Teaching

Did I say Elder Kato? I meant Elder Sato. He's been studying about the driving stuff for a while. Probably today or Wednesday we will have him take his test. There is a bunch of headache stuff he needs to get in order to get a drivers license because he's from Japan. For instance: a SSN denial letter. Multiple proofs of living in Georgia, etc. All will go well though.

Thank you for the idea about mailing the bike to Alexandria, I will certainly do that.

I'll probably take up Bro Lung on the fun activities of doing some manual labor, sounds like a blast!

Thank you Joshua for the remarks about the Holy Ghost. That is a good scripture to use. That topic has been on my mind a lot lately too. I've used the importance and significance of having the gift of the Holy Ghost vs the influence of the Holy Ghost example in many talks, trainings, and testimonies over the past 5 months. I also have learned that just about all of the things that we do are to help us have the spirit be with us.

I specifically remember thinking before my mission and during the first part of my mission that it would be hard for me to give trainings or talks that last for more than 10 minutes... If I had complete control of things, which I don't, and should share the time anyway, I'd have everybody come together and unload for 3 or so hours with great trainings and spiritually uplifting things. I plan on taking some family home evenings (if that's ok Dad) at home to teach some greatly motivational things (I'll break them down in 40 minutes segments). Thank you for inviting the Lungs to my home-coming talk. I plan to do that same with many other people as well.

I am going to train tomorrow on "Eternal Perspectives" and on "motivating missionaries for missionary work." Should be great! The other trainings will also go great, I'm aware of a few of the trainings and how they are going to do them. Should be awesome!

We have been in a 3 pack temporarily for the past week and possibly till the end of the transfer. We have had lots of fun together in the 3 pack too. We cover 2 wards and get to combine the dinners of the wards (which means there's an averages of 1.3 meals given to us a day including lunches) and get to traverse the whole place. There are 2 particular investigators that are super super smart, kind of like Dad, except w/o the HG. One of them is a quantum physics guy and the other already read the BoM in two weeks. Both are looking "beyond the mark" though. They both flattered me though. One of them gave me a sincere compliment and told me that he thought I was very passionate about the missionary work. While we were teaching the other, his acquaintances told me that I seem to have a lot of the qualities that this guy has of whom they all esteem as super smart. =-) Blessings of being on the Lord's errand I guess.

Love you all! I've run out of time though, ta ta for now!

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

Old Friends

Ha! The cardboard missionaries are kind of funny idea.

I would love to give a talk at Colton's baptism! I'm more than happy to do that. (topic: baptism? confirmation? both?) I'll ask you about it later. You can just remind me about it later actually. (Thank you).

I did remember who the Hanson family was the first time Bro Jensen (uncle -ish) mentioned him to me 3 weeks ago. It was fun time spent with them. [The following pictures come from them].

On Friday night, we went to Natalie's uncles house to have dinner with his family and the missionaries happened to be there. 

Elder Walker gave a great message from Alma 5 regarding leading by example and lifting people like Christ does- it was a great Christ centered spiritual thought. We are very proud of Ben, he is a great missionary! It was really nice to see him.

I am pretty sure mother that I've sent you that talk early in my mission... if I didn't send it, then I wrote to you about it, or I told you about it. I think you just forgot, good luck remembering it the second time. =-) (love you mom). I didn't read that article, or even see it, in the Ensign yet. If I were to guess, it was given 10 years ago at some fireside and they finally printed it in the Ensign. (That information can be found at the end of the article.)

Joshua, I'm going to write you a letter today and answer all of your questions from your various letters you sent me in in one letter, including the question from last week about reincarnation. I think it's interesting that I came up with many of the same questions earlier in my mission, but I discovered the answers since then.

I am having so much fun with Elder Sato he is a spectacular missionary! He is a very humble person. We have near daily occurrences where Elder Sato has what I call a "language barrier" where Elder Sato says, "yep...ok...uh huh..." then afterwards I ask him if he understood anything and he says, "uh, no I didn't understand any of it". It is very funny when this takes place. I get to teach elder Sato how to drive this transfer too. He's got a Japanese license but not a american one. It'll be fun to do that.

We had a ZTM (Zone training meeting) meeting a MLC (mission leadership council) and other cool stuff take place this week. They all went very well, and I had lots of fun with them.

Unfortunately for reasons that I'll tell you after my mission, my time is spent today. Love you all! see you later,

Companion and Investigators

First of all, I wanted to comment on Joshua's email... That kind of lesson is actually normal for us, the only difference being that I don't sing in lessons and the investigators usually don't laugh. In fact the last lesson we taught (yesterday) was with a Jehovah's Witness pastor. Our area I live in now is the suburbs of Augusta and a large percentage of the pastors for an 1.5 hour radius live in this area. I've got speculations why, but I shall not say... but I did want to make the note that Joshua's lesson he had is quite normal here. I've got another story for you along the same lines: On Saturday we had another lesson like this one, this particular person was anti-mormon yet is nice at the same time. They were saying some bad things about the beliefs we have and my companion (Elder Sato) bore a powerful testimony, immediately following I ended the lesson and we left. Not ten minutes later they texted us and invited us back for dinner... unfortunately we declined because of other appointments we had, but instead they invited us over next Saturday for dinner. I did not expect them to do that... There is a "sweet spot" in lessons when you hit them with the Spirit really hard then leave them hungry for more. I love to do that. It works better than defending our doctrine or going into unnecessary depth of doctrine every time.

Elder Sato is from Japan. He didn't speak English before he came to the America's. He is a wonderful companion! I really love him lots. Turns out we have 8 different families that can speak Japanese in our ward. How often does that happen? It's probably due to it being a military ward and having had a lot of members go on missions. It is so much fun to help him learn English too. It reminds me a lot of my desire to learn Spanish when I get back home. (He's a year out on his mission, but still gets to have an hour of language study a day. Fluent, not eloquent, and regular grammar problems in speech.) We had dinner with a Japanese family yesterday in our ward. Elder Sato had so much fun, this may have been the only time his whole mission that he'll have an experience like that. Something else interesting, he has his Japanese Bible and Triple Combination and he always looks up the references in Japanese first, then in English. It's funny to watch and it makes for great conversation starters when meeting new people. (I think that's an awesome talent to have.)

Just so I don't forget in the future, our next door neighbor, in the Stevens Creek Ward (we live outside of our ward boundaries with the Steven Creek elders) is an amazing person too, I'll be sure to tell you about him another time.

