Sapo Verde to me

Hey all you people, hey all you people, hey all you people why´dn´t 
you listen to me, 
 
I liked what Marissa said, ``happy thanks-Craigy day´´. But I would 
just like to add that it wasn´t only a day, but a week! So it´s really 
funny that Cameron said, ``...I hope you are content with the kind of 
birthday you had because, news flash, birthdays aren't celebrated once 
you are 20.´´ Perhaps; but for me, I feel like the whole mission 
celebrated it! Let me explain. 
Monday (after emailing you guys that sad week) - Letters and packages 
arrived just in time for my birthday. Those are some of the best gifts 
in the mission. 
Tuesday - Some more letters came, and even my pensionista from Potosi 
sent me a package :). Also, I´ve mentioned in the past that we haven´t 
had a house phone for over 4 months, and I need to call my district! 
Well, the mission gave me a cell phone that day. They´re experimenting 
with the Elders and me with cell phones. It´s quite ironic because my 
trainer had a cell phone, but it was breaking the rules. Now I have 
one and it is allowed. It´s like commandments given by God. Sometimes 
we just need to be obedient. 
Wednesday - It was the census day. We had to stay in our house 24 
hours so that we could have the census given to us. That was a nice 
day full of peace 
Thursday - Normal, but we put 2 baptism dates for december and I feel 
like that is a present from my investigators. 
Friday - My actual b-day. I woke up taking a nice icy cold shower 
because it exploded on my companion the day before (I´m surprised he´s 
still alive...). But it was funny cause I was singing to my self, 
``happy birthday to me, my shower is icy....´´ while slowly getting 
myself wet little by little. But the rest of the day went pretty well. 
At my pensionista´s house, the husband that isn´t a member bought me 
cake (we made the brownies the next day) and pizza (yea!). American 
style! I sent pictures of the tradition here to smash the person´s 
face in the cake. 
Saturday - I saw you guys´ video. I also saw your ``cut-out´´ or your 
first try and then the retake. You got my pensionista´s family 
laughing. They probably think we´re a bit...odd. By the way, I was 
singing that song ``happy birthday, blahhh´´ during my b-day and 
nobody knew what was going on until after they saw the video. Also at 
the end, mom was singing a different song while dad was talking in 
spanish and cameron was singing in Portegues. Please, one at a time. 
But it was a nice surprise 
Then today, Monday - We went on a mini vacation. Let me explain. In 
the month of Oct, there was a competition amongst the missionaries in 
each zone. The President said that the zone that gets the most 
baptisms per missionary wins and gets to go to Chapari and eat trucha. 
Well, we won. Chapari is in the jungle about 4 hours outside of 
Cochabamba. It was sweet, I´ll send you cool pics in another email. 
Trucha is a type of jungle fish. Hermana Dyer took a pic of me kissing 
the fried fish.... yeah. 
 
So I got to thinking this week about expectations because all this 
stuff, I didn´t really expect. I was just expecting.... just about 
nothing. But I guess it goes in line with what Jeffery R. Holland said 
about that about two conferences ago, ``Surely the thing God enjoys 
most about being God is the thrill of being merciful especially to 
those who don´t expect it and often feel they don´t deserve it.´´ 
That´s how I probably felt and I know that God has been merciful with 
me in the past many times even though I probably didn´t deserve it. 
But also, then again, to expect or to hope is also a good thing, when 
it is used for the right things like an expectation/hope for a better 
life, world, etc. 
 
Well, that´s about it for the Birthday week. Keep on praying for me 
and the other missionaries. I can definitely feel it. For example, I 
feel like this week there was more people thinking and praying for me 
because the work went alot smoother. Usually it takes quite an effort 
to find people, set baptism dates, teach people great lessons; 
however, this week was like a breeze and I konw it was because of your 
prayers. Thank you, 
 
-Elder Walker

Fotos de Chapari

Cool no, I got more pics if you want to see them. There was some cool 
fog happenin in the jungle

. 

 Other random photos

I know I know, a lot of photos. But alot of things happend these past few weeks.

