Love ya!

Family and Friends :)

This week has been great. Things have really been picking up I our area and we got a new investigator as well/ but first and foremost I should talk about transfers. I haven't gotten a call yet... but one might come tonight. So I might be somewhere new next week. We will see. Hopefully I don't leave. I really do love it here. But I never want to bother President Jensen with where I would like to be. Some missionaries ask to stay and what not but I prefer to just let the Spirit work through President Jensen and see what happens. It's really awesome.

Like I have said all ready, we had a great week! We taught a good amount of lessons and we found a new investigator named Emmanuel Zeoh. Emmanuel is a sweet kid. He is 19 and just graduated this year. He went to state for track so he is really fast. And he is just excited to learn about our church. his mother has been a member of our church for about 8 years now and Emmanuel was never baptized. So we want to work with him to get him ready to go and make that covenant with our father in heaven. The only thing is that He is super busy with track practices and work. We will see what happens. Hopefully he pulls through as someone we can work with.

James Cleon came to church for the fifth time. He is great and has real desires to come closer to God. His mother lives in Australia and is currently in the hospital... she was diagnosed with cancer. :( We continue to pray for her though. he wants to head out there sometime in July so we set a baptism date with him for June 28th. He will be ready by then and he is super prepared. He is always the best dressed man at church. He owns a tailoring shop where he makes Liberian suits and dresses. I am probably going to ask him for a suit that I can look absolutely fresh in. He is a great guy.

Calvin Barley came to church as well. I t was another hassle to get him there. We had to go wake him up, but he came which is great! He will be baptized on the 28th as well. WE decided to move his date back just to make sure he was super ready :) Anyways, things are going great!

We had stake conference this weekend as well. And I think what I gained most was just that I am sop grateful to be a missionary during this great work of Salvation! It s such a privilege. I love you all so much. thanks for all your time and efforts and support :) Continue to love other unconditionally as the Savior would. Thanks for all that you do!

Love Always,

Elder Caleb James Wardle

This week was great!

Hello all you beautiful people :)

this week was probably the best I have had on my mission as far as numbers go. We had some prompting to go contact people that turned into some investigators and it was really amazing. We also have a good friend in the ward who is 21 named Aung. He is from Thailand/Burma and he speaks Karen and Burmese. He is so involved in missionary work and he came to all of our lessons and translated for us in the lessons where they couldn't speak English. This week we taught 5 lessons with Aung, 2 other lessons by ourselves and then some other lessons to members and recent converts and less actives. We found 7 new investigators this week! Which is more than I have found in a week on my mission which is awesome. and we set two baptismal dates this week as well making our total 5! So that was awesome.

On Friday I took Elder Powell (He is a member of the District and we were on exchanges.) to go see a lady names NawBaw who speaks Karen. We took Aung with us so that he could translate. Her boys are Than zao oo (14) DayDay Poe (11) and HayNaySay (8) and they are all unbaptized. So we taught them the restoration and invited them to be baptized. And they  accepted and in the same lesson we extended a date to be baptized and we set it for July 19th. So hopefully they can pull through. They had baptism dates in the past and were ready to be baptized but they didn't pass the interview for some reason. So hopefully we can get them going again. And they can make that covenant with our Heavenly Father. HayNaySay doesn't technically count as a new investigator because he is only 8 but we want to help him get baptized as well.

We met a Burmese speaking family Friday and went back on Saturday to teach them. I can't pronounce there names and especially don't know how to write them. But they are great as well and accepted the invitation to be baptized. We also met an African man who grew up in France named Felix who we saw Sunday morning and invited him to be baptized as well. Felix is really cool. He said he has been baptized before but would do it again if God told him to do so. he prayed in French at the end of the lesson because his English isn't too great.