I think the member G. Jensen in our ward is the uncle of Bro Hanson. We will be eating dinner with Bro Hanson and Bro and Sis Jensen on Friday. That's going to be fun. I bet that doesn't happen very often on missions.

I love the plans you've made with the new house! I think it's brilliant. I've already thought of ways I'm going to request of you that I use it too.

Oh, I've got a really funny story that I've got to tell you:

So, the only Japanese speaking members that I new before Elder Sato got here is the Jenkins family. Bro Jenkins is the 1st counselor in the bishopric and served a mission in Japan, and his wife is from Japan and went to school at BYU-Provo and they have 4 kids all of which speak Japanese. They speak Japanese in their home (same family that fed us yesterday). So, right when I got here, 4.5 months ago, we bluetoothed all of the contact information from the sister missionaries phone and deleted everybody that wasn't included on the roster so we had the ward members numbers on our phone without having to put them in ourselves. One of the numbers was under the name of "Bro Jenkins" not on the roster. We called the two numbers for the Jenkins family on the roster, neither answered. We were going to have Elder Sato just speak Japanese to them. We thought it be fun for Elder Sato and Bro or Sis Jenkins. We then proceeded to call the third phone number under the name of Bro Jenkins, The conversation went as follows according to my memory (Elder Sato helped me with the Japanese =-))

Elder Sato: (I have to be on the right computer in order to get Japanese characters, unfortunately, this one doesn't have it)

"Bro Jenkins": Hello?

Elder Sato: 

"Bro Jenkins": Hello?

Elder Sato: 

"Bro Jenkins": Hello?

Elder Sato: Is this Sister Jenkins?

"Bro Jenkins": Hello?

Elder Walker: Hello, is this the Jenkins family?

"Bro Jenkins": No, this isn't

Elder Walker: Oh, if you're not brother Jenkins we don't know who you are

"Bro Jenkins": Hey are you the people that texted me about the bible study?

Elder Walker:   ... yes, I think that was us

(Recollection of us texting this number the week before... this is the text verbatim we sent this number which we never got a response for: Hey Bro Jenkins there is going to be a baptism next week on September 7th  at 10:30. Would it be good for it to be announced at church for opening announcements?)

"Bro Jenkins": Oh ok, I'm <name>, I wanted to come to that. May I bring my daughter, <name>, too?

Elder Walker: Of course, that'd be great, May I text you the time and address?

"Bro Jenkins": Ya that'd be great!

Elder Walker: I'm Elder Walker. We'll see you there!

(I then proceeded to give her the address of the church building and time of service and also for the baptism.)

What makes this whole thing funnier is that Elder Heyland wanted to video Elder Sato speaking in Japanese, so he got the whole thing on video, I'll try to get the video and email it home!

Love you all!

Thanks for the spiritual thought mother!

Love you lots!

I taught the lesson yesterday. It was on the Word of Wisdom and I gave a great analogy using Alma 47 (I think) with Amalickiah.

Unique Missionary Experiences

I haven't been losing weight mother... no need to worry... I definitely gained weight since the beginning of my mission. I gain weight every time I get to ride a bike, and I stay the same when I get to ride in a car. I'm pretty sure I came out around 120-130ish; now I'm 155ish.

I went to a branch yesterday in addition to our own sacrament meeting for complications for needing to do an interview for an investigator who all at once decided he needed to be baptized next week. Before Sacrament, Elder Douglas, the elder I was with, was asked to give a short talk about missionary work, and we were both asked to pass the sacrament. (Only the two of us passed to the 25ish members there.) After the intermediate hymn they announced the next speakers: the missionaries, which included me. So I had a grand total of zero seconds (plus how long it took to walk 20 feet away to the pulpit) to prepare a talk. I hadn't come up with anything yet when I reached the pulpit. Kind of interesting experience. Out of it all though, It was the most comfortable talk I've ever given. Usually my pulse skyrockets when I'm in a "struggly" situation or really nervous or put on the spot. I didn't feel any of that, and it went great for the time I had to prepare. I just gave a spiritual thought about missionary work, using 2 Nephi 32:2-4 and paraphrased the parable in the end of Luke ch 16 with insights on both. Fun stuff: be one of two to pass the sacrament, give a talk, and interview a candidate for membership in the church in a branch you don't belong to the first time you ever attend a branch in your entire life. Not very many people get to do that. 

Elder Lang is my new companion here in Evans, GA in the Martinez ward. He's from Utah. Out of the 10 missionaries that go to this meetinghouse church building of ours, I'm the only one not from Utah. 

Miracles are out there! This is the time to declare the gospel more than ever before, For behold, the time is Nigh at hand.

We get to drive to Macon once a month now. That's a 3 hour drive each way...  I'm going to enjoy the meetings. but probably not the drive. I've already made that trip once for transfers. Now I'm going to do it again for Missionary Leadership Council on a monthly basis. That's ok though, Now I get to listen to 6 hours worth of talks tomorrow =-)

Teaching

I heard there is a hear wave on the west of the states. Too bad. It's actually be a rather cooler summer than normal over here. However I literally get drenched due to scattered storms while the sun is shining on average once a day. Most of the time I hear the thunder it's not raining where I'm at. There has been scattered storms on a daily basis for the past two weeks.

I have a recommendation mother for teaching investigators: "The ideal situation is to have the member invite the investigator to be taught then be present for the teaching" ( ~somewhere in PMG) set up a family home evening with the missionaries. Or invite them over for dinner, with the missionaries for the lesson to be taught at "our" home. Talk to the missionaries before hand and ask them what they'd like you to share. My personal opinion is that commitments are best taken and kept when it comes from a friend (missionaries can be friends too, but missionaries come and go.)

Elder Swenson and I made a really good lesson plan to teach to active members of the church this morning. I'll be sure to share it with you when I get home. It's probably the best lesson plan I've made in months. It's pretty member-missionary motivational. Robert will be sure to look back on those experiences he's having with gratitude. Has Robert been in Oregon for a while now? How long is he going to stay there? I don't remember hearing about Robert staying with Grp & Grm Bean for an extended amount of time. Having nearly finished the Book of Mormon again, I continue to be amazed at how powerful it is. How can anyone genuinely read the Book of Mormon and not know that it is true? You can't. Anyone that says they've read the Book of Mormon and doesn't believe it is either lying or didn't genuinely read it (or as many prophets have said "or then you misunderstand them").