I am grateful....

Dear family,

I love you, but must keep this short, for my time here in Spain is short.  I´m glad to hear you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving.  As for me Thanksgiving was a new experience.  We fasted, yep without for for 24 hours, 2 meals.  Why?  As our goal for this mission is to reach 600 baptisms for the year of 2012 President had asked that starting this month we do a 40 day fast.  Of course it landed in the Hospitalet Hermanas lap to fast Thanksgiving day. So the four of us had an opportunity to be spiritually aware of what we are truly grateful for...one of them being food of course jaja.  We then ended our fast the next day on all the many leftovers members have sent our way.  I have never been fed so much food in my whole mission!  Lately the members have been giving and giving.  Very nice of them, even though some don´t have very much.  Such a difference in South American food verses Spaniard food.   

What a miraculous week!  We finally got some to church!  I don´t know why it´s been such a struggle for us, but it has.  Daisy, an investigator who said she couldn´t come due to other committments suprised us and showed up to church.  It was perfect because it was the Primary Program.  We took Hermana Paces advise and brought her front and center so everyone knew we had someone important.  She was deeply touched and loved that the church is like a family.  I truly think it was a huge step in her conversion. 

I was deeply impacted and learned many things this week from Elder and Sister Richards, a General Authority who came to our mission this week.  Something I loved the most that he said was, "We need to answer the question they should have asked."I have noticed this week it works and they respect you.

As for my dear companion Hermana Johnson.  I have learned a lot from her in just 2 weeks.  She is slow to anger, loving so very loving, sincere, funny, hard-working, contacts, listens, smiles, you can just tell that she is and has been an effective missionary.  How grateful I am for this opportunity to learn from her. 

Hope you all have a fantastic week as you put up those Christmas lights and start up the Christmas music!!!!!!

Sincerely,
Hermana Walker

HAPPY THANKS-CRAIGY DAY!!!!!!!!!

Dear Family,

I don´t think I´ve ever worked so hard in my whole mission or with any other companion!!!  We seemed to always be go go go this week and I like it like that!  I just have such a desire to really and I really give it my all with such little time left on the Lord´s errand.  I love the mission and will miss it so I don´t won´t to regret my last moments out here.  Hermana Johnson and I are just working our tails off!  I love her work pace!  It just seems to work with mine.  I so happy to have her as my last companion in the mission.  What a great way to end.  She is from San Diego, California and goes to BYU too. What I love most about her is her attitude.  What more can we do?...always her attitude.  Something I also respect about her is she never talks negative about anyone or anything.  She just laughs if there is a sticky situation and then I can´t help but laugh!  We laugh and laugh...but I mean we just DO WORK (as Elder Tirado always says-zone leader).  Seriously, I don´t think I´ve ever worked as hard as we have worked this week in my whole mission or with any other companion.  I´m exhausted, but so content!  We just work, work, work!!!  Great way to end my mission!!!  FIGHT THE WAR!!!!!!!!

President came to our ward this week and gave a talk, he´s wonderful!!!!  First of all it was dramatic when last minute the Priests realized there wasn´t any bread and used crackers instead last minute.  Anyway, we share the ward with the zone leaders, so anyway so he gets up and talks about each one of our successes and strengths as missionaries to the whole ward.  This man has an incredible memory!  I was touched.  My companion gave a talk and made me cry....I think I´m just getting more emotional the closer it gets to the end of this great journey...I DON´T WANT TO LEAVE YET!!!!!  We were also fed sooooo much this week!!!!!

We saw so many miracles this week.  One I would like to specify was a Spaniard who is Athiest.  We had had one lesson before with him, but hadn´t passed by in over 3 weeks.  We were fired on so decided to pass by.  He read over 50 pages of the BOM!!!  We asked him if he would say a prayer that night to ask God if he was there and is real.  He said out of curiousity yes he would.  As we testified to him the spirit was so strong!!  We felt it and we knew as we looked into his eyes he felt it.  It was the best lesson ever!  He excepted a visit back, we are really excited to teach him tonight and invite him to be baptized.   Afterwards Hermana Johnson got in the elevator and just gave me this huge hug and then we said a prayer of thanks. 

