Hi Hi Hi Happy New Year

sorry about not emailing yall for a while i have been so caught up this festive season seeing people round the clock. it is impressive we did a flood the world activity where we wrapped book of mormons nicely i even learned how to tie a bow!!! and we gave those to people who where working on christmas security guards the people working at a pizza place even to two police officers. that was an interesting story we walked up to them and one of them whent for his gun but i put out my hand to shake his and he relaxed a little we asked if we could talk to them and they said that they had to be somewhere. so we walked with them explaining about the book of mormon and how it changed our lives and we wanted to give it a chance to change other peoples lives. they both accepted one and the next day we got calls from both of them as well as 2 other people that we had given book of mormons the day before... it was an incredible experience... sorry i wont be sending pics till next year as i cant figure out what is happening with this computer and my memory card i bought another one but i think that it is just the computer port isnt working so i am going to get a usb converter see if that works next week till then merry late Christmas if i didnt get a chance to tell it to you yet and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! make this year a good one!!!!

Elder Whiting,

update

so yea stanger round 2 i am shocked... there has been so much change and apparently i am included in said change people say that i am taller now people say that i talk more maby a little too much ugh some people well here is the thoughts. life is like a deck of cards individually each card is worthless nothing but a piece of paper. but as soon as you bring them all together you have something great that you  can do countless things with. and on a spiritual side we each have something unique about us now we might not  e able to see it now and we might not be able to see it alone but it is there and when we find it we need to use it  because what i have found is every gift that we can get from God dosent really benefit ourselves rather it benefits others so yea spread your gift and get ready for this christmas it is going to be fun

Elder Whiting,

happy birthday to me happy birthday to me happy birthday to me ee happy birthday to me

so exciting news for those of you who either a didnt know of b didnt read the sub title its my birthday today yay meee i am so importiant but i get to celebrate with someone else not far from me there is a little girl member if you remember from a cupple o weeks back her birthday is tomorrow her name is tatum and we will be celebrating together it is so exciting i am so pumped. and more exciting news try to guess..................................................................................................... ok you have had long enough i am going back to an old area i am going back to stanger my second area from what is it now almost 15 months ago!!! that is cool in my mind i will get to see all the people i was teaching i am excited and i dont have to leave this culture of indians i have a new soft spot for indians they are dope and my companion makes some pretty good curry anyway my new companion will be a brazillian i think his name is elder andrade so fun anyway still working out the picture situation will be pics next week though promise!!! love you all in different ways depending on who you are but remember you are all importiant in both my eyes and the eyes of God

Elder Whiting,

so my memory card...

um so here it is i didnt have my memory card this week i loned it to a member to pull the pictues off of it and i left it at their house so no pictures this week sadly. this week was interesting ran into a few drunk people that had interesting things to say one of them started talking to us and as soon as he saw the badges his eyes whent huge and he was like "you one of them Jesus followers!!!" at which point we said yes we belive in Christ and his responce i thought would be leave me alone instead he said "can you help me?" so we are teaching him now and he is really interesting. i love it out here and i think that the thing that has changed the most (because this was the most asked question last year about this time) would be my faith/patience in it  see things dont happen immediatly even if we want it. faith is like a tool ment to be tested by the winds of time not a one time use. we need to try it see what it can do and then we find out miricles.. well i love you all and cant wait to talk to you soon...

Elder Whiting,

sorry gonna be short

hey guys so here is what is up this week i slammed my finger in a lock and it basically ripped the tip of my finger off (fair warning for those who look at the pictures today so i am not typing as much today as i usally do due to the fact i dont want it to rip open again. so here is the spiritual thought yesterday there was a baptism for a little 8 year old girl (not mine) but it was incredible it was from another ward but yet most of the ward made the 30 min commute to be there for the little girl and it astonishd me the fact that they where willing to make that sacrifice i guess that is the true meaning of friendship when we are willing to do whatever to support those we love and i want all of you to know that i miss and love you all.

