WEEK 10: ALMOST CHRISTMAS!

December 18, 2017

Last Tuesday was a little crazy here with the day of the virgin. There were fireworks almost the entire day. On Friday we went to Celaya to watch a play put on by the stake. It was the Christmas Carol, it was kind of fun to watch the play in Spanish. We contacted the people as they left the play.

On Saturday we served the Piña family by helping them get ready to paint their house. I really love the good feeling you get when you serve others. We also attended the Christmas dinner of the other ward and the food was really good. I really like the Christmas punches they have here.

I have two cool experiences to share from this week. The first is we taught the Salazar family for the second time and they have been fulfilling their commitment to pray! I invited them to be baptized in January and they accepted! That was pretty exciting, they have a lot of potential since they are new and not eternal investigators. Our other investigators are not progressing enough to be baptized  including those who had baptisimal dates for this month. I hope that this family will progress and receive the blessings of the Gospel!

The other experience was during one of our lessons I had the impression to read Chapter 7 of Moroni with our investigator. I had no idea what was in that chapter, but it was exactly what he needed and it seemed like the chapter was written directly for him. I know that God works through us to help his children find the path home. I believe in a God of miracles and this is just one that I felt comfortable sharing with you all.

Well, I hope you all have a great Christmas! This time is a great time to serve others and remember the Savior. Christ devoted his entire life to helping others, so why cant we give a few hours to help others. Service is the best gift we can give to Christ this year. 

I love you all! 

Merry Christmas!

WEEK 9: CHRISTMAS SEASON

December 11, 2017

This week was pretty fun. There are more Christmas decorations in the center of the town now and we went and took some pictures there. I also have tried some of the traditional Christmas punches they have here, which taste amazing! Speaking of food, we ate at Burger King this week which was really fun. Later that night one of our investigators offered us some food at her restaurant. I tried a new salsa and it was super spicy! I felt sick for the next half hour, but after that I was fine.

Our investigators still are not coming to church, but we met a new investigator at church yesterday which was exciting. Tommorow is the day of the virgin and people are already starting to party. Speaking of the virgin, we have a permanent shrine thing stuck to our wall in our apartment. I sent a picture of it. I think it is kind of funny, because I study at a table right underneath it.

I do not have a lot of time to write today, but I hope you are all doing well and have a Merry Christmas! 

Remember that we can always feel love and hope through Christ! (Read Ether 12 verse 4) 

Have a great week! 

I love you!

WEEK 8: 1ST ZONE CONFERENCE & 1ST DAY OF SPLITS

December 4, 2017

On Thursday we went to Celaya for a zone conference. I really enjoyed it, I learned a lot and met the other districts in our zone. We also got to eat lunch at Subway while we were there! That was really awesome. Friday was a lot of fun too, because it was just a little bit of a change which is nice when every day is similar. On Friday was went on splits with the other missionaries. It went really well, we taught a lesson to a contact we had made earlier in the week. She had a friend over, so we taught the Restoration to both of them and they both committed to baptism for the end of this month! Hopefully the fulfill that commitment, since we have been having a hard time with people attending church. We have also been working a lot with Mari Piña and her family and on Saturday her son committed to baptism! We have some investigators who really want to do what is right, but fulfilling commitments is not easy for them. This week none of our investigators came to church, so we are going to keep working with them to understand the importance of church attendance.

The high of the week was probably on Friday when we invited two more people, Irene and Estela to be baptized. We are their first contact with the church and it surprised me that on the first lesson they agreed to be baptized. There are people here that the Lord has prepared and who have a lot of faith.

The language has been coming along a little better now, I can understand the majority of what people say now. However I still am trying to be more outgoing and open to talking to random people. I have found that I feel a lot more comfortable contacting in Spanish now. My companion and I contacted an American this week and it felt really weird to not be speaking in Spanish. She didn't accept a lesson, but liked how we were encouraging acts of service through the Light the World cards we were giving out.

I hope you all have a great week and I want you all to know that I have a strong testimony that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that through Him we can witness miracles in our lives. I am trying each day to be a better missionary and follow His example. Devoting ourselves to serving Him and other people is what brings true happiness in life and I find that I am happiest during the day when we are teaching people, because I know that I am in the service of my Savior.

