2/3/15- "Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"
2/3/15-A Reunion!!
1/5/15--Adventurous Pics! (read week 98 letter for explanation)
1/1/15--Christmas phone call!!!
12/29/14--more new pics!
12/22/14--a new pic from a fellow missionary!!!
11/6/14--new pics from a Santa Rosa member!
Hola Sister Whitaker!!
My name is Nathalie Medel and Elder Whitaker is serving in my ward, here in Santa Rosa! He is such an awesome missionary! We love having him here! :) So we usually feed the missionaries every Tuesday, and last week they were here. I was serving my mission in the Missouri Independence Mission but had to come home for medical reasons, but I'm returning late next month or early January, so I'm really excited! But I always appreciated when members sent pictures home for me, so I hope that you enjoys these pictures! My last companion and best friend in the world, recently hit her half-way mark so I just made her a silly little poster and the missionaries agreed to take a picture with it, to send to Missouri! So here are a few pictures from that! Transfers are next week, and sadly Elder Whitaker thinks that he's going to get transferred, so we are going to miss him! If I can get a couple more with him, I'll be sure to send those too! :)
Have a good day!
-Nathalie Medel
9/15/14--Francisco and Elizabeth
8/11/14--new pics sent today
7/21/14--new pic from Santa Rosa
6/13/14--pic from a fellow saint in Fairfield, CA
These are all the missionaries serving in Fairfield, CA right now. They were all attending Stake Conference on 6/8/14, and a member there had the brilliant idea to gather them and take a photo and send a copy to all their families. How thoughtful! She apologized profusely for the poor quality, but we think it's great! We are assuming that Elder Whitaker's companion, Elder Payne, is on the left.
New Pics--sent 5/20/14
Me and Hno. Amado, our branch mission leader who took us to the temple. We're on a path behind the distribution center that overlooks the temple. Hno. Amado is cool, he worked as a temple guard for a long time and has a lot of really cool stories. His brother is Carlos H. Amado that spoke in the past General Conference.
Mother's Day! 5/11/14
Spoiled for Christmas! 12/23/13
Merry Christmas to me! 12/12/13
New pics 12/7 thru 12/10
This is my apartment* before I was transferred to Napa. Elder Alcivar, Elder Johnson, Elder Albert and me. Elder Johnson is home now...weird.
*translation-He means the missionaries living in his apartment with him, this is obviously taken in the church. We didn't realize he was in a "four-some", the other Elders must be serving English speakers in the area.
11/25/13--new pics
11/5/13--New pics that arrived by text yesterday. Yeah!!
10/28/13--Here are some pics I (mom) received on my phone as texts. Elder Whitaker has not been great at sending pics home and I kinda bugged him about it. I guess it takes forever to upload them, and then he wouldn't have any time left to email. But, with some of the new "freedoms" they have with technology and the iPad mini, he was able to text me a few things this day. What a wonderful surprise to get a text from my son!
This was a meal we had cooked and served by Marleny (mentioned in my letter Week 36). There's rice, black beans in the bowl, and fried fish that's on the plate in the middle. The fish was breaded in a spiced up version of normal breading, and then on the bottom it had melted, fried cheese. It was sooooo good. The beans were also well spiced and tasty! We also had a salad, but that wasn't out yet. Marleny is Cuban, so it's authentic Cuban cuisine!
8/19/13 -- I was looking through photos and found these. Since Elder Whitaker doesn't send photos very often, I thought I'd upload these for something new to look at. signed the editor--aka Mom
Visitors! 5/5/13--the visitors report that Elder Whitaker is healthy, happy, and full of missionary enthusiasm. They also say that he speaks spanish quite well. Yeah!
New Pics sent 4/8/13--scroll down to see all of them.
4/6/2013 You may also be able to see pictures of Elder Whitaker and his Mission by visiting the California Santa Rosa Mission blog, updated periodically by the Mission President's wife, Sister Alba. Thank you Sister Alba for providing a peek into the goings on of this mission. santarosamissionaries.blogspot.com (the pictures look better on the blog, and will zoom in when you click on them)
Here I am...ready to serve! Less than 24 hours until I leave home. I enter the MTC Wednesday afternoon.