Its FALL!!!!!

30 March 2015

so i have now had to use my jacket..... that was a weird experience. 

and yes i got my yearly cold. but i totally destroyed it this year and was over it in two days.... no big deal=) 

bueno, the first week of the craziness went pretty well. 

the meetings yesterday were a little rough... im extremely excited for Conference, just to be able to relax and watch it. 

the meetings are tough here just cause the little kids here are overly rambunctious..... spelling??

but they are out of their minds, its about one family with six kids and the poor parents just cant keep em under control, so i usually grab two of em and try to settle em down, which works for a few minutes but obviously not ever as long as needed. we are working with them, the dad is a stud and is trying, hes the elders quorum president, and hopefully will take my place when i head home. 

today we are going to have a family home night with them and our idea is to get them to do a family garden. im convinced it was inspiration. cause those kids need something to do, they just sit inside their two room house and really do nothing, so we are going to teach them and see if they like the idea. plus, as we learn in the book of mormon, its easier to take care of people when they are working. =) hahaha

but i am having fun. really busy. but i like the stress and the responsibility. 

HUGE PRAYERS need to go up for Claudia y Elio. they are amazing but just need the Spirit to really work with them. they are quitting smoking and tea and have got to get married. so just pray that they will face this challenge head on and not get freaked out. we are worried that they will look at the end and decide that they arent going to be able to do it and for that they wont take the little steps that are needed to make it. 

adelma is a BOSS!!!!!!!!! she taught gospel principles this week=) she was super nervous, and basically just read the manual, i figured she would so we gave her a really long chapter. ;) but she did good!!!! i liked it at least. so she is progressing very well. we will give her a talk here in a couple of weeks and see how that goes. but she is doing great. 

well thats about all i got, i am pounding the peanut butter=) 

love you guys too much!!!

Elder Whitaker yeah super good. =) 

but yeah the culture down here is just terrified of getting married. so we will see. they are awesome though. i hope they will make it. 

CRAZY WEEK

March  24, 2015

Holy cow, so much as happened that i dont even know where to start. i will save the craziest stuff for the end. =) 

​so last week we had a sweet experience, it feels like forever ago. but we went to a callback, and as we talked, more and more people kept coming out to see who we were, then they started going back in, i thought with the attitude that they werent coming back, well they came back, with chairs. well next thing we know we were teaching 6 people the first lesson, all of em were locked in, with the perfect questions and answers. it was a blast. at the end, we commited all of them to baptism and they accepted. that was the highest number of adults i have ever taught in one lesson, and it was so fun!!!!!!! i love teaching, there is nothing more fun, some times i feel like i just sit back and chill while the Spirit uses my mouth to talk to these people. i love this!!!!!!

ok, so there was more but it all got dwarfed by what happened thursday night at 1100pm

i was literally in bed, lights off, everyone just kind of chatting. and the phone goes off. well whenever Presidente Zanni calls, things get real really quick. the room went super quiet, as it always does. and then, after a coupe seconds of small talk, said, elder whitaker im calling to extend you the calling of branch president of the branch san cristóbal.........

holy cow.

hahaha so that was crazy...... then friday we find out that they are taking out the other elders here and we are taking over the other half of the city that i have never set foot in.

so here is my current status in the mission, im now District Leader, still training, Whitewashing half the city, and Branch President. so im going to be really busy for my last 3 months of the mission. hahaha

so any prayers would be welcome. im excited but obviously nervous. its going to be a lot of work. it will really be good for this branch though that they now cant depend on the elders so much. we taught almost every class sundays.

but it is His work and His way, we are just here to talk.

Love you guys, heres some pictures for my golf excursion last week. =)

when do i get really sunburned???

