Twas the week before Christmas...

... and all through Sac-Town, the missionaries were workin hard, not trying to get down, all the members were tucked up all nice in their beds, while the missionaries thought of only baptisms in their heads. The progress records were tucked in the Aread Book with great care in hopes that a White Christmas, soon would be there.

That's about as creative with poetry as I get. That describes our week though, hoping and praying and fasting and working harder than EVER to get this White Christmas happening. The miracles have been amazing in the mission. We went for  30 firms to 80 in 2 weeks! 80 people being baptized in one month? CRAZY!! But not good enough. We need 21 more and Elder Hernandez and I are going to find at least 1 more so that we can help out this cause. It's that last push. That last sprint to the finish line this week. It's super important to help these people and help them we will! We're so so so so SO excited about the progress being made here for January, but that's not enough! It must be done in December. And I think I might just know who.... XD

This week was so GREAT! Our companionship unity was WAY high and we saw the success come through! I've decided not to think of it as training anymore, just to do what to do what missionaries do and hope and pray that I do it well enough to have him learn what true missionaries are and do.

Our wonderful miracles are as followed and I'm SO excited to share some of them with you.

This week I learned what TRUE love is with some of my new favorite people, Julia and Eduardo. Julia has had a crazy life, her old husband tried to kill her and her kids and while protecting her kids, the husband shot her in the eye. Luckily nothing hit her brain but she lost her right eye and part of her skull. Then she met Eduardo her boyfriend (ps they're older like 60's) who she's not married to but he did an awesome job at showing pure love to her kids and raising a few of their own. He loved her unconditionally, even though at that time she was a one eyed woman without anywhere to live and he was a handsome young man with all the potential in the world. He got her to a doctor and they got her a beautiful glass eye and fixed up the missing piece of her head.  Eduardo loved her the same. They've grown old together and have had their trials but never given up hope that she'll be able to see again. Well about 5 or so years ago, Eduardo had a stroke. Half of his body is unable to move and now it is Julia's turn to take care of him. I learned true love watching her in her beautiful dress that she wore to our ward Christmas party jump out of the car and get out her husbands wheel chair, then as he tried to get out of the car, she ran over and gave him a hug and helped him get out of that car. Seeing her put him back in made me shed a few tears as she has a bad back and she lifts the leg that he can't, folds it and makes sure he's comfortably set to go home, gives him a hug and tells him, I love you. That is true love. She takes so great care of him. She  came to church and loved it. She will be baptized on January 28th.

The miracle with her is this. She was studying with the Jehovah's Witness missionaries before she moved to Rancho Cordova. Now she's here and we found her. We were going to go teach her the plan of salvation and had prepared for about an hour during comp study. The lesson was going to ROCK. The best planning I've ever done. But when we showed up, she hadn't done her reading. My body and brain were like well, we'll read during the lesson, let's teach this long lesson, set an example of how to teach with the plan for this new missionary. But, the spirit said, no. Read 3 Nephi 11 with her, That's the chapter we assigned. So we read it with her feeling like that's what needed to happen. At the end she said, I had been having doubts about how a young boy could do this. I thought that it was a lie. I was going to only listen to you nice boys, but now, I know without a doubt that that man was inspired of God and that this book is the word of God. We were both shocked when she said, Now talk to me about baptism. She will be a firm by the end of this week and I'm so glad that is happening because I know the Gospel will help her. She will not only love the gospel but the ward. She will be able to have that comfort as she is married this month and then sealed in a year.

I am so thankful for the spirit and for the opportunity we have to have it here with us. A member of the Godhead with us constantly. I love the spirit and our Heavenly Father. THIS IS HIS WORK. He will choose who is ready and HE will make them ready. I love my Savior and I know the Atonement he performed for us is real. He loved us enough to lay down His life for us. Oh sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeemer lives.

Love you!

Elder Walker

P.S. As for my spanish anything with the gospel is SUPER easy to explain along with life stories or greetings soccer anything like that is 100% there. Now for the next year, my goal is to get 100% fluent with speech. It's weird. At first I struggled with understanding and now it's only the speaking. I can understand just about anything from mexican slang to spanish proper words. My brain has switched to spanish mode. I'm basically Buzz in Toy Story 3. JK! But, it was fun because on Dispicable Me there is a part where he speaks to her in spanish and before I had NO clue what he was saying to her, but yesterday we were at this house and I heard it and picked up what he was saying lol. SO funny.

Also, we have these members and her dad is the overall guy for the spanish church productions. Well, I mentioned that I was in Savior of the World before I came on the mission and guess what they got us for Christmas??? El Salvador Del Mundo!!!! Both ACTS!!! ON DVD!!! So we can watch it on Christmas as a District with our investigators. Obviously I'll be crying thinking about y'all but, I'll talk to you a few minutes later, so it'll be good!

I'm gonna be a "DAD"

Hola everyone!

 

I just want to thank you all for the Christmas tree.  I love it! I look at it everynight and surprisingly it keeps me focused! It keeps me thinking about why I came out here and the example I GET to be to those little sobrinos and sobrinas (nieces and nephews) that I have back at home.

 

What a year in sports! The sad thing is, I've had more people ask and know about Brandon Davies than I have about Mitt Romney. What a sad sad twisted world it is in these days, huh? We should definitely be more informed on who's running our country than who's running a fast break.

 

WE had an unusual turkey day. No jello. No gravy. No stuffing. It was good mexican food but I've never seen beans and horchata or eaten my turkey with a home made tortilla (which, by the way, I know how to cook!) on Thanksgiving day. But hey! I was super grateful for how good it was! I got some great relaxation time, that's for sure. Got us all rested up for today :D We finally played basketball again, so that was great! ALMOST dunked off of a miss, but then remembered I'm still white and just layed it up.

 

Transfer days yet again. I love Elder Guzman and wanted him to stay SO bad. I wish I could say my prayer of him staying was answered because we FINALLY hit our best day on Monday where the spirit was just FLYING and people couldn't help but want to be baptized. I wish he was staying but sadly, he's gone. He will be doing one transfer in English work with my good buddy, Elder Fitt. He and I were in the same apartment in Lodi and became great friends. I'm very excited for my companion and KNOW that he will be a great Elder in the English work and also learn a LOT about why he's here. He's such a great Elder and I can't wait to see him get even better. He's been one of my favorites and we will see each other around a lot during the next transfer seeing as he's literally just around the river bend.

 

And the scary news? President has asked me to train.... A brand new elder..... AHHHHHHHH!!! When those words came out of his mouth I immediately forgot to breath. haha K see ya later I know it doesn't sound like a big deal but I'm so scared! If he gets trained wrong it could effect a lot a TON of his mission. And I would be responsible for it. That scares me a lot. President and I had a nice short phone call about it and he calmed me down (he already knows when I'm scared and I think he giggled a little at my reaction of, "Wait... What? Are you serious?") I almost asked where Ashton was, thinking I was being punked. But I accepted and I'm very excited to see the Lord carry this area. I still feel like I was just barely born the other month and now BAM. I'm having a new bouncing baby boy! I'm pretty scared but very excited to meet my new friend :D

 

This week we had an all-star week. We had a spiritual down pour and the blessings just showered upon the area. There were many, MANY miracles that happened this past week. Just in the short few days we had! We saw the blessings when 5 came to church, 2 unexpected including the sister of Erick, who also came to church, and is getting baptized this Saturday at 6. This is the 4th baptism in this area in the past year and we're looking at at least 2 more in december. The Lord is opening up Rancho Cordova. It's hard to go under with our small little buckets and try to catch all the blessings!

