November 17, 2014- Stitches!!

Hello!

So much to tell about this week!  Well the first part of the week went so great!  We met this older lady who needed help cleaning out her shed.  She was a really tough negotiator and wanted to pay us for it.  We told her no she couldn't pay us but she finally settled on just cooking us lunch. (We can't turn that down)  After we helped her and ate lunch we were able to teach her and her daughter the restoration.  It was so awesome!  They are really excited to read the Book of Mormon.  That was a testimony builder for me on something I heard one of my Zone Leaders say a while back, Service Softens Stony Souls.  Service can turn a no into a yes!  It can help someone who wasn't interested in hearing our message before become more open.  

Well some other crazy things happened this week too.  On Thursday I fell right on the floor in our hallway and ended up getting a big cut on my head. (leave it up to me to do something like that right?)  Anyways that completely threw off our day.  I realized that I would probably need stitches.  Spending 4 hours in the ER waiting to get stitched up wasn't really what we had planned that day.  I'm doing good though!  I was out working like normal again after lunch!  

Well we also found a solid new investigator!  His name is Chris and he had been taught by missionaries not too long ago.  He had a baptismal date and everything but ended up backing out.  Well when we taught him this week he told us he wanted to finish the lessons.  We invited him to get baptized on December 6th and he said he would.  Man I am so pumped for him!  He is a really cool kid.  

Also Elder Flores is doing amazing!  He speaks Spanish and the other night he taught a lesson all in Spanish and did so great!  I didn't really understand what was going on but I could tell he had the spirit and that is all you need!  

Well thank you all for everything!  Love yall!

Elder Whetten

November 10, 2014- Hump Daaaay!

Dear Family and Friends,

Whats up?!  This week has been a good one!  There are a lot of exciting things going on in Hamilton right now.  First of all, I feel like I finally know how to get around town!  Even without the help of my trusty GPS.  I know that's pretty sad right since It's a super small town and I have been here for 2 months.  Oh well.  

So our investigators are so awesome!  Most of our progressing investigators are doing so well they just haven't accepted a baptism date yet.  One of them (James) has come to church the past 3 weeks and loves it!  Yesterday there was a member of the branch who asked him if he was there from the Stake.  It was so funny/cool. He has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and hopefully as we continue to meet with him he will take that next step to baptism!  

Donovan is another awesome guy we are teaching.  He was taught by missionaries here before but lost contact with them.  Well while we were emailing one week we started talking to this girl about the Book of Mormon and as we were talking he came up and started talking to us too!  He remembered a lot about the Book of Mormon and started to explain to this girl what it was.  It was really cool.  He wants to come to church really bad but works like every Sunday.  He is excited to come to the scripture class we have on Tuesday nights though.  

Those are the highlights of my week!  Oh and thank you for all of the "hump day" reminders....I guess. Haha time is going by too fast.  Where did the year go?  Anyways, I love you all!  Have a great week

November 3, 2014- New Companion & A Baptism!

Hey everyone!

How is everything going?  Things here are awesome.  We have had a pretty busy week with transfers and everything.  The beginning of the week was super sad with Mayfield and the sisters leaving but we had a ton of fun!  There are just so many awesome things going on in the area right now.  Like Elder Flores! He is my new companion and he is a champ! He is from Spanish Fork Utah.  He is excited to be out here and we have already been doing good work.  He really seems cool with trying anything whether it's street contacting, tracting, or whatever.  

I hope this week wasn't too overwhelming for him because we had a lot going on.  We had Brother Gann's baptism coming up but he wasn't feeling well at all so he couldn't meet with us until the day before.  It was stressing us out a little bit but on Sunday he was ready!  Although so much went wrong before the baptism (like the plug in the font not working right...bah!)  Everything worked out and Brother Gann was baptized!  I am so excited for him.  The Branch President is going to see about him getting the priesthood soon!  

So..Ya!  Pretty awesome week!  Love you all!

Elder Whetten

Pictures!!

These were pictures that my mom found floating around Facebook!

October 27, 2014- Training A Newbie!

Hey everybody!

Well it looks like the vacation is over.  We got some crazy news on our transfer calls Saturday night.  Elder Mayfield will be leaving, I will be staying and training a new missionary!  Plus we found out they are pulling the sisters out of our area.  It will be a challenge but I am so excited to meet this new missionary.  We will have a fun transfer especially because I'm still "directionaly challenged" (if that's even a word?) and still find it hard to find places here.  

I'm glad to still be serving here in Hamilton and I am super thankful that I served with such awesome missionaries here. (Seriously, Elder Mayfield is the man!)  This new missionary is coming to a great area because of the hard work others have put in to it.  

