Forgiveness (11-17-2014)

Dear Family :)

Im just going to start saying that now since you are all like family to me :) Elder Belliston and I had a wonderful week. Full of preachin and teaching and inviting people to be baptized. That is probably one of the greatest experiences on a mission. Inviting one of Gods children to make a covenant with him. Holy cow. The spirit is so stinking strong when you invite. And usually the response is generally uplifting. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to go on exchanges in Washington. That place is pretty cool. The Elder's don't have too many investigators currently so we went looking for some. And it was stinking cold. Last Monday it was 65 degrees and then the Lord played some games with me and shot the temperature down to 25 the day that I would have to be walking in it. So that was fun! I have been bundled up pretty warm the past couple of days which has been good. On Wednesday we just went out and did our thing. Talking with everyone and driving all over the place. And then on Thursday we drove up with the North Elders to our mission tour with Elder Cardon of the Seventy. He gave a sweet talk in conference awhile back so if you get a chance you should check it out :) But the mission tour was great. We had a Mission Leadership council with him before the meeting where we talked about the culture of the Iowa Des Moines Mission. And ultimately just sitting in that meeting, I was just pondering how much I have loved my mission. It has seriously taught me so much. I have made wonderful friends, and just learned things that I never that I could know. The traditions in this mission are absolutely amazing. There is just a spirit of obedience here that is unlike any other thing t hat I have been a part of. Elder Cardon is a great man. It's always fun to hear stories form members of the seventy who have sat at the feet of the prophets and apostles. Elder Cardon says that Boyd K. Packer's hates these five words "I'm sorry to disturb you" Elder Packer is just as much a servant as anyone else. So he is never disturbed because he is doing the Lord's work. That's pretty amazing 

On Friday, I wasn't feeling too hot but we still did work. Taught a few good lessons. On Saturday we made some cookies and tried to get as many people out to church as we could. People really like cookies. We got one of our investigators out to church named Virgilia and then set a date with her for December 20th! Hooray! Hopefully things work out with that. We will try to get her to feel the Love of God and the truthfulness of the message with her as strongly as possible. Miracles are happening!  Virgilia has had an interesting life. Full of questions of what to believe and where to go to church on Sunday. So we spoke with her about the message of the Restoration. And she really enjoyed. She has decided to pray about what is right :) Hopefully that goes stellar. Yesterday there were some pretty amazing talks at church. oooh I almost forgot! Elder Belliston and I sang Jesus the very thought of thee in Sacrament meeting. It went really great. He has a wonderful voice and we have seen or been in a lot of the same musicals so we are just constantly singing Broadway and Disney. It's awesome. In Sacrament meeting we learned about forgiveness. It was a great talk! And I studied it again to day. And forgiveness is everything. I love the scripture that talks about how when we don't forgive we have the greater sin. So we need to forgive everybody. I love the Lord and  I love this gospel. It has brought me so much peace and joy. 

Kisses! 

Elder Caleb James Wardle

Wonderful Week (11-10-2014)

Family and Friends! How are ya? I hope things are going swell and the weather isn't harshin on anyone's mellow too bad. Today is actually beautiful. 65 degrees :) hooray! But this is supposed to be the last good day until Spring. I guess we will have a day here where the high will be like 21.... So yeah. Winter is definitely here! It came so quickly! 

We had a wonderful week here in the Fairfield South area :) We found five new investigators and set one of them on date. We were teaching a boy named Justin awhile back who had a baptismal date for a really long time. But we could never get in contact with his Mother to get consent for him to be baptized. And lately we have had a hard time meeting with him. But on Saturday we got a hold of his mother Terri and taught her and set a date with her for December 20th and then she came to church on Sunday! Miracles all around :) She just has to quit smoking in order to be baptized. But she did mention to us that she doesn't want to be baptized without Justin... Hooray!

She is doing well. A couple of our baptismal dates fell off. We weren't able to get in contact with Daniel and he didn't make it to church. We are going to try our best to reset a date with him this week. And Jessica's father gave her a hard time about meeting with us. So she called her fellowshipper and said that she doesn't want to meet with us again. But we will definitely get her back :) She is great girl. And she will definitely be baptized in the future.

We taught a number of different people this week. A Messianic Jew, an ex gangbanger from Chicago, her friend, and a single mom with two kids trying to make ends meet. The Gospel is for everyone. No matter who you are, it will change your life! And I have a wonderful testimony of that. 

Because it is the season of giving (all though it should always be) some members here have been taking really good care of us. Every Sunday we get notes on our door or in our mail box that are anonymous. And they have some awesome clues that we have to piece together in order to find a care package of food. For instance this week all of the Elders in the Fairfield ward got a slip of paper. When we placed them together they said "do YoU WaNt sOme MOre? bEcause I was just wonderiNG?" So all the capitalized letters are Y,U,W,N,O,M,O,E,,N,G and it unscrambled to the words Young Women. So we went to the Young Womens room in the church and found a bag of marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate so that we could make smores :) How cool is that! This ward is the best! ahaha. Anyways, I hope you all have a fantastic week! Stay strong, and keep pushin on! 

