April 29, 2014

Elder Walker made it to Utah!  

Walking boot and all!

April 25, 2014

We have p day today actually, so i get to write back! Actually i had the farthest thing from an empty mailbox, I have so many emails Im struggling to answer them all in time haha. It's nice to feel loved.

We had what's called infield orientation yesterday, where we do a crapload of roleplaying of different situations and different kinds of teachings that you might encounter in the field. I'm not a big roleplaying fan so I just didn't enjoy that much to be honest, but you can still learn a lot if you try.

I just feel impressed to say a few words about mothers, and my mother. I don't really know why, and you can skip this next part if for whatever reasons you have something against mothers. Anyways, I love my mom very very much. SHe's one of the greatest people that I've ever known. They say that when someone has come unto Christ, that person loves everyone regardless of what type of person they are, what they are doing currently, or what they've done in the past. I definitely see that in my Mom a lot of the time. Of course she struggles occasionally, but everyone does and that's only natural. She is consistently one of the most loving people I know. I bought a t-shirt the other because I missed my mom. It says stripling warriors-mommas boys. I think that story, of the stripling warirors might be my favorite in all of the scriptures. I love where it says that they knew of a surety that things things are true, because their mothers knew it and taught them. How important is it then, for mothers? One of the most powerful stories of all time, happened because there were mothers who did exactly what they were supposed to do, and then more. Those young men could not have succeeded were it not for the incredible strength of their mothers. And I know that I could not have succeeded anywhere if I did not have my mother. Kids, love your mothers.

So I now that I have sufficiently buttered my mother up, I'm going to say something that will completely terrify her. I got in a bit of an accident a few days ago. I wasn't even gonna write home about it, because I didn't want to worry you mom, but now that I have more information about it and what exactly is happening I figure I should. So I was playing basketball, and long story short after jumping i came down on the side of my ankle, a lot like when I broke my foot last time, but this time it was much more extreme and on my other foot. It wasn't fun at all, and it was pretty painful. I had to leave the MTC for a few hours to see a doctor and get x rays. Turns out, its the kind of injury where it's not broken but may have been better if it was. Its a high ankle sprain, with a bunch of other tendon things thrown in there. I can actually get along just fine with a walking boot, but I have little to no feeling in my foot, and without the boot there's not much strength in it at all. I have stretches and excercices that I do daily to build the muscle back up, so hopefully they are helping and I will get back to full strength.

The good news in all this is that I most likely will still arrive to Ogden on time. I can walk with the boot and be fine, so that is great. It shouldn't cause much issue, unless the doctors or Ogden mission president decide otherwise I'll still be leaving the MTCTtuesday morning. However, on the off chance I do stay, I most likely will be reassigned to Ogden Spanish speaking, or Ogden ASL, which would be really cool. 

Don't worry too much, I'm ok!

love -Elder Walker

Surprise email!!

I had written Zach a one line reply to his email, because some people were not able to get it to work. I was so excited to see this surprise email in my box this morning.  I just love Elder Walker so much!!!

It worked. I'm not sure why it wouldn't work for Maryannne, that's weird. We randomly get to email again today, and then p-day is probably Friday so you might get two emails from me this week. Things are going pretty well. I am definitely not a fan of the MTC still, but the more I think about it the more I just don't know how they can do anything better than they already do. It's a weird place but they all try their hardest here to make sure we are comfortable (which we arent but the thought counts I suppose). We learn really just a poopload of stuff, so much so that you literally can't not write it all down, because you will forget everything. 

Sunday we did have an Easter devotional. Guess who spoke to us? He was here, in the MTC, in the same room, only a few feet away from us... I'll give you a few hints. He's super cool. Everyone loves him. He loves planes. And he is German.

Yeah, that happened.

I didn't get to shake his hand, we were just a bit too far away. But he gave all of us an air hug and told us to pass it on to our friends and families. So, you all get a hug from President Uchtdorf.

Also tonight at choir practice, the rumor is that David Archuleta is coming to sing a song with us for the next Devotional. He's not quite a general authority and really he's not quite cool either, but a lot of people are excited and I'm sure that it'll be a fun experience as well.

So I've got letters from a few people. A few great, wonderful people have wrote to me whether on an email or dearelder, and you all have my love and appreciation. There is nothing better than logging on or going to the mailbox and finding someone took the the time to write to you. Now, those of you who wrote me actual letters, I apologize but I can't reply till Friday, so it'll be a while till you hear back. But Mom, Dad, Cole, Brett, and Sister Fredricksen, you are all the best and I promise to write you back as soon as I can.. The rest of you, repent, or be utterly destroyed. We work so hard as missionaries and honestly the harder we work, the more we forget about all of you and become happier. However, it's really deflating when we log on to our emails and have nothing, or go to the mailbox and have nothing. There is a Sister I know who literally gets 4 letters a day (we are all really jealous of her). Whoever is writing her knows the value of supporting missionaries and how important it is to not even really have anything important or interesting to say, but to just write and tell them that they are supported and loved, and that they are doing the right thing.

