to come out, suit him up and send him:) it was just the cutest story ever. but i really enjoyed what they talked about. it was a good day today.


oh and im sending these today because i wont be mailing next week cause i am flying out at 330 and my final flight leaves at 7 and i get to argentina at 6. so that will be fun. if you want to send me one of those phones that would be cool but no worries. i can buy a card in the airport. 

Well thats all i have for the week. hopefully i have time next week to write. i know they are going to let me call you all so that will be fun:) 

love you so much

Elder Whitaker

NC Week 9 and counting....

Hello Family and others

Well this week has been a great one.  We have been doing a lot. so i am now serving with the Zone Leaders, and that has been fun. but man, we never sleep. ha it has been a big adjustment to that. we always have stuff to do at night and now i am making phone calls with em and all that fun stuff. but they have a lot of investigators, especially compared to where i was. the first day i got here was really funny. back in Burlington we had our weekly goals and all that, well my first DAY here we hit almost all of em. like lessons and visits and all that. ha it was really fun. we have been super busy. 

Funny and also cool story. So we have an investigator, Brother Treece, he is about 61 or so. 60's for sure, and he is an Atheist. He hadn't prayed for 38 years. so they had been working with him for a while and about the second time i got to meet with them, he finally prayed. it was really cool. well the third time he prayed or the second, cant remember, but we were all kneeling there. and after he said the prayer we looked at him and asked him how he felt and how he thought the answer would come. well he said "well it aint no boomin voice" and literally like a second later, there was this big BOOM outside. hahaha it was sooo funny. like i dont know if it was lighting and thunder or what, but the timing was perfect. it was really cool and super funny.

We had stake conference down in Charlotte this weekend. which was really cool. they invited all the Elders and Sisters to go to the Adult session of Conference. so i now know what yall do in that!!! but it was neat. our Mission President spoke, and that man is the bomb!! i love him. he had the coolest talk and everything was just sweet. then we had the next days, one of our investigators, who will get baptized the weekend after i leave.... came to church. and there was a recent convert, emphasis on recent. he had been baptized two days before. and he was invited to bear his testimony in stake conference!!! like on the spot cause one of the speakers got sick and couldnt come. well he nailed it!!! he talked about a young man in a testimony meeting that had born his testimony and it had really touched him. he talked for a little more about him and then he paused, and said, then i asked that young man to baptize me. and wow. the Spirit just flooded the room, our investigator did like a gasp awww thing and it was just awesome. 

Then last nights dinner........ hahaha oh family... i havent changed a bit. 

so we are walking up to this house, nice house, and i see two big dogs, one lab and one just chunky and about as tall as Dixie. so i am thinkin wow, thats a big lab. and then oh my goodness!!! this Great Dane shows up and i am like one stair or two below it. and its almost at eye level!!!!!! it was huge!!!!! its name was Zeke and it was soo cool. the family had a raised up table and big bar chairs up next to it, and this thing could look right at your plate, like how Dixie just stands there and pokes her nose over the edge, about like that but higher and youre four feet in the air. when we were sitting on their couch i was looking up at it! i mean this thing was large in stature! hahaha

then we got to play with it. he went out back a got a "stick" i kid you not, like four feet tall and the thickness of a baseball bat or more and he was just running around with it!!! so cool. so we went inside and we are all crammed on the couch, and he (Zeke) walked up, turned around and sat on the couch!!!!!!! with his front legs on the ground and all!!!! it was soo funny. so we, with the dog, shared our thought, then we were going to say the prayer. 

well Elder Fowles was going to say it, and had just started when all of a sudden this mammoth hit me in the face with his head and like slobbered on my face!! and of course i audibly said "Oh jeez!!" ha well then we started giggling...... and then Zeke walked right over to Elder Fowles, who's desperately trying to keep it together and wacks him too!!!! and that was it. we lost it. we started laughing so hard. I looked at the mom and she was covering her face in her hoodie just dying, everyone was laughing, E Fowles just ended it and we just laughed oh my goodness it was soo funny. 

so yeah everyone, even missionaries arent immune from laughing during prayers...

Great to hear from you all!!

love you all so much and we will talk to you next week. 

Elder Whitaker

Got my VISA!!

So this week was pretty crazy. after i finished emailing last week we got a call from our president and we had a huge talk about our numbers and what was going on there and he started talking about maybe closing our area and that he would get back to us. well Pday was about to end and we still didnt know so we asked him and he finally said we would be staying. and then began the longest week ever. it was so slow!! ha we knocked A TON of doors. like all day. it was fun but we just couldnt get any lessons in. we did find one really cool family that had a lot of questions and we taught them a little, but we had to leave for english class so we set an appointment for the next day. well we came back with a member, and in our branch, getting a member is an accomplishment by itself, well turned out there werent there so that was a bummer. then we went to english class that night (both nights no one was there) so that was all tuesday through thursday. then friday we just did what we had done thursday, we passed out these announcements that everyone should watch Conference. well i feel bad cause i told people that they could watch it at home, well they didnt broadcast it in spanish but we didnt find that out till the saturday afternoon session was half way through. so then Sunday. 

