I felt the spirit so strongly when testifying of Joseph Smith, I about cried

     Oh man... I am so glad that I am not in school. An extra 30 min?? That would be terrible! (Our school district has a lot of snow days to make up.) That is awesome that you are working out so much! Good job mom! We really only work out when somebody picks us up to go to the gym. There is a rec center that we get to go in for free, they have a racquetball court, but nobody will play with me :(

     We finally got some interesting weather, we had a hail storm in the beginning of the week, when we were tracting. It was super nice, because it didn't make us wet or anything because it just bounced off us. It was quite a lot. The rest of the weather here has been perfect temperature for walking, super comfortable, which is nice because more people are outside to contact. We are working on getting our bike up and going, but we need to find someone who will fix them :(. I want to ride a bike so badly. We have to set aside at least 30 min for walking to each place. At night however we do get pretty lucky to have splits drive us around.

     The members here have a ton of referrals, but most of them are less actives. We are teaching like 10 less active families/recent converts and about 4 investigators. The stake really needs to help us out with lessons. Also, in Utah, every stake has a pair of Senior companions who are supposed to be doing the same things as us, as far as proselyting goes. However, our senior companion didn't know that's what they were getting themselves into. They thought it was going to be like 8 hour week and not a full time thing. They are super nice, and it really isn't their fault, however it would be nice to get some help from them.

    We had a baptism on Saturday! It was super cool, Andrew (10 yr old) had his uncle baptize him. His Dad isn't a member. After the baptism, Elder Berg and I taught the Restoration to the crowd. I felt the spirit so strongly when testifying of Joseph Smith, I about cried. I'm glad I didn't. There were some members in there that would have given me a hard time haha! Andrew's Dad went to church for the first time to his confirmation. We later received a text that his dad really enjoyed church and is going next week! Sweet!!! That is a huge step. Hopefully we will be able to teach him and get him baptized too!

     Something that was strange that happened this week. We were walking down this street, some lady in her late 20's and all we know is that she is a less active, came running at us! She yelled at a distance, "Wait! I want to give you money!!" I was like, what the heck? She caught up to us and she gave us each $10 (We are never to decline gifts because it may offend them). We asked her why, and she said that she just likes what we do. We were able to set up a lesson with her. And that is the kind of persecution we get here in Utah. I feel so bad, missionaries in Russia are being put in gun point and being robbed and stuff, here we are people throwing money at us.

     We started helping a young couple renovate the house they just bought. It is in terrible condition. We were ripping out carpet and cabinets, replacing dry wall and stuff like that. We are going to be doing that about once a week for a while. It is pretty fun! Never done anything like it before. Love to serve as well.

Well that is about all I can think of. Sorry I don't take as many pictures as Allison. She is crazy, last week was like 25 pictures! I actually only took one pic this week. Thankfully for you, my companion is getting pretty good at remembering to take pictures. I hope you won't be too bored at home without Dad :(

Love,

Elder Wrathall 

 

 

Ups and downs of life in the mission field

     The Weather here has been ridiculous!! It has gotten up to 60 and 60 in Utah is pretty warm. I really dislike how I always have to be wearing a suit coat because I was sweating when we were walking down the street. I am soo jealous of Georgia and New York. I want there to be tons of snow and it to be cold! I hate being hot! (I’m going to die in the summer lol)

     My companion is really similar to me. We have a similar sense of humor. We love Lord of the Rings. Have I told you he looks like Frodo? We played some Risk last night. He strives for Obedience, as do I, so it makes it a lot easier to be obedient when both of us want to. He has been out for 19 months, from California, but spent most of his life moving around in the mid-west. He spends a lot of money on shoes... lol. All in all, he is a super cool guy, couldn't have asked for a better Dad.(What they call the person that trains them)

     We are over an entire Stake. 7 Wards. It is so hard to keep track of which ward is which. The weird thing is that on Sundays, in the Sacrament meeting, the Chapel is not nearly full. I'm pretty sure we could combine wards into each other and only have like 4. Having only 4 would be soo much nicer. Sundays are super crazy. In order to help our investigators and help them get acquainted, we go on splits, and I am on my own at a different church building (well I have a member with me, but he is just there to say that I am not alone really). It is pretty dang stressful. I am definitely not comfortable with the order of things as of right now. And I have to be constantly doing something, like I was supposed to check for 7 different investigators, less actives, or recent converts. Last Sunday only 1 of the 7 came. Makes me mad and disappointed. 