I love you all! Keep praying for opportunities to share the gospel, you can do multiple families at a time you know =-)

Alma 6:6

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

A Georgian Macon Missionary

So it looks like I'm going to be a Georgia Macon missionary as of July 1st. We had our transfer calls last Saturday night, the last one before the transfer and I'm staying here in Evans, GA. I am probably one of few that had a trainer that was part of that mission. That probably doesn't happen very often: Mission dissolves, dissolved missionary trains, trainee joins same mission re-opened two years later.

I have three investigators that I taught in Orangeburg get baptized since I've been here, and more are on the way, is what I've heard. That is wonderful! It lightens up my days.

My companion's b-day: Elder Swenson's 20th birthday was last Saturday. He enjoyed his birthday. We attended another child of record's baptism that day. 

Over the past couple days, be have been soaked through several times. [This would be the Tropical storm Abigail.] The good thing about rain here, is that it's warm rain. I prefer warm rain over freezing cold rain, and I'd rather looked soaked due to rain and sweat, than just sweat. So, overall, rain=good, except when it gets all your stuff wet, or when you feel bad going into people's houses soaked.

We had an awesome meeting last Tuesday. It was interviews meeting, then a Zone meeting, then a special meeting (due to this stake of missionaries leaving the mission), then a pre-mission fireside meeting, then a fireside. It was a day full of great stuff! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I could do that every week. The missionary that was sitting next to me commented to me after all the meetings that she was impressed of my attentiveness throughout the entire block of meetings. Looking back on it, I was pretty aware the entire time what was going on, I never zoned out. That is something that I could not have done at the beginning of my mission. I could probably sit through entire 10 hours of conference back to back and never miss a beat now. That's pretty amazing if you ask me.

Love you all,

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

God Leads Us

This past week has been a good week. I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Lash (Who was in the same district as I and in the same room in the MTC) about time! We probably biked faster that day than any other on my mission. (I wanted to stretch him as much as possible, I've biked pretty much my whole mission and he hasn't. But he's a really hard worker so I know he gave it all he had to keep up with me =-) )

We found a young man last night that is 17 or 18 years old and we taught him the restoration lesson and he was getting more and more excited about it. "This is finally making sense" "I'm going to start reading the book of Mormon after you leave" etc. unfortunately the lesson ended at about 9:40pm and we were an hour's bike ride home. So we called a wonderful member that drove us back and we got home about 10:10pm. It was worth it. But it did make for pressed time in getting things done last night. We ate with a member family yesterday that had lived in Modesto for about 3 months working for the "Clark Pest Control" company (now the military). The Evanson's lived there 10 years ago. Fun, fun, fun. They made us a good dinner too.

The work is progressing, we found lots of more people to teach, that's good. It is amazing how God leads us to find people that are ready to be taught. We knocked into a couple members that aren't on the roster, one of which is a part member family and they're trying to get back involved with the LDS church. There have also been some good missionary motivated lessons we've had with members to be more missionary minded.

We ordered a braille Book of Mormon for a bishop over many non-denominational churches (he sets up churches) over Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. He is 95% blind, and is learning braille, so we downloaded the audio Book of Mormon for him and ordered the other Book of Mormon.

I love you all! Have a happy Memorial Day!

Transfer

Companion = Elder Swenson from Kaysville, UT

Now in Evans, GA, in the Martinez ward

Ward = great

People = great

White-washed in, no investigators (still), two potentials, some former investigators, we have a lot of work ahead of us to do.

Ward just called a ward mission leader yesterday, still an awesome ward though.

The Work is moving forward.

I get to bike a lot here (no car) compared to my last area that was huge and a long way from any other missionaries where I drove (I was the designated driver the whole time) at least 7,000 miles over the past 6 months.

Rain is not quite as bad when it's not freezing cold at the same time.

Georgia Macon mission is opening back up July 1st and is taking the Augusta, GA stake that I'm currently in. If I'm still here, then I'll be in a new mission.

Love you all, sorry for the shorter letter, pressed for time.

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

Stay Strong

To tell you a little more about W. and C., they treated us, and the member we brought out with us, to lunch. W. made a delicious homemade spaghetti sauce, delicious homemade Italian garlic bread, and several other great and delicious foods. (I'm sure the homemade sweet tea tasted good too, too bad it's not healthy for anybody.)

The likelihood of me staying in Orangeburg is minimal. Which means my Sunday schedule will be all mixed up a week from Wednesday when I get to a new area probably. That may enable the massive Skype conversation to work out. I'm sure Joshua will figure out his Skyping schedule before mother's day... it'll all work out.

It is devastating to see so many people come so close to "breaking the cycle" and all they have to do is keep the commitments they said that they would keep. If the only people that ever did anything were the one's that made a solid commitment, let's say, half of the time, then the work would move forward a whole lot faster. I might have said this last week, but, If I had a nickel for every family emergency, I'd be able to pay for my mission just from that and wouldn't have had to save up anything beforehand. That all by itself ought to be a testimony that Satan is trying to thwart this very work from moving forward. If this is what we claim it is, which it is. Then of course this is the focus of Satan's hindrance.

Elder Johnson (my current companion) told me this story:

There was a man having a vision and looked over a city and saw that there was one angel to the devil that was in the city and thought to himself, "Wow, this city must be pretty righteous, there is only one devil in it." The man looked a little further and saw an older man secluded all by himself in his little hut and saw lots and lots of big strong tough angels around him and the man thought to himself, "Wow, this old guy must be really wicked, look at all of these angels around him." His "guide" then pointed out to the man that in fact it was the other way around: The city was so wicked that all it took for them to continue to be wicked was a little "poke" while the old man was so righteous that the devil was throwing everything that he had at the man to try and trip him up. As 1 Nephi 3:7 and 1 Corinthians 10:13 say, "The lord will not allow you to be temped above that you are able to bear". How true that is. Thus if you feel opposition in the work you are about, it probably means you're on the right track as long as you aren't the one that is getting mad/angry/etc.

Love you all!

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

The Power of the Priesthood

Tell Robert, I'm super proud of him =-). Way to go. Now he's getting into more of the Isaiah chapters. It's hard to read those chapters without gaining an understanding the background of them. I'm sure he'll learn to enjoy them once he understands all of the symbolism down the road. (Unless he'll understand it as he reads through it by himself, in which case, I'll be bewildered.)

