"I got proposed to by the daughter of a family we contacted in the street...."

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

well this week was full of adventures! the time is going way to fast at this point now but im loving it! I am trying to get everything i can out of it! Well i just made a list of some stuff that happened to me this week so here it goes:

well my chain came off my bike while i was on an avenue and when i put my weight on my pedal to go i lost my balance and i body slammed a parked car so that was fun. i almost made it 24 months with out a bike accident.

We are now doing family home evenings with members and having them invite a friend thats not a member or a less active member and we had some good times with that. With one family for the game we had I got to play air hockey for the first time since i left so that was fun! also we had our converts teach the lesson in another family home evening and it was awesome! they are such studs. they have weeks being members and they already teach lessons and stuff.

some lady that is always trying to make us give her 5 pesos called us over like this, "little boys come over and fix my water pipe!" and being good missionaries we went to help her but it was a pipe that we wernt going to be able to attach without shutting off the water. we told her but she was like, "no i have done this like 10 times just push harder!" and we are like, "tranquilo lady" but we kept helping her but finally she gave up and let us go back to work after 20 minutes. 

I got proposed to by the daughter of a family we contacted in the street. Its an interesting story that i will tell you all whe i get back because i dont have time to write it.

This week we also had a bunch of awesome lessons. We were guided to the right place at the right time. Those are my favorite times on the mission, when the spirit guides you and you know you are exactly where you need to be. We were able to help a brother whose nephew had died and was buried the morning we found him, the daughter of a member of the ward who had distanced herself from the church, the bishop when he was passing through a hard time and other families as well just in the moment they needed us. We were able to share a message about christ with them and provide them with the help they needed. Thats what i love about the mission. 

Well that was my week this week! I love you all!

Have a good week!

Elder Whitaker

"Sometimes it's not necessary to do what you love, but more important to love what you do...."

hola mi familia y mis amigos!

hows it going? well its kinda weird writing this because I only have a month left now. within 3 letters I´ll be back with you all. the time flies huh?

These lsat two weeks have been good. I have really learned a lot. The circumstances in which I am in are the same as they were 2 months ago, but I am happier and I feel good about what I am doing. I´m not going to lie, this area is hard. I have never had to try so hard to find somebody to teach, but I am enjoying it. Sometimes its not necesary to do what you love, but its more important to love what you do, no matter what it is that God sends you to do.

I have been reading the Book of Mormon with the intention to finish it again before I come home and I am amazed by the missionaries that are described. It wasnt easy for them either but what has impressed me is that they never stopped. That is my gaol right now. I have made the goal to share my testimony and my love with every person that God gives me the chance to speak with and I feel good. If they accept it or not, I want everybody to know that I know that our loving heavenly father has a plan for us, that through Christ we can have peace, that this is the restored church of Jesus Chirst and that it is perfect. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that we have living prphets today. I dont know because I proved it, nor because I´m inteligent. I know because I have felt the holy spirit testify to my heart that it is true.

I know because i have seen the fruits in my life. I am happy. I don´t have time to think about myself and I´m happy. I know because i have seen the fruits in other peopls lives. Mauro and Yesica, the couple that we baptized, they are so happy. They share their testimonies with me all the time. I have seen what their life was and what it is now. I know. 

Thats why Im happy. Friends and family, I don´t have a lot of time left being a missionary, but in this last little time I have, I want all you to know what I know. and because I love you I want you all to at least consider what I am saying. find out for yourself if what I say is true. thats my only invitation to the people here in argentina. I love you all. Thanks for your letters. We will be in touch. Have a good week!

Elder Whitaker

Hola mis amigos y mi familia,

Como les va? Everything is going well down here. I just began my last transfer so thats kinda weird but its like the scoreboard clock in a lacrosse game. I am in the 4th quarter with 3 minutes left on the clock to do something great.

we had a good week! to start it off with some of the adventures we had:

i got to help a family carry 5 dead lambs into their house so that they could cut it up and sell it to their neighbors so that was legit.

A family from peru down here made us serviche which is raw fish cooked with lemon juice and picante. the acid kills the bacteria so its safe to eat and its awesome!

We found some new investigators. The husband is from Ukrain and has a sick story. He doesnt read very well in spanish so we found him a book of mormon in russian so in the lessons we show him what to read in his russian book or mormon and then we talk about it after so the lessons are kinda cool.