I love you!

WEEK 7: I FINALLY GET TO PREACH FOR REAL NOW!

November 20, 2017

Letter #1

This past week has been kind of crazy, but also super awesome! My mission president and his wife are really nice and Queretaro is super clean compared to Mexico City. I was really nervous on my first day to find out where I was going and who my companion was. I ended up going to San Miguel de Allende and got there kind of late at night. My companion is Elder Monroy and he is super awesome! He is from the state of Hidalgo and he speaks English. However he makes me speak Spanish and he will only speak English to me if its really important or if I don't know a word. He is really patient with me learning the language and I couldn't have asked for a better companion. He has lots of ideas for how we work in this area and I am really excited. We live with the other elders in our district, Elder Bush and Elder Malderva. We also have sister missionaries in our district who live in Dolores Hidalgo which I visited last week for a district meeting. Its a smaller town and is also really beautiful. One kind of fun story about my apartment is that my second day in the field, there was a scorpion on the bathroom floor while I was using the bathroom. That was kind of freaky! We killed it and apparently that is not very common here.

As far as learning Spanish, listening is definitely my weakness. They talk fast and with accents that can be difficult to understand. I can understand a lot more now, but I have a long way to go. People can understand what I am saying in the streets even with my american accent, but my companion and I are helping each other with pronunciation in English and Spanish.

We are opening this area and there haven't been young missionaries here for several years. We have been working hard contacting old investigators and in the streets to find people to teach. We have also been working very closely with the members here who are very supportive. There are two wards in the city of San Miguel, and my area is called Aldea after the Aldea ward. Our ward has about 300 members, but only 50 went to church this week. We have lots of work to do with reactivation and finding new people! We eat lunch with a member almost everyday. The food here is amazing!!!! Contacting in the streets is still difficult for me, but I'm getting a lot more comfortable with it and my companion makes sure I am doing it a lot to learn. Sometimes we meet some pretty crazy people which can be interesting. Last night we met an Italian who started talking to us about other dimensions and reptile people and weird stuff like that. Speaking of foreigners, there are a lot of tourists here and many Americans actually live here. Most of them hang out in the center of town, but some live in the neighborhoods. It´s kind of weird now to hear English in the streets every now and then.

San Miguel is very pretty, especially overlooking the city or in the center of town. Of course there are always neighborhoods that are not so pretty, but that's okay. All of the streets are cobblestone which is cool to see, but is not so fun to walk on all day. For the most part the city is really safe, it is only at nigh time that we have restrictions on where we can be as missionaries. The people here are nice and it amazed me how many people believe in Jesus and accept our invitations to meet with them. My first night contacting all but one person gave us their address to visit them. Clearly the Lord has prepared people here for us to teach. A spiritual moment this week was yesterday when my companion and I were looking for a less active member, we ended up finding his family instead. They are all less active now and hardly remember the Gospel and the fourth generation has never been exposed to it. They let us in and we taught a lesson about the Book of Mormon. They want us to come back later to teach them this Saturday!

I love it here and I love being able to share the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people here. My heart is full and I am so glad that I have the authority to teach other people and invite them to come unto Christ. Missionary life can have its spiritual highs and emotional lows, but it definitely is unlike anything I have every experienced before. The transition from the MTC was interesting, since there are less rules here. However, it is actually kind of nice to choose my own schedule and be able to spend time outside instead of in a classroom all day. 

Time flies on the mission, but every day has something new and there is always more work to be done. I know that this church is the only living church headed by Jesus Christ himself and it brings me great joy to know that I have the opportunity to be his representative to the people of San Miguel right now. 

I love you all and I hope you are all doing well!

P.S. My companion baptized a girl named Dennise last week. She is actually a member and was baptized when she was 8, but somehow her records got lost and they had to do it again. I didn't know this until after the service since I don't understand what is going on most of the time since everyone is speaking in Spanish.

P.P.S. Sorry for the lack of apostrophes, I still don't know how to type them on a Spanish keyboard.

