Going to the temple....

4-20-15

 Cool YoYo that Jimmy gave me...

 Me practicing...not very good....

Missionaries love "Rollback" at Walmart...everything is cheaper....

Weeeeeell here's the scoop.

 So this last week was pretty awesome! There's this waaaaay less active brother in our ward that we have been working with, and we have been teaching his girlfriend, and we met with them  a bunch this last week, and we were able to help them a lot more. One theing that we talked about was light. So in Ether 6:3 it says,

And thus the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness. 

What we talked about wtih them, was about how our life, is alot like trying to cross the ocean without any light, but the lord, has given us so many scources of light, to guide us. The scriptures, the prophets, prayer, the commandments. It's alot like the lights along the shore, (From the hymn, "Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy" ) 

It's so true. why fumble around in the dark, when we can walk around in light, and see where everything is, and where we want to go? haha. There's a reason why Jesus Christ is called the light of the world. Through him, every thing in life will be illuminated, and we will be able to see what we need to do, and where we need to go. 

So with Jimmy and Maria, (the less active and his GF) we are actually going to be doing a Temple tour tomorrow! sadly we won't get to go inside, but we will get to be on the temple grounds, and walk around, as we talk a little bit about the temple. I'm happy because we get to go to the temple haha. there is literally no other place on earth that feels quite as peaceful as the temple. I remember the first time i went to the temple when i was twelve, and i still remember, when we came into the parking lot and looked up at the peak, (The Las Vegas temple that is,) and the instant, and absolute feeling of peace. It's a memory that has always stuck with me, and is a constant reminder of a very simple truth: If you want to find peace, follow Jesus Christ. the road might be bumpy, but the destination is peace.

well sadly time has run short once again, but i love you guys!

Elder Wardell

The Lord will qualify you....

4-13-15

this is me, inspecting the engine of a lamborghini haha you know me.

(I asked why this car was parked on the grass....Elder Wardell responded...

"Mom, who knows , it was also covered with a bunch of junk from the tree...."

ha ha, made his day to see the car, made mine to see it on the grass...funny....

The Ultimate voice stealer 9000, complete with speaker accesory.

haha it's nice i have a bit of MoTab to listen to now!

 One of the worlds greatest inventions: my good friend Kari Bea Ner. I call it Aunt Bea. haha

Yes the force is still strong with me. haha Greatest gift from a missionary ever!

Well here's the scoop, 

So, last week, we went right after email, to another area, with the whole zone and played a gnarly game of ultimate frisbee. we wanted to play ultimate boomerang, ( we found a boomerang and have gotten pretty good with it) but no one else could figure out how to use it. so :( haha but we played a gnarly game of ultimate frisbee so that was really fun! and then after volleyball. 

We also had a rather interestingly not-fun experience this week, so we go over to this one family's house, and they make arepas (they are venezuelan) and they were really good, and then we go home. Well Elder Cobabe, was on exchange with us, and so we were up really late talking, so i was really tired, but then, in the wee hours of way before the morning time, i suddenly wake up, and feel a rather weird stomach feeling. needless to say, frequent trips were made to the bathroom all wednesday morning. haha, and then finally when the bathroom trips ceased, my stomach just resorted to feeling like it was trying to digest a brick, so needless to say, much of wednesday was spent in bed sipping gatorade. (Tried Peptobismol for the first time, YUCK!!!!!!!!!) Lesson learned: Arepas, might not agree with Elder Wardell's tummy.

So, you might be asking, why am i telling this? because the rest of this story, really highlights the grace of God. 

So we have been working with our investigator thomas, and we had an appointment with him for wednesday evening, but the problem, was that elder hansen and i were both lying in bed sick. However when it was about a half hour away from where we were going to visit thomas, we really felt that we couldnt miss that appointment, and we each of us felt a little better. and so, we get up, get dressed, and pray that we will be well enough to be able to finish out the night, and then we go. we bike all the way down to thomas, (lemme tell ya, worst time biking of my LIFE) and we get there, and fortunately he was there. So, we felt like we needed to re teach him the restoration, and we taught it to him, using this teaching method that our mission is adopting, and what was marvelous, was when we were on the first vision, after elder hansen and i both testified about how we know that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God, Thomas looked up at us and said,  I believe it. and then after when we invited him to be baptised he said yes! and we set him a date!! 

Elder Hansen and I still felt crappy and exhausted, during the time we taught thomas, and finished the night and then biked back home, and for me, like there was a smaller brick in the stomach, but none the less though through a blessing from God, we were able to finish the night without problem. 

