Elder Adam Walker:

November 4, 2008
Today is my 5 month mark already! And for the news on where I am going! I am going a very long ways to a town down in Virginia on the Virginia, North Carolina line. Martinsville, Virginia is the name of it. I leave Elkins tomorrow morning at about 4:30 or 5:00 am to start heading down. It is going to be a really nice day of driving, I'm sure we are figuring with all the places that we have to go, I will be driving for about 7 or 8 hours. So that will be nice! My new companion's name is Elder Chin and he has been out for less time than I have. He learned Spanish in the MTC and is a Spanish speaking missionary for our mission so that will be really interesting that's for sure. I guess President trusts me or something, I have only been out for 5 months and I am going to be a senior companion and he also wants me to be a District Leader. haha so I get my first leadership position. I am the youngest person in the mission with a leadership position so I guess I have some expectations to meet up to. It will be great though. The stake I will be in is the Roanoke stake and the the area I am going to is a large Branch, the branch is bigger than the ward I am in right now so it won't be much different than what I am in right now. I am excited for it though, it will be really neat.

Jack is the one that quit smoking, Floyd, he promised me last night that he would quit smoking by the end of the year so we will see how that one goes. I won't be here to see it but hopefully he will. He has been doing good this week, his wife flew to Vietnam to take care of some family problems but she is going to be back in about a month. He has been really nervous about that because of the Communists that run that country but other than that he is doing really well. He is doing good with the smoking though, he has been tempted really, really bad with the cigarettes but he hasn't fallen into it and smoked so that has been really great. We did a ton of service this week and thank goodness we are still all alive. haha, Smith had a washer fall on him while we were helping this lady move and then yesterday he had an ingrown toenail taken out because it was killing him. Its been really quite this week, but we are all doing really well. It's our last day together here and its amazing how fast time is going. I'm a little sad to leave this area, I really do like it quite well but I guess change happens so you just have to deal with it. It will be a nice change and also nice to meet a bunch of new people. Other than all that, nothing too exciting is going on, I'm all pretty much packed and ready to go for tomorrow, just a couple more things to throw in a bag and I will be good. I don't have my new address yet, but I will let you know either Thursday or next Tuesday, it just depends on if we are going to be able to email for a min to tell you our new addresses and everything. Life is great and I'm loving this missionary work and time is going so very fast, I just have to keep holding on!
Sure love you all! Elder Walker

November 12, 2008
I am way young to be in a leadership position. Some missions you get called early in your mission, but in this mission that I am in, you usually don't get called until you get older. I will just have to give my best and everything will work out. Today we had a General Authority come and talk to us at Zone Conference. Elder Arnold was his name and he was awesome, awesome teacher and he really laid down a bunch of stuff on rules and everything. Our mission really needed it and our numbers will go up because of it so that is good.

With my new companion I am learning a little Spanish but not too fast, its tough and he doesn't know it that well so it is tough for him to teach me. He has not been out very long, he is a good missionary though so that is what matters.

The town that I am in is pretty good sized, there are 3 good sized towns that hook together and it makes one good sized town, its a change from what Elkins was and the people here are much more normal so that is really nice. Our apartment is much nicer as well, I'm not complaining about my old one but it was a little run down, I know I can't complain because I know what dad had so I guess I am pretty blessed. The drive here to my new area was awesome, it took all day though. We left our apartment in Elkins at 4:30 am and I didn't get here until about 7:00 pm or so.

It was interesting, the General Authority that came today stressed to us that when we go home we have to go to college at all costs, he said sacrifice anything to do it cause you are not going to be able to get along without a college education. He was really bold with us but it was really good. I liked it.

