Released from my Mission (temporarily)

Hey everyone! 

So I’m going to start off by saying that these past two weeks have been pretty uneventful Hahaha. So, I’ve been sitting at home in quarantine but the good part is that I’m with my family! I’ve been missing Brazil a lot and the food, but I’m also taking advantage of the food here haha! My family is awesome and doing well, Milo was a pretty sick but he’s much better now. 

I just want to state my testimony that I know that this church is true, then I had the best time of my life on my mission in Brazil! The Brazil Florianópolis mission is the best mission on earth!! And I will never forget my time in Brazil! I am so thankful for all that I have and all that God has given me in my life, the many skills and abilities that I have learned as I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know the book of Mormon is true, and that we have a prophet named Russell M Nelson who is leading us in these latter days! Also, this past conference was amazing!! I learned so many things and I’m so thankful for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel is so true and has blessed the lives of millions and will bless all of God's children! The corona-virus still hasn’t gone away but I am very thankful for the opportunity to have fasted and prayed for this virus to go away. 

I hope all of you have an amazing week and stay safe! Social distancing is important and we all need to follow the rules haha

I love you all and can’t wait to see what the next chapter of my life is going to be! Thank you for all your support and love! I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Love Elder Whelan

Back Home Too Soon!

Hey everyone!!

So right now I’m emailing you all from my home! What a crazy experience I’ve had these past few days! Phew!!

All right to start it all off I’ll talk about the millions of years it took to get home because of how many missionaries were waiting at the airports. So at the beginning of the week we sat around doing nothing. Except about three days before we had to leave Brazil we had to call our stake president and coordinate a van to get 14 missionaries from my zone to the airport in Florianopolis. That was definitely crazy and a little difficult ha ha. Anyways so once we got that all figured out a fun little side story was that as we are leaving the house this crazy angry lady knocked on her door and started yelling at us because we were making too much noise. She went off about how we were missionaries for the church of God and how I guess that means that we have to be quiet hahahaha. And then as we were leaving her husband said that he’d call our pastor which I thought was funny because we don’t have a pastor.

But anyways we all got to the airport at Florianopolis successfully, and we saw the group of about 80 missionaries from my mission ready to go back to the United States. And I was just about to ask what we’re gonna do then the guys from the office told me that because my name starts with a ‘W’ I was going to stay back another day! Wow! That got me going a little crazy haha because we ended up staying a whole other day and then we finally got to the airport in Florianópolis to get to São Paulo at around 12:00pm. When we got to the airport in São Paulo there was about 1,000 missionaries from all over Brazil waiting to get on their flights! So what ended up happening was we waited all day long to get on our flight at around 8 o’clock. The line for our baggage claim to check baggage was honestly the longest line that I’ve ever been in hahah it was huge!!!

But anyways everything worked out just fine and we all got on several charter planes back to the US, Los Angeles to be specific. And when we got to Los Angeles I scheduled a flight to Seattle then to Pasco. The flight to Los Angeles ended up being around 10 to 11 hours long and it actually wasn’t too bad. I rode with several other missionaries to Seattle then quite a few missionaries to Pasco. I was actually really nervous to get home to see my family because my family is amazing! But now I’m here at home feeling super out-of-whack and out of place! I feel like I am breaking the rules for cheating the system seeing my family and hugging everyone! It’s crazy!!! ha ha. I don’t know how is it that I’m still on the mission and I would have never thought this day, or experience, would have ever happened to me in my life! It’s crazy! This virus is really messing up things and I just hope that all of you are doing ok and you’re families are ok!

I just want to say that I am going to miss my mission and Florianópolis extremely bad, and I will never forget the experiences that I had in the best mission on planet earth!!

I want to bear my testimony that I know this church is true that God loves his children and that no matter what is happening in the world right now, everything is going to turn out OK . I love you all and I hope you have an amazing week and I hope you all stay safe!

Love Elder Whelan

-picts of us having sacrament meeting at home

I'm really going to miss Brazil!!!

Hello everyone! So just to begin this week has been absolutely crazy haha so we now have smartphones in the mission and its honestly such an amazing blessing to have here in Brazil because honestly the streets here are kinda crazy and we need all the help we can get hahaha Anyways to start off my week we didn't have church on Sunday which was SUPER weird haha and then on p-day we called our families using the phone which was sooooo nice haha and much easier. On Tuesday we went to the bank to see if our 200 reals came through then we proceeded to buy as much food as we possibly could haha because our president told us to buy a food storage for 15 days.