Mom and dad I sent you a letter last week, so hopefully you've gotten it by now, or at least will soon. Thanks for the Easter candy as well, there was much rejoicing when it arrived.

One thing that I am really finding a testimony of as I'm here is hard work. The first few days I was here, I would alternate between feeling the best I'd ever felt, then the worst. I got a little worried because the worst was lasting much longer than the best, and I couldn't figure out how to make that reverse. Even during gym time one day I just walked up to the track, and I slowly walked in circles the entire hour because I felt like doing nothing but being sad. Then that night, as I was praying, I just felt this impression that I neeeded to work so much harder, or else I just wasn't gonna be happier. And it wasn't with studying and teaching, because I knew I already worked pretty hard at that stuff. It's with things that I wasn't good at before I left. So now I really know that I have to force myself to do a lot of things that I hate, but for whatever reason make me feel so happy once I'm done. I have to force myself to work out and be active during gym time, as much as I possibly can be. And if we dont have gym time, I have to run around the dorms and climb the walls and do flips and stuff before I go to bed, otherwise my body just feels like I've done nothing. I have to force myself to try and eat all of every meal. Pretty much my entire life unless its been pizza, I've always gotten full after about half of the food was gone and thats all I would eat. Now, I try and eat as much as I can and I grab a lot of food for meals. because stupid as it sounds, if I can finish three big meals a day, I feel so ridiculously accomplished. It's like I've fought against this giant food dragon and the majority of the time I am able to slay it righteously, or else just wound it pretty bad, which is kind of nice. So eat your food kids, and eat it all. And work out. For some reason our bodies like that kind of stuff. I know, I hate it too, but doing stuff you hate makes you happy sometimes.

I haven't seen Brother Woodruff at all since my first day. We really don't get a lot of time to go out and just do what we want. Actually we get no time to do just what we want, which is really good because if we had that time I would get so lazy. However, if someone could remind me where he works at the MTC, or pass a message to him that he should come find me sometime before I leave next Tuesday, that'd be fun. I'm in 18m Room 313, so the hunt is on Brother Woodruff.

Last few things before I die for today. Friday we will go to the temple in the morning, which will be fun. We already went once and it was great, so going twice will be cool. I splurged at the MTC and bought a new watch, becasue my LEGO one always always always falls about into pieces because its LEGOS. It's really cool and all blue, even the face and the hands and numbers so I love it so much already. But, Mom, if you still wanna send that Mickey Mouse watch I would not be offended by that. I'm a firm believer that Mickey Mouse would be a fantastic missionary, if we could get him to take the lessons. Plus he would be Elder Mouse, and that's just adorable. I'm debating on whether or not to pick up a few things from the MTC store still, I already had to get an alarm clock because I forgot that and otherwise would be sleeping in every morning. That's frowned upon. There's a t-shirt that says Utah and has a map of the state and some info about the mission that I kinda want, so maybe. We'll see.

O repent ye, repent ye, and write to me if you have not! And if you have written me, repent still and write to me again, because while some of you wrote some of you only said one line of words. Cole wins the prize of longest letter so far, but both Cole and Dad win the prize for most riveting account of an Avalanche playoff game. Both of you wrote about the comeback in game 1 against the Wild, and ridiculous as it sounds I honestly felt the Spirit super strongly reading that part both times. I think God approves of wholesome recreational activities, and most of the time I believe sports falls into that category. Both of you described it so differently though. Dad has  Pat Summerall, matter-of-fact this is how it happened very much logical tone, and Cole has a Gus Johnson, exaggerate and make analogies for everything tone. Both are appreciated. It was a little bit like reading the game described in the style of the Gospel of St. Matthew, then by St. Mark. So that made me laugh.

WRITE TO ME>

-Elder Walker

Friday April 18,2014

I can't send any pictures in the MTC, but I do have some to send as soon as I can. So it won't be for another week and a half, but you'll see some soon and I'll keep taking more.

So second day in, I already got assigned as district leader for my district. It's kinda overwhelming, I don't even know really what to do as a missionary, let alone lead them. But, it is nice because it already feels like I'm helped by the Spirit and told what to do.  It's comforting to know that we can be woefully underqualified and hopelessly lost, but God still gives us responsibility because he's still doing all the work anyway, just through my lanky, nerdy, curiously handsome frame. 

