Today!- Don't Freak Out (Keep Reading)

Hello!  This was such an awesome week!  It wasn't as busy as last week which is actually good because we had more time this week to find!  Monday night was awesome!  We went to one of our new investigators house to kind of drop by and when we got to his door we could see through his window (we weren't being creepy haha) anyways we noticed that he was reading the Book of Mormon.  It was so awesome! We gave it to him last week and he is already in Mosiah.  Heck yeah.

On Tuesday we did a lot of service so that was pretty fun!  Nothing super cool happened though...

Wednesday we went to Huntsville for zone conference and that was so awesome!  President Hanks gave such a great training.  It scared us a little bit though.  He told the APs to shut the doors and then told us there were some really difficult things he had to tell us and that things were going to get harder for us.  He had a slide on the power point that had some of the things he needed to say.  He told us that one of the apostles had denied the truth and that another one of the general authorities had been caught in adultery and possibly murder. Also that there were mass resignations at church headquarters.  He said because of this a lot of things were going to change and that things were going to get crazy!  You can imagine how it felt in that room haha.  Well of course it wasn't true (at least in our day).  He then said the apostle he was referring to was Peter, when he denied Christ 3 times.  The other general authority was David, when he messed up with Bathsheba.  He did say that something like this can and probably will happen.  Things probably will get harder and if and when they do are we going to be ready for it.  It was a great training on how our testimonies have to be strong.  They can't built on others testimonies.  Even the apostles.  I am thankful for the testimony that I have of the Gospel.  Anyways, zone training was just super awesome!  I love hearing President Hanks train! 

Thursday night we got a solid new investigator named Leeann.  She is the neighbor of a less active woman we have been working with and she wanted us to come and give her a priesthood blessing.  After we gave the blessing we taught the restoration.  It went so well and it was awesome to see Sister Morehead (less active member) fellowship Leeann. 

Well those were the highlights of my week!  It is so awesome just being here serving in Alabama.  I hope yall have a great week!  Love yall!

Elder Whetten

 

August 18th, 2014- Busy, Busy, Busy

Craziest week of my life!  It was so busy I love it!  We were able to have so much success.  On Monday we picked up a new investigator named Johnny.  He is a really cool guy.  Super talkative but he has been reading the pamphlet we gave him and is really excited to read the Book of Mormon.  On Tuesday we hardly had time to do everything we had planned.  We went to the other Johnny's house to do some service for him and right after that we rushed to CASA (a food bank place) to fit in some service there.  We couldn't stay there long because we had to rush home to meet a member who was going with us on a teamup.  That went really well.  Wednesday we went to District Meeting in Guntersville and then went on an exchange.  I stayed in Guntersville with Elder Dietrich and Elder Nielson went back to Fort Payne.  Him and Elder Turley did so awesome here!  They were able to find there way around the area (I was worried about that)  and they set a baptism date for Curtis!  I was so pumped! On Thursday I got back to Fort Payne in time to go on another regular teamup we have on Thursday mornings. After that teamup we went into town to see Estella.  She still hasn't read the Book of Mormon lately... but it will happen.  Then she will come to church and get baptized! haha We have had a lot of spiritual lessons with her.  After Estella we ran to help the Nelsons pack up because they moved to Collinsville.  Then got back to the apartment as fast as we could to get picked up for yet another teamup.  We went to see Brother Laney a less active.  He is a really cool guy he is just really hesitant to talk about the church.  We are making progress though because that night we were actually able to share a scripture with him and talk about that.  Friday was the only day we had to try and see some other investigators like Debra and then see some potential investigators.  It ended up going really well.  Saturday morning we helped the Nelsons move and then went to a Branch party.  This branch has the coolest parties ever.  They had it right next to a lake and had boats and jet skis and stuff.  It was so tempting but don't worry, I was obedient. I stayed on the shore and ate a lot of food haha. Sunday was crazy because we found out in sacrament meeting that one of us was going to have to teach Gospel principles.  Someone also asked me to go into their Sunday School class and talk about the importance of keeping journals.  So while I did that Elder Nielson was teaching Gospel Principles.  He is a stud.  After church we went on another team up with the Branch President.  That guy is funny.  He was super bold with the members we saw too.  It went good.  That night we went back to the church for a Stake priesthood broadcast because some of our other appointments fell through.  Then right after that meeting we drove to Guntersville to stay the night there because we were supposed to wake up early this morning and drive to Huntsville with the Gville Elders for another "Zone Activity" (a hike).  Well this morning we woke up early but got a text from the Zone Leaders saying because of some thunderstorms the hike was cancelled.  So we just got back from Guntersville a little while ago.  That ends the busiest week of my life!!  It was awesome.  I hope yall had a great week.  I love you all

Elder Whetten

August 11th, 2014- Flat Tire= New Investigators!