 

My only problem this week was feeling down. Sometimes, I felt like the WORST missionary in this mission and I didn't understand why. I thought it was Satan trying to get me down but then I realized what I had fasted and prayed for lately. To be more humble. Let me recommend something. Never pray and fast for humility unless you are ready to be hammered with humbling experiences. There were times when I couldn't think of ANYTHING in Spanish. I was shocked because of how little I could say. Then last night I was praying with tears streaming down my face and heard a soft voice or feeling telling me that I had asked specifically for what I was getting. I had a short moment of laughter and then another down pouring of the Lord's spirit. I've learned to love humbling experiences. I guess that's a good thing since I will be receiving them a lot this transfer.

 

Our other investigators are doing great! We've fixed some problems in the ward and after passing out some candies and a 21 day plan that Elder Ballard gave to a mission in Salt Lake, they really took hold of missonary work. We're now trying our best to plan our schedule around theirs. It's hard sometimes because we forget who works when, but it's getting a lot easier to get them to come out with us.

I love Rancho.

 

I will be picking up my new companion tomorrow at about 10:00. I'm very excited to get to know him and tell you all about him next week! I'm sure he'll be EXACTLY what this area needs.

 

The Lord will never let us down XD!

 

Love you all!

 

Elder Walker

No tricks, but this one's a real treat!

Hola todos!

What a wonderful week. I'm so excited to tell you and share these wonderful experiences with you all XD

We had a zone conference on Thursday with Elder Yamashita of the 70 who talked last conference. He was very fun. Oh. and surprise surprise. Since my old zone leader and mission hero, Elder Kelley, was moved to AP, there's now someone up there that knows me really well. I had gone under the radar for a while lol but now he's there. So ya know 2 days before zone conference he calls me up to congratulate us on the last week and I was thinking oh great how nice. But no, there's always something else. He asked me to sing a song, a special number, solo, for Elder Yamashita and President and crowd there. I just about wet myself. But did it with a great pianist Elder Johnson. He's super great so we got it down in an hour. An hour of practice and we were then going to perform in front of a man who's probably witnessed Jesus Christ himself.... It went great and Elder Yamashita and his wife were so kind. Sister Lewis wanted mom to know that she should be proud and that she felt like my mom sitting there. She almost got up right after to give me a hug. Then realized her calling and kept down lol. She's a great lady!

We had a great week serving the people here and God blessed us to achieve many goals this week. Our lessons, invites, referals but most importantly, firms and people at church.

Mayra, the girl we've been working with who works at this rocking bakery, free bread and drinks everyday. They're the nicest people with the BEST bread in the whole world ps.... Anyway, we went over there saturday to 'firm her up' or in other words, get her with a solid baptismal date. This friday. We went over and she said she's felt good about it but wasn't sure. We felt inspired to ask if she felt the scriptures were true. She said she always got her answers through just opening up to a page and then there it would be. I got super nervous but asked her to do it. I felt the spirit really strong, testifying that she needed to do it with the Book of Mormon, so I gave her the book and she opened it. NOw, to build some suspense, the last 2 times I've done this here have backfired, terribly. FIrst the guy opened to where Nephi killed Laban and the other was just a random war scripture. But this time it succeeded. She turned to Docterine and Covenants 84:64 and it talks about how after baptism you recieve the Holy Ghost and how it helps. What a miracle! She came to church and got the answer to be baptized. She had her interview and is firm for the 4th of November. Probably the first November baptism in the mission. What a joyous experience that will be! She's so happy.

We also had a miracle of finding Felicita and her family. They're what you call Platinum investigators. So we have Golden investigators who are like great and want to hear the gospel and want to be baptized but you have to work really hard on things with them. Then there are Platinum. They're so solid that you can't believe or understand what you did right to be able to teach them. That's Felicita. We met her on thursday and got her to church on Sunday. She made best friends with all the members AND signed up on our dinner calender. 3 times. W-O-W. I've never seen a person like this! We have to teach her everything still but she is ready. Already had a book of mormon and a best friend that taght her a lot. I'm so excited for her. Her son, Benito and I are BFF's already. When we came on Sunday, he ran to the door and gave me a big old hug. He's great and I"m excited for him to learn more about our Heavenly Father.

Also, a less active named Miguel Franco is awesome. He came to church 2 times. HIm and I immediately clicked. So much that he's going to Utah and wants to pass by Mom and Dad's house to try and talk to them a little bit haha. He asked me Friday if I could baptize his brother. My mouth dropped and said yes, obviously not gonna turn that one down lol. It was so great. He came with his brother and they had a great time! HIs brother will be baptized on the 20th.

We had 5 people to church on sunday that are investigating the church. 5. That's the highest in this place for years. It's amazing to see how the Lord is working with us and helping us. I don't know what to do. I feel so small in this grand work but feel the Lord's hand so strong. Pushing us to where we need to go.

All day today is a PDay. No leaving to trick or treat for us. AKA time to write some good ole letters lol and eat at Home Town Buffet.

I know this is the church of God. I know that if we can only do our little tiny percent we have, God will make up for the rest. I"ve learned que mediante Jesucristo, ninguna otra persona, podemos ser salvos. Podemos tener el amor de Dios para compartirlo con todos. Solamente tenemos que trabajar.Ir y hacer, tratar y superar. Es todo. I just realized I was speaking spanish lol. We just have to go and do. That's all. I know that that is the only way God can help us is if we're doing!

I love you all!!!!!

Elder Walker

Pictures on this one.... :)

Hey family!

How are yall?? I've sure missed you this week! It's weird. Watching General Conference, looking in the MoTab and seeing those people that were such a big part of my life only a year ago! All those wonderful faces from Savior of the World and thinking, "At this very moment, my family is listening to the same words, watching the same people and probably taking the same notes." It's a miracle and such a privelege to have this broadcast throughout the world!

Well.... Another week. Starting into week 5/6 of this transfer and boy has it FLOWN by!!! I can't believe this month I will turn 9.... That's CRAZY!!! I'm still a baby though... I feel like ive only been here for like 5 maybe 4.... Weird! All of my friends that I made my first transfer are either dead or dying!!! WEIRD!!! Not to mention it doesn't help realizing (thank you Joe) that according to General Conference time... I'm half way done!!! I only have 2 more left.... Sad day.... Weird day.... But great day!

My favorite talk was probably Tad R. Callisters on the book of mormon. Talk about a HUGE help for our investigators eh? He just SLAMS it down with testimony that this is the true church. This book is either from God or from the Devil. But it must be from one or the other. Oh and here, let me show you why it couldn't ever be from the devil. What a man. That's the kind of testimony that our investigators need to hear everyday!

Speaking of investigators, we had 8 there. Giovanni and Arianna were first. SO tight! Giovanni and I are pretty close already and the best thing is he's closer to the ward! The ward just loves him and he loves the ward! He said it was the first church that he had gone to where they welcomed him with open arms and really just gave him confidence in the church. His girlfriend is Arianna and I know that she felt the spirit testifying to her of the truthfulness of this gospel. How great is that? Oh and did we mention that Giovanni's mother and sister are members? Because they are! What a wonderful help they will be. They're coming down to eat dinner with them on Monday aka today and we're invited! It will be quite the joy to go over there and talk with them and hear his mothers testimony. We're expecting a spiritual A-Bomb over there. Also Quenia and her cousin Rosa came. It was tougher with them because of the little kids that Quenia has and the tempertantrums that were being thrown during the session. Rosa looked like she enjoyed it but didn't feel anything. Duh. We still haven't taught her about the Holy Spirit and the fruits of it.

I've learned on this mission that without teaching of the fruits of the spirit, you have no right to ask how people feel. They get confused like well... I feel fine...? I'm not sick.. My stomach isn't rumbling... My soul feels peaceful so... Good? And then say "That's the spirit telling you it's true." Though for many they'll agree, they won't know the other fruits of the spirit mentioned in Galations 5: Peace joy longsuffering happiness patience. Those are fruits from God that he gives. If they don't feel those things that like Elder Callister said, this is the church of Lucifer and we have all been decieved. BUt the great thing is they HAVE felt those, they just may not recognize it.