It was such a great and fun week!!!  I just want to testify that the power of God, the spirit is real.  It testifies to our heart the truth of all things.  We must learn to submit ourselves to it to feel it´s power work in our lives.  Then submit our will to the will of the Father.  I love you all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING, CRAIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY, hope you are all enjoying this time of the holidays with family.  GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT THIS WEEK AND FIGHT THE WAR FOLKS!!!!!!

-Hermana Walker

600 baptisms for 2012!!!  FIGHT THE WAR!!!!!

I just don´t know

Dear family, 
 
Good news, I磎 still here. And it磗 my birthday this week. I guess 
I磍l be celebrating big 20 by contacting people, visiting my 
investigators and members. I磍l finish it off with some brownies that 
I磍l make with my pensionista that mom sent. They磛e been staring at 
me tooo long. 
 
My companion is wierd. but a pretty cool guy at the same time.... I 
guess what I磎 trying to say is that he磗 a nerd. We walk alot. Every 
time we walk for more than 10 min (which is everywhere) he tells me a 
scary stories that he says are real (he磗 serious) and loves to write 
them as well. Every time he talks, he talks in a scary voice. 
Sometimes we walk for an hour at night to go home. I don磘 like scary 
stories or movies. My mind ponders things too much. Also, when he 
hears a song that he knows, he starts dancing his own style, 
especially when we磖e in public. Every stares at us. ( hmmm, maybe I 
should start charging people to watch my companion dance..) I often 
ask myself, ``why do I always get the companions that love to sing, 
but can磘?创 Sounds kind of mean; but just please hit the note, you磖e 
almost there, but just.. I don磘 know. 
 
But if people are like a mirror, or in other words, if we see in 
people the things that we are self-concious about, Am I like that!? 
nah 
 
I really just don磘 know, this week I磛e been pretty low and it磗 
probably because I was sick and I still have a little cold. My loads 
just too heavy. And I磎 weary. You guys should give me something 
motivational or something cool. I feel like Zac Efron, I just need to 
get me head in the game. I mean, I know what I have to do because I磛e 
been doing it in the past months. But everytime I feel like giving up, 
there磗 a place within myself that I feel saying, ``when you磛e given 
your all but it磗 not enough, when the journey is long and road is 
rough; there is still hope if you only see that there磗 a light at the 
end of this endless road, filled with love strong enough to lift any 
load. And it磗 so easily done for you, why磗 it so hard for you, to 
believe.创 
Maybe I磍l feel better next week after my birthday :) 
 
-Elder Walker 

mission tour Itinerary.....

Spain Barcelona mission tour Itinerary 2012!  (rough draft)

Lunes

10 arrival

Greetings/Hugs/pictures/emotion/JOY

11-3  Las Ramblas, beach, boardwalk

3 Medio dia- sack lunch provided by hermana Walker

4-6 Hermana Walker´s exit interview with Presidente (this is where you can do whatever)

7-8 FHE (noche de hogar) con Gladys

8-10 Las Fuentes en Plaza de España

11:30 Bed

MaRtes

7:30 Arise missionary style

9-12 Plaza de España Bull Ring, palace, olympic stadium

12:30-2 Montjuic Castle look out

2-4 Medio Dia lunch  con  miembros o CR

After lunch Sagrada Familia, las ramblas, shop, look, etc.

5:00 Dinner/testimony meeting

8:00 Cantando con los Angeles-Plaza Catalunya

Return to bed and breakfast?

11:30 Bed

Miercoles

7:30 Arise missionary style

Parque Guells

Eat

Mount Tibibago

Eat with member/CR

Leave to Zaragoza??

Stay with Abel y Maria Jesus

11:30 Bed

Jueves

7:30 Arise missionary style

Arrive in Zaragoza??

