Hey Everyone!!!

Yeah, so sorry that I wasn't able to email you on Monday.  If anything happens where you don't get an email on a Monday, just wait til Wednesday and you will get one! :D 

So, this week something kind of sad happened. One of the missionaries that I served around a lot in Maryvale and Tempe and was my second district leader went home. He was also training a brand new missionary named Elder Carter, so we got a call on Wednesday telling us that both Elder Babcock and I are going to be training Elder Carter at the same time that we are Zone Leaders! That is super cool and all of us get along super well! Elder Carter is from Louisiana and has a sweet accent, too, so that makes it even better! :)

Being a Zone Leader is cool and all, but it is a little bit different for sure. Rather than just having all of the time in the world to go out and worry and work in your own area, it seems that we are always out and about helping the other missionaries out with the things that they need at the time. It is a little bit frustrating dealing with some of the missionaries problems, but I guess it is a really cool learning experience for me! One thing that I am working with is having the same amount of patience with people that I am always around as I have with people that I am just meeting. That is something I want to get better at before I get home next year, seeing as though it is something that I really struggled with. I always seemed to be super patient at work and with my friends, or at school, but then when I came home I was super frustrated and was super impatient with you guys and everyone in the house. But I am getting better at it! :D

One thing that happened this week that was super cool is that since I am a zone leader we had a really cool Mission Leadership Training Meeting this last Saturday! Elder Robins from the Quorum of the Seventy came down here and talked with us a lot about some traits that will make us better husbands and wives! It was really cool because some of the things that he really focused on about missionary work directly relates to how I am going to be treating my wife in the future. He talked a lot about missionaries that have a hard time getting a long with their companions. He said that he had once talked to a missionary that was having a hard time getting along with all 4 of his companions that he has had on his mission, he told him "If you cannot learn to get along with others, DIVORCE is in your future." I thought that was super powerful, because there is so much divorce going through the world right now and I don't ever want that to come into my home when I get older. I am going to continue to do my very best to make all of my companions my BEST FRIENDS! I know that I will be able to have a more successful mission as I really focus on that as well as the fundamentals of Preach My Gospel!

Well, I can't wait to hear from you again next week! I am going to be doing a training with my companion in front of 4 other Zones and a General Authority this Thursday so be sure to keep me in your prayers that it will go well! :) 

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Hello Everyone!

So this week was pretty cool because not only did we have transfers, but we were also able to go to the Mesa Temple today! :) I wasn't able to write to you on Monday since we were planning to go to the temple today.  They decided to change our P-Day to today instead. It was pretty cool though and it is always a good experience to get to go to the temple with all of the other missionaries in the zone!

Transfer meeting was really fun because it was once again another FULL MISSION MEETING! So I got to see Elder Forson, Elder Erikson, Elder May, and all of my good friends that I have made as I have been out here on my mission! It is really cool how many new friends you find when you are out here serving the Lord. I enjoy it a lot. But anyways, the results of transfer meeting for me is that I got transferred to Mesa as a Zone Leader. It is a super cool place and I am once again covering 2 different wards that meet in the same building on Sundays! :)

This week we have really been working on finding the people that are in our area book so that we can kind of get cleaned up. So far we have been having a lot of good luck coming in contact with some of the people that we have put in our plans for the days! We have about 8 lessons set up with people this week and all of them are going to be super fun. I am really looking forward to getting to know this new area and also the members of the wards that I am now serving in. I am going to try to make it a goal to get as close to the members in these two wards, as I did to the people in Ahwatukee! I feel like those 6 months that I was in Ahwatukee were probably the best 6 months of my mission so far. I loved it!

But, about the baptism.... IT HAPPENED! Even though Elder Bono and I both got transferred out of the area President Toone gave us both permission to come back to Tempe to baptize those two kids that we were teaching! It was a really cool experience and plus to kind of add onto the whole thing, they made Navajo Tacos for all of us at the end! It was awesome! And I know that there was something else that happened this last week that I am forgetting but I cannot seem to remember it at all... Oh wait! Me and my new companion, Elder Babcock, went over to a recent converts house and she needed help demolishing some of the walls in her kitchen for when she remodels! So she finally talked two boys into destroying a wall for fun, even though it really took some convincing on her part! ;) That was super fun though. I have some pictures that I will send in this email so that you can see how awesome we look with hammers and stuff in our hands!

