Mommy!!!

Thank you for that awesome letter once again even though I seem to say that every time that I write to you! :) I think that game sounds super fun where you have to use a word from the Bible Dictionary in a door approach! We will have to try that for sure some time! But as for the whole Punching game, we are not hurt yet, so it is still all fun and games! I am having a blast here in Maricopa still with Elder May! Most of the time when you are together with a companion it gets to the point where you just get completely sick of each other, but it is really cool because we are super good friends! It is going to be a super fun rest of the transfer, and hopefully we stay for a couple of transfers! :)

This past week was a little bit less busy then what we would prefer but we were able to go and talk to a ton of the members, and get to know the area a little bit better! It was an amazing week in that way! We also had ANOTHER zone meeting where Elder May and I trained and we had some of the sisters put together a "Title of Liberty" for the Maricopa zone that has all of our goals written down on it! It turned out super cool! Now the same sisters have a member in their ward that works at like a screen printing store and we are all going and getting shirts to get some stuff printed on them today! I will be sure to take a picture in it so that you know what they say! :) They will be super Legit!!! I am super excited for Thanksgiving this week because this morning we got off the phone with President Toone and he said that we can watch a MOVIE!!! :) I have not been able to watch a movie my entire mission so far, so it is going to be really cool, and super fun for sure! We are debating on weather we want to watch like "Secondhand Lions" or "Frozen" so we will see what everyone wants to do!

I promised that I would send you a ton of the pictures that Elder May and I have taken so I will sent those to you now!!! We have taken TONS of pictures for sure!!! Love you so much Mom!!!

Love you tons,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Mommy!!!

I am so grateful for little things and big things that help our testimonies of the gospel have a chance to grow! It is impossible to not believe that God loves us!!! I use the story about the missionaries coming to our hotel in Belgium a ton when we are teaching with members, and investigators both. It is so amazing!!! I also told the story that dad told to us about when he was in the Branch Presidency and was asked to make a comment in the branch meeting. I love that story because obviously the Spirit whispered to dad what he needed to say! It is so amazing how such little things take such high priority in God's eyes, just because he knows that it would mean the world to us! :D

One amazing thing that I have learned on my mission is how important preparation really is! When we get up in the morning we have a strict schedule!!! We get up at 6:30 to exercise, then we have to be all ready for the day by 8:00. Right at 8:00 we have personal study time where we get to spiritually prepare ourselves for the day, and all of our lessons that are going to be happening that day. It is such an amazing time, and it is so important to not only have our bodies ready for what is going to be happening that day, but we NEED to be spiritually ready as well! As we study and prepare for our lessons, not all of the lessons will go exactly the way that we studied for. But it is really cool because when we prepare something, God will help us and tell us what exactly needs to be said, and he will tell us when exactly we need to say it!!!

This week has been pretty eventful for me as well! :) We had a great P Day on last Monday! We all got together as a Zone and played some capture the flag, and soccer. That was super fun because all of us in this zone are just super happy to be here! I have really noticed since I have been here in this area how much attitude really affects people. Elder May and myself have really been trying to keep the HYPE up about missionary work, and it has worked miracles so far! :) We are focusing on asking everyone that we come in contact with for referrals!!! This morning when we talked with President Toone on the phone our zone got called out for having a ton of referrals! It was really cool because that is one of the biggest things that we are focusing on right now! We are already seeing miracles happen in the zone because of our focus!!!

On Wednesday we had something super crazy happen! So our bishop gave us some lists of some people to go by. So naturally we are going to go by anybody that the Bishop tells us too, since he is basically awesome!!! But when we stopped by one of the houses the people didn't answer... SHOCKER... however, Elder May introduced me to a game called "Prius Punch" and so we have been playing that game ever since we have been companions for the past week and a half!!! There was a Prius in the driveway across the street from the house that we had just knocked on. So needless to say, I saw it first and yelled, "PRIUS PUNCH!!!" and hit Elder May in the arm. But then is when the cool thing happened. After I did that I turned to Elder May and said, "Hey, lets go by that house with the Prius in the driveway!" He agreed and we walked up and knocked on the door! A guy came to the door, and before he could say anything NOT 1 BUT 2, Great Danes came out of the house and we started to pet them! They were super cool and of course they were super HUGE... I guess that is why they are called GREAT Danes haha... But after the dogs went back inside we introduced ourselves and he LET US IN!!! We started talking to him a little bit and found out that his wife's' family are members, and they actually have some cousins that are out on missions right now! It was a really cool experience and we are really trying to meet up with them again soon! He told us that for the next visit he is going to have his wife there too! I am super stoked!!! 