Hello!  This has been such a crazy awesome week!  It started off kind of sad with it being Elder Lundeens last few days.  He worked super hard though until it was over.  I'm really glad I got to serve with him I learned a lot!

My new companion is Elder Nielsen from Twin Falls Idaho.  He is the nicest guy I'm excited to serve with him.  We have already seen so many blessings come.  One of the coolest things happened on Friday.  We started biking from our apartment when Elder Nielsen got a flat tire.  Because of that we decided to walk.  Well while walking we were able to talk to a lot more people.  The coolest thing is some people stopped us to talk to us.  We weren't walking too long when this lady and her husband ran up to us, asked us if we were Mormons, and wanted a Book of Mormon.  She told us she was a member that hadn't been to church in a while.  She had just got to Fort Payne the night before so we gave her the address to the church and got her number.  Her husband isn't a member so hopefully we can start teaching them!  

Not even 2 hours later we were walking downtown when a guy comes out of his store and tells us to come in and have some water.  It was like a family business so we started talking to him, his brother, his sister and his bro in law.  They were asking us a lot of good questions so we asked if they wanted a pamphlet.  He was like, "Yeah that's what I wanted to get form yall!"  We invited him to be taught and are going to call him and set up a time soon!  

That is only a couple of the miracles we saw this week.  We also had an awesome lesson with Estella.  She knows she needs to be baptized and wants it so bad!  She just has some concerns.  We are trying to help her come to church and hopefully when she comes it will get rid of a lot of the concerns she has.  She seems so ready!  She knows the Gospel will bless her life.  

It has just been a great week!  The Lord is preparing people everywhere it's so awesome!  I'm so thankful to be out here!

I love you all have a great week!

Elder Whetten

August 4th, 2014- Groundver? Beavhog?

Hello! 

This week has been a really good one! Monday night we dropped in on this guy who had met missionaries before and even went to church before but didn't come back because he thought church was super boring haha.  Really cool guy though!  He had the craziest animal ever in his garage.  He must have just found it and it was injured or something.  None of us knew if it was like a groundhog or a beaver or what....  Tuesday and Wednesday were super fun!  I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders and went with Elder Zundel to Scottsboro.  I went with him to teach this kid in their area who is getting baptized so that's pretty sweet.  After that Elder Zundel and I headed to Guntersville and played basketball there with the Guntersville Elders and ward members.  Doesn't sound like the most effective thing but there were a bunch of nonmembers and less actives there too so it was awesome!  That night we stayed the night in Guntersville and exchanged back there at district meeting.  Thursday night was great because we saw a less active member who usually does not want to have a gospel discussion.  That night he actually brought up gospel topics.  Friday night we saw a family we have been working with for a while. A grandmother and her grandson.  They are both members but the grandson hasn't been super active.  He is a Deacon but didn't really want/care much to come to church.  Well that night he asked us to give him a blessing since he was nervous about school starting.  He is starting to understand the importance of the priesthood. 

Sunday was so good too!  Another less active we have been working with made it to church and even bore her testimony.  She is super cool and I think she will be a big strength to the branch!  Then Sunday night we were tracting and met the coolest guy!  He is Baptist but told us how much respect he has for Mormons and how he wishes Baptist churches would be more like us.  We don't meet too many people like that haha.  Anyways we are going to start teaching him!!  The Lord really blessed us this week!  Well I hope yalls week was awesome!  I love yall!

Elder Whetten

July 28th, 2014- The Curse of the Flat Tires

Eyyy everyone!  So this was a challenging week but a fun one.  I'm sure a lot of you know this but it sucks to be randomly dropped by a progressing investigator!  At least she was super nice about it.  She will probably be more prepared later so future missionaries better try to contact her again.  Also I am convinced that I am cursed haha.  Still more bad luck with flat tires this week but this time It was my companion.  It was just one of those things where it was so bad we just had to laugh about it.  Good news is we saw a less active member who is ready to come back to church!  He usually had to work on Sundays but his schedule has finally changed.  I'm excited to see him come this week!