Love ya!

Elder Caleb James Wardle

Family and Friends :) (11-3-2014)

Hello! How is everyone doing? Things are going great here in Fairfield. Plenty of people to work with and everyone is so amazing. We currently have 5 people scheduled for baptism here in the Fairfield ward. Two here in the South area and the North Elders have 3. So things are going great! This week was insanely busy for us. We had a meeting last Sunday (Stake Coordination Meeting) that took all day, a meeting on Tuesday (MLC) that took all day. A meeting on Thursday (Zone Training Meeting) that took most of the day. And then Stake conference on Saturday as well Sunday. So this week has been crazy! We have just been trying to make sure all of our investigators are doing o.k. and that they are progressing. Daniel wasn't able to make it to church this week. That was a bummer. So we had to move his Baptismal date back. He had a friend come in to town that he hasn't seen in a really long time and he had to take him back to the Bus stop on Sunday around noon. So that conflicted with his church attendance :( bummer! But we are doing all that we can this week to get him there. He is such a good kid. And everybody needs to be baptized! So we are doing all that we can. We also met with Jessica this week. And she is progressing really nicely. She is scared to enter a new church for several reasons. Her pastor at her church that she currently attends is definitely going to give her a hard time. She has been baptized before and doesn't know quite yet if God wants her to be baptized again, and she would have to drive a half hour every Sunday to church when she currently drives about 5. This week we just really focused on baptism for the remission of sins. We told Jessica that this (Nov. 22nd) was the first day in her life that she would truly access the atonement. And it was her day. Her special day to make a covenant with God. And we think that helped her a little more. Instead of focusing on Priesthood authority and going about baptism that way, we felt that helping her gain a testimony through prayer and church attendance would be better than just simply giving her an understanding of the Gospel. Faith and testimony trump understanding. She is progressing really nicely though. Pray that she can continue to experience the blessings of the Gospel. She came to church and really enjoyed Stake Conference. What a blessing it is to hear inspired words from inspired Leaders of God!

Other than those two we are really just trying to grow our teaching pool by focusing on talking to everyone and opening our mouths. And knocking more doors! It actually works :) It's awful when it is all you are doing. But it is important to at least some sort of finding every day. I truly have a testimony of this wonderful gospel. Its true! And I know that! I'm grateful for the holidays. Elder Belliston and I carved some sweet pumpkins on Friday. I love you all so much!

Family and friends (10-27-2014)

This week was stellar! There is so much work to do and not enough time to do it! It's been pretty amazing to be a part of the Fairfield ward and to see the progress that the ward has made over time. I really feel like a member of the ward more so than just a missionary serving in it. It's pretty interesting to be part of. Elder Belliston has been teaching me so much about being unified with the members here. We have had meetings with the Bishop to see what he would like us to do, we have been trying to set up lessons with the ward council members to get names from them of who they are focusing on and asking them if there is anything we can do to help. And I really feel like we have seen a lot of success in so doing. And we have gained a lot of trust from the members of the ward. It's been pretty remarkable to see the change. This week was really busy. We had a few meetings to attend and several reports that we needed to write up for those meetings. So we spent a lot of time in and out of the library. And although we have spent a lot of time just doing things that don;t necessarily involve teaching and helping others, we know that it is the work that the Lord would have us be doing. And as we use our time wisely He will bless us for our efforts in working diligently. It's been really hard to balance everything. But as we prayerfully figure out what the Lord would have us do and as we strive to be the Leaders that He would have us be, the area has kind of taken care of it's self. And what a blessing that is. This week is going to be another crazy one. We had a meeting after church in Iowa City that took up our whole Sabbath. Tomorrow we have MLC (Mission Leadership Council) which lasts from 9 to 4 and we usually don't get home until 8. Thursday we have Zone training meeting which will take up more than half of the day and then Saturday and Sunday we have Stake Conference. Which will take up more time than usual as well. So it's going to be a crazy week!

Daniel is doing well. He is still on track to be baptized on November 15th which is exciting! He has just had a super hard time getting to church. He has had doctors appointments and ten this past week he went to his grandmothers house because she isn't doing so well. So it has been hard to help him there. But he is doing great and he loves Jesus more than anyone else in this world. We are just really excited to help him make his first covenant with the Lord. Pray for him :)

Jessica is doing well. She did scare us a little bit though... We had to reschedule an appointment which she was o.k. with. But she called the other day and told us not to come. So we told her we wold reschedule for another time. Well, we knew that something was going on so we had member set up a lesson with her! And it worked! So we got in one more time. And we just tried to help her understand why we were there. And she is less scared now. So hopefully things go well with her. We have a return appointment so pray that things go well with her! 

