Training

Helloooo! 

So this week was awesome! we had a lot of great teaching experiences and we are now officially baptizing Cristian this week!! Cristian has been taught for more than three years and i have the opportunity to finally baptize him!! I'm super excited for this baptism and the fact that after all this time everyone in this family is going to be baptized!! I have seen the change that the gospel has done in this family so much over the past four and a half months. Oh and by the way my companion got transferred to a place called Navegantes and I'm going to be training!!!! a new elder named Elder Burden haha hopefully he's not too much of a burden but I can for sure handle training. 

I'm super excited and ready to help him learn and teach this amazing gospel! Anyways I'm super close to several baptisms and I'm going to let my new comp do the baptism this weekend so he can say he got straight to the field and baptized someone haha. 

But anyways everyone! miss you all so much! loving it here, and I love my savior, and this gospel!! Hope you all have an amazing week and love you all!!!!

Elder Whelan

Email and picts

Hey everyone!! 

This week went well but was a little sad for me. so we had a baptismal date set for Christian and in the end we decided he wasn't ready so we are going to work a little bit more with him so that he can be better prepared! But other than that this past week went by super fast and fun! transfers are coming up this weekend so I'm ready for transfers haha i love my comp and my area and the people here but sometimes you feel like you've talked with everyone already and that there's nothing left for you in the area (which isn't even true haha) . I'm kinda feeling like that right now. Elder Saavedra has been here for 6 months so he's even more ready than I am to leave haha But anyways me and Saavedra are doing really good, we are working hard and super happy haha just lovin the mission life!!! 

I just want to bear my testimony really quickly that I know this church is true, that Jesus Christ lives and this is his gospel. I know that we have a prophet who lives and guide God's church and children. I know that through repentance and the gospel of Jesus Christ we can be clean of our sins, and live in peace, and happiness. I know that families can be forever! I hope you all have an amazing week and I love you all!!!!!

Elder Whelan

Weekly Email

We have a baptismal date for Christian. It's so exciting seeing someone recognize God in their life and want to become a member of our Savior's church. I'm grateful I've been able to come here to Brazil and that I was blessed to pick up the language so quickly too. My mom said she found a paper in my closet from when I was a lot younger listing out some things I wanted to accomplish in my life (short and long term goals). I don't remember writing it but I'm not surprised I did. I wrote I wanted to learn Portuguese and used to learn words from my Pops (Dad) who also served in Brazil. She said it was really touching to her that Heavenly Father heard the desires of a boy and gave him his wishes when he chose to serve Him years later as a young man.

        Often we do receive answers to our hopes and desires but sometimes it's years later. It's important for us to communicate and have a relationship with our Father in Heaven that is our own because He really listens and hears our joy, our frustrations, our pleas, and helps turn our righteous desires into blessings for us and for others.

        I don't have much time left to write today. We have to use an Internet cafe and we pay for our time. We were blessed by a member who gave us a gift of time to talk with our parents by paying for our usage at the cafe. We have so many tender mercies daily as Heavenly Father's children. So often we are wrapped up in our lives that we don't recognize those things. But as missionaries who are trying to teach the gospel, we are blessed to see them every day and to recognize them more than we would have before we put on our name tags and committed our lives to Him.

I love my family. I love my Savior. I love the people of Brazil and those people who have loved the heck out of me growing up because they helped get me here. Have an amazing week!

Love, 

Elder Whelan

General Conference

Hi Everyone!

I don't have time to write an email today, but I'll send some pictures from this past week! We had some hard times trying to take some pictures and they all didn't turn out very well, hahaha. We definitely hope you all like them!

I loved general conference.

Happy Birthdays, Grandma Delores and Grandma Barbara!!

-Elder Whelan