Week 60: Well that just happened?!?! 9/30/2019

Well everyone, how's it going? I'm just gonna start this letter of with some pretty unexpected news that I literally got an hour ago. Me and my companion just found out that we are gonna be training a new missionary coming in.... today!! It was right after I got off the phone with my mom and dad that we got notified about it from the assistants. So at 2:00 we will be picking him up and taking him home with us! I don't think it will determine how next transfer will go tho, I think it is still up in the air if I will be staying in Edmond, or leaving! Whatever happens, we will be finding out this Saturday so I will make sure to tell you all about it! I am pretty excited about that! It is the last full week of the transfer, so we are really going to kick it into high gear especially with the new missionary coming in! It will be a blast!!

So, this week was WAY busy! We hardly had the time to work in our area. We had only one full day in our area this week and we took the most out of that opportunity we had here! We handed out a lot of copies of the Book of Mormon and even met someone named Travis! When we knocked on his door, I thought he was a member by the way he reacted to us! He said that he had been to our church when he was younger and that he really loved it! He said he and his wife are looking for a church to raise their family in, so that was a good opportunity for us to extend the invitation to come to ours on Sunday's! We have been back to see him and to drop off a Book of Mormon and he seems pretty solid and interested! I'm so glad that the Lord leads us to places we need to be, when we need to be there! The only reason we were in that area was because we were looking for a member. We were given a list of people to go and visit, and this member's name wasn't even on it, but we felt prompted to go, and there we found Travis. That has happened to us twice this transfer now! It's so cool to see how the Lord brings forth His purposes. They come so unexpectedly! We don't always know the reasons as to why the spirit leads us to do things, we just have to do them! Exercise our faith that something miraculous would happen!

Well, as for the other things we did this week, we had stake conference all this weekend and we were pretty much part of all of it! They invited us out to a stake leadership meeting to develop good habits in ward councils! That is why we were there, because we are a part of the ward council in the wards we are assigned in! It was cool to see everyone come together as leaders: bishops, auxiliary presidents, stake auxiliary presidents, high councilors, and the stake presidency discussing ways that they can become better! It is teaching me a lot of traits of what it will be like for me being put in that type of position in the near future! At the start of the week, we were on exchanges at UCO campus and I was with my good pal Elder Nessen from Bear River! We had an awesome time together! Then near the middle of the week we were in a town an hour away from us called Shawnee and I worked with someone named Elder Bingham! Being on exchanges are fun because all areas/missionaries are different! It's cool to learn from all the things we do with them.

Well, I'm excited to get things going this week! It will be awesome and I'm looking forward to see what blessings the Lord will put before us this week, as we see every week! Missionary work is awesome and there is nothing I'd rather be doing right now! I love you all and hope things are awesome this week!

Love,

Elder Weese

1,2,3) The big 20! (birthday cake from the sister missionaries)

4,5) Awesome birthday dinner with the Mckinley's & other members from the ward!!

6) #stopthehazing

7) Last district counsel of the transfer!

Week 59: Wait, is it my birthday?? 9/23/2019

Hey everyone! How's everything going? I am so glad I was able to hear from some of you and especially glad for those who have been sending me stuff the past week! I guess, indeed it is my birthday. Turning 20 doesn't really feel too different! I have had to remind myself many times that it is my birthday, with the help of a few people, it has been on my mind! It just feels like an ordinary p-day where we will go out and do some things, then get right back into the work! I'm feeling older I guess. My body is starting to not catch up with me, I think that might be that I have been working harder, and also working out a lot more ever since my elbow has been healing, so I am pretty sore from that!

Well, something huge happened this week. There wasn't a lot that went down, besides this main point. Henry got baptized and confirmed this last weekend and it was super awesome. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, I really didn't know what to say that could add onto the knowledge he already has. He is super smart and he basically has been teaching me these last few months. It is always amazing to see someone enter into the waters of baptism, especially one who I have grown so close with! He's an amazing young man and will continue to do amazing things as he goes on throughout the rest of his life, now having the Gospel be apart of it. Henry, like most people in Oklahoma, has been influenced greatly by the life of Jesus Christ! What we do is we take what they have knowledge wise, and then we can see if we can add onto it a little more. When you receive more, the more blessing come your way. It was awesome! It was also cool to see Henry's dad baptize someone for the first time, and then also confirm him as well. He was more nervous than Henry was, but the spirit was definitely with him. I could tell!

Well, sorry this is pretty brief. I'm gonna go ahead and celebrate the rest of my birthday by doing some fun things on this p-day! We have a fun day planned ahead! Y'all are amazing! I hope you all know that! Thanks for all that you do! I love yall!

Love,

Elder Weese

1,2) Henry's baptism #gotem

3,4) Dope name tag pics!