We are all set for Brother Ganns baptism this week.  He is pumped about it!  We just need to schedule an interview and he will be set.  We also have some golden people we are working with here.  We are teaching a guy named James and he is so solid!  He came to church yesterday and when we drove up to see if he was ready he was already outside waiting for us with his scriptures and a nice suit.  We were worried the Branch was going to think he was visiting from the high council or something haha.  

Well I hope yall have a great week!  I'm excited to get back to you on all the awesome stuff that will happen this week.

Elder Whetten

October 20, 2014- Miracles Happen When You Show Up Late!

Hello!

Best week ever!  Elder Mayfield and I have just been working hard and having fun here in Hamilton.  The coolest things happened this week.  Wednesday before District Meeting we were waiting for our Zone Leader and another Elder to show up so we could start.  We decided to mess with them a little bit for being late.  We all drove a little ways from the church in different directions so there would be no one there when they got there.  While we were waiting around the corner from the church the STLs wanted to do a little competition to see who could get a new investigator  before the other Elders show up.  We split up and ran to the nearest houses.  Nobody was home because this is like 12 30 on a Wednesday.  Well the other missionaries called us and said to come back to the church but we decided to knock on one more door.  Well someone finally answered!  A girl who was taking a sick day.  We were as bold and forward as we could be and shared a scripture with her from the Book of Mormon, then taught her about the Book of Mormon.  She agreed to pray with us and we set up a return appointment.  It was bomb!  The STLs even found a new investigator too, so the moral of the story is: When we show up late to District Meeting miracles happen!  Ha!  (Sarcasm)  Really though if we use all of the Lord's time doing his work he is going to bless us.

Also we have a baptism coming up!  Another guy named Gary haha.  He had a baptism date before but I guess right before I got to Hamilton he called and told Mayfield that he couldn't give up coffee and tea.  Yesterday at church he told us he had quit and he wanted to schedule his baptism.  I am so excited about life right now. Everything is going awesome!  Well I hope yall have a great week!  Thank you all for everything!

Elder Whetten

October 13, 2014- Grow A Polite Spine

Hey Everybody!

How are yall doing?  This was another one of those crazy weeks over here.  What even happened to this week anyway?  It went by too fast!  This week we started to count baptism invites on our key indicators.  Because of that our district leader trained on inviting or at least bringing up baptism at the first lesson.  Something I'm not the best at.  I'm super excited about this though because it will help me improve.  Right after District Meeting I went on an exchange with Elder Vance (he is the man!) and we really focused on inviting people to be baptized.  Well our first appointment was with a lady named April and when I asked her before the lesson what she hoped to gain from meeting with us she told us, "I am set in my ways and I'm never going to change but I love hearing anything about The Lord."  Not the best start haha.  The whole lesson didn't go at all like we hoped it would but by the end we finally invited her to baptism.  Well....she didn't accept but still wants us to come back and bring a Book of Mormon.  This taught me a lot.  It taught me that we don't have to be in that ideal situation in order to be bold.  All we can do as missionaries is try and make the most spiritual setting as we can but that doesn't always mean it will be spiritual.  It also gave me more confidence to just be bold all the time!  Or to "Grow a polite spine" as President Hanks says it.  

Another awesome thing this week was Stake Conference.  We drove to Tupelo Mississippi (birthplace of Elvis! hehe)  on Saturday night and it was an awesome session of Stake Conference! 

Those were some of the highlights of the week over here!  I hope yall had a great week!

Elder Whetten

October 6, 2014- College Kids & Conference

Hey!

This has been the best week!  Last week we started emailing at a new place because it is awesome!  It's a campus for a community college.  Well right after emailing last week we taught 3 kids here who had questions for us.  They were kind of trying to argue with us but I think it really ended on a spiritual note and they are going to read the Book of Mormon.  Because of that we got a text from someone that night telling us to meet him at a restaurant in town cause he had some questions for us.  I guess that sounds a little sketchy cause we had no idea who this guy was but it turned out alright.  We were able to answer a lot of questions he had about the church and although he didn't want to be taught, I'm still glad we were able to clear up some misconceptions he had. 

We also had exchanges this week.  That was super fun.  I stayed in Hamilton with Elder Johnson.  He is super cool and we had fun.  Especially since I still don't know the area as well as I would hope. (yall know how bad I am with directions haha) 

Conference was absolutely the best part of the week!  I love conference as a missionary!  All of it was so amazing but I loved Elder Bednars talk.  As I have just been trying to get as much from conference as I can these last 2 conferences I have gained a stronger testimony of this church!  I know it is true and I know that the leaders of the church are truly inspired of God.  I am so thankful for the Prophets and Apostles and for the truth that they share.  I love conference and I love all of you! haha Thank yall for everything and I hope you have a fantastic week! 

Elder Whetten

September 22, 2014- Hello Hamilton!