You're the best and I am so glad that I know that I have your support!!! :) SEE YOU ON CHRISTMAS!!! 

Love you tons!!

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Mommy!!!

So this week was super crazy because we had a ton of things going on, plus Halloween, and then Saturday was just an all around awesome day to be a missionary for me! :) To start off it was transfer call Sunday (yesterday) and I got a call to get transferred out of the area that I am serving in right now. I am thinking that I will either go to Maricopa, or I will go into Gilbert to be with Elder May! :) That would be so amazing but I am trying not to get my hopes up in case that does not happen! :D

But on Saturday and Sunday this past week we had stake conference and this time it was a little bit different because on the Sunday session there was a broadcast from Salt Lake with Elder Christofferson, President Uchtdorf, and some other people. First the stake president talked to us and then the rest of the time it was the broadcast for all of the stakes in the state of Arizona! :) It was really cool. What I really got out of it is that they were telling people that the tribulation that is going on right now in the world is not ending, but it is getting worse, and the devil is making new ways to harm us as children of God. It was a little bit scary to think about, but I am so glad that even though we hear that stuff we can know that Heavenly Father will ALWAYS be there for us!

On Friday since it was Halloween we had to be inside by 6pm because they didn't want us out with a bunch of trick or treaters, and it would be a little bit dangerous for missionaries to be out I guess! So we went inside and played some board games and stuff! :) Right when we got in the house we got out some silly string that one of our members gave to us and sprayed down the other two elders that live with us! It was so funny to see their reactions! :) Then we played the game "The Settlers of Zarahemla" It was super fun and it ended up just being me and one of the other Elders, Elder Johnson that played with me. The others were being party poopers! :) haha But that is fine haha!!!

Anyways I will cut to the chase of what happened on Saturday! It was amazing because 2 days before on Thursday I found out that Ian and Stafnie (people that I taught over in Temple) were getting baptized at 10:00am in the morning on Saturday! But then we had tickets to go up to the Phoenix Temple Open House with some members and that family that we have been teaching, and it is a 1 hour trip up there, and our tickets were for 11:30am. So we went to the baptism, left before they even got baptized, drove all they way back here to Mesa to meet up with our members, and headed up to the Temple. It was so amazing to be able to go up there and especially to be able to go up there with some investigators! :) They loved it!!! Then the members took all of us out to eat at Olive Garden which was super good because I had never ever been there before! :) It was an awesome week and I wish that I could go into it a little bit more. But don't worry I also wrote it in my journal!!! :)

Love you tons!!!

Elder Wallentine

Mommy!!!

Hey mom this week was super cool because we were able to have an awesome baptism which was probably one of the most smooth running baptisms that I have had in my entire mission so far! It was awesome! :) The guy that got baptized was so ready and he just didn't even know how ready he was a few weeks ago. He had gone through about 3 years worth of missionaries and continued to pray and came to church and stuff like that, but just didn't know for sure if this was the right path for him yet. It was super cool when we were able to teach him and that he came to the conclusion that he did not need a big sign to know that it was true but he just needed to put all of the little things together! :) It was an amazing experience to teach him. Every single person that we are able to help like that just makes my testimony build even bigger and even though I have a testimony that the Gospel and Church is true, it never hurts to have it built up a little bit more!

Other than that though we still had a super good and eventful week this past week! We were able to come in contact with the lady that referred herself to us which was really cool and we were able to go over and teach her a little bit more as well as her family! They are so awesome and it is amazing how fast you can grow to love people as you help them come a little bit closer to Christ! It is so awesome and it is especially awesome that they are actually keeping the reading assignments that we give them and also doing more on top of that! They are an awesome family! :) I can just tell that they really do want to know if this is really true! 

We were also able to go and do a ton of service on Saturday and also found out a little bit more of how the whole mission leadership works when we are here! :) We moved 2 people in one morning, and then also went and helped the ward with a big project that they were doing! It was super fun because when we are able to go and do things like that we are, first of all, able to go and get out of our church clothes for a while, but then we are able to also meet people that would never be open to us in the white shirts and ties! :) Its awesome! But over all it was a super good week and to finish it today we went to Cafe Rio today and there were like a ton of people there that were members of the church, some of them were ladies and they came over to our table while we were eating and said that they were going to take some pics of us and send them to our moms! I do not know your phone number so I gave them Dad's and they are going to send all of the pics to him and then both of you can see them! :) It is super fun when people want to do that though! :D

Anyways I love you so much and cannot wait to hear from you guys again next week! 

