Hello!!

That sounds like a pretty cool little plan that the missionaries have going on in that area. Do the missionaries in the Boise mission have Facebook/iPads yet? If they do, then you should tell them to add me, and if they don't then you should just let me know! I have a couple people that I am working with back home on Facebook that are super interested that are actually looking for a church to join. So if they don't have them then I will just give you the peoples information to pass onto the missionaries in the area! It is so cool to be able to see missionary work online take off and actually find success in it! :) 

This week we had some really cool things happen in our companionship! We have set a goal as a zone to make sure to ask EVERYONE that we come in contact with for referrals, and we were able to do that this week pretty well and we were able to get 5 referrals from members, and non-members which is super cool! We just went over yesterday to contact the mother of this non-member lady that I contacted on the street and were able to give her a Book of Mormon and also one of the really cool restoration pamphlets that we have! She was super nice and said that we would be good to come back over on Tuesday to go through it with her! :) I am super excited because it is not every day that you run into people who are actually nice to you! It is super awesome! :) 

Now that I am more than halfway through my mission I am realizing some things that I feel like I have really slacked on for the last few months. I did a really good job at loving the people that I have been teaching up until I hit my 1 year mark and then it seemed to get a little bit harder. But I think that I found out why it was getting so hard for me to love them. I have been teaching, and I have been testifying, but I need to do better at sharing personal experiences with the people that I come in contact with. The experience that we had in Belgium with the two missionaries that had been praying, and also President Buysse were all praying for a family to move into the ward that would at least be at church every Sunday. I love that experience because it shows that God really does put us in situations to be able to help answer other peoples prayers while he is also answering our prayers at the same time. If Dad hadn't lost his job at Zilog, then we would have had no reason to move over to Belgium. Then also if we had chosen to move to Pocatello to get the job for ON semi-conductor there then we would have not been in Belgium to help out. It is so amazing when we realize how perfect God's plan for us really is. Although we will all go through hard times in our lives, if we stay focused on the BIGGER PICTURE rather than the little stumbling block, EVERYTHING WILL FALL INTO PLACE either in the near future, or in the future further out. It is super awesome! 

I love you so much and thank you so much for all that you guys do for me! I really do enjoy getting letters from you every week!  

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Mommy!!

The pants that you sent me work perfectly! I got a little bit worried when they didn't have the stretchy fabric on the sides, but then I wore them the next day and they fit really good and are super comfortable so thank you so much for getting all of that figured out for me! :) That is super exciting and crazy that it was already Izzy's birthday again, I still remember getting the letter last year when you all told me that it was her birthday. It is crazy to think that I have already been out for over a year. It has gone by so fast so far, and is only speeding up now that I am a Zone Leader. 

One thing that I know I am being tested on a ton right now is my patience. :) Right now there are not many people for us to teach in our records, and the members are still trying to kinda get the hang of doing missionary work! There are a few families in the wards that are super solid, and also most of the ones that I have met so far are super nice and are willing to at least learn how to be missionaries. It is just hard to feel successful when you are working with the members and not teaching a whole lot of non-members. But, it is going to be super awesome because the way that we are going to have the best results is by getting ALL OF THE MEMBERS ON BOARD WITH US!!! It is so amazing when you get a member to contact one of their friends and then we are able to go over and teach that person with that member there also. It is such a good testimony builder to me that God has a way to touch all of the hearts of his children. It will not always be because missionaries in white shirts and black name tags come to their door and say, "Hey we felt like we should come by and share a message with you."  We literally need the members of the church or else missionary work would DIE! :D It is awesome to know that!

This week something kinda funny happened though! We went to a member's home on Saturday night and they had these remote control cars out that apparently can get up to about 40 miles per hour. They were super cool because I have never even heard of a toy that can go that fast! The member said that before we come in to talk we could each have a turn to drive them around a little bit, so of course we did! They were super fun and then they invited us in to share a little Mormon Message with them! After we shared the video we talked for a little bit and they asked us if we could stop by their neighbors! We said, "OF COURSE WE CAN!" So since it was a little bit late by the time we got out of that house we decided that we would come back the very next day on Sunday and contact all of those people. 