James Cleon came to church for the 3rd time, but he didn't show up at our lesson last night, he works a ton and was probably sleeping. It was such a hassle getting Calvin Barley, another investigator of ours to church! He has a baptismal date for June 21st but has only been to church once. He We told him during our lesson on Saturday that he couldn't be baptized on the 21st if he didn't make it to church. So we told him to tell his mother Dora to call Brother Turner who is the ride coordinator in the ward and get a ride to pick them up. So we left and then went over at 8 oclock and talked to Comfort his grandmother, and told her to call the ride coordinator as soon as we left and told her that Calvin can't be baptized unless he gets to church. So she said she would call. Sunday morning we called at 9 and woke Comfort up and said that none of them would be coming to church because they weren't feeling good. So we reminded her that Calvin who is 10 couldn't be baptized unless he made it to church. We told her to wake him up and get him reaedy and a ride would be there to pick him at 10:30. So we frantically tried calling people to see who could give him a ride. We finally got a hold of Brother marsden who is awesome. And he said he could pick them up! what a miracle! We then went back over to calvin's at 10 and made sure that he was ok and ready to go and he and Lisa who is 6 were ready to go. so they made it! It was crazy though! Hopefully we can see him a lot this week and get him prepared for baptism. He's awesome.

I had the opportunity of singing in church with Brother Henry who is my favorite guy in the whole world. He does so much for us and he is incredible. But we sang Jesus, Savior Pilot Me. And I really felt the spirit and I think every one else did as well. It was great! Well, that was our week! So many miracles and so many blessings!

I know that we have a Savior Jesus Christ who loves us! And I know that Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet and restore the Church of Christ on to the Earth today. I love this gospel so much and especially the opportunity that I have to serve my Father in Heaven for two years! Thanks for all that you do for me :)

At the zoo...I'm a sea turtle! 

this is a dummy that Elder Standage and I made for when we role play... Hisname is dave the dummy...

Present opening. I love cheezits! 

Crazy bird...not me the thing on the rock. 

Love Ya!

Elder Caleb James Wardle

A great week :)

Hello everyone!

This week was great. We didn't teach too many lessons but we still saw miracles. We set a baptismal date with Alex who we met with a couple of weeks ago. He is a great guy. Has some mental issues and needs staff to come in every once in a while and check on him. but he is great. We set a date with him for the 21st of June. He is very excited and has all ready read a few chapters in the Book of Mormon. Hopefully he continues to read. We were planning on having a church tour with him on Saturday. But that feel through because he had some family functions going on. But he was able to make it out to church on Sunday despite not knowing what would be going on. and he had an unfamiliar family come pick him up for church... he is a brave guy! Alex loved church. He even went up and bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting which was the super scary but he did a great job! He is super solid and is excited to be baptized. Hopefully things progress with him.

James is another investigator of ours who is a super cool guy and owns a tailor shop. he is super cool. But he didn't make it to church on Sunday and we couldn't get ahold of him... So we will have to see if we can get in touch with him throughout the week. Hopefully things go well with him.

We also have a baptismal date with Calvin Barley for the 21st of June, and we will see how things go with him. He wasn't keeping his commitments for awhile but he read the plan of salvation pamphlet which means he is showing progress! So we will see what happens with him.

Anyways, I am grateful for all of the blessings the Lord has given me. This is a wonderful work to be a part of and I appreciate the Lord and his willingness to let me endeavor in the work of Salvation. It's a great thing to be a part of. I'm grateful for all of my many blessings! I love you all!

Elder Caleb James Wardle

It's getting warm

Hello all you beautiful people. This week was another great one. It started off with zone conference on Tuesday. I love zone conference! It's a great time to get to see all the other missionaries and see how they are doing just so that you know you aren't in this work of salvation alone. I think it's when I can see everyone rallied around each other and hear the thoughts and impressions of their hearts that I receive the most revelation for what I need to be doing. It's amazing to see the Work of Salvation come to pass in my life. At zone conference President Jepsen (the first counselor in our mission presidency) gave us a training. It was basically a good by speech though. He won't be in the presidency much longer :( But he is a great man. And a lot of what he said really toughed me. The assistants to the President, elder Weiss and Elder McGinn gave us a training on the motivation behind us as missionaries and how to give our all to the Lord. It was a great training and I was really inspired by that one as well.

My favorite training was Sister Jensen's though just because her training I was able to apply into my missionary work right away. She trained on fasting and we had a pretty interesting experience that we needed to fast for.

