Dear Shanell,

On Thursday we drove to the airport to pick up President Sonnenberg. It took us 45 minutes to get there and it is usually only a 5 minute drive. The traffic was bumper to bumper. We dropped him and his wife off at the mission home and then Elder Jackson and I had the opportunity to teach them the "Crossing the Bridge" program to them. We taught a general authority how to do missionary work! We thought that was quite funny!

On Friday we had a city-wide zone meeting with President Sonnenberg and it was excellent! I loved it! He is excellent! You listen to him for 2 minutes and you can tell he is a general authority. He is definitely a man of God. I know it! After that we had lunch provided by the Payneham Ward Relief Society--my ward. It was good! Later we met in a zone leaders meeting with President Sonnenberg and it was super! At 7 p.m. we attended seminary graduation and heard President Sonnenberg speak again.

On Saturday we drove up to Whyalla and Port Augusta with President and Sister Sonnenberg. They are super! You can feel the Spirit when you're with them. He likes to go up to people and ask, "Are you a Mormon?" When they say, "no", he asks, "Why not?" He likes to see them stammer and stutter. When we arrived in Port Perie, we got hamburgers and President Gray paid for everyone. Then we drove on to Port Augusta for the chapel dedication.

We left the dedication and headed for Whyalla and saw 2 kangaroos that had been hit by cars. About 25-30 km. out of Port Augusta, we noticed we were on empty. We decided to turn around and go back and barely made it. It seemed like the gas gauge was moving faster than we were. We filled up and headed back to Whyalla. As we drove into Whyalla, it was really weird to get the feeling that I was coming home.

At the chapel we had a tea with the Whyalla, Port Perie, Port Augusta, and Port Lincoln branches. Elders Cash, Spencer, Jackson and Sisters Wahlquist and Dewis were there. The Copes, a missionary couple, were also there. At 7 pm we had seminary graduation and President Sonnenberg and President Gray spoke, as well as their wives. It was excellent! Afterward we came back to the motel and Jackson and I showed President and Sister Sonnenberg and Gray how to work the heaters in the rooms. Then Jackson and I went for a walk to the beach. While we were walking, I heard someone yell, "Wallentine!" It was the Ernests! She had her baby last October and they were so fun to talk to.

On Sunday we had zone conference from 7 to 10 a.m. and it was very spiritual! Then we went to the Whyalla District Conference. President Sonnenberg spoke in it also, and it was very good. After I certified Sister Dewis, we left for Adelaide and stopped at KFC and President Sonnenberg bought us dinner. We arrived in Adelaide at 5:40 and came home and ate and then met all the zone leaders at President Gray's with President Sonnenberg. We got photos taken and President Sonnenberg signed my kangaroo skin!

The gospel is true!!

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Dear Shanell,

I am doing wonderful! Things are looking great here. Being an AP is a busy job. I understand now what it is actually like to have an office job. My companion now is Elder Jackson. He came out at the same time I did. We were in the MTC together. He is a super companion!

President Gray caught some of the elders playing cards at midnight and he was not at all happy! It apparently has been going on for a long time. I really don't find myself being to impressed with some of the elders, but I don't want them to get sent home, either. Elder James has been struggling and is living in our flat now. I'm going to try to help him.

We still haven't seen General Conference, but we will on October 26. I'm excited! I'm looking forward to hearing the General Authorities speak! I am super excited to hear what Ezra Taft Benson has to say on behalf of the Lord. Elder Jackson and I are excited about tomorrow. We get to teach our member missionary lesson to President Sonnenberg! A General Authority!! Is that cool!! It could be a nervous situation, but it will be worth it! It will definitely be a journal writing experience! I'm looking forward to it! I'll let you know how it goes.

We went tracting last night and it was fun! We are going back to teach a man named David next week. I'm excited!

On Saturday, September 18, I read the entire Book of Mormon! I started at 8:30 in the morning and finished at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday. That is 16 hours and 48 minutes.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support, especially in extending my mission to January! It made me feel good to know that we both asked Heavenly Father about it and felt like it was the right thing to do.

I'm thankful for you!

Elder Wallentine

Dear Shanell,

I thought I would drop you a line and let you know how things stand in the land down under. Being in the office is really good, but it sure is tough at times because I would rather be out doing some tracting or something of that nature, but it is not always possible. I guess that is one of the sacrifices I have to make to be in here working with President Gray. I find the time going very fast and I can barely keep up with it sometimes.

President Gray asked me who would make a good assistant for when Elder Jackson goes home and I suggested Elder Adams. I may get to serve with him at the end of my mission! That would be exciting!

I think the toughest thing about being an assistant is that we are trusted with a lot of information that we are not allowed to tell anyone about and sometimes you almost bust because you can't tell any other missionaries about it. I realized the other day that I have 1225 pages in my journals. I love writing in my journal! It will give a detailed account of my childhood and also a good detailed account of my mission. I love keeping a record and writing down my personal triumphs and failings. It really helps me grow, too.