Elder Whiting,

gobble gobble

happy thanksgiving! well not yet but hey by the time that some of you read this it might be so yay for planning ahead if you want you can open this at thanksgiving again just for the experience but hey remember what the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result so it is up to you if you are insane or not... anyway i think that i am insane or i thought i was. 

this week i have a weird experience me and my comp, or my comp and i for those who like to criticize grammar, where out tracting and for those of you who dont know that term tracting is going door to door knocking to see if anyone is interested in your message and missionarys have been doing that for well since the begining i guess but i decided to change that... instead of doing the same thing every day all day because well we now have 6 people who are interested in the church and well other than that we have time to find. i plan to do service instead. me and my companion/ my companion and i plan to go to the hospital in the area and work there as service but turns out missionarys have been doing that for ever in this area so there it goes 

I  AM INSANE!!!

other than that we had a nice week and as for the spiritual side there was a kid that we are teaching that told us that he is no longer interested but i sat next to him on the taxi ride to stake confrence and i think that i figured out why so i was talking to him and suddenly he told me that he wants to be baptized again i asked him why and he said that it was because someone was willing to reach out. the lord works in mysterious ways i didnt intend to do that but it worked out also fun fact his sisters birthday is the same as yours grandma call the day after mine!!! how exciting we are going to have a party!!! that is if i am still here hopefully i will be

Elder Whiting,

hey

hey guys sorry about last week when i was emailing there was a freak storm and the internet kept cutting in and out and eventually i just gave up on it but hey i am still alive!!!! so here is what has happened in a nutshell. you all know about my companion elder ruben he is cool he is from the fiji islands has a small family all boys 5 of them to be exact and he loves the ocean as for myself i had an incredible experience i am currently teaching a hearing and speach impared lady and so she is using what she can to try to teach me sighn language and with some help of a chalk board i am learning it is so cool to be able to speak with your hands other than on a keyboard... anyway recently there was a event in indian culture called diwali it is the celebration of the return of the rightfull heir to the throne and there is a lot of food and a lot of fireworks... it was a fun celebration and we celebrated with the members that live above us they had one firecracker called the daddy bomb and on the side it read "who's your daddy?" for those of you who watched master of disguise and anyway it was about an inch and a half in diamater and about 5 inches long it really looked like a stick of dinamite and anyway they let me light it off as they didnt want their 12 year old to light it off so i lit it and ran like well a borebull for those of you who read my previous emails and when it whent off i found out what the lable ment it sent out a literal shock wave that you could feal my ears didnt register the boom till about 3 seconds later it was awesome!!! anyway spiritual side

my spiritual side this week is learning just how powerfull this area is there is 10 investigators that the ward found and out of those 10  i think that maby 5 will be baptized before the end of the year and of those 5 there where 4 who told the bishop that they wanted to be baptized it was incredible this area is blessed. 

Elder Whiting,

update

i am leaving nooooooo the most blessed area in the mission and i am leaving i am now going to chatsworth back in durban but here is the kicker i will now be around indians like spicy curry indians guess i can start putting the toilet paper in the freezer now better prepare but my companion is elder ruben and sorry mom you will probably not be able to visit his family as they live in fiji so yea sorry for that sad news but yea that is basically what is happening lots of stress but i will figure it out

Elder Whiting,

hey hey hey

hey guys i finally recovered from last weeks service projects but i am still so tired... anyway we had another baptizm this week that was exciting this one has been in the works for about 3 years on and off and we finally came through exciting. pictures to come no interesting service projects although i felt like a hero on thursday when i was biking along and this lady little old lady was walking a pit bull on the sidewalk well i was in the road and kept biking along greeting her as i whent past but then i realized the dog was snarling on my rear tire and the lady didnt let go so i slamed on my brakes fliped around and grabbed the dog while my coompanion helped the lady get up. we are pretty sure that she dislocated her sholder and probably did some other damage but she brushed it off. what a champ she then got up took the leash from me and said thank you for catching him and i even got a pat on the head before she headed off twards the hospital across the street.. but hey that was my good deed for the day i felt like a true hero. anyway a picture email will be coming shortly after this

Elder Whiting,

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh everything hurts!!!!!

so this week has been a service week for me. yea it involved a bucket a pool a schovel a pick and a bike. here is how it whent i biked about 8 miles out to a place called ficard park (not that that means anything to some of you but hey to others maby) after the bike ride i spent 7 hours draining a 55 thousand liter pool with a tiny 5 liter bucket. then cleaned the pool with a broom and soap and a little low pressure hose. after that we biked back. day 2 we dug a trench for another guy and yea also by hand pick and schovel so the third day i woke up stood up and bent over to tie my shoes and nierly fell over because muscles decided not to support me. after that i tried to sit on the couch and nierly passed out due to pain. but hey it felt good to do all that work... and yea baptisms we had 2 baptisms and 1 more next week i am so excited.

