Elder Adam Walker:

January 2009
This transfer has gone very fast, next week is transfer day already, I can't believe it. We are pretty sure that Elder Chin is going to get transfered to somewhere else but we will just have to see for sure, President Thornock might just through a loop in for us and send me somewhere, either way its pretty much guerrenteed that there will be a change here. I'm exited to see what happens. Thanks for the package, everything came through good and safe. and I am feeling better now, everything cleared up after I had that bad headache so that was nice. I have just been drinking lots of orange juice and trying to eat healthy. We have had dinners at members houses every night since last Sunday (January 11) and we have dinners everynight until the end of the transfer haha (jan 28) so that is about 18 dinners right in a row, we are getting fed really well that is for sure. That's one thing this area is really good at, feeding us. I don't know if I told you but I now hold the record for pancakes eatin at ihop in the town of Roanoke Virginia, there was an all you can eat Pancake deal, I got it and some missionaries that I was with said that if I ate 12 they would pay for my meal, well needless to say I did it, they paid for my meal and then it was a big deal with all the cooks and the waiters that they had never seen anyone eat that many before, the most they had ever seen was 11 so I now hold the record, good publicity for the church I guess haha. I was pretty sick after I ate them that is for sure but I got a free meal. We have Branch Conference next Sunday and there is a rumor that we are getting a new branch president so there might be some changes here as well in the ward that I am in. I hope they don't get a new branch president but I guess whatever happens, happens. The one they have right now is awesome. It snowed here last night, there was just a little sciff and everyone freeked out, it was pretty funny actually, it all melted by 9:00 but they have all the roads salted and everything really good so they are prepared, people are funny here. I bet they even cancelled school today as well just because of the sciff they got.

We have had some pretty good success with our investigators this week, Britney Watson, she is a 17 year old girl who wanted to take the lessons but her grandparents wouldn't let her and she finnally talked them into it and so we are going to go and teach her at the Sechrists home tonight, hopefully we have a good lesson with her. We also have a couple good ones that are coming along, they are just coming really slow. One is ready to be baptized he just wants to finish the Book of Mormon before he is baptized, and then we have the one that had a stroke about 10 days ago, he was at church yesterday and he seems to be doing a little better now. We have a couple others we are going to see here in the next week or so but we will just have to see. It is going pretty well though, I'm exited to see what happens. Everything is going really well though, I'm exited to see what happens with transfers this next week but until then, hope y'all have a good one. Love you, Elder Walker


February 2009
Yesterday my companion got his first "preacher thinks he knows everything" experiece. We were at the senior citizens center and there was a Reverend there and this particular Revrand is one that is really liked in this area, but quite frankly he doesn't like the missionaries too well. He was there giving a talk about black history month and about his experience that he had when he went to the innauguration last month (he is black might I add) and he was just talking a whole bunch about the histories of black people in this country and everything was great, it was acutally pretty interesting. But then he started the whole, "Obama is God and every problem that we have right now is ALL Bushes fault." (People really like to do that out here it seems like) and I was getting a little figity but I kept my mouth shut, until one of the old ladies that was there opened her mouth and said that she didn't agree with him. When she did this, he pretty much just started bashing on her and telling her that she was wrong and that she needed to be quite. So you know me, I like to stick up for the underdog and voice my opinion, I raised my hand, he looked at me and said, "Yes?" I said I agree with Ann (that's her name), he tried to cut me off, but it was my floor at that point so I just kept on talking. I told him that that is the biggist falasy that this country has, blaming everything on the president of the United States. I went on and pretty much in a nut shell said that it is our own faults that we are in the condition that we are in. We are the ones who are greedy and wanting the 4 story house when we can only afford a 1 story small house, we want the decked out Cadilack when we can only afford the 1997 ford taurus, and we want to be better than our neigbors. Then I went on to say, we are religious people, so we bring God into the picture, have you ever thought that he is trying to humble us now with our economy going down? Who is to blame, George? you might have one finger pointing at him but look how many are pointing back at you.
Then it got great. All the residents there were smiling and like "yeah you are right!" But Reverend Eccoles wasn't done, he wanted to dive right into the bible and compare stuff to it. So he goes to the begining, and says Adam and Eve, who did Adam blame the sin on? I said he blamed eve? So he said there you go, see so its okay to do that! I said, so you're saying that Eve is going to be held accountable for what Adam did? He said well no, but thats just the way it is. By this time, this very confident preacher is starting to have a shacky voice and starts to studder. He goes on and he says you are trying to take "what is," and put it in to "what should be." I said isn't that what we are supposed to do? Then one of the activity directors that was in the back stood up and said Elder Walker I am impressed, I think we should have a debate, you verses Reverend Eccoles, (she hates the guy as it is so you know exactly what she was thinking) haha luckly Reverend Eccoles came right out and said, NO I don't want to do that, he would have no chance, so badly did I want to say "bring it on" but I held my tounge so you should be proud of me there. and then he said, well I need to go back to my church, there is a family there that just lost a loved one and I need to be there for them.
> He said I have one more annalogy for you .... Eldeeeer Waaalker...thats your name right ( he had said it perfectly about 50 times earlier that day, he was just trying to be a smart alec on that one) He said if I am driving a car, you are in the passenger seat, I get in a wreck, I tell the cops that it is your fault because you were talking to me, who is going to get a ticket, me or you? You will, I said. Then he said, "point proven" and started to walk out. Then I had one more comment, I said how many steering wheels are in this country?... dumfounded he said we will talk about this later... and said bye to every one and left. haha it was great. All the residents love me now, hopefully they will be baptised in the next life. A couple gave me some nice comments simply by saying, "Thank you, we have been wanting to do that for a long time now." So I have another preacher furious at me, but we gained a lot of new friends yesterday so I suppose that it was worth it.
> After talking about it, we discussed how in most Baptist Churches, they are not really aloud to say anything about what the preacher is saying, they just take what the preacher says and if he says it, it is true, I think it just caught him off gaurd because he is not used to someone opposing him. I'm glad our church is not that way, how sad would that be if we were not expected to find out answers for ourself. I like how we are expected to read, ponder and pray to find out if something is true. Not just expect a preacher to say something and for it to be automatically true. It really is sad to see out here how much people are missing out on.
> I love this work, its tough but completely worth it. The message that we have is the most important thing that anyone could ever ask for and no one is going to stop the work from going to every ear. Cause its Gods work and he won't allow it.

My new companion's name is Elder Owens, he is awesome. He is pretty quiet right now so it is much different than Elder Chin so it has been different but I like it. He is just writing his parents to tell them that he made it here all right, he is from Panguitch, Utah, it is down by Cedar City, Utah. I think he will be a good missionary. Its going to be a neat experience training him. I love you all thanks for everything that you do. Elder Walker