Pilar

Nativity, shops, cathedral

Medio dia lunch with Carla and Ignacio

Puerta de Carmen walk-visit recent converts, members

Roman Remains

Eat with the Churches (dinner)

Visit members, recent converts

11:30 Bed

Viernes

7:30 Arise missionary style

Chapel, last minute park, algo más que queremos ver, extra cositas

Train to Pamplona

Medio dia – eat with member, CR

Running with the Bulls tour

Beatriz

Visit Tamar´s shop

Casco Viejo Walk

Stay with Las Cuevas y converso reciente

11:30 Bed

Sabado

7:30 Arise missionary style

Castle Walk

Zoo/Park

Bull Tour

Medio Dia with the Lerminez family

Carcel Hike

Visit more member, CR

Stay with Las Cuevas or train ride back to Barc.

11:30 Bed

Domingo

Church in Pamplona or  Hospitalet-not sure yet?? 

Lunch with Jackeline and family

Area walk, visit recent converts, members

Noche de Hogar con mis tres familias favoritas en la casa de Geanine.

Not sure if you want to get a hotel or stay with a member....let me know soon!

11:30 Bed

Lunes

HOME IN TIME TO SEE SANTA and OUR LORD AND SAVIOR BORN!!!!!!

LOVE YOU!!!!

Hermana Walker

oo I feel a breeze

Wazz up! 
 
This week was pretty awesome! First of all, the transfers. My new 
companion arrived Wednesday and he´s awesome. He´s a recent convert 
from about 1 year and a half ago from Lima, Peru. He´s very calm and 
listens to the spirit well. We get along very well. The only problem 
is, he´s a bit quiet or shy when finding people, so I usually do most 
of the talking to get in the door, or contact on the street, and to 
start the lesson. But he´ll get over that soon. 
What´s up the bugs here. Every night this week, we have found mini 
scorpians in our bathroom. There have been more spiders than normal 
here as well. I thought I had a blood blister on my toe for two weeks 
after playing soccer one day. But it kept getting bigger so I decided 
to pick at it. After a few ``pickings´´ I scooped up the whole bloody 
thing. It was like a ball. It was actually a bug here that usually is 
found on dogs. They suck the blood until they are a big blood ball. 
Same thing happened to me and now I have a crater in my toe... weird. 
Imagine going to sleep here! 
Elder Steve Alan, the president of the missionary work in the whole 
world, a co-author of Preach my Gospel, and the director of the videos 
that all the missionaries have (district 1 and 2), came to our mission 
this week. We had a zone conference with him. Wow! that´s all I could 
really say. I was very inspired to be a better missionary and got more 
ideas on how to work. Here are some interesting things and things that 
I need to work on: 
-Each lesson we teach, we need to make an outline 
-We should write down the things that the spirit indicates to us 
-In our lessons, was the spirit the senor companion, the junior, or 
wasn´t there at all 
-Don´t be surprised when people don´t want you back if you have a 
lesson longer than 45 min 
-When we answer all their questions right away, they don´t really want 
more. There´s nothing more to keep them interested. 
-The internet, ipods, ipads, smart phones and other things that the 
Apostles said were made strictly for missionary work, we don´t use as 
missionaries. Why, it´s because they don´t fully trust us as 
missionaries to use them only for the work and not other things. Also, 
we don´t even all wake up at 6:30, how do we expect to receive these 
things if we can´t obey the small stuff. 
-Jesus wasn´t baptized for a remission of his sins, but to be obedient 
to the Father 
-Everything starts with a vision, then a goal, then a plan 
-You need to return and report after you follow through with your 
plan, everyday. 
-The next time you go to the temple, ask the Father to help you learn 
more about accountability. 
-A group of zone leaders in Peru asked him why they can´t baptize 
thousands of people just like those missionaries in the Bible and Book 
of Mormon. He told them to take out their agendas and then asked, 
``who has a 0 written in your goals for the next week. All of their 
hands went up. ``I rest my case.´´ We don´t even have enough faith to 
put a 1 in the goal box for the next week. 0 isn´t a goal. You could 
stay home all day and get 0. But someone called out in his winey 
voice, but we don´t have any investigators that have more than two 
attendences in the church. He replied to look in the area book. There 
are old investigators that could be baptized this Saturday if they 
desire to be. So the story continues that that one missionary went 
home and looked in his area book only to find many candidates. He 
found one that was ready and was baptized that Saturday. Have faith, 
the end. 
 