I had the wonderful opportunity of going to the Nauvoo temple this week. I love it there. It is so beautiful. We were able to do an endowment session and we basically had the whole temple to ourselves. Which is sad because you would hope more people would be there! But it was more peaceful for some reason. Just us missionaries and a couple of other people. It was great to just sit and ponder the creation and receive revelation for what I can do better. I love the temple. It's an excellent place to receive revelation. And I know that the covenants that we make there are real. 

I love you all! Thanks for all that you do!

Elder Caleb James Wardle 

Family and Friends :) (10-20-2014)

Hello! What an amazing week I have had here in Fairfield. First off, Elder Belliston is my new companion! He has been on his mission for 21 months and is one heck of a missionary. Probably one of the best of in our mission. So I am lucky to have him and to be able to learn from him before he goes home. He is a wonderful area! And he is enjoying it just as much as I do. We are getting along well and are very unified in what we want to do for the zone. He is working hard until the very end and he is so dang good lookin! AHA. He played highschool ball and he grew up in Highland Utah and went to American Fork UT. What a stud! I do miss Elder Brooks though. That guy and I got along so well. It's like I lost a brother! But it's ok because now I just get another! AHA.

Wow, this week has been fun. We found a new investigator :) Her name is Jessica. Her grandmother Connie is a member and she came to church on Sunday for the first time that I have been here. And then we went out to a town called Keosaqua to attend a little family home evening event that they do every month. Jessica (25) came with Connie and then Brother McConeghey told her what the missionaries do and she was interested in learning more. So we went by on Tuesday morning and taught her the restoration! And she accepted an invitation to work towards November 22nd as her baptismal date. And then she came to church and brought her younger sister with her as well. So things are looking good. We also taught a guy named Crispin who is datinga member of the church. He has been to church before. We taught him the Restoration and gave him a church tour and set a baptismal date for November 22nd as well. We saw him again on Friday and talked about the Book of Mormon with him. But we asked him where he lives and.... He lives on the North side of town. Bummer. So we had to pass him off to the other missionaries Elder Swenson and Elder Law. And they have had a hard time finding investigators. So it's great to just hand over a super solid investigator and just make another missionaries day :) 

We are still working with Daniel. His date is for the 15th of November and he took work off so that he could be there. He has hard a time coming to church though because his mom sort of runs his life and schedule. He had a doctors appointment that he had to go to. But we are fairly confident that He will be baptized on the 15th! WooHoo. As for other investigators, we are looking for more! A good missionary is one who is constantly finding. So that;s what we are focusing on. We have a lot of dates right now but we want to keep finding new people to teach so that when those we have now get baptized we don' waste anytime building back up our teaching pool. Other cool news! Brianna took a road trip to the east coast with her family this weekend and suddenly ended up in Palmyra and went to the Sacred Grove! Wow. How many recent converts do you know who just show up at church historical sights on a whim? Not many! So that was fantastic! Things are just stellar here. I hope you are all doing fabulous and that things are going swell. I love you all!

Elder Wardle!

Transfers! (10-13-2014)

Man, this week was great! But a bit of bad news :( We got transfer calls this morning and Elder Brooks is going to be leaving. That's so sad! He loves Fairfield and he has a whole ton of recent converts here! And they will miss him dearly. Hopefully I can hold down the fort here. I owe so much of the growth that I have had over the past couple of months to Elder Brooks. I will miss him :( But the Lord has other things in store for the both of us and we need a fresh start. We like each other a lot! And yes, it is possible to be too comfortable with each other. But he will forever be a friend to me. And he loves being a missionary. Besides that bit of sad news the only other disappointing thing is that it has officially gotten colder. But the Spirit keeps us warm.