None of them really ended up being interested but it is always a good experience just to talk to so many different people to hear some different sides of the story. One of the guys actually came out of the house and said, "I'm not interested, GET!" That didn't go over well in my head, but all I did is ask if we can come back sometime and talk with him and his family about why families are really so important, and he said once again, "GET!" So we told him to have a good night and we went on our way. It gave us something to laugh about though for the rest of the night, until something else happened too that we laughed at for the remainder. 

We went to this member's home who hasn't been to church in a long time and talked to him at the door for a little while. He was talking with us and kind of dodging talking about church or the gospel in any way. But finally I just asked him, "Why haven't you come to church lately?" He explained to us that he hasn't come to church because he no longer believes in the Word of Wisdom. He doesn't understand why we CAN'T do things like drink, or smoke and stuff like that. Then he took it to a whole new level and told us that from the beginning of time WATER has been bad for our bodies... :P I thought that that was super lame. But although we tried to help him understand he was not ready to hear it. He rejected the invitation and we let him be on his way. Kinda a BUMMER. But it is good to know that everyone will have another chance to accept or reject this great message that we share with others all over the world. THERE ARE SO MANY OF US THAT NEED TO HEAR IT AGAIN! Those of us who have the gospel in our lives need to understand that we NEED to continue to strengthen our faith and knowledge, so that we do not end up falling away! DOUBT YOUR DOUBTS, BEFORE YOU DOUBT YOUR FAITH! I love that quote!

Anyway, thank you so much for the awesome letter and also for all of the goodies that you guys sent to me! I love you all so much! Tell Izzy HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me, and tell Collette, and Emmett hi for me too!

Love you tons,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Oh, and here is a picture of the crazy flood that happened today! 

Hello!!

Thank you so much for doing that for me and getting the whole clothing thing taken care of! I have only gained like 10 lbs so far on my mission which I am super surprised about since everybody told me that I would be getting super fat on my mission. But as for me and my companions, we are getting BUFF/Serve the Lord! :)

This week was a super crazy week to be a ZL because first of all that whole training thing in front of the General Authority and 5 other zones was a little bit nerve racking! But luckily we ended up not having to train because they had a little bit of a change of plans when we got together that day! It was awesome! It was really cool though because we had a Mission Leadership Counsel on Wednesday and Elder Schweitzer from the Seventy talked a lot about the tools that the church has given us to become better and more effective missionaries, and he said no matter what happens they will not be taken away because of how much it is helping the work move forward! It was pretty cool! But then they also talked a lot about marriage which was kind of weird. He talked a lot about when we get married, even if your wife is WRONG she is RIGHT! Which I already knew because we hear that all of the time. But something really cool that he said is that our mission really does train us for marriage because if we can get along with our companions, then we will most likely be able to get along with our ETERNAL COMPANION! :) So far I think that I am doing a really good job with that, but I am going to really try to become a PRO at it by the time my mission is done! IT WAS AN AWESOME TRAINING! Oh, and on Thursday we had a mission tour where Elder Schweitzer talked to the whole mission, and he talked a lot about the same thing. But it was super cool! THAT WAS MY LAST MISSION TOUR ON MY MISSION! It is so weird to say that!

Other than that we are really working on finding new people to teach right now because our teaching pool is struggling right now. We are trying to get the members involved but it just doesn't seem to be going as smoothly as we expected it. Oh well though! We are going to keep on trying different things and I know that something will be able to work! I have also been working with a couple that was in Jason's mission in Phili! Ask him if he remembers Elder Bryce Esplin. Him and his wife are both members of the ward that I am serving in right now and we have gone over there a lot since I have been here. They are super cool people and told them that I would tell Jason hi for them! It was really cool to find that out! :)

I love you guys like crazy and don't know what I would ever do without such a supportive family. I have seen so many families get torn apart on my mission so far and I never want any of that for my family! It is so good for me to be able to see this while I am still young so that I know what not to do! Love you!

Love,

Elder Wallentine

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