Sick and Work

I think that is funny Ben that you teach that all the time. I almost always teach part member families so they at least know some of the things that we are talking about.

Question, how do you go about facing issues like reincarnation? There is this lady we are teaching and she believes in that as well as every thing else we teach. She is not willing to give up that belief. She told us that she knows it is true and she has received answers from God and psychics and other strange people like that and they told her those beliefs. The problem is that if we straight out tell her she is wrong then she will get mad at us and have us leave, but she is close to being baptized.

Right now I am sick. I can't talk at all. I have to whisper everything. Luckily my companion doesn't mind talking so he can do it.

Mom do you remember when I was sick when school started and I was frustrated because I could not ask any questions? This is like that except worse because I am the teacher and not the student any more. [I had a] blessing. I got sick about 2 days ago and I was worried because I had to give 2 talks in Sacrament meeting that day. I was blessed to be able to make it though my 2 talks and most of the night. Another blessing is that I rarely just sit there and don't say anything so this time I get to observe and see their body language and then when I want to say something I whisper really loud. It is kinda like a Russian appointment, but I can understand what they are saying.

One of the other disadvantages is that I don't want to shake people's hand so I don't get them sick as well but everyone wants to shake the "missionaries" hand. So I have to explain in a whisper that I am sick and I can't shake their hand unless they want to get sick as well.

The talks went well. I truly am getting better at them. I gave a 20 min talk when I was only supposed to give a 15 min talk. I think that is the longest I have ever stood at the pulpit at Church my whole life. The first subject was on studying the doctrine of Christ and the next topic was easy it was the Plan of Salvation so I did not even write any notes. We as missionaries get to teach that all the time so it was an easy topic. The blessing of it though is that missionaries normally teach it different then ward members because we teach it to people who know nothing about the gospel or very little. So it is easier to understand.

The main thing that is hard about talks is you don't get any response from the audience. Instead of a discussion we just talk not knowing if any of it went through at all to their heads.

We had a good week. Two weeks ago we only taught 1 lesson with a member present because we did not have any investigators to teach. This week we found 4 new investigators to teach so we will finally be teaching more people. Missionary work becomes hard when you don't have anyone you can teach.

We did a lot of tracting last week and I found my first new investigator though tracting in my whole mission. That was really cool. His name is Quince and he is 9 years old in a part member family. I always gain a great love for those I teach. I think I need to work on loving those that I don't teach (or the ones that don't love us) as well. I have got to do so much service in this area. Last week I got to lay sod (grass) for a potential investigators. They kinda set it up for a test. They told us afterwards that they came out right then because they wanted to see if we would offer to help instead of doing the lesson we had planned on doing. Of course we asked and they said that we could help. So in my white church clothes and in my dress pants we laid sod. It was hard work and afterwards we were so dirty we did not have on white shirts any more they were more of a brown color and my pants that were gray turned much more green then I thought that they could get. They washed off, but they were extremely nice to us afterwards. They love missionaries a lot more because of that experience so hopefully we will be able to transfer that to God and not us when we are able to come back over and do a lesson.

We also mowed a lawn, fixed a chicken coop, and helped one of our ward mission leaders move this really heavy couch by ourselves down this stairway. (That was way hard. We had to take so much of the couch apart to even fit it in the door. That took about 2 1/2 hours). Funny thing about that the wife started with a prayer to pray that we would be able to fit it in the door and get it down the stairs and then by the end of the 2 hours she was praying "I don't care about the couch just protect the missionaries so they don't get hurt."

I really enjoy doing charity for people.

I love you family

Elder Walker

P.S. Dad I was reading my patriarchal blessing the other day and it reminded me what a special home that I lived in and the circumstances. As a missionary we get to see the very desperate that can't even pay for food for their family and how grateful I am that I did not have to go through that. Also in Sunday School we talked about the role of family members and that also made me realiz

e how well you have followed the commandments that God gave fathers in families and I just hope I will be able to emulate you when I become a father. A mission helps you appreciate a lot of the things that we were given in life physical mental and spiritual.

Thanks Dad, keep up the good work.