Not much else has been going on.  Elder Lundeen has been getting ready to go back to Phoenix.  It's about that time again, transfers are coming up.  We have spent some time this week trying to pawn his bike off and he finally got it sold this morning.  So that has been fun.  Sorry it's a little short this week.  I don't have a whole lot of time.  I love you all and hope you have an awesome week.

July 21st, 2014- Soccer, Solid Members, & a GUITAR!!

What is up everybody?  This has been a good week!  On Monday we drove to Scottsboro to have a little Zone activity thing!  It was pretty fun we played some soccer and some ultimate frisbee.  It was also super hot though!!

Tuesday night we went and met with Brad (This guy we have kind of been teaching who actually got baptized in Atlanta this week)  He is such a solid member!  He used to have a giant collection of movies....so many movies haha!  When we walked in his house that night I noticed they were all gone.  He told us since they weren't really the best movies (most of them were R rated)  He pawned them all off.  So he is doing really great! 

Wednesday we met with Curtis and talked to him for a while.  I even got to play his guitar for a little bit.  It has been way too long!  Anyways we taught him the Restoration and it went awesome!

Thursday was the best!  That night we met with Beverly for the first time in a couple of weeks.  It was so good because she is actually progressing!  She read and studied the Restoration pamphlet we left her which usually never happens haha.  Then read the Book of Mormon introduction with her.  She knows that it can really bless her family and we are working on getting her to church!

Friday and Saturday weren't my favorites.... I had the worst luck.  In those two days I probably had 3 flat tires so that was terrible. 

Overall it was an awesome week!  I'm loving being a missionary and I love you all!

Elder Whetten

 

July 14th, 2014- Coincidence? I Think Not

How's it going everybody?  It has been going awesome here in Fort Payne!  Not a whole lot of news about any of our investigators.  We finally got to see Daniel!  It is so hard to contact him because he can only call or text people who have verizon and our phone is sprint.... Dumb!  We saw him yesterday for just a little bit.  He is really struggling with this new job he has.  I hope he can find something else because this new job is really holding him back from coming to church. So that is pretty lame...

But!  We have been finding so many people to teach!  This whole time we have really been focusing on tracking down Former Investigators.  There was one kid named Curtis we tried last month but when we found his address we could tell no one lived there anymore.  Well this week we were tracting and knocked on his Mom's door!  Turns out they had moved a few months ago so it is really awesome that we were able to find them!  We are going to start teaching Curtis, his Mom Angie, and her fiance Jeff.  They are very open so I am pumped!  Plus Curtis is a guitar player in his band so that's pretty sweet.  

Other than that not much else happened this week.  Except for running into a bunch of crazy baptists who were concerned for our souls.  We meet a bunch of people out here who want to save us haha

The Lord has really blessed us!  I am so thankful I am out here serving him and that I am a part of his work!  I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Whetten

July 7th, 2014- Fourth of July Fireworks & FOOD!

Hey everybody!  How was everyone's week?  My week was pretty awesome.  Earlier in the week we had a great lesson with a new investigator named Beverly.  We taught her the restoration and she seems very prepared.  But of course there is always opposition... She told us a couple of days ago that she was having some shoulder problems and on top of that she has shingles.  No fun...  So we aren't sure when we are going to be able to meet with her again.

We saw Daniel on Saturday!  He is still very interested and actually was off work on Saturday night so we asked if he wanted to come to church!  Well his wife got baptized in another church yesterday and he wanted to be there to support her.  We talked with him about baptism and gave him the invitation.  He understands that it is a big commitment and is going to really ponder and pray about it.  Which is awesome! That's what we want!  

We picked up another investigator a couple of weeks ago named Brad.  Super cool guy.  He was introduced to the church by a friend in Atlanta.  He went to church in Atlanta with him and the missionaries there started teaching him.  He is going to be baptized on the 13th in Atlanta.  I guess he should be baptized here but he already has all the fellowship and friends in Atlanta.  I'm so excited for him but we are trying to transition him into the Fort Payne branch since he lives in our boundaries.  He was supposed to come to church here yesterday but texted us before it started and said he wasn't going to make it.  He said he had been praying and there was something he needed to do, and that he would explain more the next time we meet with him.  I'm not sure if that's good or not haha.  I can't wait to meet with him next week and find out what the heck happened!

