Here’s another one for you! Let me know when you guys get tired of my voice and I’ll write an email instead 😂 

I love you all and I’ll catch ya next week!

Sincerely,
Elder Whitchurch
Romans 8:18

Transcription

What’s up?

Okay, um, I am quite honestly really tired today and I kind of have a headache, so I’m gonna make this one pretty short.

This week has been pretty fun, but also kind of pretty average, so I’ll just jump right into it.

Welcome to another episode of Elder Whitchurch’s weekly emails/audio recordings. I know I haven’t really written an email in a while. It’s just so much easier to record you guys something. I hope you guys don’t mind.

Anyway, this week it’s been pretty normal, but there were some really cool things that happened.

Last Monday was my comp’s birthday, Elder Greenwood. Happy birthday to him. He is an awesome guy, so it was great to spend time with him. We didn’t really do much for his birthday. We kind of just had a regular P-day, which is kind of sad. You really just don’t have a lot to do on your birthday, so we didn’t celebrate as much as we wish we had.

We did try to go out and get milkshakes. Apparently Jack in the Box makes some killer milkshakes. We tried for that, but then we got stuck talking to this guy who we’re pretty sure was highly intoxicated. Probably. We’re not sure. But he was really funny. His name is Nick. He said he was going to come to church. He did not, which was kind of sad, but he was really cool. He said the other missionaries had talked to him before, but he was really open and interested in learning more. We might swing by him again.

We ended up talking to him for like 45 minutes. We didn’t intend to, but he just kept talking. We’d say, “Oh, we kind of have to go,” and he’d say, “Oh okay, yeah, go ahead. I don’t want to hold you guys,” and then start talking again. So that was hilarious.

I believe it was Tuesday we had a lesson with one of our friends, and she’s awesome. She’s really progressing. She’s been really struggling with some things in her life. She just has a lot of things that have happened and are continuing to happen. Meeting with her has really helped her feel a close connection to God in such a crazy, chaotic life.

On Tuesday we talked about faith.

On Thursday we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ—repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

It was really cool to see her take the information we shared, the scriptures, ideas, and thoughts, and allow them to change her. It’s been really cool to see her turn to God even more, even though she’s already done that so much in her life.

It was actually fun to see the Lord work within that lesson because we weren’t sure we were going to get a lesson. We started talking with her about how her day was, and she’d had a really rough day. We thought, “Oh no, we’re not going to be able to teach much.”

But the Spirit carried that lesson. So it was really cool.

I believe it was Friday we had a sick exchange. One of the other elders in our district wasn’t feeling well, so we didn’t exchange the normal way. I got to hang out with Elder Brown for most of the day. He is such a delight to be around. He is such a funny guy.

We came out together. I think I mentioned him in my last recording or a couple recordings ago, but either way, he’s just really fun. It’s like being companions with your brother almost because we came out together, and our perspective of the mission time-wise is very similar.

Actually, that’s kind of the same thing with my comp because he came out one transfer before me. We’ve both been out long enough that we kind of see things pretty similarly.

It was a really fun day.

Then we swapped back that night, and I hung out the rest of the night at their house with the sick companion, Elder Byers. He is also a really fun guy.

We just sat there and talked while I worked on a tie. It’s actually funny—some ties are measured by finger widths, and I think the tie I had was like six fingers wide. It was just way too fat. It was huge.

So I unstitched it, cut off some of the sides, and sewed it back together. I had to do it at their house because our iron sucks, and you have to have an iron for that process.

So that was fun. I got a cool tie out of it and had a fun conversation with him. He’s such a cool guy.

Then Saturday we did an exchange with the zone leaders. That was a good day. I was with Elder Hansen over in their area. We had a lot of fun and talked a lot.

We talked about some things he’d been noticing within the zone. He asked me some questions, I gave him some answers, and he was trying to figure out how to help the zone and how to help our district.

So yeah, it was a good day.

Then Sunday… Sunday was a headache, I’ll be honest. But it was a good day.

It was pure chaos.

If you were to look at our calendar, you would just see the chaos. We have two wards, so we had two sacrament meetings to attend, two coordination meetings to attend, and then we had an appointment at two.

Church got out at about 12:30. We didn’t get home until like one. We got home, ate as quickly as we could, left 45 minutes later, and got to our appointment at two.

It was a member visit. We sat and talked with them for a while, shared a fun little message, and then left.

After that we did some phone work, went to another member visit, went straight to dinner, and then went straight to giving one of the ward members a blessing.

That was really cool.

I love helping people through the priesthood. It’s such a unique feeling to kind of feel God work through you. Everything is from God, and it’s such a blessing that He gives us the priesthood to help us out.

Anyway, there’s my little cheesy missionary moment. There’s always got to be one or two.

It was really cool to give him a blessing and help him out. We offered to help him with anything he needed and told him that if we couldn’t do it, we knew people who could.

He laughed and said, “Oh, you’ve got all the connections.”

That was fun.

Sunday was crazy. We came home at the end of the night at like eight o’clock and did our personal study at eight o’clock at night.

I may or may not have fallen asleep for the last 15 minutes.

I was so tired.

Then I got to end the night with a phone call to Kimber.

So happy birthday shout-out to Kimber. She’s one year older and wiser too.

It was really fun to catch up, see how she’s doing, and see what she’s up to. She’s awesome.

Miss you, Kimber. Love you.

That was a good way to end the night.

This morning I woke up and had completely forgotten that today was P-day for half a second.

I woke up and thought, “I’m so tired. What are we doing today?”

Then my brain remembered.

“Oh yes, it’s P-day.”

Just a fun little realization that changes everything.

We spent most of the day running around too. We went to get haircuts, but the member we were going to accidentally forgot that we were coming.

She was so apologetic.

We told her it was okay, so we went and got groceries, then came back later and got our haircuts.

It was such a blessing because, A, it was free, and members out here are just so nice.

And B, it was badly needed.

We hadn’t gotten haircuts in like three weeks.

We were really glad to get rid of all that hair.

Then we just hung out as a zone today. It was a zone P-day.

We did a water balloon fight.

A few people got nailed because we were using those easy-fill balloons, and sometimes they just don’t pop. It’s basically just a ball of water getting thrown at you.

I had one of the sisters totally chuck one right at my cheek.

Somebody got hit in the eye.

Somebody got nailed in the throat.

I accidentally nailed somebody in the chest.

They just don’t pop sometimes.

Hopefully we’ll stick to water guns or something next time, but it was fun.

Then we just kind of went home because Elder Greenwood and I were tired.

So yeah, that’s kind of the week in a nutshell.

I can’t really think of anything else of great importance, so I think I’ll leave it at that.

But I love you guys. Keep going strong. It’s worth it.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve questioned whether or not going through with my mission has been worth it, and I know it is.

For anybody who’s going out on their missions—and I know a few of you are—I hope you’re listening to this.

It’s worth it.

Everything that this gospel teaches is worth it.

So I can promise you guys that.

Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I look forward to sending another one of these next week.

Bye-bye.