well haleluja

Querido Family, 
 
Imaniya ´kasunki mamii y tatii. The language of Quechua - no big deal. 
I recieved a package and letters this week. They were all from June. 
It´s funny because all the events that you guys wrote about already 
happened about a month ago... 
 
This week was transfers! I always told my companion that he is going 
to train a gringito nuevo. He got the call and he was mad! He is going 
to train but he doesn´t know who just yet... Ok, now it´s my turn. 
This is how it went. Elder Walker, you are going to Cochabamba. 
Waaahooooo! There´s more, your area is vella vista, which I heard is 
the area with the temple. Waaaaaa! Your companion is Elder Palacio (or 
something like that). And there´s more, you will be the senor 
companion and his ``mom´´. WAAAAAA!. And there´s more, you will be the 
district leader. WAAA- What?! Umm, I just started my mission and I 
barely started understanding and speaking spanish. Well, you´re going 
to learn. And that is how it went. So it appears that I had prophetic 
words for my own mission. If you guys remember anything about my 
farewell talk, my mission is playing out exactly like my talk. I 
basically said three main things; be humble, willingly give selfless 
service, and love unconditionally. Well, if I split my mission up 3 
ways it would be 8 months. I have almost 8 months. The first part of 
my mission was all about being humble and the Lord definitely taught 
me many lessons here in Potosi about how to be humble. I now starting 
the next 8 months - willingly serve. I have a feeling that that will 
be the theme for this next area. That also means that my last 8 
months, I will learn how to love unconditionally my investigators, the 
members, my companion, etc. Cool stuff no. 
 
So who said I was getting trunky Cameron??? This week we had two 
baptisms. We also have two more for the next week (which I won´t get 
to see). This week, we baptized two brothers Alejandro and Ariel. We 
first got the reference from our pensionista and they were coming to 
church for the past months. We talked to Alejandro and he told us that 
he really doesn´t want to listen to us, so we left it at that. Well, 
it turns out that his girlfriend is the sister of our pensionista and 
I sure she doesn´t want to marry a non-member. About 3 weeks ago, we 
talked about baptism and the holy ghost in church. He wanted to get 
baptized, so the bishopric showed him to us again. He was golden. We 
taught him everything then baptized him 2 weeks later or this past 
Saturday. The baptism was a great site. All my converts that I´ve had 
were at the baptism and at church the next day. It was emotionally 
fantastic. None of my converts are inactive which is great. I think 
I´ve just been lucky. Or in other words, we´ve worked hard, but we 
still fall short. So after all we can do, the grace of the Lord fills 
in the rest. 
Another story this week. We have been working with Jesus Mullo - an 
inactive member who was baptized a year ago. He came to church about 3 
weeks ago. In priesthood session, the bishop straight up told him 
infront of everyone that he should get on his knees and pray to see if 
a mission is right for him. He can only leave in the next year for his 
age. He was a bit intimidated. We decided to teach him about 
missionary work and pull through with the promise from the bishop that 
the Lord will answer him. Well, this week, he told us that he recieved 
his answer. A great job opportunity opened up for him (uh oh), and for 
the next six months he will work........to save up for his mission! He 
is going to talk to the bishop this week and everything. It was 
fantastic. 
 
I was reading in the Book of Mormon this week and I was in Alma (by 
the way, you all should´ve finished the BOM from the challenged I 
extented to you about 3 months ago if you remembered...) The war 
chapters are always pretty sweet. But amongst all the wars that were 
happening in the land of the Nephites, it says that ``there has never 
been a happier people´´ (Alma 50:23). Right now in the world, there 
are many wars going on. The wars against nations, the war in the 
Middle East, against nations, on terrorism, on drugs, on pornography, 
abortion, political wars, wars between religions, wars between 
families, in the courts, etc. The point is that there is lots of 
contention. But amongst all these wars, I have never seen a happy 
people like the Latter-day saints are. Also, I have never been happier 
this week for everything that has happened! 
 
Bee (buzz) happy 
-Elder Walker 
 
P.S. The other picture I just want to show you how small the doors and 
people are here. Either that or I have grown.

MILAGROS passen de vez en cuando.....

