Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Probably not his favorite week.

Wednesday: Well I woke up at 4:30, and got that feeling, "Am I sick,
or am I starving?" So I got out of bed, I was going to pour myself a
bowl of cereal, but in the process of trying to open the bag, I got my
answer, I was sick. :( Throwing up isn't fun. I only did twice though.
Once I went to bed and 6:30 came around I told Elder Housman that I
was going to rest a bit longer. At 7:45, Elder Hughes called, I woke
up from that, I could hear Elder Housman saying, "He is sick, can you
talk to him later??" Elder Housman told me that he said it was urgent,
he gave me the phone, "Hello?" "Elder Wrathall, my back hurts a lot,
so can I take a bath?" "Are you joking?" I just hung up. The life of
being a District Leader.
I was feeling terrible all morning, but the Zone Leaders came over and
gave me Pepto and a blessing, I went foreword with faith and gave
District Meeting even though didn't feel very good, but it went really
well, probably my least favorite out of them all, but not too bad!
Afterwards, went on exchanges with Elder Hughes. There was only one
time during the day where I had to take a rest for an hour.


Thursday: Was feeling almost back to my normal self. Went to District
Leader Training, where they tell us what to train on for our
districts, and this time they left it way more open ended, meaning I
can do pretty much whatever I receive revelation on what my District
needs. I think that this next District Meeting is going to be my
favorite! I have planned some really fun activites. You have to have
fun! It will be Christmas Eve when we do it!

Friday: Dang, this was a rough day. We got a call from Steve, saying
that Heather's (Our investigator scheduled to be baptized Saturday)
dad was found un-responsive this morning and had CPR and is now on
life support, and they were wondering iff they could post-pone the
baptism to another day. NOOOO!!! :( I told them my take on it, Satan
is trying all he can to make sure she doesn't get baptized, and said
she should get baptized nevertheless, it only takes 30 minutes.
However, they decided that they should wait for another day.
Mark, our other investigator whom we had scheduled for Saturday as
well, we went over to his house and he still hasn't recognized his
answer, I know without a doubt he has his answer, he just hasn't
recognized it. It is so frustrating at times.
So needless to say, I was feeling pretty down at the end of the day.


Saturday:I have been feeling super discouraged, just because nothing
is going the way that I wanted them to happen. Of course that is never
the situation. God has a plan for everything, he knows what is
happening more than we do. Just I wish that he let us on in the plan.
I feel a good correlation would help out ;) Haha. I really just want a
baptism! I am really hoping that we will have one this transfer.


Sunday: We had the wonderful opportunity of speaking in the 8th Ward.
I heard that Dad spoke as well! A ton of people afterwards came up to
us and told us thank you, and gave us referrals. MMmmmm talks are the
best!
We were finally able to get in contact with Steve and Heather. Heather
is receiving an onslaught of opposition from here family. They are
blaming her for her dad going into life support because she is joining
the church. Her sister bashed on the church for 4 hours with her. I
really hope she has enough strength to endure and be baptized this
upcoming week. We are going to shoot for Christmas, have a White
Christmas! (Get it? because she would be in all white??)


Monday: We stopped by Heather again today. She is really going through
a hard time, she pretty much told us that she would kill herself, and
the only reason she hasn't is because she doesn't have anything to
over-dose on. I guess she suspects that Steve her husband is cheating
on her, but she said she has cheated on him twice. She has been raped
by two family members. She also denied feeling the holy ghost in our
lessons, and she doesn't know if Joseph Smith is a prophet, she still
thinks that the Godhead is all one being. SO in other words, we lost a
lot of traction. She needs a ton of help, it is so hard to see people
suffer. By the time we left, we left her feeling better than we found
her, we gave her a blessing of comfort, and that seemed to help a lot.

Love Elder Wrathall

No pictures this week from him but since we get to Skype with him in a couple of days I will forgive him.

December 16th

To start off with: Borrowmans, they want to say thank you to you for having me out on a
mission. Good job Mom and Dad!
Wednesday: Had District Meeting with not much planning. I have had so many meetings and what not to the point where it is really difficult to get anything done. I had to skip personal study to plan district meeting. It went okay, however, we weren't even able to role-play which is super important, because we had to do somethings at the beginning like making a card for a little girl who's dying wish is to have her room full of Christmas cards.
Afterwards, went on exchanges with Elder Legones, it was really good, though Elder Legones is having a hard time with his companion, and therefore the area is suffering quite a bit. :(

Thursday: District Leader Training was about how we are supposed to baptize and help Less active's. Many missionaries only do one or the other. We have talked about it so much, it is kind of annoying now, but I guess it needs to be done.

Friday:Had a meeting down in Ogden about Ipad stuff, always super difficult to try and get down there and back up. However, we did pretty good. Was able to figure it out. We had another frustrating lesson with Mark. I feel we did perfect at teaching but it did nothing, he still isn't sure whether he should be baptized. It is so frustrating!

Saturday: We had someone nice enough to drive us around in the afternoon, that way we were able to make a lot of visits that otherwise we could not make.

