Monday, December 24, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
2 Nephi 2:8 -- The Importance of our Message
Hey Family!
NO! I just wrote a whole letter that was all detailed and pretty but
the computer exited out... And there is no draft. And I only have 5
minutes now.... Sorry for the shortness of this letter than. Here are
a few key points.
1. The branch here is amazing. In the past 2 weeks we have received
10 references and have a good number of investigators as a result.
2. The sister and mom of Gerardo are taking lessons. The sister is
really receptive and always keeps the commitments. The branch really
reached out to accepting her. The mom likes being independent. She
has a slight problem with the commandments. She saw the change that
Gerardo went through and wants this for her kids, but not for her. We
are praying for her.
3. We have a new investigator. Her name is N. Not really but that´s
what I´m going to address her as. She is the daughter of a less
active. She really wants to be baptized and start a new life because
she has a lot of bad experiences in her past.
4. We are working really hard in an area called Bicentenario. There
is only one member family that lives there so we mainly yell at doors
all day long. And talk to people on the street. We made friend with 2
dogs and they follow us around everyone. Even to our house at night.
I have pictures but I´ll include them next week.
5. Thanks for the 12 days of Christmas!! I open them first thing every morning.
6. It´s 100 degrees here. Things are heating up for Christmas.
I pray for you!
Elder Weidman
NO! I just wrote a whole letter that was all detailed and pretty but
the computer exited out... And there is no draft. And I only have 5
minutes now.... Sorry for the shortness of this letter than. Here are
a few key points.
1. The branch here is amazing. In the past 2 weeks we have received
10 references and have a good number of investigators as a result.
2. The sister and mom of Gerardo are taking lessons. The sister is
really receptive and always keeps the commitments. The branch really
reached out to accepting her. The mom likes being independent. She
has a slight problem with the commandments. She saw the change that
Gerardo went through and wants this for her kids, but not for her. We
are praying for her.
3. We have a new investigator. Her name is N. Not really but that´s
what I´m going to address her as. She is the daughter of a less
active. She really wants to be baptized and start a new life because
she has a lot of bad experiences in her past.
4. We are working really hard in an area called Bicentenario. There
is only one member family that lives there so we mainly yell at doors
all day long. And talk to people on the street. We made friend with 2
dogs and they follow us around everyone. Even to our house at night.
I have pictures but I´ll include them next week.
5. Thanks for the 12 days of Christmas!! I open them first thing every morning.
6. It´s 100 degrees here. Things are heating up for Christmas.
I pray for you!
Elder Weidman
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
D&C 6:4-5 - If one speaks by the Holy Ghost, they will speak the mind of God.
Hey family!
I love being able to be a tool in the hand of the Lord. This week I really focused on following all promptings from the Lord. Of course I couldn´t follow all because I´m human and have my weaknesses but I want to share two spiritual experiences I had this week. Here´s the first one:
1. In Chile there are many inactive members of the church. Our main focus each day is passing by these members and trying to reactivate them while at the same time trying to find new investigators. We do this by talking to all we see on the street, by asking the inactive members if they know anyone who would benefit from a message about Jesus Christ and happiness, or if the member isn´t home we will ¨yell¨ at the houses touching theirs. One day this week we were doing our usual work of contacting inactives and we had a whole schedule of who to contact. We had just finished working in one area of our sector and were about to continue on to another according to our agenda when a thought came into my mind to go visit a certain hermano in the ward. We looked in the directory for his address and started heading to his house. While we were walking, I saw a man walking our way. He didn´t make any gesture to talk to us, but my body acted without my mind and my hand shot out to shake his. Without even thinking. Of my companion and me, I was the furthest away from this man. I cut off my companion to get to this man. Without even realizing I was doing it. I started talking to him and asking him the usual questions than can spark a discussion about the Gospel. He told me that he was a member of the church, but hadn´t gone to church for a long time. He also said that I had been directed by the Spirit to talk to him. He has been dealing with depression the past couple of weeks and has needed help but hasn´t known where to turn. He said that he would not have stopped us, but would have kept walking if I hadn´t stopped him. If the Spirit wouldn´t have moved my body for me. When he told me his name, I realized that he was an inactive member that we had been looking for for the past 6 weeks but had never been home. The Spirit knew who this man was. What he needed and when he needed it. We set up an appointment with him and continued on our way. When we got to the member´s house, we realized that it was the wrong address. We also realized that it said this on the directory and we had neglected to see it. And I ALSO realized that I knew exactly where this man lived. If we had seen the little message on the directory or if I had remembered where he lived, we would have never run into this inactive. The Lord guided us. He made me forget where the member lived. He caused us to not see the little message written in the directory. I was able to be a tool in His hands in order to talk to one of His sons who had fallen away from His church. He is aware of every single one of us. We should never forget this. Never let our own thought cloud over this wonderful truth that everyone needs to know. There is no better work that anyone can do on the earth other than missionary work.
