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)