Dear Family,

 

     Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers!  They were heard all the way out here in Spain.  Tamara de Equador finally told us she is ready to take the step of baptism in her life.  Antonio a Spaniard from Andulucia told us he will also be taking that step this Sunday.  After 4 months of teaching the both of them we are THRILLED and grateful to witness such miracles together as we come to an end of this companionship here in 2 weeks.  We have worked soooo hard!  I´ve honestly never worked harder with any other companion.  Miracles happen.  "Jesus the Christ,"  the big 800 thick book describes miracles as a phenomenon not susceptible of explanation, far less of demonstration, by what we consider the ordinary operation of natural law.  Christ worked many miracles that both the bible and the BOM testify of.  Many people were there, they witnessed these signs of Gods power, these signs that God the Father and His Son are real.  That Christ came to us, healed the sick, the broken hearted, raised others from the dead, etc.  In this field, science has not yet advanced far enough to explain miracles.  Science says to deny the actuality of miracles because we cannot comprehend the means implies that what man cannot comprehend cannot be, and that therefore he is able to comprehend all that is.  We all know we as humans cannot comprehend everything.  Science  says that what happened in the Bible were actual events that took place.  So miracles do happen.  Miracles are a sign of Gods power.  As missionaries we are to report to our President each week one miracle.  Well we don´t see a miracle each week.  We see miracles daily.  No matter how small or big.  How do we get the opportunity to see miracles each day?  We prepare ourselves by first being obedient, second daily prayers, third reading the scriptures, teaching so that others can feel the power of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ,  serving others, talking to everyone, keeping ourselves morally clean, WORKING, baptizing worthy converts and their families!  We SEEK miracles, key word SEEK, then God does the rest. 

 

     To comprehend the works of Christ, one must know Him as the Son of God; to the man who has not yet  learned to know, to the honest soul who would inquire after the Lord, the invitation is always there; let him "come and see."  READ, see after His word to know for yourself the power and MIRACLES  wrought by Christ.  The testimonies in the Bible and Book of Mormon are real.  They are real people who witnessed these miracles.  All we are to do is to have faith enough to apply the teachings taught.  It is happiness that one cannot understand until they try it and appy it in their own lives.  If you have not read the Bible and Book of Mormon, start today and see the power of Christ work miracles in your life.  I give my testimony because I have seen the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ change my life and work miracles.  Christ lives, the atonement, His Sacrifice for our sins, griefs, sorrows and pains is real.  For those who don´t comprehend it the invitation to "come and see"  for yourself is always available.  Though the world may change drastically God and His ways don´t.  I love the power of the Book of Mormon and Bible combined.  What greater power there is behind more than one witness that Jesus is the Christ.

 

     I love you all and hope you are seeing the blessings and miracles of Jesus Christ work daily in your life.

 

Con Amor,

Hermana Walker

Happy Bolivian Independence Day!

Dear family, 
 
Hi. The streets are empty right now. Every in the city is in central 
parading, fiestaing, and other things for independence day. On youtube 
or something, you should look up Caporal by Platanico. They are like 
the only famous band to come out of Potosi. The caporales are the 
native or traditional dancers in Bolivia. Just a little Bolivian 
spirit for you guys. 
 
This week was very busy, but not exactly with proscelyting. Tuesday 
and Wednesday, we had a conference in Sucre. That is where you 
recieved the picture of me playing the piano. I was talking with 
Hermana Dyer and then she wanted to take a picture of me and send it 
to you guys. The conference was all about obedience. 10 hours on 
obedience. It was intense, but much needed in this mission. That used 
some cool scriptures, but applied it all to obedience. Also, our 
district got a standing applause! Out of the two zones that were 
there, we were the only ones that reached our goals of baptisms and we 
actually passed the goal. The president was impressed! In my 
interview, the president really only said good things to me. He 
congratulated me and my companion on our hard work and great sucess, 
especially with the bishopric. In the whole mission, there is only 2 
bishops that do not get along with the missionaries and the president 
always has problems. One of them is our bishop. Also, he also 
basically told me that I am leaving the next transfer and said that I 
will like the next assignment. Wonder what that means. But I am pretty 
excited to leave. I mean, I have already had my adventure in Potosi 
and it is time for a change. I will find out and leave next week. 
 
 
Thursday and Friday, we proselyted like normal. We were teaching this 
one guy named Jorge. After the first little door contact with him 
(like 10 min), he seemed pretty interested and even read the whole 
pamphlet for next time. Nobody ever does that!! I thought he was 
golden. He said that his brother took the missionary lessons and was 
close to baptism and even went to seminary. He has 2 book of mormons 
in his house. He agreed with everything we taught him and everything. 
Then, Friday night, we had a little meeting with the bishopric. And 
afterward, we were filling out papers. I saw the list of all the 
members and believe it or not, there was Jorges full name there. I do 
not know why, but he lied to us about. He never told us that he was 
already baptized, but said that his brother almost was. I also 
realized that the Book of mormon was his and he went to seminary. We 
have not been back there yet, but I really do not what to say to 
him... He might be embarassed that he is an inactive member or 
something like that. but.. strange. 
 