Anyways I love what I am doing and I can’t wait to still be doing this for another 11 months! It is truly the best work that I could be doing right now! Oh, but one more thing is that my pants are still kind of  struggling with staying together so IF POSSIBLE I REALLY NEED SOME PANTS. But if you could just let me know that would be awesome. If I can’t get some soon then I will try to make them work, 2 pairs of the 3 that I have are falling apart pretty bad. Thanks for everything! I love you so much and also make sure to tell Emmett hi from his favorite uncle! (Tell Izzy and Coco hi too though! :) ) Hope all goes well for all of you this week!

Love!

Elder Brandon Wallentine

P.S We are going to try to go Turtle fishing today! ;)

Hello!!!!

Hey, so this week was a little bit better than last week for sure. It was kind of a bummer that that kid didn’t end up getting baptized, but that is just one of the many challenges that we have to deal with when we are out on a mission. I know that he will be ready to accept it in the future with his mom as well! They are a super cool family and we actually stopped by there the other day and the mom is still super cool with us coming over and stuff! We actually were biking the other day, and she drove past us and honked her horn and started waving like crazy at us. It is so fun when you get people like that where you can tell that they are being friendly and not trying to scare you so you fall off of the bikes!

Other than that this week was super eventful! The week started off really good on Monday when we went golfing! It was a blast! We had so much fun that we decided since today was the last Monday of the transfer we had better go and do it again. But this time we found a sweet deal where we could pay 20 dollars for 2 of us so $10 each and with it comes a golf cart, a hot dog, and a game of golf! It was awesome!

Then on Tuesday we had a Zone Meeting which was super good, but the best part was for sure after when (since I am the District Leader) we went over to this burger place as a district and ate there for lunch all together! It is always really cool to get together like that and talk outside of meetings. We also that night got to go and meet with a family that we have been teaching. The mom is a member of the church, and there is an 8 year old girl, and a 13 year old boy who are not baptized. But, they are both getting baptized this Saturday which is super exciting! They were just interviewed on Sunday, and now they are all set!

The last really cool and funny thing that we did is we went to this crazy burrito place for lunch on Friday because one of the elders that we live with got a gift card from his dad to take us all out to lunch. We ordered the Jumbo Burrito which I didn’t picture to be even close to as jumbo as it really was. In the picture my arm is right up next to it and it is literally as long as my forearm. It was ridiculous. But each of us got our own and we forced each other to finish it all in one sitting! Definitely finished it in about 15 minutes! NO BIG DEAL! :) But then that night for dinner we had Mexican Food. :O  There might be such a thing as TOO MUCH MEXICAN FOOD IN ONE DAY!!! But other than that we had another good time golfing in our KITTY-CAT SHIRTS today! We were driving golf carts around and like drifting on the side walks and stuff! We drove through a couple of big huge puddles and got splashed which felt super good since it was like 110 degrees outside! :) Then we decided to take the extra balls and go to the driving range :) We got some really good hits off of it for sure!

Well that’s all I got for you guys this time. Oh except on last little thing. TRANSFER CALLS CAME LAST NIGHT! I have been called to be a ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZONE LEADER!!! BOOM AND THE CROWD GOES WILD! I am super excited and I can’t wait to see who my new companion is going to be. I will let you guys know my new address when I know what it is next Monday! I love you guys a ton and can’t wait to hear from all of you guys again! :) Tell the Elwood’s that I said HI! I pasted the note that Makenzie gave me the night that I left in my Journal and just saw it again last night! It is super awesome!

Thanks again Mom! Oh and my pants are like falling apart now out here so would I be able to get some new ones? I guess Biking for a long time does that to pants for some weird reason. LAME!

Love you tons!
Elder Brandon Wallentine

P.S. We found some pretty cool puppy tattoos at that Mexican food place. It was pretty funny! (Don't worry they are gone now!)

Hello!!