 
Mom asks,  ``What did you mean about ironing sox?´´ Well I guess 
here´s another analogy more clearer for you and I want you to tell me 
what it means. Those with ears let them hear. 
There were two fishermen who went out to fish one Saturday. The first 
one (let´s name him Craig) woke up bright an early (6:30) so that he 
could prepare for his trip. He all ready himself with his new fishing 
jacket and pants. Then packed all the things necessary like: a fishing 
rod, a hook, a net, bait, extra gear, his fishing boat and other 
supplies for that, etc. Then he packed his lunch and left for his 
trip. It takes about an hour to get to his spot that he likes to fish. 
He arrived at about 10:30. He unpacked everything fast and rowed his 
boat to his spot. His hook and bait was in the water at exactly 11 
o´clock waiting for the fish. 
The other fisherman (let´s name him Pepe) woke up early as well, but 
he turned back over, because he was exhausted for the day before, for 
another hour and a half. He re-worke up and rushed to pack everything 
to get to his special fishing spot at 11´o clock as well. He arrived 
also at 10:30 in time just to find out that he forgot his bait and his 
own lunch. So he rushed back home, picked up his bait, packed a lunch 
at left again. This time he arrived at 12:30, but didn´t actually get 
out in the water until 2, and his hook in the water at 2:30. 
If they both had to be home by 6, who caught more fish in that day? 
 
-Elder Walker 

A short, but nice letter from Me

Hi familia, 
 
Questions from Mom 
Does someone cook for you or do your laundry or do you do it all 
yourself?  What is a typical p day like there? Sunday? 
 
I guess I just haven´t been as clear as I could be. I DO MY OWN 
LAUNDRY! There are no such things as washing machines here, (ok, the 
rich people have them) but there are definitely NO dryers. Breakfast, 
I usually don´t have one. If I do, it´s a Banana shake or a piece of 
bread and I buy it myself. Lunch and Dinner - I have a pensionista. 
Like I said in my last letter, I recently changed my pension to my 
convert this week. She´s awesome and I can see her being the relief 
society president very soon. 
 
A typical p-day is wash clothes, clean room, take the bus for an hour 
to my zone where we use the internet. After, play soccer or sometimes 
basketball. But next week is special, I´ll tell you more in the next 
letter. 
A typical sunday. Pick up investigators at 8. Go to church at 9 until 
12. 1 eat. 2 proselyte like normal until 8:30 when I give the numbers. 
 
Just yesterday, we found out the cambios (transfers?). My companion is 
leaving and I am staying, probably for another 3 months or 2 transfers 
which is fine by me. There is still alot of work to do in this area 
which has a lot a potential. My new companion is Elder Injante from 
Lima, Peru. More next on how that goes. 
 
Thought for the week - Do you iron your socks? If not, why? Shouldn´t 
we look our best, especially as missionaries for the Lord? With ironed 
socks, you could look outstanding. But as for me, my socks are never 
ironed. Why Elder Walker, please tell me why? I´ll tell you why, It´s 
because it´s a waste of time. Time is very limited, especially in the 
mission. Do we make wise choices daily? 
 
-Elder Walker 

Be Prepared

Dear World,

What an opportunity it is to prepare this world for the second coming of our Savior!  It is so close but yet so far I can feel it.  Poor New York city.  That´s all people are talking about here.  It´s too bad, but at the same time it´s just another profecy being fulfilled.  We know that one day New York City will be destroyed, but by an earthquake because latter day prophets have foretold that.  Other cities as well.  It is just a way of the Lord warning us.  Same here with the terrible economies, just preparing us for what is about to come.  You see the Lord prepares us little by little.  Everything we do is just preparation for the next thing.  The Lord preserves His people by preparing them.  Interesting.  The Lord warns us and gives us commandments to keep to prepare us or in better turns save us from these crazy and terrible times that WILL come to pass.  I am enjoying my time helping to preserve the Lord´s flock.  I know that as we just take the time to read the Book of Mormon and the Bible, the Lord will help us to understand and be prepared for what is to come.  Things that have been prophesied for many years.  The Messiah came and will come again.