Moral of the story: 1 Nephi 3:7. when the Lord wants something done, he will qualify you to do it. you might not get the best qualifications, but youll be qualified none the less. Don't ever be scared with what challenges lie in front of a task, those are just attempts from a very clever adversary to stop you from achieving full potential and greatness.

Well that's all for this week!

Love yall talk to you next week.

Elder Wardell

Conference and a Lamborghini...life is good!!

April 6, 2015

Well here's the scoop,

      So, this last week was amazing because we had conference of course! We also saw a lamborghini! haha it was awesome.

Well sadly this week i don't have a ton of time again, but i just wanted to talk about a neat conference experience we had. So, we have this investigator named thomas. Thomas is cool he's awesome, but with him, on sunday night we shared the talk with him from conference by Elder W Anderson (the talk about the indian man, and the music of the gospel.) he absolutely loved it, but what was even cooler was when we shared part of President Monson's talk from that very morning (it's amazing what technology can do now isn't it?!) and elder hansen and I both testified to thomas about how Thomas S Monson, is a prophet in our day, just as moses and Noah were. it was miraculous how strong the spirit was, and how much thomas felt it! well i love you guys, and will talk to you next week.

Elder Wardell

Baptisms, and Miracles....loving the life of a Missionary!!

3-30-15 Note from Mom:  We recieved a voice recording from Elder Wardell! He told us a little bit about his mission. He LOVES his mission! 

 Yasnay's Baptism

 The Posterity

Elder Hansen, Elder Marshall, Elder Wardell 

3-30-15
sorry the scoops gonna have to be real short

had to write some necessary emails :( 

this week was awesome! Yasnay got baptised and then confirmed, miracles happen and hard work pays off! Maria, came to church and was crying durning i stand all amazed, cuz she felt the spirit. we are excited for conference this weekend so that she can hear the voice of a living prophet. love you guys!

 Sweet new tie!  Thanks Grandma!! 

 Come listen to Elder Wardell's voice

Trying out the new voice recorder! 

Breakfast!! 

Blessings of the Atonement of Christ

Note from Mom:  no pictures  :(

3-23-15

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell here's the scoop.

Well, let's start off with some good news, Yasnay will be getting baptised this saturday!!!!!!!!!!! She came to church, we've taught her the lessons, she's amazing, we will be going swimming this saturday! it's amazing! There's also this woman Maria. She's the "friend" haha of a member, who introduced us to her at the Meet the Mormons movie that the ward had showed. we taught her the restoration, and she accepted baptism. We set a return appointment with her, but sadly she wasn't able to make it. but when we asked her how her reading of the book of mormon was, she informed us that she has been reading every night!! and more than just a couple of verses she's been reading a full chapter every night. She's amazing! she will without doubt be baptised really soon.

  Well, we had another interesting experience this last week. 

so, in our ward, there are two sets of missionaries, so the ward is split into two areas. A couple of weeks ago, the other two missionaries, had a baptism for a brother named Bro Zapata. he's this 80 somethin year old cuban man, with whom they had been working the entire time that we have been here. Sadly though, his wife has had cancer for the past little while, and her time was counting down very quickly. but he pressed foreward anyway, got baptised into the church that he knows to be true, and is already anxious for when he hits one year so that he can go to the temple. but this last week we were informed that his wife had passed away. Her funeral was yesterday afternoon, and the neat thing to see. was how a ton of the members from the ward went to see him, even though they didn't quite know who he was. they were there for him to give him a hand and a hug, and literally put together a small little service right on the spot. it was so wonderful, and the spirit was so strong. Something i noticed though, is one of the blessings that we have, of having the knowledge of the plan of salvation. His family that was there, was just so sad, so gloomy, so down. every was kind of saying goodbye for forever. The greatest thing about God's plan of happiness is that very simply we know that it's goodbye for maybe, a few years. maybe 5 for some and 75 for others but either way, in eternity, time is nothing. it's goodbye for a bit for now, and Hello for forever after.

It literally takes the scare out of death. This I believe to partly be the way that Jesus Christ "conquered death"  wow, haha not sure where I was going with that. 

Well i love yall. Can't wait to talk to you all next week! 