On Thursday we were asked by Elder Weiss and Elder McGinn to stop by their investigators house that was supposed to be baptized on Saturday and just finish filling out the baptismal record with her and explain how the baptism will go and everything. (Elder Weiss and Elder McGinn were across the mission at the other zone conferences so that's why they asked us to teach Hawa). Well we got there and Hawa just immediately started shouting out all these concerns about her baptism and just flooded us with a whole ton of information that we weren't prepared for. She started expressing concern for why she needed to be baptized again if she has all ready been baptized once and she didn't quite understand Priesthood Authority. So we had to explain that to her and she felt a little more comfortable, but she still wanted to call off the baptism. So, thanks to the spirit, we were able to realize that it didn't matter if she knew everything before her baptism or if she knew exactly why she NEEDED to be baptism again... as long as she knew she needed to be baptized again. (hopefully that made sense) So we invited her to pray about things. And say in her prayer, "heavenly Father I have decided to be baptized on Saturday, is this the right thing for me to do?" And then we invited her to wait and to just feel and listen for her answer. And she said she would. So we scheduled and appointment for the next day and decided that we would either call off the baptism then or go forward with it on Saturday after we met with her on Friday night. So obviously everything was up in the air. We called the Assistants and told them about the situation and asked them what they thought. And they had no idea where her concerns came from. But we all decided that we would fast the next day. And we did so.

So, Friday! We got into the lesson and Hawa says, "did you bring the baptismal record? I am ready to baptized tomorrow." And we were so stoked and things went great and it was awesome. The Lord definitely answered our prayers and hers. And I have such a testimony of fasting! It's an amazing thing!

This week we also found two new investigators. We taught Alex after zone conference. Elder Bagshaw, my district leader in Manchester was able to come along with us. He and his companion were supposed to go on exchanges with the Assistants the next day but had nothing to do Tuesday night so he came along with us. and we got a new investigator with him. It was great!

And then we got another investigator on Sunday named James! James is form Liberia and owns a sweet clothing shop where he makes custom suits and dresses for Liberians. Which is sweet! He has the sickest style. Anyways more about him next week! I love you all and I miss you! Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to the lord. Keep gong and keep praying! I love you all!

Elder Caleb James Wardle

Hello :)

Wow. What a great week. Things have really been picking up here in Des Moines! We found three new investigators this week which was amazing. The Lord really blesses those members who are focused on missionary work. And I will explain those blessings later on.

First I just wanted to start off by saying that I am so grateful to be a missionary. It's the best thing I have ever done and I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve. I do have a testimony of this work. I know that the best way to help others is to bring them unto Christ.

On Monday we stopped by the Henry's who are members of the ward and they are probably our best ward missionaries as well. We committed them to inviting Ian and Bethany (husband and wife) to have dinner with us on Sunday. They had been to church before to see the baby blessing of another family. And the Henry's have had dinner with them before just never with the missionaries present. So they were pretty much ready to meet us. Yesterday we had the dinner and everything went great. Ian is from Nigeria and came here when he was 18. He went to a Catholic boarding school and was baptized into the Catholic church. Bethany grew up as a Southern Baptist in Illinois. But they have recently been looking for a church to go to. Well dinner went great. They are both very talkative and it was awesome to hear there stories and just have them interact with the Henry's and us. Afterwards Brother gathered everyone around and we shared the message of the Restoration with them. They were very accepting and when we invited them to pray about if the church was true they gladly accepted. We then invited them to be baptized and they said if they knew that the church was true they would be baptized into our church. They were so prepared and it was amazing to see them grow closer to God just in the 2 hours that we were with them. The henry's have definitely got the right idea about missionary work.

On Saturday we met with a 23 year old man named Say who doesn't speak English. he is from Burma and speaks Karen. So we had a good friend of ours, Aung Yo Trae there to translate for us. We held the lesson at the church and gave him a quick tour to help him feel comfortable. We then taught him the Restoration and he accepted everything and due to Aung's awesome translation skills he accepted the invitation to be baptized as well. It was an awesome lesson. it was great because we asked Aung to translate the Joseph Smith story into Karen and while he did I felt the same amount of Spirit that I would have if the message was shared in English. What a testament to the truthfulness of the that event. No matter how it is said or given the Spirit will always testify of it's truthfulness! Amazing!

I love you all. Thanks for all that you do. It was a great and full of a lot of great miracles. Just so you know, our District found 12 new investigators this week! That's amazing! I love you all. I appreciate all that you do.

