Hello!

Guess what!!

We found a family last night. Guess how many?
A family with 7 kids!!! Thats like our family haha.
We were only able to teach the 4 kids and the parents, but they seem very sweet. We are going to go back and teach them this week i hope.
Things in Roseville, Mi are going great. We had Jalil show up to church, oh get this something amazing happened with Jalil. He let us teach him again, hes almost back to his normal self. It was crazy those past 2 weeks, satan really made it hard for him, and we almost lost him. But he was there at church with his 4 year old son Kashee, and they are both doing great. Also a status report on Marilyn (our investigator thats getting baptised March 7th) shes doing amazing. She has gone 5 days without smoking!!! She wasnt able to go to church because of an accident she had, but other than that shes doing great, and hopefully will be set for baptism in a few weeks.
Things are going really well for our zone too. We found a lot of new investigators this week, and lots of miracles are happening. Like in my old area of bloomfield hills they had a 19 year old show up to the singles ward there, and tell them hes been studying about the church for 2 years, and knows its true. So they taught him twice this week and set a baptismal date for 3 weeks from now! Also they had another random person show up to church! Its amazing the lord is richly blessing us and the work is seeming to go forward. Oh also something they have been doing lately is reducing the number of missionarys in are mission. When i first came out there was maybe 150 missionaries, now there is only 108 in our mission, and they are reducing it to 92. They are sending more missionaries to the more fruitful missions, and hopeing to do this so the members will make more of an impact in the work out here. But with the number of missionaries decreasing, we are still staying at the same average we have been at for years in this mission, so we are still pulling the same weight, heavenly father is blessing us so much.
But overall we had a really good week. Its been cold and windy weather, but we are getting through it. Man i love this work. I'm so grateful to be out here to serve the lord for 2 years, to assist him in this glorius work to help him bring to the pass the imortality and eternal life of man. Its been interesting lately i have been pondering about my other companions, and other missionarys. I have thought to myself " Why was it so easy for me to come on a mission and have a pure desire to serve"? MY conclusion everytime is: my upbringing. Because of my parents and familys example. I was raised by amazing parents who love me. Its funny you get towards the end and you just reflect on stuff i guess.
Well everythings going great. Me and Elder Maxwell are working hard, and we will continue to work hard! Hopefully lots of good things will &continue to happen, I know they will, because we have a loving heavenly father, and all though i have had some trialing areas like Bloomfield hills, I know that it only made me a stronger missionary.

Well i love you guys and will talk to you next week :-)
Love- Elder whipple

Hello!


Yep no email on Monday because of presidents day.

So this is going to be just a quick note.
About my friend thats fine i think he just needs to know 4 months in advance. Im still not sure if he needs a ride or not.
Oh about the economy ya its pretty bad. We were tracting today in Detroit and its soo bad. I think on a whole street there was only 3 house that werent burt out or abandoned. The bad economy is hitting hard out here, well has been hitting hard. Me and my companion were talking like how it feels like Detroit is a ghost town, and were wondering today i bet in the 60's Detroit looked pretty sweet, and was a nice place to live.
Anyways better news for this week. We had 3 people come to church this sunday, and Jalil is meeting with us again ( actually meeting with us today). Its crazy missionary work is so up and down. One day everyone may drop you, the next week you find someone who wants to just get baptised. Its amazing. Also we just had zone conference, so our zone leader instruction is over, hopefully it went good, i think it did. But its sweet i always love zone conference its like missionary energy drinks or something it pumps us up. Other than that the works doing great, were working hard, and Marilyn is still set for baptism for March 8th. Shes gone 5 days without smoking. Yeah! Shes also the most accountable Detroit person i have ever met, she renews my hope for the people.
Glad to hear things are going ok with the economy and all, well i guess if things werent going good, you would tell me they were going good anyways so you dont worry me. hehe right? But ill take it like you said, i pray things are going good for you and dad.

So Bishop Ott, thats cool, he'll be a great bishop! The lord really watches out for our family, makes sure we are behaving. First we live directly behind the Bishop, now we live right next to him....hmmm we are slowly getting closer hahaha.

Well I love you guys and hope things are going good. Thinks out here is getting better, the weather is kind of getting less cold, Spring is just around the corner.
I will talk to you all next week, possibly thurday i think we are going to move our preperation day so we can go to the temple.
Love you guys Elder Whipple

ps. Wait i just read "I got the house empty", when i read that i took it as knowone was home at the house right now so you have it all to yourself. When i read it the second time it sounded like the house is empty? I remeber you saying you had possibly a buyer? Maybe Explain further in your next email :-)