5,6,7,8) We hit the park!

9) #arachnaphobia

Week 58: The Fruits of Our Labors 9/16/2019

Hello everyone! How's it going? It's good to be able to have this opportunity to talk with you, as it is every week! We have had a super awesome week and it has been constant go, go, go! In fact, we are sacrificing some time today out of our p-day to teach a lesson to the Jeffery's- Mia, Katya, and Max! It's been a good minute since we have been over there because of how busy they have been over the Summer and during the start of the school year so we decided to take advantage of any day they had available. I'm excited to see how that goes!

Well, I have quite a few things to report on. I'll start off with Henry! We are for sure having his baptism this weekend September 21st! All he needs is an interview, which will be happening on Wednesday, and then he is set! A member in our ward who has been super helpful with this whole process, Sister Haymore, sat down with his mom to talk about Henry's plans to join the church. Even though we knew going into this that she is supportive, it was still nerve racking because we didn't know what she would say. But she is entirely on board and also encouraging to the idea of it happening. She knows that it will help her son become a better person. It's cool to see, when we look at the Gospel in the right way, we and others can see how good of people we are as we live to those standards. Henry's mom sees that in our church, so she is in full support, in fact we will be seeing her at the baptism as well even though she is a devout catholic. Henry's dad, who has been returning back to activity in the church, will be baptizing him and this last weekend he was able to get the Melchezidek priesthood to confirm him as well. It has been a big week for the Coffman's. I will be speaking at his baptism about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I'm excited for Henry to receive that gift. There is going to be so much power in his life because of it!

As we have been working in both wards, we have found 7 people who are wanting to learn more about the Gospel! All of them seem super promising as well. I'll start with this family named the Keens! We have Britt Keen who is the dad, Mary Keen who is his wife. They are both in the car business in the sales department. So there's a huge inner connection with that. They have two boys Brody who is 13 and Colton who is 11! Here's the story! They have been to the first ward twice in the last couple of months because a member in our ward named Brother Hanson has invited them out. The last time they were there was 2 weeks ago and I was able to talk with them after and all of them loved church! Later on that week, we felt like we needed to reach out to Brother Hanson and see if his friends would be interested in us coming over and visiting with them. He let them know, and gave them our number. We got a text from them on Thursday and they invited us to there home the next day, which was Friday. We had a good discussion about some of the questions they had about our church, and how it was not coincidental how we got this thing to happen. A few days after they attended our church, they were talking among each other saying how much they love, in their words the "mormon" church! Then a few hours later Brother Hanson called them and said that the missionaries wanted to meet with you. They knew right after that it was a sign! They seem pretty prepared to here the message of the restored Gospel and they are a family that is gonna be high on our radar.

The 3 other people we picked up during this week were Daniel, Brook, and Brianne! We found Daniel by trying a less active that moved out. Daniel was this person's replacement and from the get go, he has been super nice to us. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and why there are so many churches, then he accepted a return appointments so we could come back and share some of those things with him. That return appointment was on Friday as well and it was so good! He also considers it as a non coincidence because he said he is not the one to learn about religion, but just as I was considering it, y'all arrived at my door. That just goes to show that the spirit is always leading us to where we need to be. The next person we found was Brook. She has had discussions with missionaries before and is friends with a few of the members in the 3rd ward! In our appointment with her, we talked all about her life story and how much she has been through! She has really felt the hand of God in her life especially through her trials! It was cool that we met her and got to know a little bit more about her. It puts things into perspective that we all have trials and tribulations, some are different than others. We just have to understand why God gives them to us. Then finally, Brianne! She has also met with missionaries before, actually recently and she has been on baptismal date several times but had never worked out because she has a smoking problem. Talking with her, we were able to see how ready she was, she just had this one hang up! We are going to keep working with her and try to get her back on date!

Those things were just the few of the many things that happened to us this week. We have found many part member families and the members are so helpful here with missionary work, in fact it's something they want to do! It was an all-around awesome week! In all honesty, we experienced something pretty hard during the first few days of last week. We have had numerous things cancel on us, no one came to church, Emma has fallen off the face of the planet, and we also received a disappointing text that no missionary wants to receive. It was from the Terry's telling us that they didn't want to be taught anymore. When all that stuff happened, it really wanted to make me give up on Edmond! We have worked soooo hard in many ways that have led us to these people, and they didn't ever turn out. So it was frustrating those first few days, but then we had zone conference on Wednesday. We talked about how this is the Lord's work. He knows exactly when his children are ready, that is something the missionaries can't determine! That message helped me out a lot, and right after that meeting everything blew up. Finding all those people, Henry being set for baptism, and having quite a few people come to church! It has been a blessing and I am so happy that I get to experience first hand this wonderful work and everything that goes along with it! If only you all could be here to see how awesome things are out here, you all would understand! I love all of you and I look forward to hearing from you all again!