Saturday, we moved houses. We live in the same apartments as our 
pensionista and her family. It is pretty sweet. A great move, everyone 
is happy. But it was in vain for me to pack up all my stuff, unpack, 
just to repack in the coming week. Oh well. 
 
We are all in crossroads in this life with many decisions to make. 
Follow your heart and common sense. Choose the correct path. Sometimes 
there is more than one acceptable path. But for God, there is only his 
path that is correct. The other one looks nice at first, but it will 
slowly lead you down to misery and endless wo. 
 
I just wanted to say wo. I dumb. 
-Elder Walker 

It's getting hot . . .

Mi querido familia,

 

I´m tired.  I´ve never been so exhausted in my entire life.  I fell asleep during my studies the other day without realizing it.  My companion had to wake me up to tell me it was time to hit the streets.  I don´t know if it´s just the heat or what but I´ve been so out of it this week.   It´s really started to get hot.  As a companionship we whip out our matching fans my companion bought us.  Makes me feel part of the culture, very chulo, very Spaniard. 

      

My companion talks in her sleep it´s hillarious.  She always gives me the lessons out loud in the night.  She said the other night she woke herself up as she was talking in her sleep and then heard me talking back to her in my sleep.  jajaja.  Then she told me not only was I talking in my sleep, but it was all in Spanish!!!!!  You know what that means, I´m fluent!!!  They say you´re fluent in another language once you start dreaming in that language.  I hope they´re right....

 

It was disappointing to see 2 of our investigators within 2 weeks move all of the sudden.  They both had baptism fechas as well.  RATS!  The good thing is the church in their new areas have their info. and one set of missionaries in Barcelona has already set a new date to be baptized with Jorge(se llama).  As for Maria, we dropped her off with her millions of bags at the bus station to wave her off to Madrid.  From there she will fly out to Bolivia.  Sorry Craig, not Cochabumba but Santa Cruz Bolivia.  We just gave 2 sets of missionaries a free-bie baptism, lucky ducks!   As for me that´s the story of my life for the past 6 1/2 months.  I teach all these great people, they become converted and right before their baptism they move or I am moved to a different city.  It´s been really hard on me.  I feel like I work so hard all the time and don´t see enough success pay off in the water.  What am I doing wrong?  What is the Lord trying to teach me?  I´m not sure.  Patience?  maybe.  Service, love....yes.

 

Well my dear loved ones, thank you for your cabin letters.  I bet you loved vacationing in the mountains!  I continue to pray for you daily.  I continue to ask for your prayers that this dry-spell I have will be broken.  What´s important I realize is the lessons I am learning.  How I am growing to be like my father in heaven.  How this is really preparing me for an eternal marriage.   I know that God lives and loves us.  He and his son Jesus Christ were once in our shoes.  Remember that.  They understand us, they know where we are coming from.  They have bodies just like we do.  They did this journey, overcame it, and showed how to do it correctly so that we can truly be happy and grow.  When nobody understands you, get on your knees and have a one on one conversation with the man above who does understand and wants to bless you, he is just waiting for you to ask.  I know there are miracles now days, look for the daily little miracles.  Count your blessings and I promise you will be happier.  It all depends on you.  You and the gift God gave us of agency.  Love you all, ¡Cuidase!

 

sinceremente,

Hermanita Walker

 

Aint nobody dope as me I´m just so fresh and clean

Thank you for your letters! I磎 glad that everything磗 going well back 
and home and that my music is irreplaceable. I磎 also excited that USA 
is doing good in the Olympics. 
 
Time has been flying by. I磎 pretty sure I leave Potosi in two weeks, 
but I磍l keep you updated with that when it actually happens. Tomorrow 
and wednesday, we磖e going to Sucre for another zone conference. 
That磗 another 5 hour drive down a mountain and then another 5 hours 
back up. 
 