I also had to go to the DMV of argentina for the documents that make me legal here with all of my buddies from the mission that finish with me so we had a good time seeing eachother after a while. it was the first time i enjoyed waiting in line in a government building.

well for some of the spiritual stuff:

We had a baptism! XXXX and XXXX  XXXXX were baptized this last saturday! It was so amazing! It was the first baptism in this ward this year. They have 3 kids that arent of age yet that will be raised in the gosple now too. It Is so cool to baptize a family. That is really what the gosple of Jesus Christ is about, making eternal families. They are so excited and so prepared. A cool story about them. They lived on the other side of La Plata next to my old area in romero but for reasons of safety they came to villa elvira. Elder McKean and I began teaching them before a month had passed of them living in their new house. Their house right now has a ton of problems so in 2 weeks they will be moving back to another house back where they lived before. They were sent here to villa elvira to get to know us so we could teach them and be baptized and now they are going back. God Works miracles.

We are working hard and doing our best to find people eve though it is a hard area and God is opening doors. Im grateful for his help. By ourselves, we arent anything special, but with God we are working miracles. Im grateful for all the help He has given me my whole mission. I only hope to keep being a good intstrument in His hands.

I hope you all have a good week!

Elder Whitaker

"...God puts people in our lives so that we can touch their hearts".

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

Como estan todos? I have had a good last couple of weeks. there has been some tough stuff but really after counting my blessings i realize that i have had a really fun week and a lot of little miracles. 

Well some fun stuff first: well i burned my bum with the bidet on an exchange in another area and i got all wet so that was funny.

I had to get an ingrown toenail taken out and the got out the powersander so i felt like i was in dumb and dumber so that made me laugh quite a bit.

My comp has decided he wants to sing in all of the contacts we do. so its like year round christmas caroling. so thats fun i guess.

i got pretty good at shooting my trash into the trash basket from the balcony so im feeling like a champ.

I had an exchange with one of my best freinds in the mission elder jackson from Encinitas, california this week and it was awesome! We had fun and had some really good talks that insired me for after the mission.

Also I got interviewed by some people making a documentary about technology in argentina so im going to be famous!

For some spiritual stuff:

This last week i got to interview a family to get baptized that I found and taught their first lesson to them 2 years ago when i started in Villa Montoro. They remembered me and everything even though i had almost forgotten about them. It was a blessing from my Heavenly Father that I could be there to complete the cycle. How great of a blessing it is to know that seeds i planted a long time ago, God helped them grow and i could witness it almost 2 years later.

We are having trouble finding new people but the other day i felt inspired to ring s certain doorbell and we found a really receptive family. Hopefully we can begin teaching them soon.

We have been helping a 18 year old kid who was less active come back to church. He has begun to accompany us to appointments and to our P-day activities and he told us today on the way to the activity that he is in the process of filling out his missionary papers to go on a mission!

The work can be hard but God puts people in our lives so that we can touch their hearts.

Spiritual thought: "Finishers Wanted" -Thomas S Monson July 1972 Ensign

Courage becomes a living andattractive virtue when it is regarded not as a willingness to die manfully, but the determination to live decently.Have the courage—

“To dream the impossible dream;

To fight the unbeatable foe;

To bear with unbearable sorrow:

To run where the brave dare not go.

“To right the unrightable wrong;

To love, pure and chaste, from afar;

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star.” ¹

—and you will thus become a finisher.

Its a good thought. have a good week everyone!

Elder Whitaker

Ty and some friends he's met on his mission

Ty with all the missionaries in his zone in Buenos ares East

"...God puts people in our lives so that we can touch their hearts".

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

Como estan todos? I have had a good last couple of weeks. there has been some tough stuff but really after counting my blessings i realize that i have had a really fun week and a lot of little miracles. 

Well some fun stuff first: well i burned my bum with the bidet on an exchange in another area and i got all wet so that was funny.

I had to get an ingrown toenail taken out and the got out the powersander so i felt like i was in dumb and dumber so that made me laugh quite a bit.

My comp has decided he wants to sing in all of the contacts we do. so its like year round christmas caroling. so thats fun i guess.

i got pretty good at shooting my trash into the trash basket from the balcony so im feeling like a champ.

I had an exchange with one of my best freinds in the mission elder jackson from Encinitas, california this week and it was awesome! We had fun and had some really good talks that insired me for after the mission.

Also I got interviewed by some people making a documentary about technology in argentina so im going to be famous!

For some spiritual stuff:

This last week i got to interview a family to get baptized that I found and taught their first lesson to them 2 years ago when i started in Villa Montoro. They remembered me and everything even though i had almost forgotten about them. It was a blessing from my Heavenly Father that I could be there to complete the cycle. How great of a blessing it is to know that seeds i planted a long time ago, God helped them grow and i could witness it almost 2 years later.