March 16, 2015

​WHEN I GOLF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WENT GOLFING JUST BARELY!!!!!!

i shot 43. i had a birdie=) it was incredible. ive had a huge smile on my face since like thursday when we started planning. but i am doing great. havin fun. got some people progressing. 

one got in a wicked accident, so pray, she is doing better. but just pray that everyone will keep commitments,

pray for villareal family to open their hearts and look for an answer.

pray for claudia and elio to want to be married. 

im working and doing everything possible. dont worry, im not going to waste a single day. 

love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

43!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!​

just happy to be here

March 10, 2015

sorry i didnt write yesterday. it was p day but the internet in the only place in town went down. so. yeah. here we are and i only have 15 minutes. so

we had a good week. worked a lot. rita y andrea, i dont know what to do with them, they dont get it. its a long story but they just dont have a testimony f

​ro​

​

m God yet and we are working for that. but we are trying.

Adelma is a stud. she has given us at least 8 referrals. =) we love her. she is going strong

stormed really hard last week. and in the middle, high point of some of the streets i was in water up to my knees. so that was fun. =)

lovin it. training is a challenge but i total blast. i love this kid, we get along well. we are havin fun.

my new slogan, im just happy to be here. but it really explains a lot of my personality and my attitude when tough things go down. havin fun

love you guys

ELder WHitaker

todo bien

2 March 2015

well, they cut email time down so i dont have time really.

but todo bien, happy, lovin it. working.

pray for familia cristaldo. we need to find them.

pray that we will baptize a family of three on the 21 of march. we arent sure who, we have two families of three that might be the family we are praying for, but we need EVERYTHING to work out. so please pray a lot.

rita y andrea are doing ok. they just need a testimony from god.

super fun. went to rosario last week and saw giacoboni, my first trainee, hes a zone leader now. =) its fun. times just a flyin.

love you guys, and toms, i am going to make sure they look argentinian, send me colors and sizes. they will have a design strap across the top. theyre cool. and price. about 7-10 dollars. so not expensive. let me know=)

BAPTISMO!!!

23 Feb 2015

Adelma is just the best thing since sliced bread with peanut butter and oreos.

=)

i love her so much. she was really nervous to get actually baptized. like the literal motion to go down in the water and come back out. after saying the prayer, my comp went to dunk her, and she stopped!! and said no, wait wait... and my heart started beating really really fast. hahaha but we got her calmed down and the second time it went over well. =) haha when she said wait no, i froze=) haha so that was a very stressful moment of the week.

her confirmation day, she gave her testimony, and total NAILED it!!!! =) she got up there and gave a really good testimony, and even ended it in the name of Jesus Christ, without anyone else telling her to do that. =) and today she is going to accompany us to another investigator to bear her testimony. she is doing her family history now, and has given us like 4 referrals=) she is just a total champ=)

we had an incredible conference on tuesday. it was really inspirational. i loved it.

one thing that was said was.

when we were born, we passed through the veil and forgot all of the one on one time we had with our Father in Heaven and all the moments we shared. But He didnt. He still remembers, and still loves us just the same as he always did.

there were a lot of really special things that were said in that conference. it really helped me a lot. the way to teach people now has changed. just a lot of things. it was a conference with a 70. so it was a good time. got to see a lot of friends there too which also makes things fun.

one of the unexpected people there was a mini misionera from FEDERAL!!!!! lara chavez!! i couldnt believe it. it was really fun to get to talk to her again and just be in Federal for a little while. haha overall, really good day.

when we got back to San Cristóbal i felt like we needed to go to an incomplete family, it was already 915 and basically time to just go home, but we booked it over there and had a really good lesson. the Spirit was really strong and honestly it was a real testimony builder. this work is just about the funnest thing there is=)

so really pray for us to start finding some more people, and our goal is to help rita and andrea be baptized the 14 of march. pray that they will get a testimony from GOD. they are taking our word and the word of their dead father/husband, instead of praying and asking.

also we are praying to be able to baptize a family of 3, dad, mom, and a kid the 21 of march, we are going to do everything possible so if you could pray and see if we can have some miracles these next 2 weeks that would really help us a lot. =)

havin fun. 

Elder Whitaker