Elder Wardell

Exchanges, Family time and Biscuits and Gravy

So me, my son and the three ap's. haha all in the MAN VAN (the ap's drive a dodge minivan....it's pretty dope not gonna lie)

 front l-r: Elder Marshall, elder Sorensen 

middle l-r: hijo mio (my son), me, 

exile: Elder Burgoyne (love that guy)

3-9-15

Note from Mom: 

From time to time the Elder's (or Sister's )  will work with another missionary. They will "exchange" companions and work for the day with a different missionary other than their regular companion.  In Elder Wardell's mission, they are usually on exchanges with their District Leaders, or their Zone leaders. After Elder Zwick's training, they will now be also going on exchanges with the "AP's" (Assistants to the President).  

Weeeell here's the scoop,

     So, everyone has heard of the thing called the exchange. usually who exchanges with who just climbs the food chain: missionaries with district leaders, DL's with Zone Leaders, ZL's with the Assistants to the President, and then the AP's are always around President, who frequently get's training from the seventies and the 12, and, well you know who they get training from hahaha.

Well, after Elder Zwick was here, he mentioned that he wanted the AP's to do something different: Now they don't do exchanges with the ZL's, they exchange with the trainer's and trainees. It's a wacky exchange too, because the trainer and trainee go into the ap's area. Why do i bring this up? because Elder Hansen just got to take a 2 day trip out of our area into the AP's area. it was actually really fun, mainly because i actually got to have some flash back time. so if you remember my first emails from the field, you will remember reading about a missionary named elder marshall, who trained me. (eh he's an alright guy) ;) love you elder marshall! (he too is reading this) 

anyway, if you read back a few emails, about halfway through my time in jupiter, you'll find that he was called to be an assistant the the president! so, needless to say, I GOT TO SPEND 2 DAYS WITH MY POPS!!!!! haha it was a ton a fun and a wave of memories, to go knocking doors with elder marshall agian. and this time we were actually on bike! funny enough out of all the time that i was ever around elder marshall, it was literally the 3rd time i ever rode a bike with him. it was fun.

especially with a biscuits n gravy breakfast. i think it's the new exchange tradition.

oh this last week on the fifth, was officially one year! since i left for my mission!

well the area is doing well! we are working with this young man named robert, who's really intelligent, one of the few people who has actually read the bible and understands it rather well. he lives with this part member family who we are also working with. he's come to church the past couple of weeks, and right now we are just doing what we can to held him gain a testimony. 

Sadly, Yasnay was not able to come to church this last week, but it's ok, she's still cool, and still puttin along for her baptism! so all is well there. 

Well as sad as it is, i am now just barely over email time, so i gotta get off, but i love you all! 

can't wait to talk to you next week.

Elder Wardell

Zone Conference and Reunions....

March 2, 2015

 The dynamic trio reunited 

Elder Tenney, Elder Wardell, Elder Swensen

 Son, Father, Grandfather

Elder Hansen, Elder Wardell, Elder Marshall

 Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no Evil

Guess who the semi-intelligent one is?? That's MY BOY!!! 

weeeeeeeeeeell here's the scoop.

So some exciting things that happened this last week, we had zone conference!

Zone conferences are always a ton of fun because there's always missionaries that you have served around, there's the missionaries that are in your old areas that you can talk to, etc etc it's alwas a ton of fun! i got to chat with elder tenney and elder swensen which is always a blast, (funny enough, elder swensen, when he left his greenie area, kicked me out of my greenie area, and then when he left there, he went to elder tenny's greenie area! it's really funny.) I also got to chat with my pops Elder Marshall, (worlds biggest goofball lemme tell ya! ;))

well we had a ton of visits with the members this week! it's really nice cuz this ward is amazing!!!

they absolutely love the missionaries, and that means food! and also photos that get sent home, so my mother is always happy. haha

Well this last week saw a lot of good stuff with the work! Sadly we had to drop robert the atheist, but he just truly didn't have a desire to believe. that was the reason that he wasnt seeing the evidence of faith was because he didn't have a desire to believe. but, Yasnay, the daughter of the recent convert we have been working with, came to church! we were so happy to have her there, and in meeting with her earlier in the week, we taught her the plan of salvation! It's always amazing to me when we get to teach the plan of salvation. Whenever i think about the plan of salvation, i'm just grateful. grateful to have been born and raised in the true church of god, that has the blessings of a living prophet, who can recieve knowledge of things like the plan of salvation. I mean, how many people do we know that say, yeah god has a plan, but that's all they know? it's truly marvelous to me.

Well yasnay is going full steam ahead prepping for baptism, as well as this guy carlos that we found, with whom we shared the restoration. we left his home, with the comment from him, "wow, i really need to read this book" (book of mormon) 

next week will definitely have exciting news! well i love yall! can't wait to talk to ya next week.

Elder Wardell