Zone Conference!

Wednesday: Went on exchanges with the Spanish missionaries. I really
wish I knew how to speak Spanish. There was one contact that we made
the entire day that I was able to speak English to. Even though I
can't understand all of it, I can sense the spirit. Elder Schearr is
doing an excellent job as a missionary!

Thursday: Zone Conference! To start off the day, we got lost, so we
arrived at Zone Conference 4 minutes late. :( Zone Conference was
super good though, I learned a lot about how to keep investigators
progressing, and also, the whole mission got black boxes in their cars
to record what they are doing. If you go to fast it says, "Watch your
speed" If you accelerate to fast, "Aggressive Driving" Things like
that, and if you get those, it gets reported to President Hiers
immediately. Makes me glad I don't have to worry about that ;P

Friday: Lessons fell through, the norm.

Saturday: We were pretty encouraged that we had so many lessons set up
for the day, but of course... They fell through, however, we were able
to pick up a lesson with a Part-Member Family. They have a girl that
isn't even 9 yet, but in 6 days she turns 9. That is the definition of
a Kiddy-dunk. That is what we call baptism of younger ones. Having her
be baptized will be easy, to keep the family strong, is a different
challenge.:(

Sunday: We were so excited in the morning, because we a had a lot of
people tell us that they were coming. Not as many as we hoped actually
came, but you know, we can get everything we want. We had 2 Less Active members
come by themselves and want to meet with us to go to the temple. That
was really cool! :)

Monday: Elder Skidmore starts off with eating 3 week old pineapple, it
didn't make him feel so good. He ended up throwing up a lot, so we
dropped him off at a retired members home at 3:00, and I went solo
missionary for rest of the day, Just switched off splits at every
lesson. Walked into dinner alone, I was just like, this feels soo
weird. I wasn't doing well either, I felt like I was going to throw up
the whole night. Didn't have any lunch or dinner. However, things went
well nevertheless. I was able to set 2 Less Active families to go to the temple
and 1 New Investigator.

Our area covers from 400 N, to 1500 N. And Washington St. To the mountains, so not too big. However, yes it is hilly. It is terribly hard biking around sometimes. We live at the top of a huge hill. Biking up it is miserable. 

I sent a pretty good amount of pictures this time I think! That is our place. 

 

We do zone sports every Saturday. It is hard to do things together because only one companionship in our district has a car. We were going to do a hike this morning, however, because Skidmore got sick, we weren't able to do it. :(

Thanks for writing me!

Love you!

Elder Wrathall

Learned some Spanish!

Some lady gave us a ton of popcorn... Haha, these are our Zone Leaders!

Wednesday: All of our investigators are really struggling to follow
their commitments, now I know the true meaning of how God feels
towards us when we don't keep his commandments. So sad!!

Thursday: Went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. They serve in a
Spanish area, so it was very difficult to understand what was going on
the whole day. Learned some Spanish!

Friday: So glad to be back to English Speaking. We had about 8 lessons
planned, only 2 went through. That is a sad day :(

Saturday: One of our Investigators who had a really strong desire to
change his life around got kicked out of his apartment so he is going
to live with a buddy in another stake. Dang. It will feel good giving
that referral over to some other missionaries though!!

Sunday: 3 different buildings, 4 different wards. Fun!!! Haha, We had
4 investigators come to sacrament, that was pretty cool. Becka we
weren't even able to get in contact with her about reminding her about
church, but she still came! :)
We met a lady, Amy, she is a member, she barely knows anything.
However, she has a super strong desire to learn more! It is really
cool telling her the super basic things though. She does anything we
tell her to, we invited her to pray she did, told her to write her
"homework" down. She did! True desire :)

Monday: We had a lesson scheduled for 11:00, during normally when I
plan for District Meeting, and it was super far away, so of course, it
falls through. Then I plan for District Meeting for 3 and a half
hours. Turns out we don't have District Meeting this week... Woops...
Haha. One of our other appointments fell through, right next door was
a couple of guys working on a car. We went to go talk to him, in his
car he had a couple motorcycles. When we first greeted him, he swore
quite a bit, saying how he hates Mormons, so I started talking about
motorcycles, he replies, "I know your tactics!" "No, I just generally
love motorcycles!" Told him about how I rode, got on a positive note,
turns out he is a pretty nice guy. It was good to leave on a positive
note. Maybe that did something.