That's about how my week went!  Other than a fun 4th of July!  We were able to go some fireworks Thursday night that Fort Payne put on and the next night we went to see a part member family who were actually having a cook-out.  They invited us to stay and have some food so that was pretty sweet!  These people know how to grill out! haha we really lucked out that night.  We even had a pretty good gospel discussion with Jeff (the nonmember) and we cleared up a lot of misconceptions he had heard about us so it was great!  

Well I love yall!  Hope that you have a great week!

Elder Whetten

 

June 30th, 2014- Questions & Good Old Fashioned Service

What's up everyone?

I'm doing great here in Fort Payne!  This week was a bit of a challenging one...but there were also lots of blessings!  Challenging because our investigators all seem to have hit some kind of trial.  We met with Daniel this week and answered a lot of questions he had after coming to church.  He had a lot of questions about things that mostly had to do with the temple. (yikes!)  He asked us about Genealogy, baptisms for the dead, and why not just everybody can enter into temples.  We answered all of his questions and he seems to be cool and accepting about all of it!  So cool he is a solid investigator. Only problem is he just got a job that is going to make it harder for him to come to church because he will usually have to work until 4 Sunday morning.  We are going to keep stressing how important the restored gospel is and why coming to church is so important. 

Yesterday we finally were able to meet with Estella.  She told us she had started going to another church that she really liked.  She still would love us to come by but she is all about the Bible and says she doesn't like how all we ever talk about is the Book of Mormon.  So we aren't really sure where to go from there.  

Like I said we did see a lot of blessings this week though.  On Friday we helped build a ramp for a family in the branch.  It was a lot of fun and just some good old fashioned service.  I love that.  Then on Sunday in Branch council we brought up a couple of our investigators and it was awesome to hear all the ideas they were coming up with to help and fellowship our investigators.  I think the spirit of missionary work is starting to grow in the branch.  Sweet! 

Well I hope all yall have a great week! 

Love, Elder Whetten

June 23rd, 2014- Three Different States & Three New Investigators!

Awesome week!  I have now hit up 3 of the 4 states in my mission thanks to our branch mission leader!  Because he lives in Georgia we have spent time there and also just this week he was moving a bunch of stuff into a storage unit in Tenessee and he asked us to come help him with that.  It was a lot of fun!  So Bam!  All I need now is to find my way to Mississippi somehow haha. 

Even the past few days have been amazing!  We had an investigator (Daniel) come to church and he is so solid!  He participated in Sunday School and in the Priesthood lesson and seemed like he really liked it.  He even brought a notebook and wrote down questions he had for us or something he liked that the speakers said.  I'm excited to meet with him again. 

We also got 3 new investigators at church!  They are a family who were taking Geneology classes and decided to visit the branch this week.  We are going to start teaching them this week too!    It made for a pretty busy Sunday because while I was showing this family to Gospel Principles and getting to know them a little Elder Lundeen was giving Daniel a quick tour of the church. That's a good type of busy though haha I loved it! The Lord has really blessed us this week!

I hope you all have a great week!  Love y'all!

Elder Whetten

 

June 16, 2014- Free Cake & Lamanite DNA

What's up everybody!

I hope you are all doing great!  It was a great week this week.  On Tuesday we had about an hour that we had no idea what we could do.  We decided to start walking to a ladys house who said we 'might' be able to come by and do some service.  (it's so hard around here to get people to let us serve them!) But anyways on our way to her house this guy walked out of his apartment to talk to us. (That rarely happens so I was pumped)  He thanked us for the work we were doing, told us it was his birthday, and invited us inside to have some of his birthday cake.  You could call that kind of sketchy...I call it free cake haha.  We had a good conversation with him and set an appointment to teach him on Thursday. It was awesome!  Even if he was a little drunk....

I wasn't able to come back to teach him on Thursday but I hear it went great!

Thursday I was on an exchange in Guntersville with our district leader Elder Hunt.  It's cool because He was my Zone Leader when I first got to Alabama and was one of the first missionaries I met.  Glad I get to serve with him again.  Even though he is really good at reminding me how fast the time is going by.  Seriously he was like, "This transfers about over, so you have pretty much been out 7 and a half months. Plus your time in the MTC makes it 8 months...You have been out so long!"  I was just like, "What the crap?! Where is the time going?"    So it was a fun exchange!  I really like Guntersville it is so pretty because all of it is just surrounded by a lake.

