Last Letter

Happy birthday Robert! you are 15 years old. when I left you were 13 still a deacon. I love you!!

Mom I want to tell you that I am so grateful that you have written me my entire mission. I am glad that I could always look forward to you writing me each Monday. 

At the beginning of my mission I set a goal that I would never miss one week of writing back to you. I am glad that I was able to accomplish my goal. Goal setting can be amazing if it really means something to you. That is one thing I learned on my mission.

This week has been one of the best weeks of my mission. I think I changed someone's mission. there was an elder who I really love and who is new to the mission. He is in my district and from Mexico. I love him so much and he trusts me a lot. He asked me to come over and give him a blessing. It was a wonderful blessing from God, but afterwards he asked to talk to me in private. He was very sincere and loving, but he was really home sick and was considering going home. We talked for about 1 hour and afterwards we called the mission president and he wanted me to go to the interview with him. So me and him went up to the mission office and talked to President Chambers. He talked to him first then I went in afterwards. President Chambers told me that he wants to be my companion, not because he said that, but because he could feel it from him. Then he told me what he found out about the situation and then asked me to find out where he should be transferred to. That is a request that I have never seen the mission president actually ask a missionary before or even ever heard of that. That was a big responsibility and I had to do it in the next few hours. So he told me to think about it and text him when I figured it out. Crazy, I love my mission. About 2 hours later after thinking and praying I had a name come into my mind and I know that was the person he should be with. It was really cool experience. He said that I was like his brother out here and he was so glad to get to know me. I am sad that I could not be with him next transfer, but the Lord knows that was not what was in store for him. It was a very unique experience for me. I love my mission. 

Also do you remember what I said about my goals last week about the main one was to put some people on date? Well yesterday, We put 4 people on date. It made me so happy. The Lord has truly blessed me. 

Also here in Utah it has not snowed very much, but I really wanted it to snow before I went home. So yesterday morning it was snowing! Prayer answered. My prayers have been answered all this week. I love it. I know God loves me and what I have done. 

I am going to go visit lots of other people today, so I don't have that much time. 

I will see you in a few days!

Love,

 Elder Walker

Christmas Season

So the Iraq family we are not working with as much. We have passed them over to the ward. Alisha is progressing slowly. We bought a nativity set for her. Just a cheap one, but she was appreciative of the gift. She is one that I need to stay in contact when I come home. Ben and I will be driving though here soon right? I just want to keep in contact with these people on my mission.

This week has been fun. You are right about Christmas. Sometimes people are really excited to see us in the Christmas season, other times they are too busy with the Christmas season for us. We had lots of appointments this week and we had about 15 cancel, but we were still able to get 14 lessons in. that was exciting. Tonight we are going to go to Temple Square with a less active family that wants to go though the temple as a family. I hope they do it. Their names are the Hogges. 

The stake president thinks very highly of us as missionaries. He tells us that every week. He is one of those stake presidents that you can tell just loves everyone. I like him a lot. 

I had an interview with my mission president this past week (not my last one), but he gave me a lot of good advice. 

He told me to think about these 2 questions:

1. What are the patterns learned as a missionary that I will continue after I am released?
2. What are worthy goals that I want after my mission? 

It was an interesting conversation with my mission president. I like him a lot. If I could follow his example I would be a much better person in life. 

Our goals next week is to teach 8 investigators with a member present, 2 other lessons and 5 lessons with a recent convert or less active. We are going to try to find 3 new investigators. 

But the main goal that we are going to work on is putting someone on date to be baptized. That is the hardest struggle right now.

Also another Goal is not to think about what is next so basically focus on the work.. haha. (Something that my whole life I have been asked to make sure I know what is coming next. So it is funny that right now I am trying not to do that.) I know that missionary work will continue.

The "He is the Gift" initiative is a good thing to be doing. We share it at all of our dinner appointments so they remember why we have Christmas. Some people even tell me they have seen it on billboards in Utah. Also it was on the news. I thought that was so cool. The Church is really smart. That is what happens when you get God to run the church. 

I also did 2 exchanges this week. Once with a zone leader and another time with the elders in my district. It is fun to be able to help other missionaries learn what I have learned and also to see what they naturally do. Especially when they are new. There are some unique Ideas that they come up with. They are 100% spirit driven, because they have nothing else to really go off of. It is fun to work with them.

I will be doing one more exchange this week. I hope I can be of some help to them in their area. It is struggling a little bit. I wish I knew [when I first came out] some of the things I know now about missionary work and how to help other missionaries. I just need to focus on them, not necessarily their area. Areas change, but if I can help the missionaries change then I am sure that Elder Goins will appreciate it a lot.