Matthew 11:28-30

Hey Family!

   Well today is the fast and short email due to all the forms we have to send after the last Sunday of every month.  This will be a quick update on our week.  

   Last Sunday night we found a family, well a couple who aren´t married and the sister of the boyfriend, who received us really well!  They have read every chapter that we have left them, and they understand the Gospel.  They always have questions for us which is great because when we explain the Restored Truths to them for their answers, they happily accept it because they can feel the Spirit testify the truth to them.  They are studying in the college close to here and yesterday we found out that they have plans to get married!!! (I have goal to have one of my investigators get married in order to get baptized) The Lord heard our prayers and saw our efforts.  Like I have said many times, this is His work.  He is at the head of it all and He asks that we consecrate everything.  I love it!

Love you all!

Elder Weidman

Ether 12:6 -- Trial of Faith

Hey Family!

   Many things changed with our investigators this week and we focused mainly on finding new investigators through our own efforts and the referrals from the members.  Andrea and Willington (the friends of Susana) have kinda fallen off the charts due to the worldly forces that work on them.  We tried all we could to stay in contactg with them, but they weren´t putting in their own efforts and in the end we had to stop passing by them because they showed no signs of progression nor interest.  We know that they both felt the Spirit at one point in our visits, therefore we have planted a seed that will be harvested in the future.  That is the point of the Area Book (a book that has information about each investigator and their progression)  that we always keep updated so that future missionaries can return to the investigators in a few months or years when their lives are completely different. In my first sector of the mission, we found one of my converts by using the Area Book.  If the missionaries before me had not kept the Area Book updated, we would have never found Camila (the young women that was baptized in my last two weeks of my first area).   

 

   Yesterday we found 5 new investigators and we saw the fruit that came from ¨the trial of our faith¨. We returned to the house dead tired every night this past week due to the effort we put in, but we never lost enthusiam nor did we let the lack of success effect us.  We tried talking with 20 people in the street everyday and we truly saw miracles each day.  Now the Lord has blessed us with many future investigators that we will get to know better this week.  I loved returning to the house everyday and being able to say that I gave my best effort that day in preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have felt many times in the past year that the Lord is truly happy with my work yet always expects more.  I´m very grateful to be a servant of my Heavenly Father. 

Love,

Elder Weidman

1 Nephi 13:37 - Seek to Build Zion

Hey family!

   The coldness came from no where and hits us every morning but the afternoon is still full of heat.  I have a new companion now named Elder Bojorquez and he´s from La crescenta, California.  The mission that he lived in is Arcadia and the mission president is Presidente Besera (for dad).  He just began his 5th transfer in the mission and I have a feeling that we will be together for a good number of months.  I´ll try to take some photos of him, but he has roots from Puerta Rica in him so he looks Latino.  Now if anyone wants to know English, they ask me because I´m the whitest person here in Valparaiso.  What a privilege!

   An update on the investigators.  Marcela, the pregnant lady that was living with a member, came to church yesterday and her partner met with the Bishop yesterday!  Their marriage won´t happen in the near future, but that doesn´t stop her from being super excited for her baptism.  That´s the only thing that she wants to do in the moment, but she´ll have to wait until Maonri feels more like doing it.  Our other investigators, Andrea and Willington, who are friends of Susana, came to church yesterday and are preparing to be baptized on the 30th of March.  This week we will teach all the commandments so that they can feel the power that comes from the restored Gospel.  Next week I will have more details about them.  

  I love you all.  Have a great week!

Elder Weidman

Helaman 10:4-5 Declarar Infatigablemente

Hey family!

   Valparaiso is getting a bit colder every day, but it´s amazing to run in this weather in the morning.  The running has paid off because all the other missionaries have told me that my chins are vanishing.  Joke, they just said that I look a bit more skinnier in the facial area and you don´t see me complaining. 

   Susana got confirmed yesterday and now we are working with one of her friends named Andrea.  The world has a greater influence on her so she has struggled with keeping the commitments, but the Lord can perform miracles if we will put our part in.  Susana is animating a lot of the members (especially the Relief Society) to participate in the Work of Salvation.  It´s great to see how she doesn´t rely on us anymore (actually she never did) in order converse with the members, or keep the commandments. 

   We began working with another investigator this week named Marcela.  She is living with with her boyfriend who is a member, Maonri, without being married and her boyfriend has been inactive for a few years due to many reasons.  Marcela recently got pregnant by her boyfriend and at first was not happy at all.  She didn´t want to have children for a long time, but then we helped her realize that having a baby will be a blessing.  Throughout the week, she has grown to love the baby that is inside of her, and come to realize that this is a sign that she needs to include the Lord in her life.  During one lesson, we were talking about the love God has for us (because she didn´t believe in God before this week) and how we can feel it.  A member came with us, and he began bearing his testimony about how God loves her just as much as she loves her future baby.  At that point, Marcela began crying due to the Spirit and love of God that she felt in the moment.  This experience taught me two things: 1.  The love of our Heavenly Father is the greatest and most powerful feeling that we can experience and 2. Members are crucial in lessons in order to have the Spirit testify to the investigators.  

Have a good week! Love,

Elder Weidman

The photos are pictures of the ¨stairs of death¨ but they aren´t too dangerous, just in case someone was worrying. 

I forgot the scripture..

Hey family!

