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!

Week 76: Loss of a Legend...Mamba :( 1/27/2020

Hello everyone! I hope everyone had a good week! It was pretty good for me at least! Some cool things have been happening in my life and I'm excited to share more about it with you! Well I guess to the bad news, the black mamba is gone?? Are you serious? I found out this morning on the phone with my fam and I had no idea. We saw a lot of people yesterday and you would think that I would have heard about it somehow, but I didn't until just this morning and that makes me really sad. Even though he destroyed my team (the Jazz) many times over the past years, especially as he retired and dropped 60 on us. But ya, that was news I did not wish to have heard. Basketball will never be the same without him.

Well, onto some of the great news, as well as the things that happened this week. It was a fast week like always. The Spanish Elders will be moving out tomorrow to another apartment up north so the apartment will finally be back to just me and my comp living in it. It will be weird once they leave because they have been here since the start of the transfer, which was almost a month ago. It will kinda be like starting a transfer all over again because me and my comp have an interesting relationship, just because it always involved those other Elders some how. So now that they are gone, we have the chance to build a closer bond now that it is just us 2 all the time. Somethings that I'm looking forward to with it most of all is probably a cleaner, more roomie apartment as well as not being in a car share all the time. It will make things a lot easier, but I will miss the fun nights we had.

So, the highlight of my week was a call I got from an old friend in Tulsa. Do you all remember Ron who I found while I was up there and how he ended up being baptized? Well i hadn't heard from him since the day of his baptism and he called me a few days ago. Elder Williams, my previous comp, gave him my number and while they were being fed by him, that's when he called. So I also got to hear Elder Williams voice as well, I bet he's loving Tulsa. Well, the reason why he called was because he wanted to tell me that it has been a full year since I knocked on his door. I was shocked! I can't believe he remembers the specific day that it happened! It made me look in my journal afterward to see what I had written about finding him that day. It was pretty cool and I can't believe it has been that long! Another thing he wanted to tell me was that he is planning on going to the temple in June, which will be a full year since his baptism. He wanted me to be there, so I hope by then I will be close by so I could be there. By then, I would have 1 month left and so it would be quite a way to wrap up my mission. I will talk to President about it and hope he considers it because that would mean a lot if I was there. I'm sooooo pumped for June now!!! Another cool thing that happened that has ties to Tulsa was I was able to re-connect with a family who had lived up there while I was there, who moved down here to Norman. They invited me, plus 2 spanish elders; Elders Lara and Alton to help teach his mom. They are the Solorzano family from Peru and his mom knows very little English. I remember last year Elder Hammond and I taught her as well using a translator so it was cool to do that again, with a lot less translation of course since the Spanish Elders did all of the talking! She's a very good lady, but very devout in her beliefs, but her son really wants her to join so that's why they keep coming back. They are a very strong, down to earth family and I'm glad I was able to cross paths with them.

Well, we are looking forward to another exciting week with some great plans and goals. We are continuing our work with the members in the ward and are still brainstorming ideas of what we can do to gain their trust and to get them on board with missionary work in the area. If we get everyone on board, then great things in the ward will happen. So we are looking to get all members on board in some aspect of the ward. It could be stuff like praying or fasting for the missionaries, or coming up with a personal goal of how many times they bring up Gospel in their daily conversations, or even a goal of how many book of Mormon's they pass out... It could be anything, as long as it ties into the work! It should be good! Well my lads, I hope all is well back home! I hope you all have a good week, keep me posted! love you all!

Love,

Elder Weese

1) Solorzano family

2) Elders de Spanish!!!!!

3) Picture from mission FB page after interviews

Week 75: What Is Up?? 1/20/20

Hey everyone!! How is it going?? I hope everyone is having a great week. It seems like home is getting a lot of snow! I'm pretty jealous! Well, we aren't getting much snow, but winter has finally arrived here in the midwest this week. We went from nice bright days with pretty high temperatures to very dark days with a bunch of rain and cooler temperatures! It seems to make the work go by slow but it makes for some pretty cool adventures! We have been knocking doors in the rain and most people are thinking we are crazy. Some take compassion on us and offer us things while others just say you all are so ridiculous to be out in this weather.

