Week 79: Hello From The Small Town of Wagoner!! 2/17/2020

Hey everyone! How are you? Man, things sure have changed in the life of Elder Weese. If you didn't hear from the last email, I was transferred out of Norman last week and am now in a town called Wagoner, OK! Things have been super good so far! My companion, Elder Roetker, is from California and he has been out on his mission for over a year! He has been in this area one transfer longer than me so he knows his stuff! These past few days I have just followed him around every where I went trying to learn as much as I can about this area. I live in a pretty old house in an older neighborhood, it's pretty small and is kinda falling apart, but it's actually pretty awesome! I never thought I'd live in a house on my mission, with its own yard, sheds, and even a storm shelter and fire pit! The town itself is pretty old as well! Everything here looks like it has been around for a long time and there is also a train that comes roaring through this place like 20 times a day, sometimes it wakes me up! It is a branch here, yesterday we had like 40 people show up to church, but I heard that's a small number for this branch. I guess a lot of people here are under the weather, or just had a valentine's/president's day vacation! We also don't have a car so we have to bike everywhere, even to church on Sunday's in our suits! 

As you can see, this area is a bit different than the previous ones I've been in, but I LOVE it! I would say the thing that is the best part of it all is how friendly everyone is here. Not going to lie, I was pretty nervous about going to a small town, but that left right on my first night I was here. I guess you'd say I was in bit of a culture shock that first night when I found out how nice everyone is here. We were at Walmart that night and it felt like everyone we said hello to had the nicest comments back to us, and also as we are biking everyone waves to us as well. I'm not in Norman anymore!! Everyone in the branch here is also very nice as well! I felt very welcome on my first Sunday here, 2 members in this branch fed us 2 times this past week, the Schneider family plus this super funny lady named Tammie, members who work at restaurants let us come in for free food once a week so we get free BBQ and free pizza every week, and even this morning we had a member take us out for groceries and offered to pay for all of it which was 80 bucks worth! Needless to say I am well taken care of here for the next little while!

We have a lot of people with potential we have been trying to get in contact with. There is this one man named Rob who will be getting baptized, he is just waiting for our branch president to get out of the hospital so he could preform the baptism! We taught a lesson to this young boy named Claude who is also wanting to get baptized. We taught him the plan of salvation and also about prayer. Apparently he doesn't really like praying, so I challenged him to a contest saying if he prays more times then me this week, I will bring him a surprise, just to motivate him to do it! He was so down for the challenge and even at church when I saw him again, he was trash talking me about it and how many times he has been praying! Obviously, since missionaries pray more than the average person in their daily lives, I'm only counting the morning and night ones just to make it fair!

We have many things going for us in this area! I'm super excited to be here in Wagoner and get to experience what the Lord has in store for this place! I see some very big things coming!! I look forward to another great week and I hope you all have a good one too! Love ya'll! 

Love, 

Elder Weese

1-3) A few goodbyes in Norman; Rex, Bittle, and George and Jessica Herning

4-5) Last day in Norman

6) The Norman gang now in Tulsa! 

7-8) New Crib

9) New Church

10-11) New Comp (Elder Roetker) 

 

Week 78: New Things On The Horizon 2/10/2020

Hello everyone!!! What's going on?? Things have been poppin here in the state of Oklahoma! Some big things have happened especially over this last weekend! We found out about transfers on Saturday night and I will be moving on from the Norman area. Despite everything that happens, it's always sad leaving an area. It's always weird going down streets you'll probably never go on again, or seeing people you'll probably never see again,... it's a sad thing, but also exciting to see new things and be apart of new challenges that strengthens me. I will be taking my service over to a small town called Wagoner where there is a tiny branch there. It has been a REALLY long time since I have served in a small city, but from what I can remember from my service in the small town of Vernon is, yes it's small, but it feels like you become a part of a family, a happy family where everyone loves and embraces each other without strife or tension. I admit to say that I am looking forward to that sooooo much!! My companion's name is Elder Roetker and he has been out for about a year so he is pretty seasoned. 

I have so much hope and optimism for this upcoming transfer. It's an exciting time to be a missionary. I will also miss living in a luxury of an apartment. Never thought I would be that comfortable as a missionary. Elder Schroeder will be missed as well. We had a sweet time together and got along super well. Norman has so much potential now with the recent plans we had made. I wish I could see the fruits that come from some of these things, but I know it's the Lord's timing and he needs me in Wagoner. 

