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