Hey, so this week was super crazy for sure! But on Monday we had a blast going off to play basketball with all of the missionaries in the zone. Then when we got back I found that the same toe that I had dislocated began to hurt a little bit again. It isn’t too bad though. I haven’t been able to fully bend it since I dislocated it, but usually it is just fine and it hasn’t stopped me from working. So that was kinda a bummer. However, the next two days even though I was super tired from playing basketball, we had a ton of chances to do service this last week which made up for all of the rest of the stuff that happened! :D

We got called over by this guy from Europe on Sunday night and he started talking to us about how he knows some Mormons and stuff and how they are really good people. Then he mentioned that he had traveled through Belgium, and so I said "I lived there for a little while!" So we talked about that for a few minutes. Then we also found out that he was having a bunch of rocks delivered to his house to spread around his yard and that he was going to try to hire some people to do it for him (because he is a little bit older). So I jumped up and said, "Hey, we will do it!" He was completely caught off guard but then he accepted and we went over there for Tuesday and Wednesday morning and worked for him for like 2 hours each time. It was some good work. He said that because we did that for him, and didn't even accept his money that he was going to try to get back in contact with some of his Mormon friends that live by him in Chandler. It was a great experience! Oh and he is also coming and taking us out to Apple Bee's this next week! :D He is a super cool guy!

Then on Thursday we went out and did some service for one of the members in one of our wards. We had gone over and trimmed up some of the trees that are in his back yard, and this time we dug out some little canals so that they could be watered a little bit easier. It was super easy, but it was way fun!

Other than that we had one more crazy thing happen too! Just last night we had this crazy storm come through Tempe where I am at. Some people still think that it might have been a tornado. But I don’t think so. It was raining super hard and then the wind was fast enough that it tore trees in half, and also took some of the trees straight out of the ground. Luckily we were still in our dinner appointment when the storm hit. But it was super crazy!!! :D In our dinner though, the member was showing us all of these cool like herb things that if you put some drops on your tongue one of them makes it so that you cannot taste sugar for like 2 hours. I put some on my tongue and ate an Oreo. It literally tasted just like flour, and coco powder. It was nasty! Then he did some acupuncture on our hands which was kinda cool!

Well the baptism didn't end up happening this week and probably won’t be for a while, and most of our appointments canceled this week. :( That's always a bummer, but we were able to keep smiles on our face through it all so I am super happy about that!!! :0

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Hello Everyone!!!

That is so cool that Brenden is going off to Argentina! I can't wait for when he gets into the MTC and then out of the MTC. Our mission in the past has had a lot of missionaries come out to our mission for a while when they are waiting for their Visa’s. So there is a chance that if he doesn't get his Visa in a timely manner that he could come here to the Arizona Tempe Mission for a time! President Toone loves having Visa waiters in the mission! :) OH and how Facebook works for us is that we are able to contact certain people. We cannot just talk to family and stuff about personal stuff, but if we are talking to friends/family back home then we need to just make sure that we keep it focused on the work, and also just let President Toone know what is going on! :) It is really kinda cool/weird having an iPad and Facebook as a missionary and now being out for just over a year, I am not sure how much I like it. But, it is a way that some more people will be able to hear the gospel, so I think it is for sure a good cause!

This week was a pretty good week for me and Elder Bono here in the Tempe area! We didn't have as many chances to teach people as we have in the past, but we were able to find some new people that we have been trying to contact in the past a lot! :) One of the ladies that we have been trying to get in contact with since I have been in this area has never answered the door, but I have gained a huge testimony of HARD WORK and PERSISTENCE here on the mission! It seems like no matter how hard Satan works on us to discourage us in situations that come up, if we are just persistent, we can blow him out of the water. It is never that God is trying to punish us for something that we have done when things don't go our way. I know now that it is totally just a test for us. I love the quote from “Evan Almighty” when Morgan Freeman says, "Will God just give us patience, or will he give us the opportunity to be patient?" God is not just going to say, "Oh hey well you asked for it so here ya go!" It is not always going to be that easy. He more often I think says, "Oh hey, You asked for it so here is some WORK that you can do!" Which is a huge blessing for all of us for sure! But after all of the persistence we were able to make contact with her on Saturday and teach her more about prophets! She is also going to be coming to church with us next week! Super exciting!

Well on a less spiritual note. This morning was a pretty fun morning for sure. We woke up like usual at 5:30 and exercised for about an hour and a half, then we ate breakfast, and got ready for the day and stuff. But then is when the morning gets super exciting! One of the missionaries that I live with, Elder Francis, pulled out a bottle of hot sauce and said, "Hey Elder Wallentine, If you drink this I will give you $10!" So obviously I said, "HECK NO THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WORTH IT!" So I ramped up the price to $20. Then if you would have guessed I TOTALLY DRANK IT! :) Its called Tapatio Salsa Picante Hot Sauce and it was a 10 oz bottle of it! That was probably one of the hottest and least enjoyable things that I have ever done, but I got it all done in 1 minute or less! I just downed the entire bottle, and now I am $20 richer!!! I’m a happy missionary! But as you could have guessed, when Dad always says, "IT BURNS GOING IN, AND IT BURNS COMING OUT!" He was totally right! haha :) thank you so much for all that you do for me!!!