One family that has recognized it is the Hernandez family. All four were baptized on sunday and confirmed as well (We know, not supposed to but conference sunday we can). It was so great to see how great they were and how content and everything. The husband even came asking if he could be baptized. It was sad to have to tell him no. He works on Sundays so it is tough for him to be baptized. We can now focus on him. He'll be baptized before this transfer ends. I KNOW it! He's so great. I lvoe him to death and I'm excited for his family to join together in the temple in a year! They're one of my favorite families I've met out here.

Though baptisms are SUPER stressful up until everyone is seated, soaking wet, the feelings that we recieve and the testimony that we recieve after is amazing. We were singing, Eternas Pueden Ser las Familias aka families can be together forever and I never really looked into those words until that baptism. I have a family here on earth they are so good to me I want to share my life with them for all eternity.... How great a message is that? GREAT! and yet the chorus is even better with the assurance that families can be together forever through heavenly fathers plan. Right there... We see how... and yet another expression of want I always want to be with my own family... My OWN family and the assurance that the Lord has shown me how I can... Explains perfectly the Lord will always show me. I started to tear up through that and then it hit me in the second... While I am in my early years, I'll prepare most carefully.... Looking up at the 3 youth that were baptized on sunday brought the trears even stronger as they testified and promised to carry Christs name and PREPARE CAREFULLY to live forever. What a testimony builder. THanks for the tissues everyone, they were definitely needed!

I was able to assist by giving the Holy Ghost to Eneida and the spirit just took over. It was amazing how for the first time the blessing just came. In spanish.I know that through hard study of the language, we can be blessed to help others in th e gospel. In the blessing, Heavenly FAther told her that her family would be sealed in the temple and that there were others waiting for her to go through the temple. After the blessing I looked up and a few of the ladies in the congregation were crying. Not knowing exactly what happened I looked down and realized what had been said. I know that those words were not mine, but directly from Heavenly Father to his daughter.

I'm so grateful to be a part of this work. It is amazing and no one can stop it as Elder Holland said that we need missionaries! Good missionaries. Solid missionaries. THink of a mission full of Elderly missionaries. HOw successful that mission would be in bringing others to Christ? We will know sometime... I love you all

Love,

Elder Walker

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

Missionary work ROCKS!

Buenos dias todos!

I've been doing a study in the Bible. I've been doing a great study in the Book of Mormon where I"m just kinda tearing it apart lol not literally but I'm diving deep into it and it's helped me out a ton in my understanding and love for the book as well. Anyway, I finished reading the Bible Dictionary (which wasn't a waste of time, I promise! It helped me out so much!) and decided to use the Gospel Harmony to help me study the New Testament and compare and contrast with the Book of Mormon scriptures in there. I would highly suggest this study for anyone, especially up and coming missionaries if they have any time to do it. I just do it for like half an hour a day and it's helped a TON on my knowledge and testimony. Also I've been reading Jesus the Christ in my free time at nights and lunch and stuff like that. Wow I love that book! It's amazing how Talmage explains it so well! Anyway, moral of all this was to tell you that I would love if you had time sometime to start this Gospel Harmony study. I know there's a lot on your plates, but I also know how awesome this study has been for me and I would love my family to have that comfort as well.

So for my siblings (NOTE: WE ASKED JON ABOUT IDEAS FOR HIS UPCOMING BIRTHDAY, IN ADDITION TO THE TALKS I'VE BEEN BUGGING YOU ABOUT) tell them I would love pictures :D I've decided family pictures are the BOMB! Also written testimonies would be cool as well! I'm also running low on Expo erasable markers and would love a tiny tiny Book of Mormon and a small Bible, preferably separate. That's about it... That's a ton to ask for so I would love any of those! All of them would be SUPER useful!

Also I know you're wondering about health. I'm off the depression pills and it was super easy haha I don't know how much they were doing for me but they're done and going in the garbage after I take my last half tonight. Sister Adams (NOTE: THE HEALTH MISSIONARY THAT HAS BEEN TAKING SUCH GOOD CARE OF JON) has been like a little worried mom over here lol she's been super great and I'm really really really really sad to see her leave this next Sunday... But she's gotta do her life thing. They live in Lehi though, so if you wanna meet with them that'd be super cool! They're super cool people! I love them! And they're related... Very distantly... They'd love to see the Henson Walker shaving picture though!

GO cougars!! I feel like they're going to rock this year... I feel it in my soul!!!

So the week was pretty great! Super cool kid was found named Joel. We were trying to get a church tour set up with him ALL week but it failed. Then we found out one of his good friends is a member! And he's super cool! So he picked him up from his house and took him to church :D! He LOVED it!!! He's 20 and wants to learn more and study the gospel. He said he would be baptized if he found out and feels like the church can help him stop using drugs and stop doing the sins he's committed. That's EXACTLY what you want to hear as a missionary. Not this yeah I'll be baptized and nothing after. My favorites are those that say they would if God told them and then they have that intent to know! Those are the golden ones I think because guess what? Heavenly Father is ALWAYS going to reveal the truth to those who WANT to know! It's like the lady that pleaded with Jesus to heal her daughter and take the evil spirit away from her and Christ told her no the first and second time basically, then, because of her faith and determination to get an answer, she tried the third time and Christ KNOWING her faith had compassion on her and told her because of her faith the daughter was healed and explained why it took three times. That woman WANTED her answer and her son to be healed. Those that WANT that NEED an answer will get it. Even if someone seems golden, with out true intent, wanting to know for sure, they won't EVER get an answer, and even when they do get one they won't recognize it.

We were on bike basically all week because all of our miles are gone so we can't drive anymore and I LOVE bike! It's so much fun! So many people to talk to and so many more people to invite to be baptized! The best feeling ever is seeing that person think about being baptized and what that would mean to them and how it could help them change their lives!

Speaking of that, we had a blitz last night and I went out with one of my missionary heroes, our zone leader Elder Kelley. He's SUPER solid and one of my favorite guys in the zone! Anyway, we were going out talking to everyone and we came across this black lady about 4 times. Finally the fourth time we went and talked to her, her name is Sandra. Funny story though. About 5 minutes before we were tracting in an apartment building and had planned on just hitting that up ALL night. Sandra and JUST left that apartment building. We were contacting in there when the manager came out from doing her laundry and told us we couldn't contact in there anymore so we left RIGHT as Sandra was leaving the house she had just gone into and walking out. If we hadn't been kicked out, we wouldn't have ever met her. She's the most solid person I've EVER met on my mission! She's super cool. She wants to read the Book of Mormon and find out if this is God's church. She's turning 50 and is stopping smoking an stuff because she knows it's wrong. There's only a handful of churches that teach that and we happen to be one of them! She said she's looking for more peace. 'Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth..." That's what we bring!!! We invited her to be baptized and said her dad was a preacher of a different church but never was baptized and feels like that would be the right thing to do, but doesn't like how pastors get paid so she wouldn't ever be baptized into a church that pays pastors. Guess what... We don't do that!!! She fell in love with the church in that short 25 minutes we had to talk with her. I started tearing up bearing my testimony to her because of how strong the spirit was. Elder Kelley and Elder Reit are the missionaries that will be teaching her but she wants me to come back with Elder Kelley sometime so I might get to go say hi XD! She's super solid. I can't wait to see what happens with her!

Missionary work ROCKS!!!

Love,

Elder Walker

Trials... of faith or otherwise

What a week! I've learned here on mission about paciencia. Without patience, were doneSKI!!! haha but really here. We had so many miracles given to us this week that we had been waiting for, working for, trying for our entire transfer! Heavenly Father always blesses us with what we need. Always. He may take a few weeks, maybe years, but without a doubt in my mind, I know that He will provide for our needs.