Elder Chin, my companion, is from South Jordan Utah, I knew it would only be time until I got a Utah companion but now I do. I have had Washington, Oregon, Idaho and now Utah. So quite a variety. Something else the General Authority told us, buy a house, and pay it off as fast as we can. Nothing new for me to hear. Rough times are ahead and he said if you don't have your house paid off, you will lose it. Very interesting. Missionaries get this mindset that they are going to be here forever, but it is only for a short while. Life continues after these two years are up. Time goes so very fast is is crazy! There are only 4 missionaries in my district so it is not that big, the farthest town I have to go to for training and everything is 25 miles away, a town called Rocky Mount. Here in Virginia everything is much closer I really like it. We were in Roanoke earlier today for our Conference and it is a really nice town, probably the nicest in the mission and it is about the size of Salt Lake. It was good to see some taller buildings, a couple were 40 or so stories so not too bad. The area I am in right now is a branch but the branch is pretty big. Over 100people come every week, they just don't have enough priesthood leaders to make a ward so its just a huge branch. There is a couple millionaires here in this branch as well so maybe Christmas won't be too bad after all. We are actually at one of their houses right now emailing. All the libraries are closed for some reason so we are just emailing from here for the day. Its not too bad. Overall, everything is going really well, I'm glad to hear you are all doing well as well. I love you all so very much. I just thought of it, but I guess it is already December next month, it just clicked and I will be able to call you on Christmas! That will be awesome and I am looking forward to it. But until then, I have a whole bunch of missionary work to do. I will talk to you later. Good luck with everything and stay safe. Don't have to much fun snow machining without me! I know you won't cause I am not going to be there to dig you all out when you get stuck so I'm not worried!
Love you- Elder Walker

November 19, 2008
The new area I am in is pretty good, I have not got used to it yet so that part, kind of stinks and the towns are all togther so I still have a hard time getting around while I am driving and everything. But we seem to manage. My companion has a GPS and it is way nice to have, so that helps us get around a little bit better. Gas here is $1.78. I'll bet you're glad to see it go down. It got up into the 80's here last week, it still is a little warm. It is supposed to stay in the 50's over the next week so hopefully it doesn't warm back up till next summer. They have not seen snow here in this town for over 10 years, don't think I am going to see much snow this year here in Virginia. The elevation here is only about 900 feet so I guess with that it doesn't fix up for too much snow. Oh well, I guess just one more winter after this one and then I get to go home to a place where there is snow all winter long. But it is going to be weird not seeing snow. I guess, who knows, maybe I will get transfered back up into West Virginia, supposably it snows quite a bit there. Time is going so fast, November is already two-thirds of the way over and I have a feeling it is not going to slow down.

We have 3 dinners scheduled for Thanksgiving and we will probably have 4 more before the day comes. Everyone wants us to come to their house and its turning into a war so we are trying to slove it by just going to everyones. It will be a fattening day. We don't go to the mission home though. At least as far as we have heard we are not. The Cowleys would have all the missionaries go to the mission home for Christmas, but with the Thornocks we will see what they do for sure. New leadership means new ideas so we will just have to see.

My companion is craving carrott cake, it seems like that would be a great suprise. His mom is not a cook and neither is he. I had to teach him how to boil water yesterday. I know it's bad. He doesn't know how to clean anything either so it is going to be interesting. I will train him though, no worries. He kind of is a spoiled child, and gets anything he wants. His mom never cooked anything, they always just ate out so being with me is interesting for him cause I'm teaching him how to do a few things. We are starting with small things like Mac and Cheese and Roman Noodles, all he knows how to make is Easy Mac. I tell you, being a missionary, you get all kinds! Its great though. As for the work here in this area, nothing is going on, very slow. It is in the hard core Bible belt and you are either a Mormon or pretty much a Mormon hater, its crazy. We knock on a ton of doors and I have only had 1 person actually let us in since we have been here in 10 days. We have two investigators that are pretty good ones but other than that, not a whole lot going on here. We just try to find new people everyday. We have 2 people we are going to see tonight because they ordered some free Bibles and Book of Mormons so hopefully some good comes out of that. We are also going to try to set one of our investigators for baptism tonight. We will just have to see how it goes.

A funny thing happened yesterday though, we were at the senior citizens center volunteering and a Baptist preacher came to preach to them for a half hour or so. It was so funny, he was shaking in his shoes cause we were just staring him down the whole time and you could tell he was just trying to direct his speaches right towards us, we were just waiting for him to say some false doctrine, and I was going to stand up and straighten him out, luckily he just said that his back was hurting and that he was not going to be able to stay any longer. I guess when you have missionaries from the true church, they are intimidating or something!! I love it when stuff like that happens. I love just giving them the "don't screw up look". Preachers are scared of the LDS missionaries here because we know the Bible better then they do and we catch them by surprise. It's awesome. Well, everything is going well and Thanksgiving won't be too bad I am sure. It's only 2holiday seasons that I am missing out on, I guess that's the least I can do for Heavenly Father, right? I love you guys. Elder Walker