Just have to be obedient...

Howdy yall!

I'm in LOVE with Lodi! I would never live here, let's be for real, but I would LOVE to stay here another transfer. Whatever the Lord says, huh? We've been having great success! It's been great to be able to see the Lord's hand in helping all of the people out here, we just have to be obedient psh (NEXT WEEK WE'LL ASK HIM WHAT AN "OBEDIENT PSH" IS -- STAY TUNED!) that's not bad at all! For the blessings that we're seeing out here... How could we not do something that simple...?

We got a referral named Giovanni who came to church this week. We had 6 people at church! It was so great to see the Hernandez family and Giovanni there just LOVING it. Giovanni is super solid and has quickly become one of my favorite people that I've taught so far. He's LOOKING for the truth and I know he's found it. He just has to recognize it. He's an honest nice guy and I KNOW General Conference will be a HUGE help in his progression to baptism along with his friend Arianna. They're the best. They already want us over for dinner this Friday! haha so cool! Anyway, he said the best thing was that this was the first church that the whole congregation came up to him and welcomed him. He said he felt they loved him and he's been looking for that. I hope his search is over, it's just a few things that might be a problem for him but he believes Joseph saw god! That's always good, huh?

This week we had a great time on Monday celebrating my birthday with the great families out here, The Lopez, Campos, Cardona's, Cortez and Perez (mis carnales!) It was a really spiritual night and Sister Lopez brought one of her friends for a great family home evening! We had tortas which is like a sandwich from the heavens! SOO good and they bought this super nice cake too! It was great. Never EVER try to bite the strawberry in the middle of the cake, it always goes wrong! ha ha aka they push your face into the cake. It was super fun though!

We also had the miracle of miracles! Pablo, my one legged friend from my first transfer here? He was there on Sunday! WITH 2 LEGS!!! He was a little upset we hadn't called, but I thought he was in Mexico... Silly me. But he said we could call and set something up to go see him and he said he'd be home waiting for the word of God. I love that man! I'm so glad he got a leg as well, he deserves it!

Well the family got their interviews. BAPTISMS! We're so proud of the decisions they've made to make it where they are, to be able to feel the spirit they do and to continue on this path that they're going on. I'm so stoked to see them in the waters of baptism and Chava, the 9 year old boy who has become one of my best friends asked me to baptize him. I'm super excited! He's a great kid and knows all the answers first! He's a great example and will be a strong member in the church for this branch. Only sad part is that the dad couldn't make it to church so he'll have to wait for a couple more weeks, but his attitude has changed and now he's into being baptized! How great huh?

The work is going great! We're going to head to Cold Stone for our celebration of missionary work today and then off to the Cheese factory. A little classy store full of pizza. JK Cheese! My fav! Also just so Amy knows, the Superman shirt makes me look RIPPED!!! But really... My comp told me that this will be my new dating shirt back home.... Good thing I don't have girls to worry about in a while eh?

Love ya!

Elder Walker

Basketball Jon

Phew! We just played like 3 hours of basketball and I'm pooped! It was so much fun! I've got a 3 point shot now that's actually decent! I've been working on that and my dribbling and I've been doing alright! I can now work on my low post game again because we finally have big guys haha..

Well! I"m super excited for my birthday XD' I'm gonna miss you guys for sure, but luckily I've got a really cool family, The Lopez family (my carnal ((Mexican slang for cuz))) who wants us to come over Sunday to celebrate! I'm super stoked for that and then on the 19th we're gonna have a sweet Noche de Hogar with a great family that's investigating!

So the week was killer. Starting Wednesday I got a new companion. Elder Jensen... Umm... He's... Ya know... THE GREATEST!!! Him and I are getting along so great. He's one of the most humble people I've met out here and he just cares about the work. Doesn't matter about other stupid small stuff, just as long as we're baptizing and helping others come unto Christ, we're good! And boy has it paid off! We had 7 people (2 families) to church yesterday! That's the most I've ever seen at church yet on my mission and its a great blessing.

A really cool thing happened. We had a family of 5 there but we knew that that wasn't all the Lord wanted there. We knew there was a family of 2 Kenya and Jenny that needed to come. So we prayed out in the hallway and about 5 minutes later they showed up RIGHT at the end of the first hour. It was amazing! Kenya and Jenny are sisters. They're SOLID and we're hoping Kenya will be baptized on the 24th, but she needs to pray more about it. Jenny on the other hand it was her first week and she fell in LOVE with the church! And it's nothing we did. There's a member here that's like 18 the same age as Jenny and her name is Brenda. SUPER solid member. So we just turned her over to Brenda and Brenda took care of her. Talk about a great ward huh? But is that all that the ward did? Nope! You bet not! They also took care of Kenya while she was here for her 2nd time. Victor (a recent convert) showed her all around and got her to all the classes that she needed to. What the MAN! And is that all? NO!!! We had that family of 5, the Hernandez family. It used to be that the four (mom 2 daughters and a son) were the only interested, but all of the sudden the dad and I just clicked and so we joked and he is coming. He was super chill and interested in it too! And the ward? Invited them to dinner right after, directed them to classes, took the girls to the right classes, invited them to a noche de hogar, offered rides, made sure they felt at home! That's a great ward right there! We couldn't do this alone, that's for sure! So the Hernandez family and Mendoza family are rock solid and hopefully most will be baptized October 1st or 8th. We're not sure when yet. They've all been to church twice except the dad and Jenny. SUPER cool!