One of the needs I was having was a trial of my faith I guess. I felt like we had been working our tails off and had been seeing results but only during the week. That we would help others progress and gain a testimony, but wouldn't show that testimony through coming to church and learning more about the love our Heavenly Father has in store for them! It always made me so sad to not see people progress. Well, this Sunday Heavenly Father blessed us. We had 13 people set up to come to church for Sunday. That was amazing. 13 people that wanted to advance their testimonies in Heavenly Fathers gospel and receive his word from others. And the amazing thing is, we had 2 come! What a miracle that was. I know most of you are confused reading that. Isn't that unfortunate that ONLY 2 came? That's like 1/6.... C'mon Elder!

But here's the thing. I love the quote that Michael Jordan says. He talks about how no one ever counted the shots he missed, just the ones he made made him the greatest player of all time. He talks about being probably 1/1000 out of all the shots he took, but no one looked at the other 999 shots he missed. I look at it as us having 2 more people getting ready for baptism. 2 more that are ready to keep growing their love for the savior. Jeffrey R Holland asked a bunch of missionaries, "What do we want our investigators to do?" and everyone shouted loudly, "BE BAPTIZED!" with roars of excitement in the background (chest bumps and high fives given by the Elders I can imagine ;D) and he looked at them and said, "Well... Yes. We want everyone to be baptized. There's no one in this church that wants more baptisms than I do. But what else?". Now the missionaries were a little confused. So they shouted out the other commitments, Read the book of mormon, one said, go to church, another says, pray, a few hollar BE BAPTIZED a group screams. "These are all true, but what needs to come first", he asks. Now everyone is nervous so they start yelling out other commitments. Live the law of chastity! Obey the commandments! Pay tithing! BE BAPTIZED!!!! (you think they'd get the point by now) Elder Holland chuckles at the responses and says, "You are all correct. But wrong at the same time. Remember your purpose? Invite all to come unto Christ through FAITH in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his ATONEMENT." he says. They make those commitments so that they can recieve that faith. What a wonderful moment it was to hear that. It doesn't matter how many you baptize, but how many you invite to come unto Christ. I felt and KNOW that these 2 men that came to church drew closer to Christ. Omero and Francisco. One with family problems was promised that his family problems would be resolved. He felt the spirit and is going to prepare to be baptized July 30th. After which, we know his family problems will be resolved as he baptizes his wife. The other, already seemed to be a member by the members of the ward. He was promised that if he continues to grow and learn, he will find that peace and truth that he has been searching for for more than 60 years. He will be preparing to be baptized on the 30th of July as well.

In the middle of the week, on a great exchange with Elder Sieng, a man ran into us that didn't realize I spoke Spanish. He started speaking Spanish and then said, Oh, sorry, speak Spanish. I said, "esta bien hermano porque hablo espanol tambien!" we got talking and he turned out to be what we call a dry Mormon. A man that claims to be a member without being baptized (dry=no water aka not baptized). It was great!

Second miracle. Elder call and I were on another exchange and we added 4 new investigators. We had a great member lesson in the church with Omero and his family. They are great people and soon will change! I know it.

This work is real. It's here. No one can stop the work from progressing. Nothing can stop the work from progressing. Miracles happen. Faith is the key and baptism is the door. You can't open the locked door without first molding that key of faith. I hope no one forgets that. You can't break down the doors of baptism, but can only slowly open it! I love missionary work! I feel like there's not enough time to do it! Each day just flies by! AHHH slow down Bessy (aka I just named the days Bessy... It's fine)....

Love you SOOOO hecka (California lingo for very or super) much!!!

Love,

Elder Walker

Happy 4th FIREWORKS n' STUFF

Hi Everyone!

Weekly report time!

Well, it was a blessed week! Following my bishops counsel, we manned up a little bit! haha Everything just seems to fit into place perfectly when you're obedient! It's fantastic. I had some great experiences in reading the scriptures to start off the week on Monday (last Monday.. Before July 4th) and we had some great progress from then on! We had an awesome investigator that we added! His name is Juan and he is searching for the true church! He said he'll be baptized and the end of July if he finds out it's true!

We had a rough week with getting people to church again aka no one came D:... That also means that for right now, we have to drop Ana. She was going to be baptized 3 weeks ago, but is not showing up to church and slowly losing her testimony. We search for the ready and right now she says she has too much in her life to worry about. It makes me sad that she can't see the blessings that we can see she will be given if she just comes to church and makes this sacred baptismal covenants! I know she'll be baptized, I'm just not sure when :D.

On Saturday, we had the BEST lesson I've EVER been a part of on my mission. It's one I'll never forget. We brought a member family that lives a block away from our new investigating family. This member family is SUPER great. They got sealed hace 4 weeks! It was so great to have them come with us and be a part of the lesson aka teach for us! Storytime...

So we go over to the investigators family's house before the members get there and we talk to Imelda (the mom) and she says she's too depressed and doesn't want to talk right now. So instead of backing off we tell her to at least meet the family, then she can go inside. So they get there and the FIRST thing they realize is their daughters play together ALL the time! It was all downhill from there. Next thing we know the investigating family is inviting friends to come sit down and listen with them and talk with us! We taught about 8 people at the end and it started with 1! The Lord really blessed us. It was a privilege to see His hand right there in the work. The family talked with them and taught the lesson for us haha (maybe got us a few more dinners ;D) and now the 2 moms are going dancing with each other a few times a week! What a wonder!!!! The most miraculous thing? We weren't even planning to have them come that day! On our way over I felt like we should bring them with us because our other member lesson fell through earlier that day and we had set a goal of 1 member lesson and we needed to get a member there. So we called and they were game on! The work will ALWAYS go forth.

I have a VERY strong testimony of member missionary work. With out the members we can baptize, yes. But with the members we can achieve what Heavenly Father wants us to! We will be able to not only baptize, but help others come unto Christ through a ward family. This world is terrible! Nobody can live alone. With the ward families we have here in this church, no one can deny the spirit and love they feel from the members. NO ONE.

I love this work! I know this church is true. I know that when we don't think about ourselves and only about what the Lord wants. When we truly internalize eternity, nothing can stop us from doing it with all of our hearts! I'm in love with the gospel. I know that Joseph Smith restored this church and the power to receive pure revelation as a prophet of God. I know that this book, the Book of Mormon is real, it's true, it's the word of God. I wouldn't come out here to lie to people, I KNOW it's true. I'm passed the point of denying any of the doctrine founded here in Christ's church.

I love you all so much!

HAPPY 4TH :D XD XD FIREWORKS N STUFF!!!


Love,
Elder Walker

Rough and Tough

Hola todos!

It was a great week number wise, but it was a tough week spiritually and physically. We hit almost all of our goals and set the standard in lessons taught and new investigators added, but unfortunately, we didn't see the work we had done on Sunday. Sunday is also known as SHOWTIME. Investigators must come to church 3 times in this mission to be baptized, so sunday is really the day that we find out the intent of people and how much they really want this church and how much they really want to change. Unfortunately no one came from our area. 2 weeks in a row up here. It's always so sad for me. I don't feel bad for us or anything just those great people we're teaching. I didn't understand why they didn't come. Last night I had a big night of pity party for Elder Walker. Then somethingit me. We hadn't taught any of them about the importance in church. My two amazing MTC teachers, Hna Tartaglia and Hno Patterson stressed teaching this because if they don't come, we can't do much. I felt really bad abouthow I had treated my faith and after using the wonderful power of the atonement, revelation started flowing, gushing into my mind. It's amazing how a small prayer with sincere intent can cause all kinds of feelings to be lifted! Oh the power of the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Elder Thiessen is great. The Lord has really blessed our companionship these last few weeks. We had 8/9 investigators accept a baptismal invite. Now, once they come to church next week, they'll be what we call a firm, someone who's progressing and has a date set for their baptism. Ana, our firm, didn't come last week. So we have to re-firm her up this week and get her with a new date. Satan is REALLY working hard on her and he's succeeding. She's super strong and KNOWS that the church is true. She was going to come at 11:30 but in just one hour, the opposition took over!