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Mommy!!!

That was super awesome on Friday night when I got to see Jason! I didn't really know what to think when I saw him with the bag of goodies that he got for me, but I also did not know if I was allowed to get out and talk to him or anything. It was super fun to see him though, and it is super weird because that is the first time that I have actually seen any of you in person for just over 15 months. :) It was super fun though! Even though I stayed in the car I still really enjoyed that! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 

It was really funny though because I thought since I had just seen Jason I should probably call President Toone and just let him know how it all played out and stuff! I tried to call him a couple times but there was no answer, so I decided to call the Assistants. I called them and said, "Hey, so I just tried to call President Toone and there was no answer. But, I thought that I should probably call and just let you guys and him know that my brother just stopped by my house and dropped off some junk food for me." They then said, "Oh dang!!! Well thanks for letting us know, and make sure that you let President Toone know when you can." Then they asked, "Did you get out and give him a hug?" I said, "Ummm... No, I stayed in the car like I was supposed too." Then they said, "Oh man you totally should have given him a hug!" But it was totally cool because I didn't know that I could so I just thought that I would stay safe! :D Then when I got in touch with President Toone he said about the same thing as the assistants! Which I thought was super funny for sure! That was a funny night.

The work here in this area is for sure picking up though now! It is getting to be really fun to get closer and closer to the members of the ward here, and they are all just super nice, and getting more missionary minded every day it seems like! It is way cool to see! As far as "Meet the Mormons" goes we don't have any handouts yet because they want it to be more of the members tool right now to get their friends out to it. 

We have a baptism for a guy that we are teaching right now coming up on Friday! :) That is going to be super cool because It seems like it has been forever since I have actually had someone that I am teaching get baptized, even though it was only like 2 transfers ago! haha

I am super excited for our stake conference coming up in early November! We are going to be trained on the exact same thing and we were able to go and assign one of the missionaries in our zone to stand up and give a talk at the Saturday night session on some success stories and hastening the work of salvation! It will be super cool because they are also probably going to give me and my companion the chance to get up and bear our testimonies on the work of salvation also since we are the zone leaders! It should be a super cool experience, and I am super excited for it! But I totally agree that the youth and the members are completely key to finding the elect people, and also just to the work of salvation in general. It is really cool just how much faster people work toward baptism when they have friends in the church, and when they are being encouraged from not only the missionaries, but all of their friends, and leaders in the church. It helps a ton!!!

I am currently teaching this girl over SKYPE who lives in Idaho right now and was meeting with the missionaries over there for a while.  I am really enjoying finding not only people that I can help in this area, but also if people need help in other parts of the world that we and the other missionaries in that area can totally be there for them! I really love that quote that you posted! "FAITH IS A CHOICE! CHOOSE FAITH OVER DOUBT!" I think that is so powerful and it is amazing how much that can really help if you just put your faith before your doubts. I am currently reading in the New Testament and it is amazing just how in the very beginning of Matthew there are so many miracles performed by Christ. But none of those miracles could have come to pass if the person on the receiving end did not at least have a little bit of faith that they could be healed.

I read a section in Matthew this week that really helped me though. There are always temptations in the world whether you are a missionary or not. Even when Jesus Christ was on the earth He did not go without being tempted by the adversary. It is super sad because although they are brothers, Satan just kept on bashing Christ with these chances to prove himself. He tells him that if he is the Son of God then he will take some rocks and he will turn them into bread. But Jesus does not give in. He does not even try to fight back, or argue. He simply says something to the affect of; Men cannot live by bread alone, but they also need the word of god in their lives. It is just another testimony builder that if we truly do follow the example of Jesus Christ even after baptism, we will be able to know Him better, and we WILL be able to make it to live with our Heavenly Father again! I love that!!!

Well mom thank you for the awesome letter and I really appreciate all that you guys do for me and how much you show your love to me as I am away from home! I love you all tons!!! :)

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Mommy!!!