Well, I wish I had more to say, but we are off to a dinner right now. This week will consist of saying goodbye to the good people in Norman, getting to my new area, and starting the new challenge!! Can't wait to get it going. I hope you all have a blessed week! I'm grateful for you all!!

Love,

Elder Weese

1) We finally had snow!

Week 77: What A Blessed Week!! 2/3/2020

Hello everyone!! I am here once again after a quick blur of a week. This was probably theee best week that I have had here since coming to Norman. It was SOOOO awesome!!! It has also been a little more peaceful because are quantity of people living in the apartment went from 5 to now just 2 again so that has made things a little easier, also being able to not be bound to a car share either with Elders who's area is the entire zone, so we now finally are able to see the car once again. Well, this day has been good as well! I had an appointment to fix my permanent retainer up in OKC today and we took advantage of our travel up there and made a few stops in the city that I had never had the chance to see yet. Got to see where the Thunder play as well as Devon tower, which is the tallest building in Oklahoma. I wish we had the chance to go to the top of it. People tell me exaggeratedly that you can see the entire state of Oklahoma because that's its highest peak. Maybe next time... But it was a cool travel and I took some sweet pics of downtown OKC.

Well, some big things have been happening in Norman! Elder Schroeder and I have been working hard together and we are seeing some great things come out of it. We had a lesson with this man named George Herning, who is married to a member. We have been trying to get in with this family for MONTHS! We finally were able to get in with them and we got to know his stand in the church. He presented how frustrated he was with missionaries in the past. He felt as if they were treating him as a number because of how fast they wanted him to progress to baptism. He says" I just want to learn." So we promised him that we will go through all the lessons plainly and simply so he can know what we are all about. We hope that during that process he will be able to make a decision because what I have heard from a lot of people, members or missionaries, is that he is very non commital. What we are just grateful for with all of this is that we have finally been able to meet with him. He comes to church every week and has a huge history with meeting with missionaries, so we always knew he would be a good one to try and teach, and after months, we finally did, and we are going to be doing so more regularly.

We are also meeting with this man named Matt once again. We met with him when we first got here, but a few things happened with him so we had to give him some time, and after months later we had the prompting to go see how he was doing. Apparently, he had strong feelings towards the church when he was meeting with missionaries and when we stopped meeting with him, he felt hurt that the church had put him aside and so his respect for it lowered by an abundant amount. He said as we've been back twice now that his respect is back up. At this point he pretty much knows everything about the church, he's very smart. We are just focusing on the Book of Mormon, we are reading with him and giving him some things to read as we meet with him. Hopefully things will turn out with him as we do that. We have also been able to set forth our plan with some of the members as well, and that has led to some referrals. This young man in the church is dating someone who's a nonmember and he wants her to be learning about the church. He asked her and she said YES! Hopefully we can that going this upcoming week. There was that plus many more referrals that the members have been giving us to go and check in on. We also started teaching this guy named CJ. He's 17, and we found him looking for a member who hasn't been seen in YEARS. In fact, it was very scary trying to track this member down. He lived in a trailer home in the middle of nowhere. It was 8 at night, we were with a member named Brother Nelson, and as we were approaching the door, we saw a dog chain and right after that caught our eye, we heard extremely loud growling, like a bear was going to attack us. We looked a little closer and saw no dog attached to the chain, so that scared us a little more. We bravely approached the door and knocked and the first thing we asked the person that answered was, where is the dog? Luckily, it was inside. We asked for Charles and this 17 year old boy comes out. He has the same name, but he likes being called CJ. Apparently his dad, who was the person we were looking for, left him when he was 2. We thought he would be bitter with us coming to his door, but he was very curious as to what we were doing. We introduced the Book of Mormon to him and he loved the idea. We got his number, so hopefully we will make it back out there, as long as we don't get attacked by his dog.

Well, the week was good!! I loved it so much! We hope to have continual success as we enter the last full week of the transfer. We receive news for this upcoming transfer this Saturday so I wonder what will happen! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all!!

1-5) Our trip up to OKC

6) Bye Spanish Elders!