Spiritually that was hard to keep up hopes but our Heavenly Father won't ever take away from us. He'll let us be humbled pretty great, but then he'll help us rise again through inspiration! He's really been here for me this week and prayer has become extra sacred to me. Something that I'm learning to do every second of the day.

Physically it was hard. I woke up last tuesday and couldn't open my jaw. haha that was pretty funny.... But it kinda hurt really bad as well! So I called sister Adams (medical coordinator) and apparently being able to play twinkle twinkle little star by the popping sounds from your jaw is NOT good.... Who knew? So apparently I have a severe case of TMJ. I can't really close the left side of my jaw but luckily I'm on the Lord's errand! He's blessed us with soft dinners everynight and has eased my pain to where it's not noticable at all during the day. It really helped my testimony of trials and errors. We're always going to have trials, it's one of our purposes here! We're always going to make errors during these trials. But the impotant thing is what happens after that. It's when we learn that we grow. We can't learn without these things. I love that docterine! Yay for church and stuff!

Life rocks out here, For real! Couldn't be happier out in the mission field :D Just pray we get some people to church! It would be great to see these people we love so much be able to feel more of the love their Savior has for them in His house!!!

Happy 4th of July! YAY INDEPENDANCE!!!!

Oh PS if you haven't made a mormon.org account, I ask you why..? And plead that you will take the few minutes it takes to write down the gift of testimony we've been given to help someone else out in the world. I know you'll be blessed and those people will as well. Also, for those married, if you would like to know how you can help out with missionary work, read Elder Ballards Gospel Families talk... Amazing!! One of my favorites that has been given. LOVE IT!!!

and LOVIN' YALL!!!

Elder Walker :D :D :D

Oh LODI!

Hi everyone!

Well... This week was... AMAZING!!!! Holy cow it has FLOWN by. But it was great! So I went and said goodbye to the good ole Stockton. I've never said a proper hello to the great Lodi. What a blessing it is to be able to say that I have been called by a Prophet and assigned by a mission president that KNOWS where we need to be. In 3 days we added 4 people. Usually we add 3-4 people a week over here! It's CRAAZY how Heavenly Father knows when you are needed in a different way.

These people are just amazing. The ward is fantastic! They're super helpful. Only problem? They feed us every night. My stomach is NOT used to that haha first night? Mexican fiesta. My first taste of true Carne Asada straight off the grill onto my plate. 2nd and 3rd nights? Cerviche.... Greatest. Invention. Since watches. I love cerviche. It's basically a salsa fresca (fresh salsa) with shrimp. So it's got shrimp (fresh shrimp) avacado, tomatoes, onions, lime and taptio of course! Then you put it on a tostada... Sweet mercy. I ate like half the bowl! It was SOO good! The members feed us EVERY NIGHT!!! Who knew? Not I!

Our investigators are solid. We've already seen sweet miracles through obedience to our plans. I would like to share a couple super quick before my time runs out! (I feel like Elder Day,... Counting down the time till the end of the emailing arrives.... 6:34.....33....32.....31)

So we were just out tracting and ran into this lady. She was SUPER cool but not interested at all. But she said her nephew had a Book of Mormon and had been trying to find a church to go to because he had just moved from Pittsburge, Cali. We thought immediately baptism. Even better! We found him and turns out he's a recent convert looking for the chruch to go to! What a miracle we found a lamb that had been found and was starting to leave the path! But we found him again and now he's coming to church. Miracle, no?

We have a lady named Anna and on our 2nd lesson together, we firmed her up (got her with a baptismal date, ready for baptism). She will be getting baptized on the first Saturday in July. We're very pleased that she's FINALLY following through after 3 transfers of investigating. One of our investigators, Eric, had been wondering about the apostasy and which church was true. He basically stole our biggest question, "Have you ever wondered why there are so many churches around and if there's one true church?". He is super solid we're teaching him for the second time tomorrow. We have a few others but I haven't met them yet.

Elder Thiesson from Canada is my new companion. He's the man. Another District Leader haha 3 in a row so I'm really excited to help him as much as I can. My Spanish has been blessed. I'm now understanding and having random conversations in Spanish. It's been great. I can now understand all of church! YAY!!! Life is great in California!

Also, I'm becoming my father. I told one of the members who had brought us Chinese food that.... She was an excellent cook.... I'm also starting to have some of his little things as well (the hands at the pulpit, the hands while talking to people, removing my glasses for dramatic effect...) Who knew I would love it! I'm so very grateful for a great example of a father I have in my life. It's a great privilege I have to call him my dad :D Thanks dad! I love you!!!

That's all folks!!!!!

Love,
Elder Walker

P.S. Please make a mormon.org account. It really helps to show investigators people I know and use your testimonies in their progression.... :D Loves and stuff!!!

Transfer Time

Hey everyone!

Well this week was NUTS!!!! Holy moses it was crazy. So first off.... Our investigator had her baby this week! YAY!!! Prayers were answered because she needed to have it before she could get married and baptized. She's super cool! They're moving but were helping them. Guess what the babies name is? JONATHAN! They named their little baby Jonathan haha I was super shocked when we get a message that says, "Elder Walker, I was wondering how you spell your first name, we want to name our son Jonathan.". It was super cool! Elder Rodriguez and I told them our first names and they loved Jonathan so that's his name now. Cute little Jonathan Castro. He's going to grow up in the gospel. How happy is that?!?!

Next, we had a GIANT dance festival. 600 youth all dancing at the same time. Pretty sure the dance company girls just passed out from over stressing. Well arise and get this. They did about 18-20 dances with small groups and 4 with ALL 600 KIDS!!! Holy moses it was huge and they rented out the Stockton arena to do it. A ton of investigators were there and that was great! I loved it! We got one of our investigators, Elizabeth, there and her son Roberto. They're english speaking so we are going to pass them off to the others tomorrow.

That brings me to my next big thing. I'm getting transferred. Though I'm excited to try new things, I'm not excited to leave the stockton area. I LOVE these people and I'm leaving right before we firm up our investigators. We should have 4 with a baptismal date by the end of this week, Elizabeth and Cesar and his family. Elizabeth is going to an english ward and Cesar is a miracle that we had that literally showed up on the door while we were eating dinner at a members house. He's super cool and wants to do anything he needs to to be baptized. He's been to church a lot so we hope to see him there soon!

I'm going up to Lodi. Just a city up and we actually touch the top this area with the bottom of our area so I'll be staring longingly into the stockton area ;) JK! I'm leaving my beloved companion Elder Perkes for a new companion Elder Theson. I'm excited! I've heard that he's great and it'll be super fun to go up and explore again.

I had my first bad stomach day. I'm sure it's the first of many. So story time. I had to go to the bathroom SUPER bad! And we were walking up and down streets. So we stop at this house to talk to people and my stomach is just telling me (at least I think it was my stomach, maybe it was the spirit. I know it wasn't a still small voice but a loud rumble) that we needed to use their bathroom. So we talk in spanish for a little bit and I ask if I can use their bathroom. While I'm in there Elder Perkes is talking to them and everything and we got a great return! She has a son in Utah and wants to live with her family forever. So for once, my bad stomach has come in handy! She's super great and has a lot of questions which is always a good sign!!

We went and did service down at the famous St. Mary's food shelter and it gave me a great appreciation for those people who NEED this gospel. They all look so broken down and it reminded me of the people in the scriptures who were talking about being kicked out of their synogogues and couldn't do anything anymore and then Alma telling them to have faith. Faith brings everything spiritual and physical. With faith we can easily find what we NEED and what we WANT. Without we're just looking at wants. Wants won't get us needs unless we want our needs. We learn to want them through faith of knowing the needs. I don't know if this makes sense to you but it's connecting like legos in my mind.