LOVE,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Hello Everyone,

It is so amazing to me of all the little things that God gives us that we can either take for granted, or we can really go and show our gratitude! I mean the tablet incident probably didn't seem too small for Emily, but in the big picture it is pretty small. That is one of the most important lessons that we can learn here on earth I believe, HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES YOU! Although all of us have little bumps, or boulders that are trying to keep us from really feeling our Heavenly Father’s love for us, HE IS STILL THERE!

There is a really cool Mormon Message that just came out this year "The Savior Wants to Forgive." It is a talk that was actually given by Elder Cardon of the 70. Just about 6 months ago Elder Cardon came to the Arizona Tempe Mission and talked to all of us, and gave us training on how we are able to be more effective missionaries. So I have great respect for him. It tells a story of a man who had messed up by doing drugs, and he had also got involved in some robberies, too. He tells one particular instance where he had just committed a robbery and he was hiding outside in some bushes from the cops. He realized how wrong it was that he had done that, and was placing death as an option in his head. But, as he was getting the gun ready he heard a voice saying, "I'm still here." Because of the Holy Ghost and the ability that he has to speak to us, this man was able to have a second chance in life. Because he listened to the Holy Ghost’s prompting he was able to find out the way that he could use the ATONEMENT in his life. He repented of the wrongs he had done and made a 180 with his life! Its a great story. Even though your situation is completely different, it still shows you how the Holy Ghost works through us sometimes to tell us something that can help us. God loves that man in the story, and he loves you and Emily so much that he knew it was important to help out in this circumstance. SUPER AWESOME! :)

This week went really well for us because one of the kids we have been teaching decided that he wanted to go out on High Adventure with the boys in the ward! When he came back he told us that he had a super good time and also he is still getting baptized this next week on July 26th!!! I am super excited for sure! Up at camp he was always talking in a batman voice apparently so all of the boys and the leaders were calling him batman for the entire week on the trip! Super funny!!! Then we had another Mission President Devotional last night and we were able to bring him with us. I think that was one of the best ones possible for him to attend because President Toone related the Holy Ghost to a cell phone. You cannot always know exactly how a cell phone works, and how you are now able to just at the click of a few buttons be talking to someone on the other side of the world. Also, in some places we have worse "reception" than other places, but when we are in the right place, we will have full access to the spirit! The spirit will be able to talk to us. Sometimes we cannot explain how the spirit feels, or how we will be able to recognize it. But we do know that he is there, and he will lead us and guide us to do the things that God wants us to do! It was a super good night. That was one of the highlights of the week other than when I hit my 1 YEAR MARK! That is weird to think about, so I am not thinking about it too much! 

Thank you so much for the awesome package! I love all of the goodies and candy that you guys sent me, as well as the sweet shirt! I love you all so much and can't wait to hear back from you next week! YOU'RE AWESOME!

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Hello Everyone!

Thank you so much for the awesome letters once again! 

That is actually pretty funny that you mentioned the missionary’s family that just moved into your ward back home. I have known about that for about 6 months now because he came up to me and found out that I was from Meridian, Idaho and I told him what part and what ward and he said, "Oh my parents are going to be moving into that area soon." That is super funny that you finally met them though. He is a pretty cool guy even though I haven't really served around him much. We usually just say hi in passing at mission conferences and stuff. It is really fun though.

On the 4th of July here on the mission it was for sure a little bit different than the 4th back home. We went out and just had a normal day from the time we woke up until about 5 o'clock. But then we had to go back inside the apartment and just kinda hang out for the rest of the night. I got a really cool package from Kortney and the Peterson family though! It was pretty fun! It had some fun little 4th of July stuff in it and a little bit of candy and a shirt that says, "YOU MAD CUZ!" I laughed like crazy!

Oh, and I am super excited for this coming transfer because the 2 elders that got transferred into Tempe to live with us are super cool! One of them is an elder that was one of my District Leaders in Maryvale, and the other one is a missionary that also served with me in Maryvale! It is going to be a super fun house! We are going on a house diet and a work out plan because one of the elders brought some weights with him and a work out bench! I am super excited and I am going to get REAL SWOLL! :)

Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine