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!
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