Letter #2 (To Mom answering some of my questions)

My P Day is on Mondays. My companion speaks sufficient English, but certainly more than I speak Spanish. He is really awesome and very patient with my lack of ability to communicate effectively. We live in a safer area of town that's somewhat close to the center. The most difficult part for me right now is understanding what people are saying. Its really safe here and very pretty. I have not had any intestinal issues or had any problems with the food. In fact, the food here is really not as spicy as everyone makes it sound. The members make really good food and we eat lunch with them almost every day. I do have to make my own dinner and breakfast, but lunch is the biggest meal of the day here. I am so excited to get working here and I already love being a real missionary! I love you sooo much!!

WEEK 6: Letter from the Mission President's Wife

Nov 11, 2017

Dear Waite family,

We are so thrilled to have Elder Waite in the mission field with us. What an excellent young man he is. Along with 17 others, Elder Waite arrived safely in Querétaro yesterday. After interviews and lunch and orientation, etc., Elder Waite has been assigned to serve in San Miguel de Allende. He will be serving with Elder Monroy, a wonderful elder from Mexico. They will be 'whitewashing' the area as the couple who has been serving there completed their mission last week.
San Miguel is a beautiful, old city. There are lots of Americans who visit and also who have retired there. The church is small but our Area Seventy lives there and is anxious to help it grow so that's something, right? I think he will love it.
Again, we are so grateful to receive such a prepared and wonderful missionary as Elder Waite. Thank you for your love and support of him.

You are welcome to contact me through email or through messenger if you ever have questions or concerns. If you ever want to send packages, I recommend either the mail, or fed ex or a lady called LDXpress. She advertises on our Facebook page and the stuff she brings gets here safely and quickly....so far. Also, I periodically have visitors (my girls are coming in February) and are always willing to carry a small package for you. Let me know.
Our mission Facebook page is 2016 Mexico Queretaro mission. There might be another one by the same name. Ours you have to request to be a member. I post pictures (and we get some from other families from their missionaries) and it's a way to communicate with other families as well.

Sister Williamson

WEEK 6: Made it to the Mission Home

November 13, 2017

Tom's 5 hour bus ride from the MTC to his mission.  He finally made it.  Read the update below.... 
     "Hey everyone! I'm typing this from the mission office in Queretaro! It is super beautiful here and it seems a lot wealthier and safer than Mexico City. I have been assigned to serve in San Miguel de Allende in the Celaya Zone. I will be traveling there alone tonight and I'll meet my companion, Elder Monroy, when I get there. I just wanted to say that I love you all and that I am so glad that I came on my mission. This has been a crazy long day, but is also very exciting to head out to the field. I love you!"

WEEK 5: LAST WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited to head out to the field next week. I have a desire to share this Gospel with those in my mission and I can't wait to get there. This past week the second counselor in the General Relief Society came here and spoke to us. It was pretty cool and my favorite thing she said was that we don't need to be perfect, we just need to have a perfect effort. I also got to hear from President Nelson on Tuesday and his talk was amazing! He said that we can all be living Epistles in the way we act and through sharing our testimonies with others. I really felt the Spirit and I know that he is a true apostle of the Lord.

I feel like all the weeks here have blended together in my mind and everything goes by so quickly. My time in the CCM has been a time of testing my patience with my companion and also of great spiritual learning. I will miss the opportunity to have this much time to study the scriptures and to hear the words of the apostles directed at me in this time and place.

A lesson that I have learned this week is the importance of strict obedience. I had some opportunities to stand up for what is right this week. I didn't think these would be a problem among other missionaries, but ultimately we are all still 18 year olds. My entire district and my companion wanted to skip study time in the morning and play soccer. However, I told them they had agency and if they did play soccer, I would be studying on the benches. This caused the entire district to change their minds and we ended up not going. Although my companion slept in for an hour instead (which wasn't a whole lot more productive). He set a new record this week of sleeping in 2 hours Sunday morning. Sometimes he can be difficult to deal with. However I learned a lot from that study time and I am so glad that I decided to be obedient.

I know that the Lord can work miracles in our lives if we are willing to have faith and be obedient. I can't wait for the field and I love you all!

Elder Waite

Here are some pictures with guys in my district and Elder Medina who is in my dorm.