Sunday: One of my goals for this transfer have been to rely more on
the spirit when teaching. Today was probably the best I have done it
on my mission thus far. The weirdest thing about it, is when looking
back at the lesson, I don't remember what I say, I remember the
feeling the spirit and Heather (The Investigator) saying, "Oh.. That
makes sense". Heather felt the spirit and determined that she does
want to be baptized this next weekend :)

Monday: Had the Christmas party, we watched the grinch while having lunch. It was fun! We had Elder Walter from the seventy come and talk to us :)

Sorry, pretty lame letter.
Love

Elder Wrathall
 
I wish I could call you and blow off steam! Hahaha. We got flurries but nothing sticked. Not having a car has been really annoying, it isn't fun asking people always to give us a ride. We ask random door contacts even. Just knock, "Hello!" "Hello! Can you give us a ride?" It's terrible haha
Carter ,his nephew, is the coolest! We are baptizing someone this weekend who has a child the same age. He is the funniest kid in the world. His name is Dax. His smile looks evil though haha.

.
I got the packages already, we had a Christmas party and got them there.
I got this super cool hat too! 

It doesn't even feel like it is Christmas really. Besides talking to you and Dinner, we don't have anything planned. I wonder if the Zone will do anything.
I really hope there will be snow.
Love you!
Elder Wrathall

Sunday, December 14, 2014

This mission has brought me true conversion.

Wednesday: Well, I am pretty tired of this weather. I am just so sad!
I was so looking foreword to having 3 feet of snow like everyone talks
about around here. However, it has been in the 50's all week!! Stop
dumb Utah. This makes me really never want to live in Utah. Can't even
change seasons right. Well anyways, we had District Meeting, I was
really nervous about it, my first one alone doing it. It went really
well! Elder Farmer said that was one of his favorite District
Meetings! That is a big compliment for someone about to go home!
Thursday: We had DLT, this one was a little different than ones
before, just because we have so many District Leaders now. Elder
Farmer our Zone Leader, and my favorite missionary in the mission, is
feeling super sick, but still came :) He is going home this transfer,
which makes me super sad. I am going to miss him so much. With him
going home, it made me think about what if I was going home this
transfer. Rather than the normal thoughts of Motorcycles, girls and
family, I thought immediately to the things I would miss so much on my
mission, the many Elders who have changed my life, the many converts
whom I love so dearly, being so close to heavenly father, doing The
Lord's work. I am just glad I don't have to come home just yet ;)
This mission has brought me true conversion.
Friday: Met with the Davis Family.
Saturday: Everyone in the stake pretty much tells us to go to the
stake baptisms, so I suppose we should go. Haha. It was really good,
it is always nice to see people enter into that covenant, even though
they don't really comprehend what they are actually doing :) We are
having troubles trying to explain to an Investigator why he needs to
be baptized again. It is really stressing me out, he is a super smart
guy, knows everything!! Haha, he knows all the fundamentals that we
teach.
Sunday: Fast Sundays are great. Elder Housman was dying the whole day
though. He couldn't remember even what time we eat at. So right after
our correlation, we had a ward mission leader giving us a ride to our
dinner apt. I said to Elder Housman, "Hey, I cancelled our dinner
appointment because we had a lesson come up instead." The Ward mission
leader, playing along said, "Yeah, sorry guys, this is the only time
this family could do it." Elder Housman just groaned and said,
"Fetch!... Alright, are they LA or Non-members" "Nah, they are active
members" "....What...." Haha. So he was really relieved when we walked
in and there was food for us. I am a mean trainer :P
Monday: So many meetings... So usually I plan out District Meeting on
Mondays, however, I had to go down to Perry for a Technology Assistant
Meeting. We had to figure out the rules for the Ipads. Took 2 hours.
Elder Housman was still in our area, working it! First time working
the area without me. He did a great job. Taught one lesson, who is now
working towards going to the temple. So that is super stellar!

Hope everyone has a sweet delicious brownie of a week!!
Thanks so much for the email!
So excited to talk with ya too!
Love,
Elder Wrathall
Those are some big apples!
 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Heavenly Father has been blessing us significantly

Right now it is going not so hot. So neither of us can drive, because I don't have privileges and he doesn't have a license. So we can't use the car. So either we have to get him a driver's license, or he gets Emergency Transferred. Lame. I really wish I was able to drive, all of this would be solved. So all that stress has been weighing on me.
However, even without a car, Heavenly Father has been blessing us significantly. This past week, we picked up 3 new investigators, and found a lot of other potential investigators whom seem really solid. So the work continues on even though we have to be constantly trying to find rides to places and walking. One of our new investigators is Mark, he has been going to church for over 14 years and he actually teaches primary quite often. However, he has never been baptized. His wife is very active as well. He knows that everything is true, however, he has asked and has been asking to join the church and he hasn't necessarily received his answer. So we have him praying for the date of Dec. 20th. We also found a family, where the dad is getting back active, the mother would, but she works on Sundays, and they have 2 un-baptized children, 10 and 15 years old. So that is looking good too! Elder Housman, my son, is really cool, he is definitely very nerdy, but he is really good at being obedient and teaching is very good for just starting out his mission. The nice thing about him being Nerdy is he likes to play board games like me! haha. I am a nerd as well. As well as not having a car, our senior couple has been out of town. I didn't tell them about the situation until today, because I didn't want them to stress about it while they were on vacation, good thing too. I told them last night, and they freaked out, and now are stressing over the fact.
The girl that was baptized last week, she is 9.
Yeah, the bishop had us over for thanksgiving, but his family is so big we just had it in the church haha. We had another dinner that night.
 I feel like even after my mission I will never read something that doesn't teach about the gospel. haha, in my free time anyways. Of course college books.
Black Friday started on Thanksgiving at 6:00 here. it was pretty lame.
 
It snowed here Sunday, but in the morning, it was all gone, even though there was an inch and a half of snow last night. SAD :( haha
Well this is the weekly letter you get, I didn't have time during the week to do my normal thing.
Love you!
Elder Wrathall