   

   Susana was baptized yesterday!  Her conversion story was amazing.  First of all, I don´t know if you remember about my first weekend here in Valparaiso.  On Saturday, we left from lunch and began heading down to the Chapel to drop some things off.  A woman comes out of her house and yells at us ¨Hey you!!¨ in English.  Usually people always yell that, but this time was different because she asked for a Book of Mormon.  She let us in told us that she had been taking classes with another church, but now she was going to change churches due to one thing: the dream she had with us.  In her dream, she saw 4 missionaries who guided her across a bridge.  We expained to her that our life is just like her dream.  We live with Heavenly Father, then are sent to Earth to obtain a body and be tested, and then we need a bridge back to God.  We told her that the bridge was a symbolism to the Gospel and she realized suddenly that she needed to be baptized.  She committed to do all the steps necesary to be baptized and excitedly accepted the invitation to go to church the next day.  We saw her the next day in church but then lost contact with Susana for a week. 

    The next week we finally got contact and she told us that family problems had come out of no where.  We then set another baptismal date with her for the 2nd of March, which in the end she accomplished. She accepted every commandment with ease and even fasted for almost 3 days to prepare herself for the baptism.  We are sharing with her friends now, and she has lots of desires to participate in the Work of Salvation. Yesteday she shared her testimony during the testimony meeting, even before she was a member!  The Lord blessed us by giving us the privilege of teaching her.  

A little funny experience.  When Susana stopped her fast, she said that she immediately ate chocolate and it made me remember Marsh and Rach´s experience.  CHOCOLATE!

Have a good week!

Elder Weidman

D y C 118:3

Hey family!

   I don´t have much time to write today but I wanted to send an update about the investigators we have.  

   Susana is progressing amazingly.  She came to Church yesterday, went to a baptism of another ward, and passed her baptismal interview!  I´ll explain more about her in the next letter because her conversion story is amazing, but something really awesome is that she left this morning to stay in a place called La Laguna Verde for 3 days.  She wants to eliminate all worldly distractions and read the entire Book of Mormon in those three days.  Also she will be fasting for those three days, and wants a question answered by God (we don´t know what the question is, but she said that it won´t effect her baptism).  She will be baptized next Sunday by a ward member and has already begun bringing her friends to church.

   The Navarro Family, the familia Argentina that I talked about last week, came to church yesterday and the ward welcomed them with open arms!  The son has only one desire in the moment: go on the mission.  The parents have only one desire: baptize their daughter.  The daughter only has one desire: be baptized. And the littlest daughter has only one desire: sing I am a Child of God everytime that we pass by.  The two daughters remind me a lot of Lucy and Gracie. The older one is a little shy but a talker once the ice breaks while the younger is always making everyone laugh by her goofy comments and actions.  They will be a huge addition to the ward.

   I hope that everything is great back home!  

Love, 

Elder Weidman

P. S. I tried getting a good picture of the stairs of death but I didn´t come out to well.  I´ll grab a better one later.

Mosiah 5:13 - Serve to know

Hey family!

   It´s been a great week and I´ll explain in the next emails, but I want to send the photos first because sometimes it takes forever to attach photos.  Here´s the first photo that has a good view of the whole area : the downtown part with the hills behind.

 

A view my sector from up top. There are some ships i the sea and a little above them are buildings in the distance.  That is Con Con, where I was a year ago.

Preaching the Gospel in the hills is my favorite hobby.

Last photo: A delicious, healthy breakfast to make mom proud

Those are the photos that I have in the moment.  

   In our area we have many investigators and future investigators that have a lot of potencial like I said last week, but, for the moment, the problem is contacting them which is difficult due to vacations.  Right now the summer is coming to a close here in Chile, so everyone is trying to use up that last that they have until school starts in March.  We are contacting around 20 to 30 people in the street each day, but a lot of them are from other sectors in the mission because Valparaiso is a tourist spot.  Even though our hours are spent walking the streets, we are still animated and never let the lack of lessons bring us down.  As Elder Holland says, all missionaries must experience a part of Christ´s Atonement in order to truly sacrifice themselves on the mission.  We can never stop working and must diligently put one step forward.

   We finally had contact with Susana on Friday!  She is too amazing!  She had been reading the Book of Mormon the entire time that she was out of town, and immediately said that she wanted to be baptized when we saw her.  We taught about the Restoration of Christ´s Church and also about the Word of Wisdom.  We asked her if she had a problem with this commandment and she then picked up a tea package, threw it on the ground, and said ¨not anymore!¨ On Saturday we taught her about the Plan of Salvation, and really focused on the consequences of sin and the importance of the Atonement.  Listening about Christ´s suffering immediately made Susana cry and she said that she wants to do everything possible so that He doesn´t suffer for her anymore.  Her love for the Savior radiates from her face whenever she talks about Him.  Unfortunately she couldn´t come to church yesterday but she will be baptized in March.

  One other story. Yesterday we met a family from Argentina who have been in Chile for 2 months now.  They were baptized 2 years ago, but due to problems, they inactivated six months ago. The son of 20 years has always wanted to return to the church because he wants to serve a mission.  He knows that the church is true and couldn´t stand not taking the sacrament, so on Friday he found the address of the chapel and then waited outside until a member came by.  The Bishop was the first member to pass by, and then the son told him all that had happened.  The Bishop invited him to church and the entire family came yesterday, all thanks to the son.  When we passed by yesterday, the family was incredibly happy!  I felt the impression to share this story to show how the son led his family back to the church.

Love you all!

Elder Weidman