"Regular scripture study will fill your day with the influence of the Holy Ghost. Consider taking time each day to read them. In this way your ability to recognize the needs of others will improve and you will be strengthened to fill those needs."

I love you all!

Elder Caleb James Wardle

I love my family

This week was great. Last night I got Skype my family which was awesome.

I love them so much and they inspire me each and every day. I love the opportunity that we have to be on missions but also to still remain in contact with Family. It's great to feel of their love and support.

Well, this week there isn't too much to report. We did have some really good lessons with some awesome people though. We met a man named Girmay and taught him Saturday night. Girmay is from Utopia which is awesome and he really wants to start coming back to church and he said he would like to learn to play the piano. Which Elder Standage and I could definitely help him with. So hopefully he goes somewhere and the experiences we have with him are uplifting. It was crazy because he lives in a  pretty ghetto apartment complex... and we called him and he said he would come outside and find us. But he didn't come out for like 10 minutes... so we just waited in the parking lot forever! And people were staring at us wondering who the heck we were. So it was pretty crazy. But things turned out well. He really liked us and invited us back.

We also took a member of our ward out with us named Aung Yo Trae. Aung is from Burma and speaks Karen. He is a sweet kid. He is 22 and he and his family joined the church in Salt Lake. He is awesome. And we went to 3 different places and he translated everything for us... So that was definitely an experience. he is a sweet guy. And he would make a good missionary. We had a lesson at the church that we needed him to translate for and the appointment fell through... but he called the person we were trying to meet with. His name is Say. Aung talked with Say for like 10 minutes and hung up the phone and then said that Say was going to come to his house and follow him to church in the morning. So that was awesome. Say seems pretty interested in the Gospel as well. So hopefully we can teach him in the future. Well I love you all. Keep hanging on to your testimonies. Thanks for everything you have given me. I appreciate each and everyone of you. Happy Mothers day!

Love Always,

Elder Caleb James Wardle

Family and Friends

Hello,

Thank you all so much for your continual support to all the missionaries out in the world. It is probably one of the most significant things are church does, and one of the hardest and most rewarding. So please never stop praying for all the missionaries out there. We need your prayers!

Well, this week was great. Lots of lessons and lots of miracles. We taught Dianne Robinette again this week and asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon and if baptism into our church is right for her. I guess she practices Unitarianism? Which basically just means that she is united with all faiths because we generally believe in the same God and Jesus Christ. We will see how things proceed with her.

We met with an investigator named Jimmy who has been very receptive but not willing to keep commitments. I'm not quite sure he understands everything we say and he hasn't necessarily understood what our purpose is. That is somewhat of a struggle for us with some Liberians, is helping them understand that our sole purpose is to help them come closer to Jesus Christ. So we will see where things go from there. We recommitted him to read the Book of Mormon. Hopefully he does so.

We also met with comfort and her family and we invited them all to be baptized on June 21st. Her grandson Calvin was very excited and accepted the invitation. Everyone else had a few concerns about being baptized so soon and did not feel that they were ready. We invited her and those family members that were in attendance to pray about it and ask Heavenly Father if that was a day that would be right for them! Hopefully there prayers are answered and we can Work towards that day. But ultimately we will help Calvin the most so that his baptism may be spiritually uplifting for the family. We hope to see great things come to pass.

We had some super funny experiences this week as well! On Saturday we helped out with a sports competition called the Iowa Games. And we were assigned as a zone to the basketball tournament. We helped keep score and we get sunburned so bad! Like absolutely Toasted. I didn't think it would be so bad. But I currently look like a lobster which stinks :/

On Sunday during fast and testimony there were a couple Liberian members of the ward who got up and did some awesome chanting clapping and singing as part of their testimonies! I was crazy! It's like I'm in Liberia. It's great! One lady had her kids up there singing for like 10 minutes... and she was like screaming in her language and crying and then she went back to her seat and just laid on the ground crying. It was nuts!

Well I love you all so much! Thanks for all that you do and for all of the great influences you are in my life. I love you all and miss you so much. Please continue to grow your faith in the Savior and I know blessings will come. If you simply strengthen your faith in the Savior, you will grow in Charity for all those around you.

Love Always,

Elder Caleb James Wardle