The grass just turned green again, and the weather is abnormal, every other week it's warm, then cold, then warm then cold. This week is supposed to get colder again, just after I thought it was finally warming up. And when it rains (which it does frequently), it pours, but God has been gracious to us and only let it pour rain right at the perfect times when we're driving long distances, or in church, right after we get in for the night, or in the morning when we're studying. It poured rain all last night and the rain stopped for us (literally, from pouring to not raining for about 3 minutes) to get out of the car and into the apartment, when then it resumed almost immediately after. This morning it was also pouring, then when we were all done doing our things for the morning and headed over here to the library, it stopped raining and we haven't got wet yet. God is good to us.

To tell you about the baptisms, I'm going to copy my letter to President Holm because it will be a lot more time efficient:

Howdy president. The baptisms went great! Immediately after CM's baptism itself was probably the strongest I've felt the spirit right after a baptism. (He is the now un-excommunicated member.) He yelled (out of joy) and cried, "I did it! I made it home! Oh thank you Lord Jesus. I'm back!" It was awesome. CA's baptism went good as well. This is a good ward, and I think we're doing a better job at involving the members and presenting them with opportunities to do missionary service and share the gospel. 

Yesterday we took part in exercising a lot of priesthood. With two confirmations, the sacrament blessing and passing, two anointing with oil, and two sealing the anointing, there was a great number of people blessed yesterday. More exciting, one of our new converts passed the sacrament, and another of our new converts went to the temple to do baptisms and confirmations for the dead. This is a wonderful time to be alive, especially where we have the opportunity to witness the work move forward. 

Elder Johnson is doing great. He is a good missionary. Thank you President Holm for giving me the opportunity to be assigned as a trainer. I enjoy it a lot.

Elder Joshua Walker, you sure do have a lot of opportunities to speak to general authorities. That is awesome.

I was contemplating on the power of the priesthood this morning and I find myself thinking things similar to what Nephi says in 2 Nephi 4 in the what's known as "the song of Nephi." God's blessings are incredibly amazing. What reason should I find a lack of commitment in anything? The blessings are enormous. I have the opportunity to use the Melchizedek priesthood! Do I understand what that means? It's an awful lot. That's the same priesthood that was used to organize the entire existence that we barley have gained an understanding of. I ought not to have an excuse for anything at all. There is no reason that I should not devote my entire being for the work of the Lord "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." I continue to be impressed by the great love and trust our Heavenly Father has for me. Can I not show but a little of that trust back to Him?

Being a missionary was/is definitely the right decision to make.

I love you all. Have a great time at the Christensen home.

Elder Benjamin Walker

This Missionary Work

An idea for what to do in Idaho, go to the "Garden Caves" you'll need a GPS and probably a first aid kit. I think it gives you a coordinates to get to it and a suggested place to park to start walking to it. I believe it is in the outskirts of Idaho Falls. It was a worth while trip when I went on it with my friends. There is year around ice in the cave 2-3 feet thick. You'll need flashlights, water, and have to carry food for lunch too. When you get to the end of the inside of the caves you'll see lots of stalagmites and stalactites. You walk several miles on nothing but wavy lava rock until you reach the caves when you then go down into one of the crevasses (certainly there will be lots of ice around the entrance, I went in July I believe and there was a lot of snow in the entrance then.) You're sure to want to bring something like a sweater or coat for when you actually reach the caves. ... Just an idea ...

The baptism went great... and to make a longer story short, I missed the confirmation my companion was a part of... super sad... I baptized though. That was fun. The baptism on the 30th will still be followed through on, and an excommunicated member I've been working with since I've been here had his council yesterday with the stake leaders and the bishop called to tell us that he'll be re-baptized and that he has a 'soft spot' for missionaries.

Member work certainly makes things easier in all areas of teaching. They have a friend to go to to ask any questions about the church. They have an example. More people are on top of helping them receive an assignment. They know about all the activities and are invited to them more than once. They have many more visits than just by the missionaries. etc. It's much better that was too for non-members to feel the spirit, I think, from somebody that knows them and loves them a lot more than the missionaries probably do (because we're ever so imperfect) right off the get-go.

This is something that we are putting a larger emphasis on. It is hard to work with members (especially because a majority of the active one's live 30 min away). We are really trying to make that a focus this week.

Missionary work would be so much easier if people had integrity... So many times people tell us to come back at certain times and they aren't home. Then when you finally do contact them again they ask you to come back at another time and it continues until they finally tell you they aren't interested. Honesty is the only answer 100% of the time.

The gospel is awesome. It truly is. I have been making quite a list of things I want to apply when I am home again. It's so much easier than I've made it seem. It just takes a little dedicated time for prayer and time for pondering and studying then re-praying and re-analyzing plans and goals to find out how to apply these principals.

I have recently been in awe of how much God is true on his promise :"Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." It is said 120 times in all of holy writ that we have, the most common phrase in the scriptures (longer than "and it came to pass"). He certainly means it. He answers us in the fullest extent that we ask him piece by piece; we just can't stop to be comfortable where we are at else we cut off that continuing revelation that we are receiving. There is never a bad time to ask "anything else?", "where do I go?", "what do I do?", "This is a solution I've come up with, is it right? enlighten me to improve it?" In reading the March Ensign this morning I came across a paragraph that stuck out to me that said something to the effect of, "We feel bad when we don't go to the Savior for help, when we see the results that come from our lack of understanding and trust in Christ. He feels bad too, that we don't trust ourselves in His hands. He has them extended to us; When others don't accept our help when we know we can help, doesn't that make us sad for them? I'm sure the Savior is the same way with us."

Love you all,

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

5 Things I Love about Orangeburg

The following is part of a letter Elder B. Walker wrote to his sister on Monday 25 February 2013

1. The area we (just the two of us right now) cover is large. The ward boundaries are exactly twice the size of the Salt Lake Valley. There's plenty of people to talk to.
2. The ward members are very welcoming and willing to serve. (They feed us a lot too.) Many of the ward members have years and years of experience. (Experience in construction, callings, business management, spirituality, etc). We have very inspired leadership too; they take the time to pray and ponder for inspiration of what they can do to fulfill their callings.
3. It's really easy to keep a positive attitude when you have a great companion that doesn't get discouraged easily.
4. I'm humbled by the blessings that the Lord gives. There is a stark contrast in the lives of the active outgoing members compared to those that piddle in the communities and don't have much of a desire to forgo and leave behind their bad habits. They are astoundingly happier and much more productive.
5. I have learned how, why, and what to do as a member in the wards I will live in to make it a loving prosperous place, as far as bringing souls to Christ.