Anyway, I learned about examples this week. I was craving some Pokemon so we went out and got some cards and battled with eachother. This was about 3 weeks ago. At this day, our entire zone is into pokemon. I never thought about the effect that one little thing could do. All the sudden there are pokebattles breaking out left and right on P Days. I started getting worried when people were getting upset over losing at them. I've decided to put my cards away and spend my PDay doing better things. It got me thinking though. A mission is really just a glorified pokemon game with people (promise this isn't sacreligious) but we start out with trying to "CAPTURE" the investigators by using the right "POKEMON", like the book of mormon or families or things like that. If you use the wrong one you can kill them but if you use the right one you can get them in the pokeball and work with them. Then we advance them in stages by having them read and pray and be baptized. When they're baptized they become like Charizards. Spiritually on fire. Ready to fight the pokemon satan will through at them because they have new powers, new strengths. They still have those things that they are weak to, but now they can fight it more! I know that sounds pretty nerdy but, come on, Pokemon is TOTALLY based on the gospel!

The work is going crazy out here in Sacramento. Our ward tried to come up with a way so we'll baptize less. The Lord is blessing is like crazy. It's all through faith that the message we teach is true. NO ONE CAN TALK THE WORK FROM PROGRESSING!!! It's so nuts out here I'm so excited to help out in another area. This area of Morada Stockton is being left in good hands. It's time to find those that are in need of me up north. I'm so excited to continue this work. The Lord loves his children more than we can ever imagine.

I love you sooo much! Keep up the good work back home MAKE MORMON.ORG ACCOUNTS!!!!!

Love,
Elder Walker

PS Spanish? Rocks! I love this language! Gift of tongues? SUPER cool! Never had a better feeling than the gift of tongues when it's working for ya..... LOVE ESPANOL!!!

Find a Penny, Pick it up....

Hey family!!!

Some of this week was cool. I went on splits twice!

We had the biggest miracle with one of the Elders named Elder Williams. He's super cool but it was the biggest miracle I've seen. We prayed for revelation of where to go the next day in the rain and he recieved to go see this old preacher. So we went over there to see him and were talking with him and this random spanish guy out of no where comes up. Now, this is downtown Stockton and this guy is speaking 50 miles an hour. "I understood you're the mormon missionaries right? Well I've got something for you." So of course I look at Elder Williams freaking out as he reaches into his pocket and comes through the gate. Scared yet? Good! Well he comes up to us and it turns out he's a member, bashes with the preacher (not going back there again, burried that hatchet) and tells us he has a referral. Turns out he came down from Sacramento to pick up supplies and felt like he should come down this out of the way street, saw us and stopped. Here's the other thing, he had given this referral to them before but they couldn't find it. So he took us to this house to these people that accepted a Book of Mormon and baptismal invite. Miracle? Sure as heck! I also found a quarter, heads up of course, on the road outside their house. Miracles happen!

The rest of the week was as normal with little miracles all around. I learned I can't cut hair as I butchered one of those in my house. His hair is now down to a 1. Refer to the pictures sent home. haha

We got our transfer reports. I'm thinking I might be sent somewhere else in the mission next transfer :(...... They put on there that I should be a senior. I sure hope not :D I still have SOO much left to learn. Senior companion would be hard. I'm feeling I'll be a junior for a couple more transfers. I sure hope so!)

I love the mission. It finally hit me (I'm terrible, I know) what we're doing out here and it's made it SOO much better!

The gospel is true! God is our Heavenly Father. He loves us. We are saved through faith AND working towards getting a knowledge.

Love,
Elder Walker

The Lord is always there

Hey Y'all!

This week was super great and crazy and up and down! I've decided praying for humility stinks. I never realized how prideful I am. Luckily Heavenly Father answered my prayers (with a smile and a few cracked knuckles) and gave me many things to be humble about.

Abril's baptism was....filled with opposition. It was amazing though! I loved it! They ended up not having a ride there and told us at 7:57 a few minutes before we were supposed to start so we ended up starting at 8:15 or so. The water wasn't high enough but Heavenly Father blessed us and we got her under the second time :) Then everyone was stressed but nothing could stop that baptism. No matter how hard Satan tried. She didn't think anyone else had the authority to baptize her so after a lot of explanation and talk, she settled on me baptizing her. It was a great honor and it went fantastic. Luckily the Lord is always there.

We had a great week with talking to people and asking all to be baptized (well most of them ;D) and wow. what a wonderful blessing that is. I love it so much when we see people light up about the gospel!

Alma 29:14 hit me hard. I'm learning how to cherish OTHERS' success this week. And the rest of my life. Oh that I were an angel. You don't know how many times we say that a day :). I really do want others to have success, but the arm of flesh takes over. It's so dumb. I usually only cherish the "us" success and not the "them" success. I need to be more humble in that aspect. Here comes the humbling. :D It should be fun!

Love,
Elder Walker

It's 100000000000% TRUE

Hey hey hey everyone!!!!!

What a great week it was today! We've had some sweet sweet SWEET inspiration!!!! I love it so sooo much out here!

This morning we were driving and I looked up at the street and for the first time on my mission, I felt like I was home! I didn't even think twice on which street to turn or which way to go or anything. I just KNEW. It was so cool and wow... It was super weird! I've had some super cool testimony building experiences this week as we've gone through. I've vowed to never stop working as hard as I am now. I've been coming home dead tired and I've loved it!!!! It feels so great!

Elder Perkes really keeps me going. He's an amazing companion and we just have fun with each other. One day, I was feeling bad so I started doing the first part to "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" (It's OK -- I'm fine) and he joined in with me, not even questioning why and we sang that out while tracting both dying from laughing so hard. It was GREAT!!! Him and I go together like... 2 missionaries? I can't think of a good comparison. haha

Anyway, Abril Duran is still firm for the 28th, aka this saturday! She had her interview on Sunday and passed it with flying colors! She'll be baptized and we're hoping to get another of the recent converts to baptize her since he has the Aaronic Priesthood. It's so great! So we're hoping she'll let him do the ordinance. She's been a Nephi for her sisters and has read her scriptures every day and made sure they were reading and praying. Oh yeah, she's 10. She looks like she's 14 or so and acts older than me (so....11) so she's just great! She was called and chosen to be a part of the church at this time.

We started talking with a new investigator named Jesus Vasquez. He's pretty golden. I love his family and they love when we speak spanish to them. I've learned how to understand spanish better! Yeah! Now I can understand a lot of the Peruvians. They talk SUPER fast and I'm starting to pick up what they say and all! I love it! The Lord blessed me with some inspirational thoughts as I've prayed for the gift of tongues. It's real.

It's so great to be able to work and see the progress we've made through the Lord. We're not doing much to be honest. We study language for 1 hour and all the sudden we can speak for days in spanish? Definitely not us. That's for sure the Lord.

Last thing was kinda tough. We went on a Blitz (missionary switch) and got the assignment to get referals. We went to this member and he went to church and everything but didn't believe any was true. He was a wolf in sheeps clothing. It was the worst feelings I've had on the mission was talking to this guy. He was so nice but had been led so far away. I'm so glad I went through trials before my mission so I could talk to him and help him see some of the things he was missing. Like praying for an answer. He was basically mocking us with some of his answers. I talked to him through some things and i hope he prays.

That's the testimony I recieved. It's real. Prayer is the only way that we can talk to our Heavenly Father 'like a man speaks to his friend.' He can either become our best friend or a distant aquaintance. The choice is ours. If we make him our best friend, our life will seem so much better and our burdens will be light. If he's a distant friend, our life won't be harder, but we will be left to bear our own burdens, never being able to find out the truth that He always wants to give us.

I love the work!!!!

Life rocks and the church is 1000000000000% true! It can't be wrong :D

Elder Walker

Preparing the way....

Hi everyone!