Sunday was a really epic day. we got up and did the usual. we were studying Oh wait. 

Ok so friday and saturday, literally for two days we played the worst game of phone tag ever. Our PRESIDENT called and we couldnt get on the same schedule!! it was awful, so finally he calls Sunday and we dove for the phone. We just talked about our branch president and our ward mission leader and how things were going. Then he (not knowing he was on speaker) said "we received notification that Elder Whitaker has obtained his Visa"!!!!!!!!!!!! then i dont know what happened. i was literally running around and i did push ups for a while and punched the air for about ten minutes. i was so fired up. but yeah then the phone got passed to me and he told me that i will be flying out the 22 of this month!!!! and then he complicated things. 

He said that since nothing was going on in our area that i would be moved to an area where they have more Spanish investigators than they know what to do with. then he told us that he wanted to make this transfer happen Sunday night. and that we would have to leave straight from the church building to go to Gate City so i could be picked up by the assistants. but the difficult thing was is that it was 11:00 in the morning, Conference was at 12 and 4, and it takes us 15 minutes to get to church.which only left me an hour and a half to pack up everything and leave. 

i have never moved so fast in my life. you should feel my bags though. they weigh like eighty pounds. so imma be mailing some stuff home here like next week and the next. so be looking for those. its gonna cost a fortune. :) but yeah, now i am living in Gastonia, the water here tastes weird, ha random fact but yep, and i am in a trio, with two zone leaders so thats fun. i am excited to get to work. 

just funny how right when i had accepted that NC could be my mission for a long time is right when i got my Visa. When you fully accept what God has in store for you, he sends you a blessing just lettin you know he is watchin out for you. 

Thats all i got this week. 

Les Quiero

Elder Whitaker

Responding to where we should send his birthday present:

1264 East Hudson Boulevard apt O as in oh 

Gastonia NC 28054

haha very light. cause honestly i swear the big one weighs at least 70. i would say 80's even

ha ha oh boy. well yeah. food is always good. i can always hook up my new comps.

but yeah not a whole ton of sugar though i havent been into sugar out here. 

oh did i ever tell you that i have sensitive teeth apparently. yeah had to go to the 

dentist a few weeks back. they did it for free so its ok but yeah. crazy. i got some like prescription stuff. but the sensodyne isnt the worst idea cause i will need some for when i get down there. 

ope no idea. but yeah. thats my address for now. everything is great. the elders i am with are champs and we will have a great time. love you so much.

im jealous of the snow and stuff. oh!!!! i really need to have you send me some cards for my camera cause i dont know where to get em. and im lazy. 

but uhh, what else, thats all i got, i left my list of stuff to put in letters at home. 

oh did you recognize that australian guy!! he came to our stake a while ago. that was cool. that fly is now famous. uh. oh. those running shoes i bought are small now. and oh haha im getting fat. those pants from CTR are cryin when i put em on. :) funny. 

also if you have our new family pictures on paper yet, send one of those. 

tell Dixie hi for me. 

Love you 

tell scotty hi. 

Elder Whitaker 

ha theres no time in the day! but we are heading out. also, how do you fix the hem on pants, cause the missionary mall ones are all the way apart now and the left leg is coming out the bottom. so if you could let me know that that would be awesome. imma ask some members if they will do it.

LOVE YOU 

Elder Whitaker

EW: I think it is an xD card. uhhhh. i have no idea. but if you buy it at walmart and send it i think i can exchange it out here. its a Canon i think. wow i really dont know anything about it. but i will find out and let you know next week.

byee

EW: b day is next week mother... awkward. ha kidding. but thank you

me: Birthday week starts on Thursday this week so really I'm just very efficient!

 EW: valid point.

NC Week 7

So I just now realized, that hey! i gotta write my family!

My pinky is literally sore but im going to tough it out for the good of the team. 

So this week, jeez i really need to start taking notes when things happen, the time goes by here so fast that i dont even have time to think. But the high light that i can think of happened on saturday night after Hermana Martinez fed us sooo much food!!! literally when she was walking over i was like, weird, how are we going to get that all of the plate for everyone, and then she handed it to me.... ha this little kid had to pack down six taquitos and a mountain of lettuce. and i had to make the conscious decision that i like avacado cause she was quite liberal with that stuff.. ha. so we were waddling back to the car when we looked up the street and saw two black kids playin basketball. and my comp loves playin and he shot me a look like " you down" so i grunted and we waddled up there instead. and then it was game time!