Saturday 23 February and Sunday 24 February, we had 13 appointments with people. Every single one fell through. However, we both sustained our positive attitudes and God blessed us because of it. Sunday, the first door we knocked on let us right in. It was a very long lesson. He talked about the struggles he's been going through. We taught the restoration (first lesson in Chapter 3 of Peach My Gospel) and I used a lot of scriptures. He told us we were scaring him because every single scripture we read he had pondered on semi-recently.

Also, there was a piece of paper that had phone numbers and names and looked like at some sort of even these names were collected from interested individuals. It didn't have a date and I found it right after I got to Orangeburg and my companion didn't know what it was. I almost threw it away a lot of times over the past three months but kept telling myself no matter how old it was (expectancy was 2+ years ago) it wouldn't hurt to call them anyway. One of the names had an associated address too. We called them all, none answered. Yesterday, we visited one of them, the only one that had an address. We were let right in but it turned out the person we were looking for wasn't home. As we were leaving, she got home and she was surprised to find out we were there for her. We found out it was an event from last summer that she had written her information down and nobody every followed up. We started to talk about how prophets need authority to do things like to baptize and she interrupted us to tell us she's been dreaming lately about going back to church and singing and that she has felt a great desire recently to be baptized again. We then invited her to be baptized and she told us how excited she is and described the Spirit to us and that was how she was feeling. Cool!

Saturday, the first person that opened the door (while knocking around our fallen through appointment) let us right in. He told us that he loved the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We taught him a little bit, described what a church service is like and he said, "Wow! Every church should be like that." (Did I mention he's a reverend?) He's all for coming to church next week with his wife too. (He's got to be a retired reverend).

The Lord blessed his obedient children. I promise, keeping the commandments is the answer 100% of the time. When we put God first, all else falls into place.

Elder Benjamin Walker

Be Bold, New Mission Boundaries

Yesterday was our ward conference. It was amazing. The spirit was very very strong. It had a conference atmosphere in our ward meetinghouse. I felt the "burning of the bosom," "enlighting of my mind," "still, small voice," and "peace to my soul" on several occasions yesterday during the 3 hours of church.... I made a mistake to not make a point to write down my impressions... and I can no longer figure out how to describe the atmosphere of the spirit and the things I was inspired to do I cannot remember, except for wanting to memorize D&C 64:33.

One of the things I am learning very fast with Elder Johnson (have I told you he's from Pleasant Grove, Utah yet?) is to be very bold. That kind of boldness that you had mother with that lesson you took part in over a year ago.

I am going to type up two examples of some conversations I had with some people in the last two days:

(outside in an apartment complex in the dark)

There was this guys we met that wasn't actively interested in learning about the gospel and he said, "I come and go, I'm not always around."

I said, "Great! that'll work perfectly, you can come to church and go after it's over." (I thought it was very clever).

(There is a family (of 2 non-members, 2 active members, 2 recent convers (also active), and other active kids) that we eat dinner at almost every sunday after church.)

One of the non-members has never gone to church and has no excuse to not go. I invited him to come to yesterday's church service last Sunday and he gave a without a doubt "no" response in a sarcastic "yes" answer (he's a jokester). Yesterday, as we were having dinner with them after talking for a couple minutes about him not coming to church when he said he would, his response was that he had something to do (which was to sit on the couch). Somehow in the conversation he brought up that he wanted us to make him dinner and I told him something like "I'd love to, but we don't make time to spend with people that don't keep their committments." He further asked us what day this week we wanted to go out to eat with him at 12pm. We told him a day that would work. (That is a big deal by the way, I don't think he's ever done that before.) He asked us how much time we had to eat and I told him, "Usually we keep our meals under an hour" and my companion added "...but we can spend a little more time afterwards if we teach a lesson to somebody". It was really funny, and he very well may accept to be taught the gospel after the lunch he is taking us out on on Thursday. Unfortunately, I may not be in town because of one of the exchanges that I'm going on.

Oh, I have to say something about the weather here. Almost every other day, or every other two days, for the past 2 weeks have flip flopped from about 70 degrees one sunny, no cloud in sight day -- to raining all day at 40 degrees with no sky in sight the next. That's South Carolina for you.

Robert, I am excited to read your talk. I really am. My heart already warms as I think about what you probably said.

Love you all lots,

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

P.S. We heard an early announcement, because it's affecting out mission, that 48 (I think) new missions are going to be opened up as of July 1st. One of which is the Georgia Macon Mission (it was disolved right before President Holm was the mission president). So there is a possibility that I will be in another mission on July 1st. I don't really want to. But there will probably be a couple missionaries that end up being part of that mission as this one splits. And combines with broken off portions of other missions.

Snow 'til Noon

I forgot to bring my planner where I made some notes of things to say. Of the things I can remember: It snowed yesterday. That was kind of cool. Snow stayed on the ground till about noon, sometime during church. That was fun. About time it snowed on my mission. Apparently everything shuts down when it snows. Nobody knows how to drive on the snow, even with just an inch or two or three, they shut down several schools less than an hour north of us. In Idaho or Utah, I can't imagine school being shut down for anything. I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I've been able to spend with Elder Johnson thus far. He's from Utah somewhere. We are emailing from a member's computer today, and we recently just finished playing basketball with Bishop and his son and a less-active member, whose computer we are using.

I'm glad to hear about my friends back in Modesto that are preparing for a mission. That is awesome. I'm excited that Ryan is now finally on his mission. He's been waiting a while for it now. He's probably long been ready to go. Collin and Jessica will both be great missionaries too. Collin is leaving with the Taylor boys... hmm... who are they again? I don't remember who the Taylor boys are. 

I've had some great studying about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and I am amazed about how much I have learned about it and I've realized that I should use the Gift of the Holy Ghost better as a teaching tool for what investigators should look forward to when they are going to be baptized. It's been a really good study. It's a lot easier to study when you are specifically looking for something when you actually study.

It's time to depart. love you all!

Baptism, Soon to be Training, Testimony

The baptism of Abigail went well. She's nine years old and I am super impressed with her commitment to Heavenly Father. There was great nurturing of her seed of the Word of God and her faith is unmistakably devoted to God's will for her. She probably knows more about the gospel for going to church for the last 3 or 4 months than I did at that time when I was nine. I'm very impressed with her.

Since I've discovered that you'll probably find out anyway because there is probably a letter like the last one you got that is going to come to you, I'm training a new missionary as of Wednesday Feb 13th here in Orangeburg; and I'm really excited for the opportunity to do so. (So Joshua, if you have any questions or suggestions about training a new missionary, I'd love to hear from you.) I probably won't have time to write any letters today. There is a lot of stuff to do... members always want to take us out to eat or make us dinner and with the time crunch with Elder Gonzalez leaving, it includes lunch too.