 

I still haven't even been to a sealing sadly :( I want to soo bad!! Probably in June!

We went to Costco today :) No samples though, which was lame. Bought Potstickers, Chicken Thighs, a new white shirt, lots of Eggs!

 

Have not gotten the flu thank goodness :)

Thanks for writing :)
Love,

Elder Wrathall

Transfer Day!

Wednesday: Transfer Day! When driving out of the area, it was pretty
sad to think, I will probably not see it again until after the
mission. I promised a lot of people there that I am going to come back
and see them, so no doubt about it I will be going back.
Met my new companion Elder Skidmore (Elder Skidmore, San Bernadino CA, 19, out on his mission for 3 months. Stud. Very talkative, we are trying to stop using the word "freak.") at the Ogden Transfer point, I was
unloading my luggage from a truck and he was at the side of the truck
yelling, "Elder Wrathall! Come down here!!!" I was like, "Who are
you??" Yep, that's my companion! Right of the bat, I knew that we were
going to get along good.
Their organization is pretty dang good, however, they didn't update
the areabook very good, so that's going to take some time fixing.
Overall, super good day, especially for it being transfer day.
Thursday: Zone study, we all got together, had an ice breaker kind of
thing to get to know each other. I know hardly anyone in this zone. I
thought for sure I knew most people in the mission by now. I was
wrong.
Getting to know some of the investigators in this area, reminds me,
This is not Tremonton, you are back in Ogden. A lot of the
investigators are flaky, and their appointments don't go through.
Friday: Every single non-member in Ogden smokes. I swear... It is
terrible. Many of the people we are working with won't get baptized,
the sole purpose being is because they can't get over addiction to
smoking. Dang nicotine. Now I know where the cigarette companies get
all their money... Ogden!! Haha
Saturday: We have been back on bikes! I love riding bikes. SO much
faster than walking around. It has been pretty cold though. Thank
goodness for all the nice warm clothes that you guys got me for
Christmas!! SO a girl that we are working with, Jade, she is the most
solid person here. She knows that the Church is true, she knows that
she needs to be baptized. However, when we ask her, "Will you follow
the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized?" She says, "Ehhh, I
don't feel like it is the right time..." What??? Why???? Can't get
anymore out of her than that.
Sunday: SO in one of the Sacrament meetings, a girl who was giving her
homecoming talk started to pass out in the middle of her talk, so the
Bishopric had to help her get down, and have her rest for a bit. The
Bishop got up and saw me and said, "Well, we got a new missionary, and
I was seeing when I could squeeze him in to talk, well I guess now is
the perfect opportunity..." Haha, so I had to speak that day, but it
was good, now everyone in the ward knows who I am, I think they should
do that every time.. Well not having someone pass out... but you know.
Monday: This was a terrible day, raining all day!!! Wet cold, all
appointments fell through, so we were outside all day. Misty
cancelled, however we just went anyways, and she was a little upset at
first that we came anyways, but after doing puppy eyes she let us in,
and we had a super good lesson!!

Okay so another person that we are teaching is Laura, she is a foreign
exchange student from GERMANY!!! So I was like cool! Germany is
awesome, I wonder where she is from. Heidelberg!!  How cool is that,
even cooler, is that she is super solid in the faith, we haven't asked
her to be baptized because we are pretty sure she can't be baptized as
a foreign exchange student, but we are going to ask her next time.