The MTC is odd. The people around are great and the teachers are great and my district and companion are great, but the MTC is odd. There's a lot of good, important rules that make sense and are good. Then, there's a lot of stupid, annoying rules that I hate. Like today, we went to the temple and we had to leave during breakfast, so we only got about five minutes to eat. That's ok, because I don't really care much about breakfast and I think it's the Canada of meals, the problem was I brought my temple bag because we weren't really gonna have time to go back and grab it. Apparently its against the fire code to put bags in the cubbies for bags in the cafeteria though, and my bag was taken to the front desk and I got written up for being too prepared to go to the Temple. I suppose I need to tone my spirituality down a bit.

This is really long already but we still have a lot of time left so I don't care, I'm gonna write more. All you punks reading this who haven't written to me yet... DO IT. I've only had a letter from Mom and Dad, and an email from Kendall. You all got beat to the first letter by Kendall, even Mom and Dad actually because she emailed the day I got here. Feel the shame of being beat to the first letter by Kendall. Let it sink in, feel bad, cry, and then write to me. If you don't I'll use my district leader powers to send you passive aggressive emails and letters constantly till you do.

And, it's ridiculously easy to write to me. just go to dearelder.com and follow the instructions, it's free and it'll take ten minutes of your I'm sure busy busy day. I will get it the day you write it, because mail comes twice a day and as district leader I pick it up so there is literally no way I can miss it. And I'll write to you, and getting letters will make you feel warm and fuzzy. Like a spiritual brown bear. You can do it. I have faith in you. Don't let Kendall be my only friend. Although she is a good friend so if you read this Kendall, you the best right now. Props to you, yo.

A few funny stories I guess. Everyone in my dorm is going to Ogden, there's my companion (Elder Muller pronounced mull-er not mule-er) and Elders Schillemat (pronounced ALSKFJADL:FKJ) Vincent (pronounced he is a ginger). And, all three of them snore but me. So I've got about 3 hours of sleep the past two days because I lay awake all night listening to the different cadences of their snores till they match together and I get a few precious seconds of silence. I feel your pain now Mom, except I can't kick them out to the couch and sleep for four hours in peace. I can just lay there cursing the MTC blankets that don't cover my feet, and my supersonic hearing.

Elder Schillemat and I played basketball yesterday, and a bunch of polynesian people came to play with us. We were trying to play bump/knockout/lightning, and they clearly did not know the rules even though they wanted to play and they definitely could not speak English at all. Elder Schillemat can't speak Tongan, and unfortunately I can't either because we didn't watch Other Side of Heaven and that weird rugby movie enough. So we couldn't communicate with each other, and eventually our game devolved into a line of several polynesian elders, and two pale white elders running really fast and shooting the ball, then getting back in line. So that was... fun. Maybe. Haven't decided yet. 

I've seen a few people I know. My zone leader is Elder March, I knew him from western wyoming. I also ran into Sister Barnes, from Western Wyoming as well. Elder March lets you kinda handle yourself which I appreciate. Sister Barnes is leaving soon to London, but she is awesome and so perky and exciting. It's nice running into her because she's the type of person where after you talk to her, you feel like you can do anything you want because she fills you up with energy. 

My district makes fun of me because I tend to stay pretty quiet during discussions and classes and meals unless I really have something to say, and then I do speak it's usually something pretty weird. I can't help that when I have something to say it's usually weird, I blame Dad. But, they all claim they love me for it and that they'll remember the things I say forever, so that's cool I guess. Fun times.

Umm... I don't have much else to say. Mom, you can always put my letters up for everyone to read, I don't care. You can edit whatever you want if you feel like it's not good for the general public to read, but everything is fine with me. Write to me you people, say your prayers, read your scriptures, and goshdangit just be wise. I will be back on to email next Friday so I better have something there. And some dearelder letters throughout the week. I spend half an hour writing you all a ridiculously long winded email/manifesto, the least you can do is send me back a one sentence letter that says "Elder you're stupid."

-Elder Walker

 p.s Brett tell me all about the stuff you do and the games you play and how you are doing! Slade, stop mumbling and write me a letter. Tyra, I know royalty doesn't associate with commoners, but jeez I'm your brother, write me a letter. Cole, I literally live 10 minutes away from you. You can probably spy on me if you try hard enough. Write me a gosh dang letter.

I report to the MTC Wednesday at 1:30. It is not known whether or not I will be able to still dress as Superman yet.