We are doing a pretty good job at involving/inviting members to do missionary work with us. The ward has developed a great relationship with the missionaries and they are praying regularly for "the missionaries" in our ward and for missionary opportunities for themselves.

Side note: next week is some sort of holiday, the library will be closed then. So expect a delayed email or perhaps an email sent on Tues.

I don't know why I'm all of a sudden out of things to say. I always have so much I want to tell you about right up until I start typing it all, then I forget everything or sum it up in a single sentence.

The work is definitely hastening. That I've been a witness to even in my isolated location of Orangeburg, South Carolina. It's a good thing the Lord's in charge concerning his work; you'd have to be a pretty good planner to figure out who goes on a mission or receives a calling when and where in the entire world to be the most effective about spreading the gospel to all nations, kindred, tongues, and people.

You are a good missionary mother! Keep it up.

I had previously always thought it was odd that sometimes that you (Dad) wait till the last minute to start packing for your week trip to Albuquerque. I have since learned that it really doesn't take that long to pack. If you do it enough times, you know exactly what you need where to get it and how to pack it.

I don't know why I'm out of things to say, but I am.

I'll just bear my testimony then:

I have come to realize in my life that the spirit influences righteous actions as long as I'm striving to do my best. Whether it is in planning for the next day, tracting, making phone calls, or visiting LA, former investigators, or presenting ideas to the ward council, etc, as long as it persuadeth men to believe in Christ and inviteth men to do good, it is from God (thanks to Joshua: Moroni 7:16 and surrounding verses). I know that this work is divinely orchestrated for our benefit. I have gained a testimony that no matter the circumstance, honesty is right 100% of the time and being a good example in difficult circumstances is always the right thing to do. I'm very grateful that the gospel blesses my life so much. Blessings are predicated upon the obedience of the law that God has established. It doesn't matter if you're living in a cardboard box eating bugs. When positive changes in life are yearned, pray earnestly for direction, then follow through with that direction, such as being worthy of a temple recommend including paying tithing. I know the gospel is true. Or I would have figured out I'm wasting my time and left the mission already. Ha! The Holy Ghost has manifested to me these things and witnessed to me of their truthfulness.

Dog Bite & Most Spiritual, Motivational Week

Written by Elder B. Walker's mother: "We received a notice from the Orangeburg Safety Patrol advising you of your rights as a victim of a crime.  I was somewhat confused. (Thought at first it was from Modesto.)  Went through a whole series of unlikely scenarios even though I KNEW you were fine.  Took the opportunity to speak with President and Sister Holms anyway.  What wonderful and kind people they are, and they had very, very, very kind things to say about you.  He told me a great story about his mission when he was bit by a dog -- policies were a little different back then, and his mission President told him to quit complaining and get back to work!  (I think he said that the dog took a whole chunk out of his behind, and that even the memory of the pain is still excruciating.)  Sounds like you will be fine and that everything is taken care of.  Actually, I was impressed that you didn't tell us, but you know your mom, she likes a good story.  (But she also worries -- probably best not to tell until later.)"
Just a small bit of advice.  Make sure that the owners of the dog are OK.  Forgiveness can go a long ways."

I think that is interesting that they sent something home for me about that. I was never going to tell you about it, just send you some pictures that I took of it after it doesn't hinder me any more.

First of all, president told me to tell you to not worry... don't worry Mom, I'm fine.

Since the beans have been spilled, I might as well tell you about it. In fact just this morning, a bruise from it finally showed up on part of my arm that has caused the most torment from the bite two weeks and two days ago. It seems to me, when deep puncture wounds take place, (the other one being the bike pictures you saw that jabbed my leg,) when the bruise finally shows up, it finally makes it to the downward slope of annoyance and pain and means it's pretty close to being healed now. Anyway, that particular home is a less-active's home that is a fairly new move-in and we've been trying to see them for months, but the roster has no phone # and they have three mean dogs that have an invisible fence that they can't pass that won't let us to the door. Well, one of the days we went to go see them and the dogs were probably behind the back of the house asleep, because they didn't wake up until we were almost at the house. We never were able to contact the member at the home, and the owner of the dog isn't the member at the house... so we decided that we are going to send them a letter today in the mail, maybe that will entice them to do something. There was also a big hassle to make sure the dog that bit me was quarantined for 10 days. Which the safety patrol police people didn't make sure happened from the get-go. So there was an annoying hassle with figuring out all that stuff out near the end of the 10 days (and they were closed over the weekend). They closed at 5pm Friday and open at 8am Monday... I called 4:59 Friday and they were already closed. and Tuesday the following week was the ten day limit. That was messy. I only called about everybody on Monday. Every person I talked to forwarded me or gave me another number to call because they said they don't deal with that stuff. I probably talked to 15 people last Monday trying to get somebody to do anything other than give me another number to call or send me to the phone book. It all got situated out eventually though. No rabies. If you are curious where it hurts, the muscle that you use for pullups hurts, I can't do a single pullup because of it, even hanging hurts... however, pushups & handstands apparently don't use that muscle because those don't hurt it at all. So whatever that muscle is, that's where the dog pucture bit me a couple weeks ago.

So, now that that story is out of the way. I want to let you know that these past two days have been among the most spiritual of my entire mission. My motivation and commitment, and drive to do missionary work has peaked very high (I don't want to say "peaked" because that sounds like it is now going to fall, which it isn't, I'm going to maintain this progression.) I have seen a lot of miracles and I am very very impressed with all that the Lord has in store for those. "The Lord requires so little, and in return gives so much." Just being obedient with all of the little things makes an enormous difference in missionary work. Our ward had a fireside last night and presented its ward mission plan with a bunch of other stuff. It is very good, and the members are getting all over missionary work too. This is a marvelous ward to be in. ... I intended to say a lot more about this stuff, so I'm just going to copy and paste what I sent President Holm and add it in here. I spent too much time talking about my dog bite that doesn't matter:

"President, the last 2 days have been among the most spiritual and motivational for me for my entire mission. I mean that sincerely. The week started slowly but as of Saturday afternoon blessings have been poured, literally poured into my desire to be an effective missionary. I can sincerely say that out of all my companions I have learned/changed/grown the most while being with Elder G--. We both have a great desire to do the Lord's work, and we're both willing to put all other things aside to do so. Our companionship study as of this morning is going to be tons more effective for teaching and preparing to teach investigators. We are developing a "game plan" that we'll probably share with you down the road assuming we finish it before either of us leave. (Or maybe we'll finish it later, who knows?). I am motivated, I am hungry for the gospel, to learn, to teach, to find, to work with members. I finally have the right mindset for most of the things associated with missionary work.  