I´ve decided a lot of our spiritual learning and gospel learning goes in hand with knowing our world history.  So many people we teach don´t understand history first.  Makes me feel like a history teacher first then a gospel teacher.  KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!!!   Many people here from South America all of the sudden are going back to their countries.  There is just no work!  In the last 2 weeks we seen about 5 different families go back to their countries.  It´s so sad.  We´ve baptized so many immigrants here that the majority of the members supporting the church are immigrants (mainly from South America).  The President wants us to really focus more on Spaniards, as hard as it is, because really when everyone leaves and goes back to their country, we will be loosing probably a ward full of people.  There´s just no work, and as much of a help as the South Americans have been to the building of the church here, it is time to focus mainly on natives.  Interesting. 

Early in the week there was a ton of rain!  We were drentched everyday for 3 days straight!  They don´t really celebrate Halloween here.  We literally saw one kid dressed up(south american) and like 2 different groups of young single adults here and there on there way to parties. But then rolled around November and everyday we seen more and more young single adults dressed up each night??  not sure how it works here.  Looks like it´s just a week of parties that roll all through the first week of Nov.  Interesting.  They also have these sweet medival carnivals!  For the zone my companion and I threw the game.  Everyone loved it!!!  We suprised them with the game and dressing up!!!!  I´ll send pics!  We saw many crazy drunk people this week.  One was throwing up like crazy in the metro right across the tracks from us...rather disturbing.  The other was chasing this lady into her house, she slammed the door, he pounded and yelled then saw us and right then the spirit told us to flee like Joseph ahaha.  We booked it, I´ve never run so fast uphill before.  No worries we made it out alive.  The other day in church the crazy family with 5 kids under the age of 5 gets up to bear their testimonies.  Crazy as could be.  The child steals the microphone and takes off running around the chapel.  The father ignores him and starts bearing this beautiful testimony about children and what an angelic example they are to us and right as he says this one of his little boys honks this huge clown horn in the back.  Everyone was annoyed but couldn´t help but to laugh.  I finally decided if none of the members are going to help them to keep the reverence I WILL!!!!!  We sat behind them and colored with them taught them how to fold their arms and be reverent.  I´ve learned a lot on the mission about how I want to raise children.  I needed that.  On the way to church we also ran into this race just as the shot off the fire-arm to start!  It was kind of fun!  Everyone in Spain and their mother was running!  We started cheering them on, took some pics, handed out some pass-a-long cards and then were on our way to the church.  We had a lot of investigators show!  It was nice for once!  We have a sticky situation with Rai, he wants to be baptized but can´t until he moves out of his girlfriends house....we don´t know what to do.  He has a crazy alcoholic mother that he can´t go live with...maybe we can find someone in the ward...not sure. 

As a district we are going through a game phase right now.  On our down time we´ve been playing cards.  The Elders have faded out, I think they got tired of loosing "man I´ve never seen this side of Hermana Walker before!"  haha.  Then in piso we were playing egyptian rat. and phase 10 for a while, the other hermanas got tired of losing and faded out, but my companion is still determined to beat me.  To be honest I got tired of winning at those games so I talk her Perudo 3 days ago.  We bought dice and now I have my companion hooked!  She´s good and keeps things interesting even though I still clame my spot everytime as queen of that game.  Sometimes it´s hard being good at every game....can´t help it.  The Walker competitive spirit comes out in me.  I didn´t relize how many card games I knew from growing up in the house that I did hhaa.  Dad-we want to play penicle but I can´t remember how....Also I was thinking about jobs lately...I was thinking about applying for the MTC...is it too late...Cam-what´s the process?

Welp love you all. Keep the faith.  Continue to prepare the way for the coming of our Lord!  Be prepared.

With love,
hermana walker