2. Don´t worry, this experience is a bit shorter. We have been teaching a 12 year old for the past 3 weeks. His mom is an inactive but she wants him to be baptized and he wants to be baptized but he won´t decide on a date. He knows he needs to but he says that he feels unprepared. This past week we were talking to him about his baptism and he told us that he wants to wait till next year to be baptized. He didn´t have any reason why. Or wouldn´t tell us. At this moment, the Spirit prompted me to take him to the chapel. We were a good 5 minute walk away from the chapel, but I didn´t want to deny this prompting. I stopped the conversation that was happening and straight up asked if we could go take a tour of the chapel. He has never been to church even though we´ve invited him every week. He got permission from his mom and we left. I could tell that he wasn´t very excited to go, so I started talking to him about video games. Something to light up the mood when we walked over. When we got there, he was a lot happier than when we left his house due to the video game chat. Who knows, this could have been a prompting from the Spirit to. Anyways, we showed him the sacrament room, the classrooms, and the paintings on the wall. We ended with the baptismal font. I told him that he would be baptized in this font. Then I had him read Mosiah 4:10. It says something along the lines of if you know these things are true than do them. After he read that, we stood there for a good 20 seconds in silence. He was staring at font the entire time. I then asked him how he felt and he said ¨bacán¨which means awesome. I asked him how he felt about baptism and he said that he wanted to be baptized this month. What an amazing sentence that was!! We offered a pray of thanks to Heavenly Father and left. He will have to wait till next month to be baptized because of a sickness his mom has and a vacation he is going on at the end of the month, but he is stoked for baptism. I am again thankful for the Lord guiding me during that experience.
Well that´s all for this week. Marsh and Rach, today I got you package from the 17th of November. THANKS!!!!! I hope everyone is enjoying the cold air. It´s beginning to look a lot like summer here. HAHAHA But seriously. It´s hooot.
I love and pray for all of you.
Elder Weidman
I love being able to be a tool in the hand of the Lord. This week I really focused on following all promptings from the Lord. Of course I couldn´t follow all because I´m human and have my weaknesses but I want to share two spiritual experiences I had this week. Here´s the first one:
1. In Chile there are many inactive members of the church. Our main focus each day is passing by these members and trying to reactivate them while at the same time trying to find new investigators. We do this by talking to all we see on the street, by asking the inactive members if they know anyone who would benefit from a message about Jesus Christ and happiness, or if the member isn´t home we will ¨yell¨ at the houses touching theirs. One day this week we were doing our usual work of contacting inactives and we had a whole schedule of who to contact. We had just finished working in one area of our sector and were about to continue on to another according to our agenda when a thought came into my mind to go visit a certain hermano in the ward. We looked in the directory for his address and started heading to his house. While we were walking, I saw a man walking our way. He didn´t make any gesture to talk to us, but my body acted without my mind and my hand shot out to shake his. Without even thinking. Of my companion and me, I was the furthest away from this man. I cut off my companion to get to this man. Without even realizing I was doing it. I started talking to him and asking him the usual questions than can spark a discussion about the Gospel. He told me that he was a member of the church, but hadn´t gone to church for a long time. He also said that I had been directed by the Spirit to talk to him. He has been dealing with depression the past couple of weeks and has needed help but hasn´t known where to turn. He said that he would not have stopped us, but would have kept walking if I hadn´t stopped him. If the Spirit wouldn´t have moved my body for me. When he told me his name, I realized that he was an inactive member that we had been looking for for the past 6 weeks but had never been home. The Spirit knew who this man was. What he needed and when he needed it. We set up an appointment with him and continued on our way. When we got to the member´s house, we realized that it was the wrong address. We also realized that it said this on the directory and we had neglected to see it. And I ALSO realized that I knew exactly where this man lived. If we had seen the little message on the directory or if I had remembered where he lived, we would have never run into this inactive. The Lord guided us. He made me forget where the member lived. He caused us to not see the little message written in the directory. I was able to be a tool in His hands in order to talk to one of His sons who had fallen away from His church. He is aware of every single one of us. We should never forget this. Never let our own thought cloud over this wonderful truth that everyone needs to know. There is no better work that anyone can do on the earth other than missionary work.