How're you all doing?! I miss you all very much but you're hanging over my bed so I can always see ya when I wake up!!!

This week was SWEET. Ok, it was super super tough. We got in some GREAT lessons, problem? Most of our appointments fell through. Our investigators didn't come to church. Our new investigators that looked golden cancelled twice. It was hard to do! But that's what missionary work is!

That was my testimony builder today, that even if we're doing all we can, being as obedient as possible, trying our best to be strictly obedient, the Lord isn't just going to give you people, you still have to go find them. He's put a lot of people in our way, now we just have to help them pray so that Heavenly Father can show them the way. We really don't do much. We say words and Heavenly Father does all the teaching. He's amazing! I've started to get tired of Catholics but, I figure I should get used to them seeing as EVERYONE is a Catholic. I don't understand why so many people claim themselves Catholic, without going to church and without knowing what they believe in. Catholics ARE Christians.... They believe in Christ as their Savior and God as our Heavenly Father.... I love them so much, but they confuse me constantly.

I love knowing and learning more and more and more about the church. It's so great! I love when people let us in and we teach and can just feel the spirit overcoming all of us. One lady, her name is Linda Washburn, she's a Jehovah's Witness (half of you just gasped, I know it) and she wanted to read the Book of Mormon (put your tongue back in your mouth) and she did with us and we asked her to pray at the end and she started crying, pleading to know if the Book of Mormon was true. It was amazing!

One funny experience was last night. We went on a 'blitz' which is where you split up people and go to their area and talk to them. So me and Elder Beeson found this Cambodian guy and talked to him. He WAS a member, but not active. He smokes, has a kid, drinks. So he said he wanted to come back and we were kinda beating around the bush and I just felt like I needed to be bold. So he had a cigarette in his ear and I told him, "If you want to change your life stop smoking, drinking and having sex. Clean up your life and pray. Get on your knees and let's pray right now, at your door." I was surprised that I'm still alive. I'm more surprised that we prayed. That HE prayed right there at the door. Phew!

Number two last night of boldness? This mexican guy (not racist to call people mexicans) was being all snotty to us saying that he kills people for fun and said he can't wait to die and go to hell with the devil and drink beer and stuff. I felt the spirit strong and told him, "Well my friend I can guarantee you that you won't be going to hell to drink beer or anything with Satan." He asked why and I said, "You have no idea who Jesus Christ is. You haven't spent the time to know who your Savior is. We believe that you need to know who Jesus Christ is perfectly and THEN deny Him to go with Satan. If you would like to know more about how you can progress like that and gain that testimony, call this number and come to this church." Elder Beeson and I left after that and the guy just looked stunned. Some white guy in a shirt and tie said that to him? We told him his Heavenly Father loved him and left and he said he respected us and would always have our backs. Cool :D I got protection down here!

This week was the hardest yet. Elder Rodriguez said it was one of the hardest he'd have but the tender mercies of letters, a little girl that looked EXACTLY like Becky (my sobrina) when she was younger and things like that keep ya going when the day is hard! Yay for friend testimonies :D

I love you all! Keep preparing for the work!

Love,

Elder Walker

"Silly Satan..."

Hola mis padres! Como estan?! Como fue sus semanas?!

Oh mi palabras... Que una semana... He aprendido mucho en este semana pasada... Correcion, El Senor me ha ensanado mucho a mi alma y mi mente. Espanol es mas facil ahora por que he sido tratando duro a aprender y progresar en esta idioma. Es deficil en momentos, pero, con Dios ninguna cosa es impossible. He recibido una testimonio de eso.

That's my spanish for this time!

It was an... Interesting week to say the least! I learned that missionary work isn't missionary work if you're not having fun! Now, not like bad fun but just fun fun while doing the work! It's not wasting the Lord's time if you're out doing the work and having a good time. That's the biggest lesson I've EVER learned here on my mission! Time flies when you're having fun and you HAVE to do it on the mission or you'll HATE it and so will your investigators.

We had a rough week. Most of our appointments dropped out. Our investigators moved.... without telling us.... And to top it all off I finished off the week, with the worst cold I've ever had. I understand what Moroni is talking about in Ether when he talks about not being able to receive your witness until after the trial(s) of your faith. I learned that missionary work isn't all smiles and baptisms over here. Funny how it's, missionary WORK, right? Who knew?!

Just sayin', missionary work is as fun as you make it! If you just do work and just knock doors and just teach lessons and just get baptisms, you will be so excited to get home from day one. I learned that if you knock doors with excitement, if you teach with love, trying to make it interesting and you baptize, always understanding what that covenant means and represents, your mission will be the best thing ever.

I came in with blinders on, not letting anything come into my eyes that didn't have to do with sticking exactly to the lessons, exactly to the book. My companion has taught me that you can do that, but no one will want to listen to you. You have to smile and make it enjoyable for you, because if it's enjoyable for you, it's enjoyable for them too!

I learned this when we went on these exchanges and we went to these black kids house right. They were all about my house just shootin around. My companion that i had exchanged with couldn't shoot. So of course, us two white kids challenged them to a game. I was freaking out saying, "Elder, this is NOT in the rule book! We need to teach and move on! We can't just play them. The Spirit can't work through basketball." He laughed and told me to take off my back pack. So I did. I immediately started feeling horribly scared. They were black. I was white. It was in their jeans to play and I was wearing a white shirt and tie.... This was going to end bad. He said "Alright, if we win, we teach you a lesson, if you win we leave, game to eleven." ELEVEN?!?! I said in my head. We're done. 3 on 2, they're mini Jordans and I'm wearing Nunn Bush's.... Well my friends, the power of the Lord IS there! First shot, I dunked. Boy did that feel good! Those kids were freaking out. Apparently they didn't play much basketball. PHEW!!!! The score was 9-10 us when I threw the game winning ally-oop to my companion who smoothly kissed it off the glass. We taught a great lesson and got invited back. Now if we had just asked to teach them they wouldn't have ever let us in or let us talk to them. They still wouldn't know about our church. Because we had fun with them, they hugged us at the end and told us to come back again and play and teach more!!!! What a blessing.

We later, after having more fun doing the work, discovered 4 new investigators that already said firmly and excitingly, that if they found out that this church was true, they would come and be baptized :D What a week.

I know that this is la gran obra de Dios! No one can stop this work from going forth. Satan tries EVERY hour of EVERY day but fails. Silly Satan, souls are Heavenly Father :D I love being called to serve him because he's ALWAYS with me!

Love,

Elder Walker :D

Sac-Town

*This was the first letter we got from Elder Walker since he's been out of the MTC. We thought, since there are so many new thing happening, we'd send him a questionnaire to answer some of our questions. Here are his responses!*

1. Where are you living?

In STOCKTON!!!! How cool is that?! I'm born in the city of dreams :D It's so amazing here and there's NOTHING to worry about! We're close to down town where all the action happens that everyone here's about but we're far enough away that nothing will happen so don't worry! BUt yes, in mission terms I've been 'born' in Stockton Morada mission.

2. Can we mail things directly to you?
You actually can't. You have to mail everything to the mission office but they get everything here quick! Make sure you priority or first class all the packages or else I won't get them for weeks. They filter the mail through the system so we don't get junk and send it from the mission office.

3. What is your address?
Unfortunately, I can't tell you my address that I'm living at, but you have my California address. It's the one in the packet. It's 8267 Deseret Ave. Fair Oaks, CA 95628

4. What’s your apartment like?
It's pretty g-hetto... Haha it's pretty trashed but the spirit is strong!!!! It's a wonderful place for a few missionaries to stay at :D

5. Who is your companion?
O estrellas mias!!!! (Oh my stars) My companion... So out here, they call your trainer your daddy and wow... Back home AND out here I have the GREATEST daddy in the world! He's absolutely AMAZING!!!! His name is Elder Rodriguez (yay christian!!!)