I am thoroughly impressed with our Heavenly Father. He literally puts everything out on the table for us to use to be effective missionaries. It just takes the tiniest bit of inspiration for us to figure out how to get it from the paper, into action. Well, just to let you know president, it's being put into action here in Orangeburg; conveniently enough, the ward is being put into action at the same time. I have been very excited to do missionary work. I am very excited to do missionary work.  

"Fast and pray hard for this next transfer president. I caught a glimpse of this work moving exponentially. I know we both have absolutely no authority over the matter, but Elder G--'s and my personal hope is that we both stay here for another transfer. We know you are inspired though, so do what is the best for the Lord! 

"I love being a missionary! I would like to say that again. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! 

~Elder Benjamin Ray Walker
and we love you too president" 

btw: I'm supposed to make sure you send packages "priority mail" or I may not get it for a couple months. The mission office is no longer calling everybody regularly letting them know they have a package they can't forward so we can tell them what meeting to send it to. Apparently it is very time consuming.

Sincerely,

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

Goal Setter, Hitter and Exceeder

This week was a pretty good week. I have begun the process of being a master goal setter and a goal hitter, and also a goal exceeder.

It really does help me be a lot more focused to have goals to work towards. It takes a lot of pondering to figure out a method to make goals and have them organized and ready for review and fulfillment with them almost always at the head of thought. That was the hardest part for me to figure out so that I could actually set the goals and follow up on them.

Out of all of the places I will want to visit when I come back to South Carolina, my favorite will be in the middle of nowhere, in Orangeburg. The last entertainment anything was just closed. They just had the only movie theatre with 4 screens in Orangeburg County close because nobody wants to go the the movies. The members are awesome and I intend to spend time with some of them offering my service where I can help. There are a couple retired members that have experience with a lot of traits and they always keep themselves busy doing some other project. Bro Paul Ross and Bro Larry Odum especially. I look forward to coming back eventually.

There are many investigators that we are working with that are occasionally coming to church. Now they just need to figure out where they are at in life and act on the invitation to be baptized. They have all felt the spirit and they all know that this message is true, they are just scared of the required change of themselves. Isn't that all of our issues? We're just afraid of change? I think it's a big part of what prevents us from obeying all the commandments asked of us. There are a lot of borderline investigators that are inching their way towards the gate of baptism that leads to the path with the iron rod to the tree of life.

Our ward is awesome. They just finished the draft of the ward mission plan and the method they intend to implement it with the whole ward, and I think it's inspired. I'm expecting lots of miracles this year.

I have found that studying with a purpose, or with a question in mind makes a more meaningful study. Thus I am going to ask a question of you both that you are both obligated to help me with that will require the manageable task of a minimum of 16 thousand words each (or 24 thousand together will do). Here's what you can enlighten me on:

We often have investigators that tell us all of their life problems or experiences just to have somebody listen to them over the course of 30 minute intervals without us getting a word in. Many of those stories are very interesting, they usually aren't even boring, but it's not the best use of time. We also have investigators that like to go on a lot of tangents, people that ask questions that sort of are aligned with the lesson but not really and they won't accept a simple answer that we can pass by them to get back to the lesson or an answer like "if you get a testimony of the Book of Mormon, you'll get a testimony of that too, because it will fall into place." With some of the investigators, if we tell them we will answer their question later down the line, they still expect us to answer it by the end of the lesson which doesn't always happen because their question doesn't even apply to them or their salvation at the moment, and it would take an entire lesson to answer the one question. What do you suggest?

(Note: I have ideas on how to handle those kind of situations, and I've tried some of them and some work better than others, but I don't want to mention any of them to put words in your mouth to prevent you from getting some other answers that may help with teaching.)

Funny Moments

In talking about Elder B. Walker's younger brother, Elder J. Walker, and comparing the differences between their experiences leaving to report at the MTC.
Let me add a couple of things that also turned out differently between Joshua and I. Joshua doesn't need to find the bus that goes to Temple Square, then figure out which way is the east gate to drop off luggage (I think it was East). Instead, he gets to drive to there with a cousin. I also had Elder Fisher traveling with me to Utah, that was kind of fun.

I enjoyed church yesterday, it was very enlightening. Both talks were awesome, and I had a great scripture referencing time, the 2nd hour we talked about the spirit world in our group of 5 people 2 of which was our investigators, 2 was Elder Gonzalez and I, and Brother Chipman, who was subbing for the gospel principals teacher.

When I saw you all Tuesday [when he was able to Skype us for Christmas], I think Robert asked for some funny moments. Well, Sunday evening, we had some:

First of all we knocked on some doors 8pm. On the first door we knocked on, the person didn't have windows, a peep hole, or anything to be able to see us on the porch, they kept asking us who was there and after answering "church people," after answering missionaries for the fifth time through the door, they apparently still didn't know who we were, so they told us that they were calling the police, I replied, "ok, sounds good" and wondered off to the next house. The next person we spoke to (at the next house) we had this discussion with (I can't completely remember, but this was basically our conversation):

Us: "Hi we're missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We'd like to share..." (cut off)
Him: "Do you know what day it is today?"
Us: "We sure do, we actually have a..." (cut off)
Him: "It's Christmas day today, you couldn't have picked a worse time to go around knocking on people's door talking about the 'good news' " <slam>

The next person we talked to on the next door we had a great 5 min discussion with him and he told us what a great time of the year we chose to go out to share about Jesus Christ, and we scheduled a return appointment. We headed back to the car after that because we decided that that guy was the person we were prepared to find on this particular street and we watched a police officer pull onto the street and shine some sort of giant flashlight or spotlight on and around our car as we walked towards him. After he saw us he headed our way and spoke to us. We confirmed that we were probably the reason that the police officer was there and we directed him to the house that called him and we told him that we were going to continue knocking on houses the rest of the way down to our car.

Next house we knocked on was the one directly across the street from the house that called the police. The person told us how rude we were knocking on his door on Christmas trying to share about Jesus Christ and told us that his neighbor called him (same one that called the police) and that we need to go apologize to that person. Ironically, the police officer was talking to the person at the first door the same time we were talking to the mean neighbor both on their porches at the same time. I don't think the neighbors recognized that the police officer and us missionaries were talking to them both at the same time. It was pretty funny to me in the moment. It was really obvious which people we talked to on Christmas that were prepared and that found Christmas as an excuse to send us away. It was kind of fun... once again the library is closed, so I need to cut this short.