2. Don´t worry, this experience is a bit shorter. We have been teaching a 12 year old for the past 3 weeks. His mom is an inactive but she wants him to be baptized and he wants to be baptized but he won´t decide on a date. He knows he needs to but he says that he feels unprepared. This past week we were talking to him about his baptism and he told us that he wants to wait till next year to be baptized. He didn´t have any reason why. Or wouldn´t tell us. At this moment, the Spirit prompted me to take him to the chapel. We were a good 5 minute walk away from the chapel, but I didn´t want to deny this prompting. I stopped the conversation that was happening and straight up asked if we could go take a tour of the chapel. He has never been to church even though we´ve invited him every week. He got permission from his mom and we left. I could tell that he wasn´t very excited to go, so I started talking to him about video games. Something to light up the mood when we walked over. When we got there, he was a lot happier than when we left his house due to the video game chat. Who knows, this could have been a prompting from the Spirit to. Anyways, we showed him the sacrament room, the classrooms, and the paintings on the wall. We ended with the baptismal font. I told him that he would be baptized in this font. Then I had him read Mosiah 4:10. It says something along the lines of if you know these things are true than do them. After he read that, we stood there for a good 20 seconds in silence. He was staring at font the entire time. I then asked him how he felt and he said ¨bacán¨which means awesome. I asked him how he felt about baptism and he said that he wanted to be baptized this month. What an amazing sentence that was!! We offered a pray of thanks to Heavenly Father and left. He will have to wait till next month to be baptized because of a sickness his mom has and a vacation he is going on at the end of the month, but he is stoked for baptism. I am again thankful for the Lord guiding me during that experience.
Well that´s all for this week. Marsh and Rach, today I got you package from the 17th of November. THANKS!!!!! I hope everyone is enjoying the cold air. It´s beginning to look a lot like summer here. HAHAHA But seriously. It´s hooot.
I love and pray for all of you.
Elder Weidman
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
John 15:4-5 Abide in Christ. Branch cannot bring forth fruit without vine.
Hey family!!
This past week was a bitter sweet one. Elder King transferred to
Valpo (Valparaiso) yesterday. He was a great missionary and trainer
for me. I pray that he is able to follow the Spirit and continue to
bring people unto Christ. He was a great example to me and I will
forever thank him for that. My new companion is Elder Crist. Every
Chilean that meets him always says ¨¿Como Cristo? JAJAJAJA¨ It´s
hilarious. It means ¨like Christ? HAHAHAHA¨ He´s from Arizona, has 6
months left on the mission, and will be my trainer for the remaining 6
weeks of my training.
The branch is really loving here in Limarí. When Elder King said
his goodbyes to them, they were very sad for him but they kept
reassuring me that everything would be alright. That they would help
me. This past week was a big step for my Spanish. Suddenly I can
actually have full on conversation with the members and investigators!
Of course there are still some words that I need to ask about, but I
can get the gist (for the older generation. Gist means main message)
of what they are saying. They really have become family to me and I am
excited to spend Christmas and my birthday here with them. Don´t
worry, they aren´t replacing you all. Only adding to the family.
Patricia has a sure baptismal date now! The 15th of December. We
had a really spiritual lesson about ¨La Familia: Una Proclamación para
El Mundo¨. After reading the message, Patricia understood why she
needed to be baptized. To set an example for her children. She´s
known this whole time that she needs to be baptized, but she´s been
procrastinating the day. Now she´s fully ready. It´s sad that Elder
King won´t be here for her baptism, but she knows the amount of effort
he put in and that´s all that matters.
We received the news that hermanas (sister missionaries) will be
coming to Limarí next change! This means more work for the ward as
well as the elders this change. I realized that there are some areas
in our branch that we never visit, so this past week we made it a goal
to spend half a day in one of these areas to find new people. What a
great experience that was. I felt like one of the early apostles
going to a foreign land without a knowledge of what would happen. We
had no map. Nothing. But we were able to set 4 appointments and we
placed 3 Books of Mormons. We would have given more but we ran out.
It´s a good 30 minute walk to this area but it´s worth it. I have a
feeling that this area will become a prime working area in the next
change. Especially since there will be 4 missionaries working in
Limarí. President Káhnlein told us that there are going to be at least
one pair of hermanas in every zone. EVERY ZONE! That´s crazy sauce.
We have none right now and be the end of next change we will have 4
hermanas in the zone. The work force is growing rapidly. We will see
the results of the constant labor in the next few years. Grand
results.