6. Where is he from?
He is from San Antonio Texas.

7. How long has he been out?
I'm his last companion and he goes home in May!!!! He's been here for 23 months...? I think... Something close the that.

8. What do you have in common with him?
We both love to obey and work as hard as we can and teach and he's great at basketball and he's fluent in Spanish and knows SO much!!!!

9. In what ways are you and he different?
He's experienced, so I think that everyone we talk to is going to be baptized, but he knows those that have the intent. He also is a Spurs fan... That has caused some trauma.... Also he doesn't mind the messy stuff... Apparently I was WAY off... Everything must be cleaned!!!

10. Does he remind you of anyone from home?
He reminds me a LOT of Joe sometimes. He's very good at making people think before arguing and has that work ethic of getting stuff done and making sure it's done PERFECT before anything else! He's very good at being maticulate.

11. What did you do your first day in the mission home?
We went up to the temple and talked to the President and interviewed with him... We got in at about twelve and filled out some papers and then left after that. Let's see... It was FOREVER AGO!!!! But we did that and then ya... Chilled and had a great dinner that was very similar to mom's chicken in white sauce.. But wrapped in bacon WITH italian dressing!!!! Que una buena cena!!!

12. What did you do your first day in the field?
First day, we went straight out and started tracting AND taught lessons. It was great! First day here, we got 8 returns to come back and teach! And we got 2 investigators that day. Two brand new that I think are going to get baptized!!! What a WONDER!!!

13. Have you had your first Spanish teaching experience?
I have helped teach about.... 16 lessons or so? We've only been focusing really hard on a few people because we had a baptism with one of our investigators on Saturday, so we had to prepare her and that was great! But yes we've taught many people and I've DEFINITELY been thrown into the fire in this mission

14. How did it go?
It was amazing! The first lesson I didn't say much, but I could understand... SOme of it? haha it's a different language out here I swear!!!! They're so quick!!! Santa vaca (holy cow). Luckily my companion is great with the language!

15. Are you understanding the language?
I am now. I wasn't so much the first few days, but I'm starting to get used to it and picking up new phrases. I still struggle a LOT and some of the members and investigators have fun with me, but it's been great! We just all laugh about it.

16. Are you comfortable speaking the language?
I'm getting to where I am. Apparently I came prepared. A lot of the Elders and members in the ward were very surprised that I could put together a sentence! I'm starting to be able to think and speak it quickly. But my vocabulary is very limited to gospel things which is great! But my companion is being very helpful!
17. What percentage of the work you are doing is in Spanish?
100% of the lessons are in spanish. The tracting is in English and Spanish, but we only teach spanish people, the english elders teach the english people. So all of our work ends up in spanish. Like if we get an english person that wants us back, we call the english elders, and vice versa.

18. Do you have families you are working with now?
We do! We have a great family that we asked last night if they would be baptized if they found out this church was true and... They accepted! So they came to church and the fireside yesterday and just loved it. So hopefully they'll follow through! They seem really excited. Another family we discovered our first day and they're going to be hard because they're so catholic but, I know that they can do it! I'm so excited!!!! And we have a few others as well. Lots of work to be done here!

19. Do you work with the members much?
We work with the members every day! My companion is great at making sure we get member lessons done and other things like that in. A lot of inactives in our area that we're working on re-activating. It's my favorite thing EVER!!!

20. Do you have dinner appointments most nights, or are you cooking for yourselves?
We have had a lot of appointments, but we don't eat a lot. Sometimes we'll go home and grab a sandwich, but most nights, we're really just not hungry. My first or second night, I was starving and we weren't going home for dinner and had this great lesson with Francisca, who just got baptized on saturday, and I had a silent prayer that we'd go home and get something to eat, but we went to her house and we get out of the car and out of nowhere this guy comes with this huge tray full of spanish bread and he gives us each a piece for free! It was so good and really showed me how the Lord will ALWAYS provide so that we can always be doing our best.

21. What was your first Sunday in Church like?
It was hard to understand the meetings other that testimony but that's alright because OUR INVESTIGATORS CAME!!!!!! It was the BEST feeling ever to look over and see them paying attention and soaking all of the testimonies up! That was really cool.

22. What is a typical day like?
A typical day is we wake up, study at 8 till 11 with different studies, then go out and teach lessons for a while and tract somewhere for 2 hours or so and then come home at about 9:15 or so! The days go by SO quickly, it's unreal. The lessons always seem like 5 minutes, when really it's 30-45. It's the best thing ever. Oh and did I mention we get cars? THere are only 2 areas for spanish that have bikes so... Hasta Luego bike! It looks awesome though! Blends in with my backpack!

23. How is your bike?
It's great! I still haven't used it yet, but I might if we don't have any miles left for the car... But it looks really cool!

24. Do you ride it a lot?
Nope :D haha never.... EVer but sometimes, I just sit on it, and peddle backwards in my suit and back pack and helmet, imagining the road while my companion fans me :)

25. What are you doing for P day?
For PDay we played basketball with the zone and then just relaxed at home after going shopping. It's super chill and really nice. I love every minute of pdays now. We still study and everything and go back to tracting at 6 so it's not a whole day.

26. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling AMAZING! I'm always smiling and it's weird. We had to tract in the rain like the pooring rain and so I gave my companion my coat and an umbrella and just got SOAKED but I was smiling the whole time because I knew what those days are for and why I'm out there in the rain. If I complain, I'm not trusting in my Savior, but if I'm open and happy, there's no way that I can be sad! Every day is a new, great, wonderful day to be serving my Savior and helping to progress his work.

27. How is your tummy doing?
My tum tums is great! I haven't had any problems re adjusting to real food and the spanish food out here is.. Wow... I've only had nachos, bread, and a REAL homemade everything quesadilla, but wow... Real home made chili and goodness gracious!!!! I am eating well and feeling great!

28. Is there anything you need or want that we can send to you?
Umm... I don't think there's anything right now... Maybe just something fun.. haha I dunno! We've got a whole lot of stuff.. Oh yeah! Those pencils that Lauren got me, I've loved them and they've been PERFECT for marking, but I gave some to a friend out here that I made that didn't have any to mark! I hope you remember what they look like lol they're like eagle mountain markers or something? I can't remember but it's all wood...

Just a quick report on my first week because it was amazing! BUt pretty insane! So like I said, we got some amazing investigators that might be baptized soon! In the next three weeks we hope. And the two others we found as well. They're great.

We've re activated a family of 2 girls and hope that their little sister will want to be baptized as well. My first saturday here, I got left in charge of 2 baptisms. That was sure stressful! My companion planned everything out but had to go to meetings since he's the district leader here and so he left and left me with another missionary that's been here for6 weeks and didn't know what to do either. So that was great! They came of smoothly! Francisca was the lady that was one of our investigators that had been taken care of by the other missionaries and they left right before the baptism. So saturday was hectic!

I'm learning spanish pretty well! I've started to participate a LOT more in the lessons and contacting and stuff. It's been great to have the knowledge that the MTC gives us! So i'm not completely useless. I've learned so much in the scriptures and have had some great, faith lifting experiences that have really helped me to be better and grow! It's been a great miracle. I've missed my family a whole lot more, and the first few days were hard in the mornings, but once we leave, it's a whole new ball game!

President wants me to lead the Zone in the mission statement, which apparently is a big deal haha. My companion was very happy for me and said usually the assistants do that! But it's been amazing out here! The spanish people are SO much nicer than the english people... But really. There always open!

I learned what marijuanna is... We were knocking and this house was open and so my companion told me to take it and I went and started talking and they were passing around this smoking bowl thingy andsmoking it and I just thought it was a knew way to smoke a cigarette so I was like cool, but my companion started like blowing the smoke out of his nose while I was talking, well, we got a return to come back, but I don't know what will happen. It was pretty scary! Anyway, this area is great, my companion is amazing! The work is progression!!! I love it!