For the fit challenge, I am at 8 points

Love,
Elder Wrathall

I am leaving Tremonton

Transfer News! I am leaving Tremonton and am going down to Ogden North, Mount Lewis Stake!!! Elder Housman is getting Elder Durant.

Wednesday: Last District Meeting of the transfer, I focused on Christ-like attributes, I feel like it was a really good one to end off on. It is going to be sad to leave this District.

Thursday: The last DLT of the transfer, talked with Elder White and he gave me a whole bunch of great talk to help be a better district leader!

Friday: Met quite a few new people! It was nice to actually get to talk to some people about Christ and invite new people to do things. 

Saturday: Mark  got baptized!! He didn't want anyone to come to his baptism pretty much, so it was super low key. We had about 8 people there. Smallest baptism ever. Haha. Nevertheless we still did the Restoration, that was Elder Housman's first time, since that was his first baptism :) right after our baptism, we had Spanish's baptism!

Sunday: Mark was confirmed! All the wards changed times, and some of the wards that were super empty at 9:00 church are now super full with people at 1:00! Haha, funny how that works.

Monday: Went down to Ogden for MLT, got to eat at Zaxbys!! Yummmmm. Then the training was super good! Learned that I will be getting transferred to North Ogden, not where specifically. Had last lesson's with Lindsey, Cooks. It is so sad leaving them, they are going to get baptized shortly. She already knows everything is true, she just has to give up coffee! Cooks are sad to leave as well, they just need to come to church a couple more times to be baptized.

Sorry super short one!

Love,

Elder Wrathall

His responses from questions I asked him emailing. I think  you can figure it out.

Tomorrow morning is transfers. Yeah, still a District Leader down there. I am also greenie busting. Which means I am Elder Skidmore's first companion after his trainer! I heard he is pretty good guy though! :)

I asked how many transfers he was in Tremonton

Just 2, 3 months in total. Not long at all. I thought I might stay. Looks like not!

 

December 30th update

Letter Home
Wednesday: District Meeting went really well. Had a candy hunt while
being tied with my companion to represent setting goals haha. Saw
Elder Farmer the last time before he went home :(

Thursday: CHRISTMAS!!! It was actually really hard for me to do
nothing but hang out with members for the day. The strength "Achiever"
in me really just wanted to go out and get some stuff done! Got to
talk with my awesome family though!! :)

Friday: Well, Heather is completely done, she doesn't even want to do
anything with the church anymore because of her family. That was
really depressing, we had her so close to being baptized, but no!

Saturday: Another Saturday without a baptism :( It was a sad day :(

Sunday: Really, just an uneventful day. We didn't get to much done. We
tried to make visits, but it is just so dang difficult sometimes
without a car. However, I still feel like we did our best. We attended
two homecoming talks from missionaries.

Monday: We met with Mark, we chatted a bit then started with a prayer,
right after the prayer he said, "Is it alright if I start first"
"Yeah, Sure! Go ahead" "Well, when you gave that date for baptism for
the 20th, and said I would receive my answer... I've been kind of
sheepish and I really did receive my answer, and I feel that I should
be baptized." Sweet Delicious Brownie!!! So now Mark is getting
baptized this Saturday. He wants his baptism to be super low key, like
nobody there. He even said it would be fine if his wife would just
wait in the car. Haha. That's the most exciting thing of the Transfer
though! :)
This is the back and forth of the emails.
It was a different Christmas for sure, however, I liked it a lot! I liked going out and just hanging out with the coolest people in the wards. There are just some people in this stake where I could easily be entertained by just talking with them for 10 hours haha. It was really fun to watch kids open presents to :)

Next year you could just come up here for Christmas, then wait a bit, then get me from up here!! Then we could celebrate in Utah with all the family.  

Freak, it is supposed to be super cold up here. like single digits and 70mph winds. There is no way I could go snowboarding in that. The wind is terrible!

I am happy about cold and snow. Not wind. Haha