Sorry that this email is a little bit later today. We were with an investigator this morning who we were able to set a date with! His name is Crispin and he is a super cool guy. He is "dating" one of the young women in the ward and she referred us to him. We taught him to day for the first time and he was really receptive! We set a baptismal date with him for November 22nd! And we are so excited to be able to continue to work towards that day. He is a great guy but has not had too many experiences with prayer and church in the past. So we are hoping that we can open his eyes spiritually speaking :) But he is a great attribute to our teaching pool. We were able to get back in with Daniel Farrel this week and reset a date with him for November 15th. He is such a great kid with a stellar testimony. He just had some family matters come up. that he had to deal with. But he will definitely be baptized by the end of the year. We have another investigator named Justin who is 12 and man he is sooo funny! He makes us laugh every lesson we have with him! We were teaching him and we asked him if he prayed about Joseph Smith being a prophet and he said yes. We asked him how he felt and his response was I wanna be with the MORMONS! ahaha. I died laughing. What a good kid! We just need to get his mama on board with everything and make sure she is ok with him getting baptized. Hopefully we can help her be baptized afterward as well. We found two new investigators last week as well. We met a girl named Danni way back and we finally were able to set an appointment with them but we ended up only being able to teach her husband Brady... and this guy is literally yoked out of his mind! Like huge! He used to do olympic movements when he is in football and was trying to qualify for the olympic trials in wieght lifting but he ended up hurting his back. He showed us his gym the other day. And that place is sweet! And he really wants us to join but we aren't allowed to be members at gyms. Bummer. Elder Brooks ans I work out every morning anyways. The other new investigator that we found is Whitney. I didn't teach Whitney because we were on exchanges, but Whitney was a referral from a recent convert and she is supposedly super solid. So we will work with her as well. Things are looking really great for our area right now. Plenty of work to be done and tons of people to see. It still amazes me how we have so much work to be doing when we only have 4,000 people on our side of town! But it's happening and we thank the Lord every day for the wonderful miracles every day! Well I love you all and hope you have a great week. Keep praying for those that you love. There is more power in prayer than we sometimes realize. And there are plenty of things to thank our Father in Heaven for. The church is true and I know that the Savior lives, loves us, and atoned for our sins! Keep working hard :) 

Love ya! 

Elder Caleb James Wardle

Hello Lovelies :) (10-6-2014)

This week was so great and filled with some amazing amazing miracles! The first is conference of course. I love being able to listen to the prophets and apostles speak to us. It's an excellent opportunity to learn and grow and to seek revelation from Father in Heaven and hear his chosen mouth pieces on the Earth today answer our prayers. What a blessing. Lately I have had some doubt as to whether we truly do have a prophet of God on the Earth. I will explain why: Back in Des Moines we taught a less active man who served a mission and and then joined the Hindu faith (I think it was Hindu...maybe Muslim) and since has left the Hindu faith and doesn't necessarily know what He is anymore. He had a lot of concerns after coming home from his mission about some things that he read. He wondered if there was a prophet of God on the Earth, if Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God ETC. and once he kind of lost testimony of those things, He lost his faith in Christ and then in God. He said that he went to a lot of different religious leaders to try and seek truth and look for what was right. He went to a mosque and then felt a wonderful peace there while he was praying. He said he felt like He was being hugged by the Spirit while he was asking if there was a God. So he continued ti study with that particular religion and decided to join with them and their beliefs. Since then he has lost faith in that religion but he still fells that God is there because of the Spiritual experiences that he had. SO we were meeting with him and trying to understand his concerns, and he posed a wonderful question that for awhile confused me but has since helped me receive revelation that we do have a living prophet of God on the Earth today: If Thomas S. Monson is a prophet then why doesn't he prophecy like prophets of old and say things like "Thus saith the Lord" or "It has been revealed to me in a vision" or "God has come down and has spoken to me and this is what he said." And that question really bothered me. If Thomas S. Monson is truly a prophet of God then why doesn't he tell us that he is receiving specific revelation for our day or adding more doctrine to the Doctrine and Covenants instead of just delivering a message about love that has been almost over killed in the scriptures. We tried to disprove the man by telling him that he has. For example: The lowering of the mission age. ETC. He said that he would have preferred Monson to come out and say "the Lord has revealed to me that all worthy 18 year old young men are now able to serve missions" rather than "Our experiences with 18 year old missionaries has been positive and through tests we feel that they can serve." And that question confused me as well. So I have been thinking about it for a really long time now. And I went in to conference searching for a specific answer to a specific question: Is Thomas S. Monson truly a prophet of God? It wasn't until Elder Eyering's talk on Sunday morning that I received my answer. When he testified of the prophet I felt the Spirit testify to me that he is truly a Prophet of God. Then everyone else after Elder Eyering in that session talked about the Prophet! Sharing their testimony and witness that he is a Prophet of God. I know, through the power of the Spirit, that Thomas Spencer Monson is a Prophet of God, chosen by our Father in Heaven to be his mouth piece in these the Latter days. What a wonderful conference miracle! The Lords ways are higher than our ways. But if we ask with a sincere heart we can find truth in matters that we cannot comprehend ourselves. What a wonderful blessing. The fact that we have a Prophet of God is a wonderful manifestation of his love for us! What a miracle :) 

I guess I am just on a conference high! AHAHA. But this week was really great. We found four new investigators and are always looking for more. We met an African lady from Cameroon (like the only African in Fairfield) and we are teaching her and will hopefully set a baptismal date with her in the near future. Oh! We also got to see Meet The Mormons this week! Holy cow that;s a great film. Go watch it! It's amazing! I'm grateful for all that you do for me. The spirit has been so strong this week. I love you all :) I know tht the Savior lives and loves us!

Love,

Elder Caleb James Wardle