Today is our P-day because of transfers. I found out that every
first P-day of each change is on Tuesday due to the transfers being on
Monday. Yesterday was a sweet experience as well. I was slightly
nervous to have a new companion because he had no knowledge of the
area there for it was up to me to find the appointments and all that
jazz. I prayed continually throughout the day for comfort and
direction and The Lord heard my prayers. I felt that someone was
along side me directing me the whole time. It was amazing. Also I had
to talk alot more than usual yesterday, and I realized that I don´t
have to think in English before I speak anymore. Like I said early, I
can carry out a conversation in Spanish now! The Gift of Tongues is
the only way that I have been able learn and understand so rapidly.
The Lord is aware of my needs and I have faith that as I give all my
effort, He will help me along the way.
I still haven´t heard anything about how or when I´ll call on
Christmas. I should know all the details by the end of this week.
Congratulations on the cat Marsh and Rach!! I hope that he or she is
just as great as Vlad. If you want another cat just let me know. Or a
dog. I can pick one off the street here and send it to you. And that
goes for the whole family.
I continue to pray for all of you!
Elder Weidman The Great
This past week was a bitter sweet one. Elder King transferred to
Valpo (Valparaiso) yesterday. He was a great missionary and trainer
for me. I pray that he is able to follow the Spirit and continue to
bring people unto Christ. He was a great example to me and I will
forever thank him for that. My new companion is Elder Crist. Every
Chilean that meets him always says ¨¿Como Cristo? JAJAJAJA¨ It´s
hilarious. It means ¨like Christ? HAHAHAHA¨ He´s from Arizona, has 6
months left on the mission, and will be my trainer for the remaining 6
weeks of my training.
The branch is really loving here in Limarí. When Elder King said
his goodbyes to them, they were very sad for him but they kept
reassuring me that everything would be alright. That they would help
me. This past week was a big step for my Spanish. Suddenly I can
actually have full on conversation with the members and investigators!
Of course there are still some words that I need to ask about, but I
can get the gist (for the older generation. Gist means main message)
of what they are saying. They really have become family to me and I am
excited to spend Christmas and my birthday here with them. Don´t
worry, they aren´t replacing you all. Only adding to the family.
Patricia has a sure baptismal date now! The 15th of December. We
had a really spiritual lesson about ¨La Familia: Una Proclamación para
El Mundo¨. After reading the message, Patricia understood why she
needed to be baptized. To set an example for her children. She´s
known this whole time that she needs to be baptized, but she´s been
procrastinating the day. Now she´s fully ready. It´s sad that Elder
King won´t be here for her baptism, but she knows the amount of effort
he put in and that´s all that matters.
We received the news that hermanas (sister missionaries) will be
coming to Limarí next change! This means more work for the ward as
well as the elders this change. I realized that there are some areas
in our branch that we never visit, so this past week we made it a goal
to spend half a day in one of these areas to find new people. What a
great experience that was. I felt like one of the early apostles
going to a foreign land without a knowledge of what would happen. We
had no map. Nothing. But we were able to set 4 appointments and we
placed 3 Books of Mormons. We would have given more but we ran out.
It´s a good 30 minute walk to this area but it´s worth it. I have a
feeling that this area will become a prime working area in the next
change. Especially since there will be 4 missionaries working in
Limarí. President Káhnlein told us that there are going to be at least
one pair of hermanas in every zone. EVERY ZONE! That´s crazy sauce.
We have none right now and be the end of next change we will have 4
hermanas in the zone. The work force is growing rapidly. We will see
the results of the constant labor in the next few years. Grand
results.
Today is our P-day because of transfers. I found out that every
first P-day of each change is on Tuesday due to the transfers being on
Monday. Yesterday was a sweet experience as well. I was slightly
nervous to have a new companion because he had no knowledge of the
area there for it was up to me to find the appointments and all that
jazz. I prayed continually throughout the day for comfort and
direction and The Lord heard my prayers. I felt that someone was
along side me directing me the whole time. It was amazing. Also I had
to talk alot more than usual yesterday, and I realized that I don´t
have to think in English before I speak anymore. Like I said early, I
can carry out a conversation in Spanish now! The Gift of Tongues is
the only way that I have been able learn and understand so rapidly.
The Lord is aware of my needs and I have faith that as I give all my
effort, He will help me along the way.
I still haven´t heard anything about how or when I´ll call on
Christmas. I should know all the details by the end of this week.
Congratulations on the cat Marsh and Rach!! I hope that he or she is
just as great as Vlad. If you want another cat just let me know. Or a
dog. I can pick one off the street here and send it to you. And that
goes for the whole family.
I continue to pray for all of you!
Elder Weidman The Great
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