This week was pretty busy, not really proselyting, but just other 
things that keeps popping up. And Saturday was probably one of the 
best days I磛e had, the week ended perfectly. It started with us doing 
service in the morning. Then for lunch, my pensionista made a great 
pizza. Right after that, we had a baptism!! Three of our investigators 
got baptized. We found them one day knocking doors. As I told you guys 
before, we磛e found many inactive people. Well, about 2 months ago, we 
found a woman who was baptized 18 years ago and has been inactive for 
15 years. She told us that she磗 been having desires to go back to 
church. She also has 3 daughters at the age of 18, 15, and 11. The 15 
year old is Ryan in girl form, that磗 why I磛e been asking for his 
help, but he never responded to me... But we activated the woman and 
taught her children. Then this past Saturday, we baptized all of them. 
I baptized 2 of them and my companion the other one. It was a great 
baptism and members actually showed up and support! It was awesome. We 
are trying to work with the dad and there aunts and uncles. Some of 
them are already members, but we磖e going to try to get all of them in 
the church. Right after the baptism was a wedding in the chapel. A 
convert (from my last companion) that was baptized a week before I 
came in got married to a member that was baptized a year ago! They are 
going to go to the temple in 6 months when they can. Gabriel, my other 
convert is great. Did I already mention that he磗 the secretary for 
the ward? He brings us food sometimes in the morning and loves to 
accompany us in our visits! He has a great testimony and spirit with 
him! He is truly a disciple of Christ. In the pictures, those are my 
best friends in the mission. My converts and my companion. Mom - he 
said he added me on Facebook, you should say yes. My face my look a 
little burnt and red in the photos. Although it is very cold here, we 
are also very close to the sun and I get burnt alot. It磗 weird here. 
But after the time that we were at the wedding, we went to go  visit 
some less actives who came to our baptism. They celebrated with us and 
we had a family home evening in their house. They decided to come back 
to the church after 8 years. They are ready for the change and are 
coming next Sunday. We then finished the night with more pizza. I 
bought pizza in the one of the only pizza places here. That was a 
great day. 
 
I know that God loves all of his children and provides in his own way 
and time. I know that Jesus is the Christ, the savior of the world, 
and through him, we can return to our Heavenly Father磗 presence. This 
is His church and He runs it through revelation to his leaders. The 
Book of Mormon is the word of God and a man can grow closer to God by 
applying the precepts in the book. As I磛e said in almost every 
testimony of mine, that I know these things for my self by the spirit. 
It磗 something that I feel and know is true. Gabriel asked me a funny 
question before his baptism - why does everyone say the same thing 
during their testimony. I told him that they share their feelings of 
what they know to be true. I remember a year ago, Ryan and I were in 
the stake priest hike thingy in Zion. While we were hiking, I was 
talking to one of the leaders, Brother Noorda. I was sharing some cool 
things that I learned at BYU and cool ideas. He was sharing some stuff 
he has learned. Cool things like some evidence that people have found 
of the Book of Mormon and other cool stuff. But he told me that none 
of that stuff matters. If you have felt the testifying power of the 
Holy Ghost that it磗 true, you don磘 need anymore evidence. I asked, 
but doesn磘 it help your testimony that this stuff is true. He said, 
nope. I just do it because it磗 fun.创 I thought about that, and I now 
I realize what he truly means. If all the evidence is taken away, I 
would still know it磗 true by the Holy Ghost. People always ask us all 
the time for evidence that it磗 true. But it磗 not necessary. Pray. 
Have faith. Listen. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 
 
-Elder Walker 

one year? nah.

Dear Family,

I cannot seem to believe I have been doing this for a year.  Time is getting shorter.  My companion for my mission birthday was really cute and made a beautiful breakfast with signs everywhere.  What else?  Oh ya...congrats to Lauren Tarver and Lacey who have made one of the greatest choices they will never regret to serve a mission!!!   Keep me posted you two.