I wish there was more to report on, but in my last few emails I have mentioned that we really wanted to crack down on member missionary work. It's still a work in progress, and we are really trying to have as many spiritual experiences with our members as we can. We have been told by a few of our members some people that would be interested in accepting the Gospel which is pretty cool. This week, we have a list full of people that we can try and hopefully some of them will be down to have us keep coming back. I think the best thing about these visits have been taking part in some of their family discussions, particularly Come Follow Me. One experience that was super awesome was at a dinner with a family named the Bittles. After our dinner, they asked us if we could stay for Come Follow Me that they try to have nightly with their extremely young family. It looks like it could be challenging at times for families like that, but they do a pretty good job with it. It's cool to see little children get excited about scripture study and apparently they all have their own copy of the BOM! Just the cheap ones like we pass out on the daily because they are the age of 1 and 4! What was cool and where the spirit hit me was another emphasis on the truthfulness of this Gospel. If this was all a fluke, why do families put such an emphasis on raising their prosterity in it. The spirit was so strong especially when the kids were trying to read it. I loved it and I can't wait to have experiences like that on my own.

Well, I'm looking forward to another great week. Hopefully we can get in with some of these referrals! It has been hard finding someone who would commit to us teaching them, so I'm praying very hard to be led to places where I can find that type of person. That was Sister Christensen's, our President's wife, counsel in our zone conference. We need to always pray so that the Lord can have us be apart of his work and who his elect are, and that is where my focus will be on in every aspect of the work. "Is this the right place to be?" "Where should we be?" Very specific answers will come, with very specific prayers. I can't wait for miracles to come! Well, I hope you all have a safe, fun week in all the snow. Love you all!

Love,

Elder Weese

1) House of a former OU football coach!

2-3) Rain, rain, rain!

4-5) Packed house!!

Week 74: Busy PDay So Just a Phone Call!! 1/13/2020

Elder Weese had Zone Pday today, so we got a quick phone call from him, no time for emails this week.  He had been to the church with all the missionaries in his zone, then they were all headed out to check out a nearby lake and camp ground.  They played games and roasted marshmallows.  Still working hard in the Norman area and balancing life in a one bedroom, one bathroom, one closet apartment with 5 missionary roomies!!  The other 3 Elder's staying with him and Elder Schroeder are serving in the Spanish speaking branch in their area, so Elder Weese gets to occasionally practice his high school Spanish skills with the Elder's.  He said it feels like a never ending scout camp!!

1-9) Pics from the lake trip

Week 73: Happy New Year and New Transfer 1/6/2020

Hello everyone! It's Elder Weese here alive and doing well. We had a very busy week and I can't begin to tell you how much has changed in the last few days. As you all are probably aware of, Elder Williams is no longer my companion and I have a new companion named Elder Schroeder. He is very different from me, but he is hilarious so I am in for a treat this transfer. I have no concerns at all with our companionship because if there is one thing I hope for in a companion it's probably a good sense of humor! It always makes it fun. He is from Colorado so the marijuana capital of the world. Haha!

Well, here's what life is like for me right now. Like I said, Elder Williams is out, Elder Schroeder is in, we have been trying to come up with new ways to find people to teach and we are going to work really hard with our members this transfer. We have built some pretty good relationships with members here as of late and now we want to take it the next step. It was a real struggle as we tried to find new things to do, member missionary work is very hard at times and it requires a ton of patience, but I guess it is effective for the missionaries to come afterward. That's where the spirit hit me and I just need to trust that what I am doing is effective and productive even if it is to just plant a seed, and I truly think that members are on the brink of trusting us with referrals. We also had a Spanish area just open up and there are missionaries serving there now and they are living with us. So it is 5 Elders packed in a one person apartment and one of them speaks no English at all, so I might pick up some Spanish skills with this next go around.

Well, this week is very exciting. We have called up a bunch of members and we are going to visit with them and bring the spirit into their homes and leave it at that. We also have a few potentials that we are going to be visiting this week so pray that they don't flake out on us as a lot of people do. Well, despite difficulties and impatience, my optimism level for continuing the work in this area remains very high. I know that the Lord has things in store for this area. I love you all and hope 2020 has treated you well so far!

Love,

Elder Weese

1-4) Elder Williams goodbye tour

5-7) Goodbye Buddy!!!

8) Elder Schroeder

9) Thor Smash