Hello! 

So this has been the craziest week ever!  I said goodbye to everyone in Fort Payne which kinds sucked haha.  We had the best lesson with a lady named Debra.  When we first found her she was a little bit skeptical but the spirit just worked on her like crazy as we continued to teach her.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read and pray.  Well we went over there Monday night so I could say goodbye and to ask how her reading went.  She told us she had been reading every night.  We asked if she would pray to know if it's true and she said, "well I've been doing that and I already know it's true so where do I go from there?"  Ah man!  It was so great.  It made it a little harder to leave Fort Payne but that's alright I'm excited to be in my new area.  I am in Hamilton Alabama!  My new companion is Elder Mayfield and he is the man!  We are going to have so much fun together!  We both came out at the same time so that's pretty cool.  I'm stoked to be in Hamilton too.  It's the smallest branch I have ever seen but the people here are just super awesome!  We have a lot of investigators here too and a lot of them are so golden!  It is going to be a great transfer.  I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Whetten

September 15, 2014- Keep Your Arrows Out!

What's up?!

What can I say about this week?  It was great!  Kind of bittersweet though.  But first let me talk about Zone conferences.  It was so awesome having Elder Zwick in the mission.  I really felt the spirit during that meeting.  Not only from Elder Zwicks training but from the trainings given by President and Sister Hanks too.  They all talked a lot about progress.  Missionary work all has to do with progress.  The progress of others.  President Hanks always says we need to keep our arrows out!  Meaning we need to focus on others all the time instead of focusing in on ourselves.  We will be much happier that way and we will find that as we focus on others progression we will progress more than we ever thought we could.  Those were just some of the highlights for me of Zone conference.  Later that night Elder Zwick had a fireside with all of the ward council members in the stake.  It was all about finding and preparing people (friends, family, co workers...) to be taught.  It was an awesome fireside and since then we have been getting a lot of referrals!  It's great.  

So the bittersweet news... After 6 months in Fort Payne I guess it's time for me to get going!  I really feel like I learned so much from this area.  I know that an area is what you make it, depending on your attitude and the work you put in to it.  It's going to be sad saying goodbye to everyone.  I'll miss it.  I will let yall know where I end up later this week and who my new companion is.  I love yall and hope you have a fantastic week!

September 8, 2014- Questions? Read the Book of Mormon!

Hey Everybody!

So this was such a cool week!  One of the coolest experiences we had this week was a lesson with Estella.  We went over there with the Young Womens president and her husband and before we even go into the lesson she brings out her Book of Mormon and tells us she had been reading from it a lot lately.  She totally loves it!  She was like, "you were right! It is answering a lot of questions I had from the Bible!"  It is just awesome to see that her testimony of the Book of Mormon is slowly growing because she finally read it with a humble heart.  Now on to the next challenge... We need to get her to church.  

Hmmm What else is going on here in Fort Payne?  We are having Zone Conferences again tomorrow because Elder Zwick of the 70 is coming to our mission.  I am super pumped about that!  It is going to be sweet!  Rumor has it he is coming to our Zone and might be visiting apartments and stuff.  Who knows it may just be the Zone Leaders making sure all of our apartments are super clean haha.  It should be such a great week though and I am just loving life right now.  I love you all and I hope yall have awesome weeks!

Elder Whetten

September 2, 2014- Perspective

Heyy!  The library was closed yesterday.  Sorry this is late.  How are all y'all doing?  This week was a really awesome week here in Fort Payne!  We have just been finding so many awesome people!  One guy we talked to was so prepared.  He told us he was looking for a church to go to and wants us to come back and teach him and his wife.  Not only that but a couple of days later we walked past his apartment again, he stopped us and asked if he could have some more restoration pamphlets to give to his friends.  So cool! 

So yesterday we went on a Zone hike. We hiked up a mountain (big hill haha) in Huntsville.   It was super awesome and when we got to the top the view was amazing.  We studied for a while up there and then had kind of a testimony meeting.  It was really spiritual.  One sister in the zone talked about the perspective we had on top of the hill, where we could just see for miles, compared to the perspective we had while we were hiking through the trees.  Then she compared it to the perspectives we have in missionary work.  That got me thinking a lot too.  One thing President Hanks talks a lot about is remembering the spiritual experiences we have on the mission.  That they can help us through hard times we have.  Yesterday on that mountain I got a better understanding of that.  When we have awesome spiritual experiences our perspective changes.  It's like we are on top of a mountain.  As we remember those spiritual experiences it will help us through hard times in life.  When we are hiking through crazy Alabama trees and we can't see 20 feet ahead haha.  Anyways I have no idea if that makes any sense but it does to me.  It was a pretty cool experience! 

I love you all and I hope yall have a great week!