We are having trouble finding new people but the other day i felt inspired to ring s certain doorbell and we found a really receptive family. Hopefully we can begin teaching them soon.

We have been helping a 18 year old kid who was less active come back to church. He has begun to accompany us to appointments and to our P-day activities and he told us today on the way to the activity that he is in the process of filling out his missionary papers to go on a mission!

The work can be hard but God puts people in our lives so that we can touch their hearts.

Spiritual thought: "Finishers Wanted" -Thomas S Monson July 1972 Ensign

Courage becomes a living and attractive virtue when it is regarded not as a willingness to die manfully, but the determination to live decently.Have the courage—

“To dream the impossible dream;

To fight the unbeatable foe;

To bear with unbearable sorrow:

To run where the brave dare not go.

“To right the unrightable wrong;

To love, pure and chaste, from afar;

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star.” ¹

—and you will thus become a finisher.

Its a good thought. have a good week everyone!

Elder Whitaker

"God is leading me to where he wants me to be...."

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

Hows life? things down here are going great! I was in a lot of meetings this week because its the start of the new mission Buenos Aires East. OUr new mission president is super cool. He is pretty young. He has 2 of his kids living with him in the mission house. Its kinda cool being able to talk with them between meetings. 

This week really opened my eyes. Im seeing my mission from a different perspective now and im stoked to take advantage of these last 3 months. I ha ve some good goals of thing i want to get done before im back. The area is still kinda slow but we are working hard. I know that not everyone i talk with is going to let me teach them but i dont want to miss any opportunity. I guess from having time in the mission you see somebody and you automatically make a probability that they will be open to talk but i learned a big lesson this week.

we found a man that hasn`t gone to church for years. He lives in a place that looks like a cave and is still under construction. People had told us not to waste our time because he was always drinking but one day we found him and tried to set an appointment with him. He accepted but we were just thinking that it would fall through but we went anyways. To our suprise he was there. Entering i was still kind in doubt that he would be receptive but as i heard his story i grew to love him in those 30 minutes. Yes, he was off track but he had made the decision between going and drinking with his friends and staying home to talk with us. The next day he was in church with us! God is always looking out for everyone of us. We are all lost sheep in a way but how amazing is it that no matter where we stray He is always looking out for everyone of us and is slowly leading us back to Him. Thats what happened with this man and thats whats happeneing with everyone of us.

I have seen God`s hand in my life too, leading me closer to him. These last couple weeks have been tough but Im realizing that these events, just like the events that have happened in the life of this man we met i realize that God is leading me to where he wants me to be. I have learned some important things and am in the process of learning still. It will be great to see where heavenly father is going to take me.

Elder Whitaker

"It's probably the best part of missionary work to hear those words...."

Hola mi familia y mis amigos,

well we had a pretty crazy week this week. W

e had exchanges with the elders in our zone all week so i basically didnt even see my comp the whole week. it was crazy. I was so tired this weekend. It was fun though because there are a lot of cool elders in our zone. Well because my comp was in other areas i was running the area for the first time. it went well but we still need to find more people.

as for the people we do have, they are coming along nicely. We had a couple lessons with Mauro and jessica this week and they are doing everthing right. we showed up on thursday and they told us, "we have been praying together and we know its all true" so thats pretty awesome. Its probably the best part of missionary work to hear those words.

We have started teaching a family that the dad is a member but his kids, that have between 30 and 15, aren´t. we went over last monday to have a family home evening and i pulled out some of my mexican skills i didnt know i had and we made some legit tacos. we had guacamole and salsa and beans and everything which arent things that you can typically get here. They were soooooo good. i had been dying for a good taco. its was super funny though because the argentines think black pepper is spicy. I made one of the kids throw up because he wasnt used to the spice haha woops. but everybody else liked it. but yeah doing that we got the trust of the kids and they started listening to us. we had a cople solid lessons with them.

Well my comp is getting ready to go home next monday. its fun but also makes me a little trunky because he is remembering all the good stuff from the states haha but ill live. we will see who my new comp will be next week! Ill miss Elder McKean though.

spiritual thought of the week:

2 nephi 33:10-12 Its Nephi´s testimony (the first prophet who writes in the Book of Mormon) about the Book of Mormon. This book is the ultimate test. if it persuades us to believe in Christ and increases our faith, then its true. If it is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet called to restore Christ´s church, which had been lost, again the the Earth. This book has increased my faith and I know it is true.

10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believein Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.

11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye—for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness.

 12 And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day.

Have a good week everyone. I love you guys!

Elder Whitaker