It was so fun! they were talkin so much smack, like if they lost to two white boys it shirt and tie, what they would do and all that. well we worked the first two. they quit. then the older brother came up and was like ok lets play. so he was playing with his little brother, and we beat them too. Well then we looked over at this house and out walks this kid, gym shorts and warm ups, and Big Bro calls him over to teach us how to play. haha Tyreke Day. Even sounds good doesnt he! well he was. that game was a battle and we won 7-6. it was really fun. We had a total blast playin em, we actually saw two of them as we were working in the trailer parks yesterday, they both waved at us as we drove past. 

Im getting really good at soccer. i mean granted, i am comparing that to like ten year old kids, but theyre hispanic kids so i think that translates to about a thirty year old Gringo. right? but yeah its really fun. just playin in the streets and trailer parks with em. It is really hard to get lessons out of soccer though. cause basketball its way easier, but soccer is kinda tough. 

But as far as investigators go... we are doing a LOT of finding. i made some flyers for our english classes and we are putting those up in the trailer parks where they all get their mail. so that will be good. but we have basically one investigator and her family that we are working with. Her name is Socorro(which means relief, literally sociedad de Socorro is relief society) but then her two kids, Betsy and Jose. they are really legit. we met em, taught them the next day, and the next day was sunday and they came to church. that was all about three our four weeks ago. well then we couldnt get her to come back. and she is about the busiest lady ever so we could never meet. well finally we found a time to go over and were talking and turns out that of course someone offended her. So we tried our best to fix that mess. which i really think we did. then we met with her and Jose on saturday and were able to commit them to baptism. which they accepted for the 19 of October. well then on sunday they didnt show up again!!!! so that negated them from becoming a bapt date. so yeah. Confusing. but we are working on resolving all of that deal. its like a puzzle but you cant see the pieces or even find where the pieces are in the house... haha. keepin fun. 

We did meet one family that i am determined to convert. literally she would be awesome in the primary. Shes SOOOOO happy!!!! i dont know how but she is and her son is way cool. but yeah. they are the new project. that is if i dont get transferred, which is a very real possibility. normally we shoulda known yesterday, but for some reason our president wants us to get good at speed packing. so that will be fun:) I will let you all know where i end up as soon as i know. 

Thats about all i have for this week. 

Les quiero mucho y estoy muy agradecido por todas las cosas que han hecho. 

Gracias Mi Familia Hermosa

Elder Whitaker   

North Carolina Week 6

Hey there!!

So this week was pretty uneventful. Nothing to amazing or funny really happened except for the greatest party that I have ever gone to in my entire life. It was call Noche de Naciones, or Festival de las Naciones, and it was just a huge group of people that all had their own table for each country and brought food from their country and it was really fun. Mexico went hard. They had so much stuff, it was hilarious. They even bought a Mariachi Band!!! But the coolest was the dancers. They were so fun to watch. After the party we offered to give the Gate City Elders a ride cause they biked there. So we walked out and were met with a roar of rain. It was just pouring. We booked it to the car and tried to get the rack on, I was the only one with a jacket, but didnt realize I had one until I was already pretty wet. That was epic trying to get that all hooked up. 

All of these pictures are from a huge party our Stake threw called festival de las naciones. And it was amazing. So fun. The guy holding the guitar is a member in my ward and he is literally the greatest member ever!! Brother Garcia is amazing. He is always looking to help people and will do anything for anyone. The dancers were amazing and just so cool to watch. Then they pulled out machetes and went crazy. It was fun to watch em. Then the last one is Elder Flores, love that kid, so cool, Elder Briggs(my companion), and Elder Haskell(our district leader). The whole night was a blast till we had to give the other Elders a lift home. We had to put their bikes on our rack while it was absolutely pouring rain. My tie was silk, and is now destroyed haha sad days. But all is well. 

But everything is going good. There really isn't much to tell about. Oh on exchanges (we had to blitz our area) we climbed in our attic, and as i was walking around something hit my back and i just screamed. it scared me soooo bad. then not even ten seconds later Elder Flores did the same thing. It was hilarious. I woulda had it on video but my camera died, sad day. 

I really feel bad that I have nothing to talk about. I will try hard this week to make something amazing happen!! 

Well thats all I got for this week. 

Love you all! thanks for your prayers

Love 

Elder Whitaker

Week... Four?

Inbox

x

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

Hola Familia!!

The time here is flying. It is so crazy to think that so much time has passed since I was last at home. It is funny when people talk about time, like they will say yeah that happened back in like the end of July. and all i can think is uh... that was like last week. it feels like time just freezes when you walk through those doors at the MTC. you are writing down the days that pass but nothing outside of the MTC or outside of North Carolina is actually happening. haha 

   

   But what is this that i am hearing about us going to war with Syria??? I feel like we just tried to end one, or was that just me. But yeah we have been spending time in the hospital for my companion, so i hear and sometimes glance at the TV. ha but i do NOT miss the news. 