Elder Whiting,

 most recent

Elder Whiting,

here is a link in case any one lost it... and there is extra photos that i will explain now first is my sutu gear, then a cute little girl named aiesha so much energy meat meat and more meat this was my dinner in prep for confrence... then there is ramond ieshas unkle and he passed out during confrence... then there is a bug that i sarinated in the shower. i found out that i aint cut out for merry go rounds anymore. the pool i drained a cool dog that just watched while i drained the pool  and finally a  pic from the baptism sorry there isnt more the others didnt turn out

Elder Whiting,

mother this email if mainly for you but to those whom it might concern

Hello fellow humans from earth just to let you all know so you don't freak out when you do not hear from me on Monday our preparation day is being moved temporarily to Tuesday as our zone meeting will be being held on Monday so yea i will be emailing on Tuesday instead of Monday.

Elder Whiting,

hello hello hello

sorry about my briefness last week i thought i sent an email out at the begining but i recived an email from my mother asking about the grupe note and yea i checked and nothing so yea sorry again but this week i have big news this up coming sunday there will be 3 baptizms followed by another 3 the next week and another 1 later on so yea exciting.

he had one question though and that was how hard is the interview and i told him it was as easy as riding a bike. turns out he didnt know how to ride a bike so yea that didnt work out. but hey they got through it and i taught him how to ride a bike and we had some fun...

love you all

Elder Whiting,

hi guys

so not too much has changed recently today i mannaged to go to yet another braii at the zoo that was coool i enjoyed the monkeys enjoyed too. yes we where raided but hey my mother said to share so... but hey they also took a plan of salvation pamphlet so good

Elder Whiting,

doon du ba doon doon du ba doon doon do ba doon doon da doon

so yea song from the past in choir anyone who can guess it kudos but hey life is good my new comp elder miller and i have been having a blast tons of fun it has been hard due to the fact that A we have been working in white neiborhoods and the africaaners dont seem to like us that much and B due to point a we taught 0 lessons for the past 4 days but hey we have a lesson later today so that should be fun but on a more spiritual standpoint here we go.

the previous missionaries that where serving in the university area had an incredibal experience that i learned about and thought that you guys might enjoy they where teaching a guy who is powerfull he was talking about the plan of salvation or in other words Gods plan for us to return to live with him. and anyway he got to the point where man was created and he asked the question "if God created the earth and all of the animals, why didnt he stop there? all the animals and the earth obeyed his every will, so why did he create us?" later in the lesson he got his answer and i think that this is powerfull. the elders asked him his question again and asked how he felt. his responce was as follows. 

"I feel that God had a hole in his heart that he needed to fill. So he created us. a creature that has the potential to become like him. a son if you will" it blew me away this investigator mannaged to answer his own question. he was so stubborn but as soon as he opened his heart the spirit entered and gave him an answer so clear that i dont even think that i could have answered it better. so my challange to you all this week is think about how you can let the spirit in how can you get your answers? and then do it.

love you all,

Elder Whiting,

my mission photos from bloemfontein

Elder Whiting,

hectic week

this week was cool but hectic because we had to prepare to move my companion to the ufs campus that is where he will be working there now and i am getting another elder elder miller he is from arizona so i have heard but that is about it so yea that will be exciting today we whent to the zoo had a braai (a bbq on the next level) and got ready to release elder fulmer from the grasps of mission life he is going home tomorow so yea exciting. 