     Sorry, I did terrible with pictures. I have a few I can send you. I meant to take more of our living quarters. I forgot to!! But there is where we study there is desk behind me. It is hard to think of what to take pictures of. Most of it is boring. We make jokes of taking pictures of some weird stuff. Like we found a stuffed animal in the middle of the road, and we were like, "That is different! Take a picture of it with me!!" lol. We have to have splits every night so we can have a car and make it to all of our appointments because we have a ton at night. One night our split got a flat tire, so we had to change it. Luckily our appointment cancelled on us, so we didn't have to cancel on them. The picture with the family is the smith's, the oldest one is Andrew, and this Saturday we have a baptism for him. They are a super sweet family, mom is less active, but we are pretty sure we got her back to being active and she will endure to the end :)

     On a split I was teaching the Loyds family. My split was playing on his phone, and he answered a phone call in the middle of our lesson. So as I was trying to teach the gospel, this guy sitting right next to me was chatting with his friend. But anyways, this was the first time teaching the Loyds in a while since they have been so busy, first time for me. And I was recapping to see all that I knew. When we teach kids we teach with a lot of analogies and visuals to make it easier and more fun for them. But I would ask them, "Who is Joseph Smith?" Hunter Loyd would start going off, "OH OH! That's when you have a glass table and if you take out one of the legs it crashes!" I was just thinking to myself, what? lol. Also when I asked them what the gospel of Jesus Christ was, I held up my hand because there are 5 points to it, but repentance also has 5 points to it, so Ty Loyd started exclaiming, "OH! OH! I know! That's when you push someone down the stairs!" lol. I couldn't stop laughing, it was too difficult. But by the end of the lesson I had everything straightened out.

     So we did some tracking during the afternoon, which almost nobody is ever home however. We did find a street that almost everyone was at home on. It was really weird. Also we call it the goldmine street now because most of them are non-members. However, we didn't get any solid contacts. One lady left our church because it wasn't fun, and now goes to a different Christian church. We met an Atheist who says he believes that he has a had spiritual experiences (WHAT???), a woman who loves the Mormon church and her daughters are married in the temple, and she has taken Missionary discussions before, but didn't get baptized for some reason. We asked if we could come back, but she said she was hardly ever home, so we are going to try and just keep coming back. 

    Well that is all that I can think of, well I hope you are having lots of fun! It does sound like it from New York! Talk to ya next week!

 

Love,

Elder Wrathall

 

Oh, and the first one is all the people who came from the MTC with us to Ogden

 

 

 

First week out in the field

      Yeah, and because of the Members sending you pictures, I wasn't really concerned about taking pictures, so sorry I don’t have any for you. If I remember to, I will take pictures of where we live. We live with some Members, Brother Jones and Mama Jones. (She has us call her that, or Grandma lol) They are super nice! Mama Jones has a list on the fridge that we can put anything on and she will buy it for us. I have put Popcorn Chicken on it, and Ice Cream. 

     The first morning that I had out in Ogden we slept in the Mission home. Our Mission President and wife made us a super nice breakfast, bread pudding kind of thing with blueberries, crepes, pancakes, eggs, ect. They made us dinner as well the night before and it was like Thanksgiving. The Dessert was Pazookie's, yummy warm cookie with Ice cream on top.

     Roy is awesome! Lots of really nice members, but a lot of in-active ones as well. Roy is also a commuter city, so 1-5pm almost nobody is home. So we have a pretty hard time filling in what to do at that time. We have mostly been doing tracting, but really not much success. We teach a lot more kids than I thought we would. Most of our investigators are 9 year old kids. Which is fine, but it really doesn't feel as good as teaching someone who is older and can actually comprehend more. Also the kids are so susceptible to everything. They don't really ask any questions or anything like that either. We had a challenge to invite someone to baptism on the first 3 days of our mission. I did it the first night with Tim, who is 10 years old. He said, "Sure", so it didn't feel all that special.

     But yeah! I did meet Dwayne Williams! I didn't meet Virginia Williams, but he came up to me and said, "Wrathall eh? Where you from?" "Georgia" "Oh, must be a different Wrathall than from California" "OH!? How long ago??" "About 20 years" "That's my parents!! Kent and Phyllis!” I was pretty excited nevertheless lol.

     Yeah, they encourage us to be on Facebook an hour a day, and only do things that are mission related. We can teach non-members back at home and stuff. Yeah, you shouldn't post anything on my wall, you can still post on your wall, and tag me in it. I'm pretty sure that it won't show up on my wall now because of the settings I have on it now. I had to hide everything that was ever on my FB page. It took me 4.5 hours to hide everything.

     I do have an IPad (IPad mini), it is sooo nice! To have all our records and everything on it is definitely a blessing to have. We can only use the internet at church buildings, and we only use it to sync my companions and I's area book app. We can also download church videos, (Which I watch while eating meals), (We can also watch Prince of Egypt!! :) lol)) 

     We are technically in a biking area, however, we don't bike because of the winter. It has snowed once since I’ve been here and it melted super quickly and has rained a lot. It’s been about 40 degrees during the day. Our area used to have a car, but a previous missionary was being dumb and was doing donuts in the church parking lot and crashed into a tree and totaled the car. So now we don't have one.