 

   Everything went well this week. we werent able to do a whole lot of work because we had meetings all week. Tuesday i went on exchange with the District Leader, who the week before got in a car crash, totalled the car, and lost his driving privileges. Well that meant that we got to bike!!! And it also happened to be literally the hottest day of my mission. it was ridiculous. i have honestly never sweat so much in my life. but it was really fun. i was catchin air on every driveway... like the first three then i got tired and realized, i got A LOT longer to go so i should probably take it easy. which i didnt do obviously. but i had fun. we spent a lot of time at the courthouse and Police Station doing paper work and paying the ticket. we got lost in the courthouse for a while and it was just funny. oh by the way, worst job ever... security check at the Courthouse. Those poor people. I woulda left a book of mormon if i had one just because i know that eventually they would read it out of sheer boredom... thats actually not a bad idea. 

    Wednesday was nothing but travel. i drove home, we cleaned the car, packed, ate at a members house, did correlation, and then left for Charlotte. 

  Thursday was the training meeting. it was so much fun. i got to see people i know and that didnt just talk about their companions from six months ago!! it was so fun. but the training was amazing. i learned so much. our president is such a great guy. I just tried to soak it all in. i took a ton of notes. But that took till four, so when we were getting ready to leave, we asked the Senior missionary in charge of cars to come look at our car. this poor car. it got a hub cap stolen. did you know that they are literally just a snap on piece of plastic!!! that blew my mind. to put on the new one he just lined it up and slapped it!! well then we said we needed new tires cause they looked a little old. well we walked up to the front left one and there was a massive strip of the tire basically missing!! you could see the metal and everything. He wouldnt let us drive it all the way home obviously so we got the Assistants car. and that one was sweet. sooo much bigger!! but yeah. no doubt we had some help on that one. just getting us there was a miracle. 

  after that nothing really happened. oh. Sunday i gave my first talk in all spanish. it was hard. but i enjoyed it. sometimes i wonder why i write the talk, because i never use it. but then we ate at a less actives house that had come to church that day, oh their daughter, who hadnt come to church in five years, I have just been talking on facebook with her and she showed up this week!!! crazy. but we ate with them and when we had just shared the thought we were going to say the prayer and this little baby started crying. and all of a sudden i just had the thought of Grandma over there Quieting him down, and from that moment, he never made a peep. It was really cool. we have angels with us for sure. our family is all around... 

  But I am having a lot of fun. I am so grateful to be out here. 

i have no idea what in the world i would be doing without my mission. 

Thank you all for your examples and emails! it is so fun to get on here

and have people to write. thanks again.

Les Amo mucho!!

Elder Whitaker

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Hi Bryce Hi Bryce Hi Bryce!!!!

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Great letter Bryce!  I love your sweet experiences and the funny ones!  You are such a cutie.  So humble and

full of the spirit.  I can just feel it!

Love you,

Momma

Beth Whitaker		9/16/13
Hola Familia!! The time here is flying. It is so crazy to think that so much ...

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Great letter Bryce!  I love your sweet experiences and the funny ones!  You are such a cutie.  So humble and

full of the spirit.  I can just feel it!

Love you Momma

Beth Whitaker		9/16/13
Hola Familia!! The time here is flying. It is so crazy to think that so much ...

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Hey and do you have any pictures you can send?  What happened in the car crash?  Your companion

was hurt?

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

yeah one sec. we are about to head out. 

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

Attachments area

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Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Oh!  So good hearing from you.  You sound like you're doing great.  Such a blessing
that you were safe with that bad tire!!

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

Attachments area

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Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

ha do me a favor and crop the weird guy staring at me before sending it out

.... haha thanks

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

What weird guy?  I didn't get that picture?

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

that plate of food looks really good!!  who made it?

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

the weird guy that is staring built it. Love you So much

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Love you too you cute!  Dad says HI!!

Beth Whitaker <bbwhitaker@gmail.com>	9/16/13
to Bryce

Dad's been out mowing the lawn and says he's keeping up with the yard work

even without you but he misses you!

We love you!

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

Hello mother

Lee Starnes		9/16/13
Such a sweet inspirational letter. I love it Sent from my iPhone

Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

Attachments area

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Bryce Whitaker <bryce.whitaker@myldsmail.net>	9/16/13
to me

bye mom. love you. 

Beth Whitaker		9/16/13
Hola Familia!! The time here is flying. It is so crazy to think that so much ...

cathy cook <cathy_cook00@hotmail.com>	9/16/13
to me

Love these!   He is such a great missionary along with an amazing young man.

Love it!