On Friday we went to the temple.  Probably my favorite part of the week!  I felt the spirit super strong this time and just felt really happy afterwards.  Best feeling ever. I love the temple. 

On Saturday we got a few new investigators who I'm really excited about.  We met this lady Juanita and had a cool experience with her.  To make a long story short she was telling us that she was part Cherokee indian. Some of her friends told her she should get a DNA test or something because she had heard some things about some Indians being traced all the way back to a Jewish bloodline.  She was wondering how that could be and we were just like, "Whaaattt!? The Book of Mormon has the answer to that!"  She told us that sparked her interest and she really wanted to read it.  I'm excited to see her again. 

Anyways I sort of threw a lot of random things in this email but it was a really good week!  I hope that yall have an awesome week this week Love ya!

Elder Whetten

June 9th, 2014- Service, Nervous, and... Pit Bull Attack?

Hey!

It was such a great week!  So a few weeks ago we were out tracting and we knocked on a mans door who has a lot of trouble speaking and is confined to a wheel chair because of a stroke he had a long time ago.  When we found him I guess he was in the process of trying to do some rearranging in his house.  His house was just a mess and we offered to help him in any way we could.  So the past few weeks we have been going to his house and helping him clean and rearrange.  I don't know why this is coming to my mind right now but I just wanted to let yall know how great it is giving service!  It is seriously the best!  We are buddies with this guy now and it is amazing to see how grateful he is for our help each week.

Well we have also been focusing a lot on visiting less active members in the branch.  Hopefully we can start seeing these members more regularly cause they are great.  It's just hard because they are so spread out and most of them live really far from Fort Payne.  One of the highlights of the week was church yesterday.  President Hanks came to speak in our sacrament meeting so that was awesome!  Even though he decided to stay for our Gospel Principles class and it just happened to be a week I was teaching the class.  You could say I was a little nervous.  I think it went well though haha.  

Anyways, other than all that (and also a close call with a ferocious, attacking pit bull) this week has been pretty normal!  I hope that you all have a great week!  I love you!

Elder Whetten

June 2nd, 2014- Fireflies and Fishin'

I cannot believe it is already June!  Where is the time going?  I hope that all of you had an awesome week!  Mine was sure good!  I have been staying busy, hot, and wet from all this humidity.  Dodging rainstorms and roadkill while biking (a lot).  Then at night I have been getting super distracted by all these random glowing lights in the air.  I have come to learn that these are fireflies (never seen one before this week so that is kind of exciting)!  Then to top it all off we spent some time fishing in Georgia.  All this has made me realize that Summer in the South is where it's at!!

Yesterday had to have been the best as far as investigators go.  We went to a former investigators home (her name is Estella) and ended up teaching her family about the Book of Mormon.  She got really pumped and asked if we could come back maybe 2 or 3 times a week and have Bible/Book of Mormon study with her and her daughters.  After that we had a really great lesson with a recent convert less active couple.  She really opened up to us that she was struggling with her testimony because she never reads the BOM.  She finds it hard to understand since the Bible is what she was used to her whole life.  We are going to start reading with her and help her to understand it better.  

I can really see the blessings that are coming.  I know that the Lord is preparing people we just need to find them.  I am so excited to be a part of this work.  I love you all and hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Whetten

 

Slacking In My Duties...

I apologize for not posting any of Elder Whetten's emails for a while. He is doing great in Fort Payne! Stay tuned, as I will be posting all the emails I've missed throughout the day :)
Thanks for reading!

Sent May 26th, 2014

Hey everybody! Sorry I am so late emailing today. It's Memorial Day so the library is closed. I'm a little short on time too so ill apologize in advance for how short this is.  Things are going so great in Fort payne! We are really expanding our teaching pool and I feel like the branch is really being strengthened.  There is still a lot of work to be done (there always is haha) and I have really seen improvement.  Something that is going to help is the branch finally got a mission leader.  He is so cool too.  I'm excited to work with him.  Fort payne is just getting ready to blow up I can feel it. We found some new investigators. Some are just your typical crazy people ( love teaching crazy people by the way. Makes things even more fun.) but we really have some promising people we are teaching. They seem really prepared and I think they would be solid members.  Again sorry this is so short but remember that I love you all! Thank you for all the emails I love seeing how y'all are doing.  Hope everybody has an amazing week!

Love, 

Elder Whetten