Love you all

Elder Benjamin Walker

Investigators' Micracles

I always enjoy hearing about the things that are happening at home. I have never felt any kind of remorse or discouragement for hearing about what is happening at home while I'm here, so keep the family news coming. I know why I'm on a mission, and nothing is going to distract me from it.

This is and excerpt of what I emailed President Holm:

We had a pretty good week. P. and B. both have outstanding faith. They are our investigators on date for December 29th. I must tell you their miracle display to us of their faith. Here's two of our little miracles for the week:

B. is a person that moved out here to Orangeburg because this is where his parents are and they opened up their home to him to live in for a time. He was just separated from his wife/baby's mother and gets to see his 2 year old daughter every weekend of so. B. came out here having just lost his job and two days later gets a job. His dedication enables him to drive three hours each way (6 hours total) to work every single day. As such, it wore on him pretty fast so he decided that he's going to stay out there for a week so he doesn't need to travel back and forth so often. Last Saturday night is two weeks before his baptism and we needed to teach him the Word of Wisdom so he can start living it before this week is over. B. is such a strong individual; he handed us his cigarettes and lighter and we swapped him for cinnamon toothpaste (which turns out is the same one he's used before and apparently works pretty well). He is a very strong individual and came to church yesterday and brought his two year old daughter. 

P. is in a similar situation-ish. He is leaving for 5 days this week as well, and he's also being baptized the same time B. is. Once again, we hadn't taught him about the Word of Wisdom yet. So, yesterday we saw him (he's out of state by now) and he told us of concerns that had been brought up to him from his old pastor, his friends, and family. They anti'd him. Good ol' P. though knew just what to do when he heard all the anti stuff; he went to mormon.org and read lots about it and watched a bunch of the videos. Problem solved. Then he just wanted to confirm what he understood with us. One of the things that his family/friends told him is that we would trick him into quitting his job so he would be a pastor of his own church for the Mormon church. He said, if that's true, then I'll do it, but I want to start the church back in my home in India. What a great guy... We also taught him the Word of Wisdom which we all know he's struggling with, and committed him to live it over the time that he'll be out of state. They are both so trusting in the Lord; they'll both surely be blessed for it.

I hope the package gets here by Tuesday night. Wednesday is our Christmas Zone Conference and we will receive the packages then. They can forward all mail to us that is "priority mail"; the packages that aren't priority wait till we have some sort of meeting large enough that either the assistants to the President or President himself attends.

We have been having lots of fun here in Orangeburg. The bishop is great, the ward is great, the people are great, our investigators are great. God is great, the Christmas season is great, Elder Gonzalez is great, and y'all great too (<-- that's southern talk for "you all are great as well" with emphasis on "you all").

Oh, by the way I didn't answer your question last week: I did receive the memory card, thank you for it. It's even twice the size of the one that broke. I'm probably going to send some stuff home that I ought not carry around with me, being dead weight, because I'm not going to use it on my mission, but rather after it.

Let Robert know that he would astound me if he reached my height by the end of my mission, and frankly, it's impossible to be my height without being able to grab the basketball rim. So if he wants to be as tall as me, he needs to grow in jumping capability and be able to touch/grab the gym basketball rim. It's a prerequisite to added height.

I love you mother, father, sisters, brothers!

Enjoy the new car Dad!

Elder Benjamin Ray Walker

In Orangeburg!

I'm in Orangeburg now and Elder Gonzalez is my companion (and he doesn't speak Spanish, lol).

Thus far in the city of Orangeburg, we've had a blast! This is probably going to be my favorite area. I'm in a situation where we are prone to expecting many miracles because of the obedience that we will be fulfilling here in this area. This is defiantly the most suthun ward I've been to so far. Maybe it's just because I'm coming from a military ward, where almost no one in the ward is actually from the South, but I think the ward is just a very South-Carolinian ward. Our area is humongous. It very well may be the largest area in our mission. That's pretty funny too. From the smallest area with 10 missionaries going to the ward in Goose Creek, to the largest area in Orangeburg with only two missionaries covering it. The other 4 missionaries in our district are either training or being trained, I haven't met them yet, just talked to them over the phone. I'll see them tomorrow during our district meeting. (Tomorrow will be a 100 mile round trip for the day to get to and from the district meeting including the 30 miles we usually spend in a day going to and from places). I am very grateful to be able to use a car in our proselyting here in Orangeburg. I biked mostly all this past year, and it's starting to get pretty cold again.

I've picked up reading "Jesus the Christ" again lately, and it is so much easier to understand now than it was at the beginning of my mission when I was trying to read it. I comprehend so much more now than I did before.

We are fed by a member almost every single day. I really like that. The Goose Creek ward couldn't feed us as much, and here they feed us a lot, even though it's a small ward. I also made a really good first impression on our bishop. I am glad that I did so, it makes the work so much easier in the specific ward that we reside. Our bishop is a very great missionary-minded bishop. Another thing funny about this ward is that about half of all of the active ward members are concentrated on two or three streets. In such a large area, they all live right next to each other. How's that work out? I haven't been out that far any of those two or three neighborhoods yet, but I heard that they are known as the "Mormon neighborhoods".

The investigators that we have are wonderful. Elder Gonzalez and I are great companions. I can't foresee anything that is going to keep us from moving the Lord's work along tremendously. I Love being a missionary!

This is also probably the nicest apartment that I've been in too, and there are only two people in it. Probably next transfer there will be two more missionaries coming into this area. I understand that our mission starts to get filled with the title wave of missionaries starting on January 2, 2012. The same day Joshua enters the MTC.

I am excited for this ward. I will enjoy my time here in Orangeburg.

Oh, on a side note: my GPS broke out of the blue with no warning. I hope it's still under warranty. Finally when we have a car, it just stops working and can't get past the loading screen and will only turn off if I leave it on the loading screen to run the battery out or hold the power button down for over 10 sec. It ought to be under warranty; it is supposed to be anyhow. I'll call them today because they were closed last week due to the holidays.

I love you all! Monica, don't just date the same person all the time! Joshua, I'll write you a letter today! Robert, put your growing on hold! Alexandria, just keep doing what you are doing, your on the right track! Mom & Dad, I will keep the 5th commandment and bring honor to you!

Hasta Luego!