Tuesday, November 20, 2012

I Am Loving My Mission!


November 19, 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

It is so good to hear from you all.  It sounds like Thanksgiving plans have all been made and are ready to go.  We are going to be with the Kirkham family and they keep inviting a bunch of people and it will be great.  They have 30+ in attendance from their family and ward members coming. Besides that, December is coming up quick.  It will be here before we know it, crazy huh?  We will be Skyping in just a few short weeks.  It will be good to see your faces.

So here's a new "small world" moment for the week...do you remember the Grays that used to be in our ward, the ones that lived down the street a couple years back?  Well, guess who is arriving here in about a month? None other than Myle's Gray.  He is a new Elder coming to the Ohio Cleveland Mission and I will get to meet him in the first 10 minutes when he gets off the plane.  Neat huh!

Elder Metcalf and I love the work.  We have been working in our area, as well as preparing and giving training to missionaries around the mission. We have such a great time working with President Vellinga.  I love my time here because we have some great, great missionaries.  I have loved this opportunity to work with and serve with them.  We are preparing for a multi-zone conference in Kirtland next week.  We will have half the mission come on Monday and the other half coming on Tuesday.  We will be taking a group photo outside the Kirtland Temple and then will have a 2-hour meeting in the Temple.  We also will be able to hear from some of the Stake Presidents in the mission, learn more about how we can grow in our Faith in Jesus Christ in a place where He has appeared, and have the opportunity to bear our testimonies in the Kirkland Temple.  It is going to be powerful.  I have been able to organize music numbers for both days. On Monday we are doing an octet of "Oh Holy Night."  It's a pretty arrangement that I got out last night to the others who will be singing and playing piano.  Then on Tuesday I have been talking with some of our instrumental musicians and we get to put together a flute, violin, and piano arrangement of "What Child is This?"  It is going to be really cool to be able to perform there and I am excited!  Then after the Temple we will be going over to the Kirtland stake center for lunch and another couple hours of training and practicing.  And then off to the Kirtland Historic sites to see the Nativity Display and come to a greater understanding of how we can use this display to help others feel the true spirit of Christmas and grow in their desire to follow Christ.  This year they have about 700 nativities from around the world, with 80,000 Christmas lights around the sites, and a whole bunch of other neat things that they do to help people feel the Spirit and have an enjoyable time there.  We have handed out thousands of invitations and had some great experiences in just inviting people to come to this wonderful event.  It opens people up, and has been a really neat opportunity to just testify of Christ and help people understand we love Him and His gospel.

We were able to meet with Jordan this last week for the first official time. We shared the Restoration and he really enjoyed it.  His wife Sam had a migraine and was upstairs unfortunately.  However, in explaining how our church meetings worked he seemed particularly intrigued.  He was able to understand how his family would be able to learn about the Gospel in different classes and really enjoyed learning about Relief Society for his wife.  He just kept saying, "This will be so good for her.  She needs people like that to be around and socialize with."  They are a neat family of 4 that we are excited to invite and help come unto Christ.  Some of our other investigators are still in the pending kind of stage.  Many are actually headed out for the Holiday so we pray that we can meet with them soon after.  We are still heavy in finding mode right now and things are starting to come through.  We just found a family this past Sunday that we met with who is working on adopting a foster child they currently have. She is interested in learning and has come to church several times.  She has expressed a desire to prepare to be baptized.  We are praying that the adoption process goes smooth so we can more fully help her achieve this wonderful desire.

That is great news for SISTER ESTHER DAVIS!!!  Tell her congratulations for me. It's wonderful to see so many sisters desiring to serve the Lord through missionary service. 

I am loving my mission.  What a wonderful time of year to reflect on the time I have spent here in Ohio.  I am so very thankful for the many opportunities I have had to serve and help others.  The miracles and blessings I have been able to see on my mission are humbling.  It's amazing what can happen as we have desires to serve and love God and our brothers and sisters.

I sure love all of you, and pray you all have a safe and happy holiday week.  I am thankful to you for your examples, encouragement, and love.  

Love,

Elder Weaver

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