We got back to Pamplona this Tuesday with a long list of things to do.  Running two areas at once was a joke, but kept me focused more than normal.  I like being busy because then it doesn´t give me time to think about home.  This week was hard.  Don´t know why.  Coming back to this party town was interesting.  Everything had an after smell of alcohol.  All the beautiful green grass everywhere is now brown or gone.  Sad.  Lot´s of trash everywhere as well.  Good thing is no one was ran over by any bull.  No one died, no one was harmed. Coming back from Zaragoza where they continued my clases de baile (dance classes) inspired me to start my dance classes again.  Really my companion gave me a little push in the bum to do it here in Pamplona even though we can´t use the church to do it.  So we started clases de baile back up and this time in the park.  Well what a blessing that we can´t do it in the church because in the park it attracts more people just walking by.  Hey, who woulda thunk?  We blasted the music and talk some country line dancing.  Lot´s of fun!  For the first class that we planned two days before we had over 20 investigators and their friends present!!!!  What a success.  I was shocked to be honest.  Blew me out of the water.  The Elders came, didn´t bring anyone but brought us batteries haha but were a huge help.  Now the Elders want to play their guitars and bag-pipes before the class startes to attract more people.  haha.  So they asked President yesterday and he said he´d have to think about it.  Our new president is really a neat guy.  He went on and on yesterday in my interview about how he needs to make 4 more missionaries out of me before I leave (means I´ll prob, be training again, darn).  He said you´ve created another dynamite missionary out of you and I can´t keep the two of you together for any more transfers.  The other sisters need help, what a compliment to me, but I felt so undeserving of it since we haven´t had a ton of baptisms here in the north.  But we have helped this area and ward grow in ways that I believe may not show in numbers, but feel more in the things that matter most.  Although we have a ton of people we are just waiting on to just make the decision and take the step of baptism.  Hopefully all our hard work will pay off this month.  We had a ton of success in Zaragoza!  Oh how I miss it their.  We gave them 3 baptisms!  Too bad we couldn´t have been there this weekend to see them....story of my life.  Patience.

Well I love you all!  Never forget that.  Never forget who you are and what you stand for.  God´s real and loves each and everyone of us.  Have faith, have patience and once you do share that with someone else.

Con amor,
Hermanita Walker

Sips, no mas

Q tal family, 
 
Cool stuff happening back at home. 
 
Yesterday, I gave a talk in church, pretty much nailed it. It was 
funny because I always make the joke of saying ``hombre´´ instead of 
``hambre´´ just for kicks. Well, I was used to saying it so much that 
in my talk, I accidently said hombre when I meant to say hambre. But 
besides that it went well. Share the gospel, be united, be humble. And 
I recieved one of my first references from members right after church! 
 
                    What I learned this week 
I don´t have much to say this week so I´ll just get to the point. One 
thing that I have learned from my companion is being direct and to the 
point. Not beating around the bush. As missionaries, we sometimes have 
to be direct like ``Will you pray to know it´s true´´ or ``Did you 
read´´. Yes or no questions. And many times, we have to face 
confrontations front on. Before, I would try to avoid those 
confrontations, probably from being scared, timid, or didn´t want an 
arguement. But now I realized that it is necessary to be direct with 
people. But not all the time. My companion is just flat out blunt with 
people. You know, I don´t want to hurt people´s feelings either. It´s 
about having a happy medium. 
 
The other thing that I have learned and will expound more on is that 
``Perfect love casteth out fear´´ (1 john 4:18). With perfect love, 
there can be no fear. The same goes with other emotions too. Sometimes 
we feel like others need to change their attitudes and emotions. But 
if we want to change others, we ourselves have to be unchangeable. It 
reminds me of Avatar the Last Airbender. The whole point of the show 
and the objective of Aang, the avatar, is to defeat the fire nation. 
Everyone tells him that the only way is to kill the firelord. To get 
to the point, he ended up finded a huge lion turtle (random) and he 
told him ``The true mind can weather away all lies and illusions 
without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred 
without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness fills the 
voids; but always yeilds to everlasting light.´´ ``In the era before 
the Avatar, we bend not elements, but the energy within ourselves. To 
bend anothers´ energy, you yourself have to completely indestructible, 
or else you will be destroyed.´´ He ended up taking away the bending 
from the firelord and ended the war. The end. If you want to take the 
hatred out of people, you yourself must have perfect love. If you want 
people to stop shouting, you yourself have to talk with a soft, kind, 
and loving voice, etc. We experience this alot as missionaries. We met 
this racist guy against the U.S. that was yelling at me. If I had 
yelled back or argued with his flawed reasoning, we wouldn´t have 
gained anything, and I would´ve been flustered the rest of the day. We 
can´t teach things that we ourselves are not. This brings me to my 
next point. I have noticed that many missionaries in this mission are 
really great teachers; however, they don´t apply what they teach. They 
don´t have the attributes of Christ. They teach obedience, but 
themselves are disobedient to the rules. You can´t do that. It´s very 
hypocritical and I despise it. I´m sure God doesn´t appreciate it 
either. We can´t teach the word of wisdom and then go out and drink 
the next day. Sometimes the best teaching is being an example to the 
rest. They will end up following your example. 
 
Well, that´s about it (it´s cold in my picture). Que El Señor les bendiga. 
 
-Elder Walker