Alrighty now onto the other parts of the week! So we went over to teach Kenya on Wednesday and turns out she LOVES soccer. And so do her 2, 17 year old cousins! Girls AND soccer? Let's just say the members didn't object. We had a great turn out that night of our single guys in the ward. Kenya and her family had a great time and met the great guys of the ward. They want to come next week too! Also we added as investigators Kenya's 2 cousins, Rosa and Esperanza! They're super cool! And Kenya told us since Rosa has been listening in she's changed and ROSA has noticed it! She told Kenya about how she's nicer and really wants to be an example to her friends and sisters. Umm, solid? YES!

The work is progressing and quickly. One thing I've learned is that WE have to keep up THEIR conversion. If we stop and get cocky and don't work as hard in finding or if we stop studying as hard and just think we've got baptisms, we're good, it becomes a numbers game and not something that's about eternal salvation. It's not about HOW many baptisms you helped with but HOW many truly converted people you helped come unto Christ. Having 100 baptisms is awesome! That's great and that's 100 more people that have mad that special covenant with God. But how many are active? How many still want the church? How many have the Priesthood? If we're not helping them get those great things and keep on that path, they're going to be held more responsible at the last day. They've made a HUGE covenant and if they don't continue, they're worse than before because they've made that step. President Lewis says our goal is to baptize many TRULY CONVERTED children of God. Not just baptize. I LOVE that because it helps me understand that if they aren't ready, we can't just baptize. So what if they only kept the word of wisdom for 6 days in stead of 7... It's only 1 day right? Wrong. The fact is they failed to keep a commitment. If they only endure for 99.9 percent of the time they're going to have a tough time repenting for that .1. None of us are perfect, but the rules are here for a reason. We MUST follow them with 100% obedience or as close as we can. We can save people through baptism or hurt them. I hope I never am in the situation where I hurt someone, that's for sure!

Well, love yall!!!! Have a great week GO COUGS!!! BEAT THEM UTES :DDDDDD XD XD XD XD yeeeehaaaaw!

Love,

Elder Walker

TRANSFERS!!!!!

They happened. This transfer FLEW by WAY too fast! We got all the work done we needed to I felt. We have 8 people that are set up to be baptized on the 24th of September. I know we'll have at least 4 or 5 and I'll explain why in a second :D. That was just a great gratifying feeling of knowing that next transfer we'll go into the transfer with about 4 progressing investigators, 4 with a baptismal date and 1 that we need to get to church with about 4 or 5 others that we've just started teaching.

And when I saw WE I don't mean Elder Thiessen and I. Unfortunately we won't be able to be together again. They're sending down a missionary named Elder Jensen. Also an Elder Moss is coming down to the apartment. Oh yeah guess where he's from? American Fork!!! I'm really excited to see him. This will be his 3rd transfer and it'll be great to be with a fellow AFER! Elder Jensen will be the senior for the first time in his mission! He sounds LEGIT! Elder Kelley is just raving about him so I'm very excited to meet him and to baptize like crazy! It'll be great to see so many souls brought unto the Lord this transfer. It's been amazing to see Lodi grow up and open up a lot. We've taken a lot of hits. Had a lot of heartaches and trouble. I've shed my first tears out in the field over here in Lodi for those that I've loved, but I'm so happy to be staying and to be growing. The young man that had a little dirty mouth has grown! He's the english district leader next transfer and has become one of my best friends out here. I love him and respect him so much. Also, our district leader for the spanish is one of my FAVORITE missionaries, Elder Call from Orem, Utah. I baptized his brother in the Mt. Timp temple without even knowing it until his brother wrote him about me. I love Elder Call so much and am so excited to follow him to the best of my abilities.

Quick fasting story. I have been fasting the past 3 months (not every day, just on fast Sunday :D) to have 4 investigators at church. I realized last fast Sunday that God wasn't going to do that because we hadn't worked as hard as we could've in July but this fast Sunday I felt like we had done work and had helped the work progress with all of our hearts! I was sitting there in fast and testimony meeting just praying my heart out because no one had showed up yet and all 8 had promised to come to church. I was so down but then remembered that if faith could move mountains, faith could bring people to church! So I just kept my prayer going and listened to the testimonies and something felt right. Just a peace. It was so great! Sitting by my favorite little 4 year old Hispanic girl, my carnala Danie and just sitting there was so peaceful like she knew something was going to happen. Then the phone rang out in the foyer and I ran out (not really ran, fast walk) and answered it. It was the family Hernandez calling to say they were outside the church looking for parking. I quickly grabbed the 2nd councilor and ran outside to guide them in. Guess how many people are in their family? 4. 4 of baptismal age. I couldn't help but say a quick silent prayer of gratitude. My faith was strengthened SO much that Sunday. They want to get baptized and they were just overwhelmingly loved by the ward. They will fit in great and be a great help to make this branch a ward!

I compared it to the lady who came to Jesus to ask if He could heal her daughter and 2 times he said no and basically said to leave twice but on the third he commended her for her faith and rewarded her with what she wanted and needed. I love that story SO much! It's inspired me and helped me SO much! I felt that the Savior finally gave me a small pat on the back and a hug for trying and for us putting our efforts in!

Love you all!

Elder Walker