Then on Wednesday we got money from the members to buy some food so we went and bought some super good chicken stuff from the "mall" here. We were lucky because as of late everything has been shut down and we barely made it to the mall before it all shut down to buy food. After that we got a text saying that we need to tell our zone to go home because the virus is getting worse and we don't want any missionarys getting sick. So we got home and all we've pretty much been doing is listening saints and…. Haha theres not much else to do in the house of a missionary besides study. On thursday we got a message saying that until further notice we will have to stay in our house for two weeks!! Not just us though everyone should stay home haha on friday at around 7:30 the elders from another area came to give the baptismal interview to mikaele so that she could be baptized on Saturday! She passed!! Whoohoo anyways so on saturday we had the baptism and it was weird because we were told to invite the least amount of people as possible. But anyways the baptism went really well and very quickly haha elder Rios baptized her because he knew her longer then immediately after we gave her the gift of the holy ghost!!! It was such an amazing feeling! Just to know that even through all of these trials and tribulations the work of the Lord continues on!!! This Sunday since we have to stay home all day is going to be pretty rough, I won't lie haha we don't have that many things to do in the house. Yesterday I cleaned the entire house while my comp sat on his butt and did nothing hahahah thats how lost we are being stuck in our houses all day. But anyways, I'm thankful to be a missionary for the church of God! Even in these difficult times we can always remember our saviour and have hope that our heavenly father and saviour are by our sides. Also I forgot to send a lot of thes pictures so her ya go!!

To finish this email we recently received the news that every foreigner is going to there original land or "home" and that we have to stay in quarantine for fourteen days, then we will get re-assigned to a different area in the United States. I'm extremely sad to say good bye to my mission here in Brazil but God has a purpose for everything. Wherever I go I'm happy to be serving my Heavenly Father and his children. Its hard to actually comprehend all that's happening but I'm just going with the flow like usual haha 

love you all and i hope you all have an amazing week and stay healthy and safe!!!!!

Joinville

I'm at a horrible lan house that is super outdated so are the computers. It won't let me call you guys. I'm trying to figure out the problem. My new comp is pretty cool. He's from Argentina and his name is Elder Rios.

I love you guys. Happy birthday, Ty!

Elder Whelan

Transfers!!!

Hey everyone!!! hope everyone had an amazing week!!! mine was definitely crazy, especially Sunday! but anyways the highlight of my week was when an investigator that we have named Cassio just showed up to church. honestly he ́s super close to being baptized so I'm super excited for him! Based on the subject title of this email you all probably know what is happening to me haha I'm getting transferred to Joinville! And my area is called Itaum and I'm going to be the new Zone Leader! 

I'm pretty excited and super ready! its gonna be a little different than im used to but I'll figure it out. I'm going to have to give trainings at zone conference and travel a ton to help other elders if they need help! its honestly going to be awesome and im super excited! My comp Elder Austin is going to be training an elder from Bolivia and he's going to take my spot as district leader. haha he's pretty excited/stressed. But anyways that's honestly it for this week! I'm excited for the change and I know that that's where Heavenly Father put me and I know that he's helping me and everyone who asks for his help have success in this life! I love this Gospel and I know its true and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be a member of the one and only true church of Jesus Christ!!

Love you all!!

Love Elder Whelan

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!!!!

Hello! I got your package a little bit ago, so Awesome! Peanut butter!! Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!! Takis!! I chowed on the KitKats pretty quickly because we can get them here, but I'm taking my time and savoring the Reese's, can't find those here, so good! 

Things here are good, we're working hard, getting along well, finding people to teach. Had a couple investigators show up at church, which was sweet. We get smart phones next week, we're pretty excited about that! 

I miss you all and love you all! Read your scriptures, go to church, help those in need. 

Love,

Elder Whelan

Oiiiiii, Como Vai!!!

Hello everyone. This week was awesome!! So the beginning of the week was kinda dull, nothing crazy happened. But at the end of the week on Friday we had our mission tour. It’s crazy to think about a year ago I had my first mission tour! I have 14 months on the mission now, time flies!

But anyway we had a chartered bus to Florianopolis with like 40-50 missionaries. It was so fun! At the church we had a big lesson/teaching… no... training (that’s what I would say, haha) by Elder Costa who is SUPER awesome! We learned so much about how to be a good example no matter where we are. After the mission tour we slept at the zone leaders’ in Joinville then got home on Saturday at about 12:45. We were dead from so much traveling, haha.

I was able to prepare the rest of my talk for Sunday. Oh, and we are going to receive smart phones the next zone conference!! It’s officially going to happen! But anyways this Sunday I had my talk which went really well. I talked about how we can find joy in sharing the Gospel. I talked about if we hadn’t tried our hardest in the past today is a new day so to get started!! It was awesome and an amazing privilege!

After lunch we made a ton of contacts and met some very strange/interesting people like always. On Sunday we had hamburgers with the Venezuelans and their son cut our hair for free haha, that was cool. But anyways that was my week. Hope everyone is healthy and safe and I love you all!

Love, Elder Whelan