On Saturday we got up at 5 a.m. and packed our stuff and Elder Parker and I took off in the car at 6 a.m. and showed up in Berri at about 8:30. We visited with Sisters Thomas and Burwell until about 11 and then we went to Monash which is a huge playground. It was cool! We got to ride on a river ferry in our car across the Murray River. We then left Berri and saw the "giant orange" outside of Berri.

Then we drove to Mildura and completed some business with Elders Chapman and Nielsen. Before driving to Broken Hill, we stopped at the hospital to see Jesse Mott who had a heart attack. She is a member and a super lady! We left at about 6 p.m. and Elder Parker and I stopped in the desert to open our special mission-wide fast. The sun was setting and it was beautiful! As we drove, a kangaroo jumped about 20 ft. in front of us. It scared us to death! I know the Lord was with us. With some effort we found the address of the Balleys, the missionary couple we stayed with. I slept on a flat air mattress in a state called New South Wales in a city called Broken Hill on Garnet Street.

On Sunday, September 12, we attended the church in Broken Hill and the counselor in the branch presidency asked us to each speak for 10-15 minutes instead of our original plan of just bearing our testimonies. Elder Parker spoke on feeling good about yourself and I spoke on charity and serving others.

We drove back to Adelaide after the meeting and saw many frilled and blue-tongue lizards on the roads! We also saw heaps of beautiful purple flowers everywhere in the hills as we got closer to Adelaide.

I love the gospel with all my heart! Thank you for always supporting me.

Elder Wallentine

Dear Shanell,

I received your letter on the 7th and was so excited to hear from you! I have been very busy. Being an assistant to President Gray is rewarding and enjoyable, but is also very demanding. That is fine with me though. We get to help with transfers every month and he really lets us in on everything that the General Authorities tell him in meetings and it is real neat to help him keep this mission running smoothly. It sure is tough sometimes.

We have introduced a program here in Adelaide that is practically fail proof! It is called the "Crossing the Bridge" program and it is a member missionary program to help introduce members' friends to the gospel. It sure beats some of the other programs we have seen. We taught it last night to 3 members and committed them to ask 5 people to hear the discussions. The program also helps in such a way that it sows members a very good way to share the gospel with their friends and it isn't even hard to do. I would love to show both of our families this presentation and know that it will work! I know that it is an inspired program and am so excited about it!

I have made the decision to extend my mission to January and feel very good about it. I don't feel like I will have any regrets coming home then. I am coming home in January because I already fulfilled my call to it's fullness (18 months) and I am now going the extra mile by staying out longer because of my love for the work and the Lord and for President Gray. I have asked myself many times if I will ever regret coming home in January and I have come up with the answer that I won't every time. Here is something that I have thought a lot about: There are 2 kinds of pain--the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. The pains of discipline weight ounces, but the pains of regret weigh tons.

If there is one thing I have learned on my mission it is that I will always try to do my best today so that there will be no regrets tomorrow when I contemplate what I did or didn't do. Here is another quote that is really good: The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm on doing today's work superbly today!

We just received the conference tapes in the mail today from Sydney and we will be viewing them soon. I am excited to hear the prophet of God speak. I was studying about Joseph Smith just recently and I learned something very neat! When Joseph's father gave him a blessing, he told him that he would help administer the gospel to other civilizations of other worlds that have been created. I guess it makes sense because Moroni came back and administered part of the gospel to Joseph Smith. I thought that was interesting!

Peter Hollow is a really good friend of mine and is the member that got me thinking about extending. He is super cool and he served in the Melbourne, Australia Mission and he knew the missionaries that I knew in the MTC. He is a cool guy!

Thank you for all your support!

Elder Wallentine

Dear Shanell,

Guess what?! I am now Assistant to the President! President Gray called me into his office on Monday, September 29 and called me to be an assistant. He told me I must be beyond reproach and a few other things. I really began to feel the responsibility and I became quite overwhelmed! I thought being a Zone Leader was tough! Ha! It is really cool! I am looking forward to the challenge.

The other two assistants are Elder Jackson and Parker. Elder Parker is going to get moved out of the office at the end of this month so Elder Jackson and I will be President Gray's assistant then. Right now there are 3 of us. I am in charge of re-doing all the statistic sheets for the mission and I am in charge of 1/3 of the mission. We help President with transfers and it is really neat! After we prayed today and again and again, etc. we finally decided where the new missionaries would go and who would be their trainers. After we announced it, one of the new missionaries said, "How did you know w were supposed to be together?" Apparently he felt he knew his new companion was going to be Elder Norris.

Elder Vladusic is a new elder and when he joined the church at age 19, his dad gave him a broken nose, withdrew his inheritance (thousands of dollars) and kicked him out of their Catholic home. His father is very high in the Catholic church and he doesn't even believe in God, but he does it for the money. Isn't that sad! Elder Vladusic is cool! He is from Melbourne, Australia and he knows two of the missionaries that were in the MTC with me that went to Melbourne on their missions.

I don't get to do much work as a missionary because we're always busy working in the office. We are very busy! That is okay, though. As long as we can help others baptize. I love to see others have success. It gives me a good feeling to help other missionaries get baptisms! I've already seen a lot of success so now it is time to help them. I feel like I've grown so much out here!

Love,
Elder Wallentine