Thanksgiving and Transfers

Hey Everyone!!

This week was awesome! It started out by going to McCall on Monday and playing pool all day! It was a lot of fun! We went on exchanges Tuesday and we did a lot of service! You know how I love service!!:) Wednesday was a normal day and then it was Thanksgiving! What an awesome day! We were able to go to 4 different dinners! Let's just say I was feeling pretty heavy by the end of the night!! haha. We also had a couple more Thanksgiving dinners on Friday with people that couldn't do it Thursday because of work. Which is odd, but good food nonetheless! Saturday we got transfer calls and I am happy to say that I will be in Payette for Christmas!! I don't have much else to report this week.

As we get into the Christmas season the church has come out with another big Christmas Initiative! It is called #LighttheWorld In 25 ways. Over 25 days. There's a video for it on LDS.org you can watch. Throughout the month of December we are focusing on serving everyone around us. Doing things that our Savior Jesus Christ did. There are so many things that he did for so many different people. There is an advent calendar for each day in December. Each day focuses on a certain thing that Jesus did, that we can do, too. An example of one day would be "Jesus helped the blind to see and so can you" and there are a bunch of different things we can do to help people see better. But I would just challenge everyone to watch this video and then do everything you can throughout December to serve others and I promise as you do so you will be blessed and you will become more like the Savior. "Ye are the light of the world" Matthew 5:14.

I love you all! i hope you all have a great week and that you all look for opportunities to serve one another!

Love,

Elder Waite


He sounds good, right? I felt peaceful today reading his email. I'm relieved that he gets to stay in Payette for Christmas. It helps to be somewhere you like to be during the holiday season. He'll eventually transfer and have another adventure somewhere else but for now it's good that he gets to stay another transfer! 

When we were buying his suits for his mission one of the salesmen in the store said he went to Boise on his mission and that Jacob should look forward to gaining a bunch of weight. Haha. He's up 12 lbs now. I can't even imagine it. He's always been lean. It just doesn't seem like it's possible to have him come home heavier. Crazy. 

It's awesome to hear of his enthusiasm for the #lighttheworld campaign. We're excited to participate as a family and to know that he is doing it along with us!

Riding with Elder Masten driving and Elder Price taking pictures

Diving in the lake

Crazy thick fog - can't tell from the picture!

Don't Lose Sight

Hey Everyone!

So this week was pretty awesome. If you've read my other emails you know that I love to do service. And, well, this week was more service oriented than anything. It was awesome! I love serving people! On Wednesday we got to cut wood for about 4 hours! And I didn't even stop for water, I loved it so much! I was pretty dang sore the next day though.. haha. 

And on Saturday we helped a family do something pretty crazy...  We skinned and butchered Llamas!! Pretty weird, huh? haha. It was fun, though.

Aaannnyyywwaaaaayyyy, I guess I should get to something more spiritual right? haha

You may have noticed the title of my email was 'don't lose sight'? Well, I was thinking this morning about what I should write my email about. And I thought I needed to share something about families. Families are so important. It's something I didn't really know much about before I came out on my mission. I love my family so much and I want nothing more than to be with them for eternity. Not only my immediate family but my extended family as well. All my cousins and aunts and uncles and everybody! I know so many people that have lost sight of why they are here. And why they were put into the family that they were put into. I am still pretty new to all this missionary stuff so I don't have any scriptural references to share, but I can tell you that reading the scriptures and praying will help. Those two things are so important. They will help you to not lose sight of why you are here. And they will motivate you to do all that you can so that you can be with your family for eternity. 

Don't lose sight.

My prayer this week is that we can all strive to love our families more. Do everything you can to find time in each day to read your scriptures and pray. It will help so much!

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

-Elder Waite

Before

After

Thought of my dad

Cement and Hotwheels

Hey everyone!

Not much to report this week. It was kinda another slow week. But we did a lot of service! I love doing service! It's always the best part of my day/week! We helped a guy pour cement! That was a lot of fun and some hard work! I am super glad that I have some past experience with that. Growing up my dad and I mixed and poured a lot of cement! It's fun! Soooooo fun!;) We also raked a lot of leaves! It is definitely fall in Idaho!!

I had kinda a cool experience yesterday at church. I had been thinking a lot about my family and especially my older sister this last week. About 2 and a half months ago we ate dinner with the Caviness family. We got to talking about old cars and such and if you know me, you know I like old cars! I told them that my dream car is a 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport. And somehow brother Caviness remembered that. Haha. Their son just left on a mission to the Philippines and they like me for some reason, I don't know why... hahaha. Anyway, Brother Caviness pulled me aside yesterday and totally made my day! He went out of his way to find a 1972 Gran Torino Sport hotwheels car! Hahaha, that probably sounds dumb to all of you but I thought it was awesome! And it made me happy and made me realize how much I love these people here in Payette, Idaho!

That's all I have for this week. I hope that you all had a good week and that this next one is even better! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Waite

I always love to hear from my missionary! I feel about as bummed as he does that he won't be able to make it to his sister's wedding in May! But, the Lord's work keeps pressing on and he'll be blessed for his sacrifice. Just look at that smile. ♥

Golfing on Pday

My dream car....almost

Dr. Pepper on my desk. Ready to study!

Two of my favorite people in Payette! The Stowells.

Broken Window

Hey everyone!

This week was good! It went by really fast! But lesson wise.. it wasn't the best. Cancelled appointments left and right. Nobody was home. It just wasn't very good in that sense. But that's missionary life I guess! 

How many stories have you heard about missionaries breaking windows?? Haha I would probably guess not a lot! But guess what happened this week! Yep, we broke a window. We were at dinner Saturday night and we were playing fetch with this family's dog. My companion found this old pot outside and told me to toss the ball in the air for him to hit it with the pot so it would "go farther" for the dog. Well, I tossed it up. He hit it and the ball went flying. But so did the pot.... and.. well... it landed in this family's living room! hahaha. We helped them clean it up. And the cool part is, they still fed us dinner afterwards!;) They were really cool about it. Elder Dean sure got lucky! 

Elder Dean had to give the spiritual thought afterwards. He shared a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about how being carnally minded is death and being spiritually minded is life eternal. We related it back to how cool this family was about the broken window. They definitely weren't carnally minded about it at all! I hope that this week we can all strive to S.M.I.L.E (spiritually minded is life eternal) I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!

Love,

Elder Waite

As the mom I feel terrible that the window got broken. I really feel like we should help replace it! ugh. not a good feeling from so far away. 

Apparently he can find cool classic cars anywhere. I guess his ward mission leader's boss has this garage full and they went and checked them out! He was in heaven yet again! I guess it's one of the many reasons he loves Payette! Cars! 

He sounded so happy today. Mom's happy. AND, I think we finally figured out what was wrong with his camera so maybe next week's photos will be nice and clear! :)

"The Window"

Loving the classic cars

The skunk we hit with our car

Payette sunset