I was so happy that this week went by fast, but at the same time think it would have been nice for it to have been a little bit longer! We were able to go and see a lot of the people that we are actively teaching and helping right now, including that lady that I told you about! She is so awesome! Her aunt and cousin actually came to church with her this Sunday to help her get a little bit more comfortable which was super cool! They wanted to get a picture of us with her outside of the church which was super funny I thought! :D

It started out as a really good week because on every 1st and 3rd Sunday one of the members of the stake that is over the missionary work invited all of the missionaries in the Stake over to have a little correlation meeting and he also has root beer floats! It is always really fun because they are really trying to focus on making this stake have the happiest missionaries in the entire mission! I like it a lot!!! :P 

Then on Tuesday we had Zone Meeting and so Elder Hardy (my companion), Sister Homer (the sister training leader), and I did a training on making sure that we do our best to get the Spirit there and allow it to testify to those that we are teaching! We had 3 scenarios that we put the missionaries in. The 1st one was in a messy home with the TV on and toys all over the place. This was a different environment because when a home is messy and unorganized then it is a ton harder, and almost impossible for the person getting taught to feel of the Spirit. Then we set up another room as a clean home with a center piece, some pictures of Jesus Christ, and also some couches that would be comfortable. We were able to feel the Spirit a lot stronger in that environment. Then the last one was in the church building giving someone a tour of the church. When we walked into the Chapel it was amazing the Spirit that we felt. It felt literally like it is described in the Mormon message "The Hope of Gods Light" and it was an amazing experience! :) It really does make a huge difference to make sure that our environments are good! It can make the difference between feeling the Spirit and not being able to feel it at all!

We also got to watch the movie MEET THE MORMONS as a mission on Wednesday which was super cool! We got to see it before everyone else because they wanted us to see what was going on so that when people have questions about it we will be able to know how to answer them! It was a really fun time and if you have not seen that movie yet you need to go and see it as soon as you can! It was amazing!!! Anyways, I love you tons and my toe is doing a lot better now! I hope that you guys all have a good week and make sure to tell everybody hi for me!!! Love you Jason, Katie, Izzy, Ryan, Ashley, Brandon, Collette, Emmett, Tyler, Emily, Caleb, Mom, and Dad!!! You all are the BEST!!!

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine

Mommy!!!

Thank you so much for the awesome letter that you sent me once again! It was super crazy because we never really did figure out why the conference call last week was having so many big problems. It was just trying to be a pain I guess. ;) I think it was probably more operator error than anything since there were like 28 people trying to operate it at the exact same time that seems like a pretty safe bet! haha It went a lot better this morning though because I got the names of all of the Zone Leaders that I am supposed to call from now on, so then I don't have to deal with all of the frustration of getting all of the Zones together. :D That made me a little bit happier!!!

This week was a super crazy week though. Usually on Mondays it is super hard to find something to do because we are only out from 6-9 and most of the members are having FHE at that time so we can't really go and visit them unannounced or anything. haha But last Monday was one of the best Mondays that I have had in my entire mission so far because we were able to find a member of the ward that would be willing to come with us to a lesson that we had set up with this awesome lady who has been coming to church for a while with here aunt in a different area! She is really cool and I can't wait because we are meeting with her again today!!! :D I love days that you are just running around constantly trying to get around to all of the appointments that you have set up for that day. It is the best feeling ever when you are busy!

Conference was AWESOME this year! I never would have thought back home that conference would go by so fast, or that I would enjoy it so much while I am here on my mission. I loved these last sessions of conference. I found out that if I am not constantly doing something with my hands, or just moving in general I get super distracted, and lose focus really fast. So during conference I was taking lots of notes on paper instead of my iPad, and then I also started to doodle. I drew almost all of the speakers on the paper that I was taking notes on! It was super fun!!! :P 

One thing that really stood out to me is "STAY IN THE BOAT!" I thought that was super cool because there are so many things that you can get caught up on and if you just jump out of the "boat" then you cannot expect to ever understand it. God is always here to help us, and he will never turn his back on us, but if we jump out of the boat and turn our backs on Him, He cannot help us like He wants too. I love the Mormon message "Wrong Roads" by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland because it explains super well that blessings don't always come when we want them. Same with answers to our prayers. He says, "Some come soon, some come late, and some don't come til heaven. But they come!" That is so awesome to be able to know that God loves us so much that He WILL answer all of our prayers, and He WILL bless us as we follow His commandments!

So tomorrow I am going out to the Foot Doctor again to get my other toe looked at and get rid of another ingrown toe. I'm sure it will be just as enjoyable as the last time I had it done, and I am sooooo excited... NOT!!! :) But one thing that is really cool is that the Dr. that is going to be helping me is Dr. Crezee who I'm not sure if you guys remember but I Skyped you from their home last Mothers day! They are super cool and it is going to be super fun to be able to see him again tomorrow! It will be awesome! I will make sure to send you guys pictures of it! 

I LOVE YOU TONS!!!

Love,

Elder Brandon Wallentine