We are getting fed a ton! I feel like it is my birthday every day! We did have one dinner appointment fall through, however, Elder Berg, my companion assured me that, that rarely happens. He has been out for 1.5 years and it has only happened to him once before. We were pretty close to home, so we just walked over and made something. We have been getting tons of food though. Last night we had someone come by our house and give us Bubble bread, the caramel kind. Also a member gave us all the leftovers for our big breakfast dinner we had last night. We have also had 2 pizzas given to us. Sister Warren has given us doughnuts one morning, and Burger King at noon one time (That day we had two lunches). So I think we are getting fed pretty well. The first two mornings I made German Pancakes and French toast supreme.

The train ride up wasn't that great. The FrontRunner was soo hyped up I thought it was going to be like in the Hunger Games or something! lol, also, my Companion Elder Simbeck missed the train and had to get on the next one. He was stranded with a sister missionary lol. When we got up the ramp, the train attendant was telling us run, the train had already started to move, and she grabbed my luggage and threw it on. In all that chaos I wasn't really thinking where my companion was.... lol. But I had a lot of other missionaries with me lol. 

     I was pretty exhausted that day, having to get up at 4:00, but it wasn't too bad. 

     Once a week our zone is going to get together and play Speed ball (Basketball and Soccer combined). It is super fun. Most mornings we go to a rec center at 5:50, they let missionaries in for free and we work out there. Play basketball, and go to the weight room.

Funny story about Georgia snowing. A member here wanting to get away from the snow, moved to Georgia two weeks ago, and when it snowed there, he decided he would just come back lol.

I really want like 4 ft. of snow to come!! I'm sick of this sunny warm weather! This is UTAH!!! 

Well, there is so much more that I could share with you, but I feel like I have written a ton already, just know that I am super happy, and my testimony has strengthened a lot. I didn't really share much spiritual things this e-mail, I’ll try to do better next week.

Well I love you!

 

Love,

Elder Wrathall

  
 

Last Day in the MTC

Dallin heads out to his mission tomorrow bright and early at 5:00 in the morning.  No plane ride for him but at least he gets to ride the FrontRunner Train.

First, Can you thank grandma for me!!! She sent me delicious candy that I was craving soo much! The other elders in my District thank her too lol. And yeah, I got the suit on Tuesday... Finally.

That is awesome that you got snow in GA, we got snow here too, but it melted away really quickly, it hasn't been cold at all here.

My companion has been very distressed this week, he is in counseling right now, and it is being determined whether he will leave with us to the mission field tomorrow, stay another week here, or go home. The last option is very improbable. I have given a lot of people blessings, I gave my Branch President a blessing, President Caywood, for his knee that he busted, Elder Simback, my companion last night and on Tuesday for comfort, A blessing of Comfort for Brother Gallo our teacher. Each one has been super awesome. I love giving blessings, it is such an easy way to serve others.

On Tuesday, my companion and I hit a wall that told us that we aren't able to do this on our own, this mission is impossible without listening to the spirit and saying to the investigators what the Lord wants us to say. That made us grow soo much closer to Heavenly father. 

We taught a TRC (Training something Council) Who is an Investigator that could be real or just a member acting. We taught him four times, he had a hard time getting to pray because his mother died when he was 9, and his father left him shortly after that. And he Prayed to heavenly father at 9 and he didn't receive an answer. So he didn't want to pray, but on the Third lesson we finally were able to get him to pray. And on the Fourth Lesson, he wanted to get baptized It was soo awesome! I hope he was a real investigator.

Fast Sunday was awesome, I mean, it was difficult to fast that long, we had to fast until 4:30. But the dinner was awesome, Sirloin Steak (It was terrible for steak, but was soo good nevertheless) and Shrimp. They also had German chocolate cake and BYU Creamery Ice Cream. Best Dinner Ever! I got Graham Cracker something ice cream that was like my favorite ice cream ever.

So when we get to the field we only have $94 a month, not $120. But I think I will still be fine.

Our Zone all loves "Come Thou Fount Every Blessing" Our District sang it as a special musical number in sacrament Yesterday. Super cool.

We also sang "As Sister's in Zion" and whatever the song is that elder's sing at the same time last night as a whole MTC, that was super cool too!

So much to talk about, but I'm gonna send pics now, the one with the flag, thta teacher is Brother Gallo, who is super awesome. The man with the Glasses and Beard is Nick, who Brother Gallo impersonated for our role playing with an investigator, he has been a member for two years now thanks to Brother Gallo on his mission. We got a picture with him because we practically baptized him as well :P lol

Also, I drew the district on our Whiteboard

 

Love

Elder Wrathall

 

Ah so proud of the artist Dallin has become! He drove his whole district.