Love,

Elder Weese

1,2,3) Fun at zone conference!

4) Dinner at Braums!

Week 57: Things Are Brewin' 9/9/2019

Hello everyone!! How's it going?  Don't have too much time today! We got some bowling reservations once again and I can't wait to destroy my fellow missionaries. Haha!!! This week was pretty good! It was super busy! We have been contacting a ton of people from the 3rd ward,trying to get to know everyone there. I'm way happy with how everything is going! My companion is literally awesome! We get along so well! I'm glad we passed the stage of awkwardness that all companionship's face! Now we literally just make each other laugh the whole entire day! The 3rd ward is very helpful! The ward mission plan is called go with the flow. Something very natural and easy to do. We challenge the members to "invite" people into the flow of their lives. It's all for the cause of building relationships with one another. When that happens, our friends will start seeing the light we have, and they will want that more than anything else. We don't push members to hand out a book of mormon before a deadline, but this plan we have helps the members do missionary work in a more comfortable way for both the member and their friends! It's a genius idea, and right after we learned about this plan from our awesome ward mission leaders, the Robins, they came out with videos on gospel library that explains it pretty well. There called the "come and see" videos! Check em out!!

Well, we have been meeting a ton of people! Trying to find our part member families because that is always a good way to find people to teach and who already have that connection with the Gospel. There has been a lot of good visits, and a few awkward visits, but hey.. you need them both to get the real experience of what missionary work is like! I feel like this week we are gonna feel a lot more comfortable in this new ward now that we've met a lot of people! We have a few part member families who said we could come back, so we will see if they'd be interested in taking discussions!

I can't wait for this week. We have zone conference on Wednesday, and a few exchanges this week as well! We also are gonna spend a lot of time finding more people to teach, especially in the 3rd ward! I can't wait to let you all know how it goes! Love you guys, and wish me some luck in bowling!!!

Love,

Elder Weese

1) Church paparazzi! (AKA Sis. McKinley)

2) My friends!!!!

3) Angry goose! (tried chasing me afterward)

4) Sunset views from gas station!

5) Already??????

6) Happy p-day!!! 

Week 56: Start of transfer #10 9/3/2019

Hey everyone! Sorry this is coming out a day late. Because of Labor day, literally all of the libraries in Edmond that we could think of were closed, so we got permission to send some emails out today! It was a pretty good week. A pretty eventful week! Starting new transfers with either getting a new companion or leaving to a new area feels like school starting a new trimester, it takes a hot minute for us to get used to it, but when we do it feels so natural and it feels like you have been companions for longer than listed. Elder Stolte (my new comp) and I are just barely reaching that point since we have only been comps for slightly under a week! My first impressions on him tho, he is AWESOME! He's so funny, probably has the funniest laugh out of all of my companions. We have had a good time so far working Edmond 1... and now Edmond 3 of course! I can't wait for more things to come in the upcoming, short, 5 weeks!

We had some pretty good things happen to us this last week, especially on Sunday. The first few days of the transfer you are focused on getting to know your companion, and then setting goals for yourself, and the area! But when Sunday came around, that's when things got way hot! We had a 8 people we are teaching come to church! We had Henry, the Jeffery's, Holly Hanson, and this family named the Keens who are potentials on our radars. They all had a good experience at church especially that last family that I listed off! They have a husband, a wife, and two kids- one teenager and one 11 year old! They've been to church in the past before and liked it, so I think we see some great potential with that family! Something else that happened on Sunday which was awesome was we were able to set a baptismal date with Henry for September 21! In previous lessons we have been asking and asking how he has felt about it, and his answer this week was a solid "let's do it!" He loves the book of mormon, loves coming to church, and wants to be like aaronic priesthood holders that he sees passing the sacrament weekly! I hope and pray that he holds steadfast to his commitment. He's come a long way!

Everything else has been pretty great! We have been all over the place trying to introduce ourselves to as many people we can in the 3rd ward! We have some strong members there who I can't wait to serve with! THey seem like a very missionary minded ward! I think that is all credit to our ward mission leader! He is challenging everyone to "go with the flow" meaning to invite friends to things that happen in the flow of their lives! Wheter it be just dinner, hanging out, or things like church or bible studies. It seems like it is working out in this ward and the members are pumped to do it! Member missionary work IS the most effective way to do missionary work, and since the ward is already on the ball with it, I see some great things coming! Well, thanks to everyone who has been writing to me! It has been awesome to hear about things going on back home! I hope you all have a great week, and I'll talk to yall next week!!

Love,

Elder Weese

1) New comp Elder Stolte

2) Making our arrivals

3) Dinner at Freddies!!