Elder Whiting,

Africaans

yo its yo boy elder whiting my little sister desided to start using the word yo so i decided to try it but i dont think it suits me so i guess that is it but things have been good i had an incredible experience where my investigator realized some incredible things and yea basically converted himself it was cool but the thing that stuck out is the fact that he said he was studying music and came across the idea "God didnt create color to make differences between things God created color to make beauty in all things" it was incredible and that is my thought this week what colors are you choosing to show the dull browns and blacks or the bright greens and reds and yellows. choose who you want to be love you all stay safe

Elder Whiting,

just for those who are curious i want to start learning languages so i will post my favorite phrases here just in case you want to learn too

kiss me in africaans (not for use on mission) soen my pronounced soon meh

Elder Whiting,

yea this is a title

how are all of you doing i just want to start with i miss you all and hope your dreams come true. but hey that out of the way things have been cool out here in south africa exciting it is weird in our house there are 2 ends of the spectrum one elder that has like 2 weeks left and one that is only 4 weeks old it is interesting to see the dynamics and see the difference in behavior. we had some dope meetings including one that scheduled a braai. (equivilancy of a bbq) and one powerfull investigator. more on that later. although things have been hard due to the fact. that we knock a lot of gaits. and verry big dogs called boerboels. but yea.

on the spiritual side we met one investigator named daniel and he seemed sketchy but later we learned that he got in a biking accident and when they opperated the machine cut one of the main veins in his neck and put him into a stroke. which led to a 3 month coma in which his wife saw an oppurtunity and took all his stuff about 700,000 worth in assets and cash and hit the wind. but what blew me away was my companion asked one question after all of this was said he asked "has this all drawn you closer or pushed you away from God?" to which he responded with "closer, only closer" so my question is do your trials push you away or pull you in?

Elder Whiting,

Matsoho a Hlatsoa

what is up guys things have been exciting here in bloemfontein. man 4 man boardings are exciting it is like a party every night but i curl up on the couch while the other three have a discussion i read my book and eventually fall asleep in the corner at which point my comp wakes me up and says that it is time for bed. ugh. better than getting beat with a pillow then trying to go to sleep again. 

the spiritual side of this message is in the title matsoho a hlatsoa what that means is hands wash each other in sutu. what that entails is the fact that you cannot wash one hand only and one hand cannot wash itself so in order for the hand to get clean it has to have support from the other. showing that we have to work together to become clean though one of us may be dirtier than the other. love you all stay safe i will see what i can do along the lines of pictures because the computer is being finicky

Elder Whiting,

yo yo yo

the greatest toy in the universe why because this week was fun. not too much happened other than my rump hurts from biking everywhere. my comp had a hard time after we got our bikes repared then we whent less than a block and he did a little bunny hop off the curb and wreaked his rear rim so he had to go sheepishly back to the repair shop to get it replaced. yea that was pretty great the guy had one coment after we came in he said "i think that i have your problem figured out. you are trying to do high performance tricks with a not so high performance bike" yea pretty great cool guy

on the spiritual side we had an incredible experience in the boarding i was sitting on the couch eating cornflakes with peanut butter- a new favorite - and the other elders came in and had one big thought and that was something that their investigator told them it was in responce to a survey that they where handing out on campus and one of the questions is do you think that life is fair? to wich the person responded "life is fair to everyone in the fact that it is fair to no one equally" that blew me out of the watter it goes back to our trials our trials may seem harder than someone elses but until we are experiencing their trial with their circumstances it is better to realize that god is fair to all. well sorry guys no pics this week still trying to find my camera again but hey yea it is somewhere in my luggage

Elder Whiting,

ja ja binkses

just cause i cant figure out what to call these any more. how are things back home and here they are good it has kinda been hard but yea things are working out slowley that tends to happen when you get transfered you got to get your feet back under you but hey life happens. and as a wise teacher's wall once said life might drag you back but we must remember that even the great tiger takes a step back before leaping forward.

pics to come love you all

Elder Whiting,

yea yea yea

so how is it yall things are great in lesotho but sadly my time is short here i am leaving... yep you all heard me right TRANSFERS!!!!! yes i am going to an area called bloemfontein it is really exciting after all of this time in township i will be going to town so yea i am so excited how are yall i want to know send me an email update me yes please

pt 2

so yea that being over with things have been good this week it has been a little hectic because i am leaving so saying goodbye is hard but it will pass. on top of that i had an exciting experience i was walking along and not one not 2 but thr33 less active members stoped us and said that they would come to church telling us what happened. it is just like in the best 2 years we where walking along and nothin then we knocked on this ladys door and nothin then i realized what was wrong you know where he wanted to go THE GROCERY STORE!! yea right place at the right time God prepares those that we teach.

pictures to follow

Elder Whiting,