HAPPY BIRTHDAY #21

April 29, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you so much for your Birthday emails and wishes!  I am so blessed to have such an amazing family.  I know and feel all of your love, support, and encouragement.  Knowing this brings me so much strength and I am truly blessed to be a part of our family.  

Thank you for your wonderful idea of Temple clothes for my Birthday.  I love it!  As far as clothing sizes I am currently unsure...My neck is a little smaller now and my waist is probably at least a good inch and a half to 2 inches smaller.  I will try to measure this week to let you know.  As far as height goes I don't think I have shrunk. :)  However, I don't think my wish of being slightly taller has happened either.  Sometimes I just tell people I started my mission at 6 foot.  I will get those measurements this week. 

In regards to my bike...I am going to try and sell it on Craigslist.  I am going to a member’s today to put it up on their account.  I am going to see what others are going for and price it higher to include my bike lock and helmet with it.  I will keep you posted on its status.

As far as contact with Antoine I haven't heard from him.  I think he will wait to make contact until I get home.  Did you get on and accept his friend request on Facebook on my account?  It really was a neat experience meeting him last week.

This next week we are having Stake Conference broadcast from Salt Lake. I am super excited for another opportunity to hear from General Authorities between General Conferences.  Hopefully we can have investigators there to hear the words of Prophets today.

Tinisha and Leeneal (10 year old son) are doing well.  They have a possibility of making their May 18th baptismal date.  We have planned it out and it's a tight schedule.  We will have to keep them progressing if they are going to be ready by then.  If not the 18th, it will probably be the following week.  They have the desire and are willing to make AND keep their commitments and ready to receive the restored Gospel.  As we read with them this past week from the Book of Mormon, Tinisha recognized and made great connections to what we were reading.  She started "likening" the scriptures, an important step in real progression and in gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  They are energetic and excited about the Gospel.  It is also blessing her mother who is a member. They are strengthening each other and it is great to be able to watch.  

Julio is doing well.  He keeps his commitments and has read up to 1 Nephi 3 as of our last appointment.  He is awesome, but something has not clicked entirely with how a testimony of the Restoration will help him and his family comes closer to God.  We are going to re-visit some principles this next week and see what his needs are.  We really want to make sure he understands.  Once it clicks for him though I think he is going to progress really smoothly.  We are trying to get one of our member’s, who came with us in the past and speaks Portugues, to come again.  It's difficult however because Julio likes meeting at a specific time on a specific day.  And this member works then.  We will keep trying.

For 21 years I have been blessed to live in a home where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been lived and taught.  Thank you.  I know that it is true.  I know that the ordinances and principles of salvation are performed and taught in their fullness only in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ live.  The scriptures are true.  I know the Book of Mormon is true and that one holding authority from God to do so translated it.  That person is Joseph Smith, and he is the Prophet of the Restoration.  That authority has been passed on since the time of Joseph Smith through an unbroken chain, stemming directly back to the Savior Himself.  Thomas S. Monson is the Prophet today and receives revelation from God for God's children today.  We are children of a loving Heavenly Father and I know He knows us each personally and has a plan for each and everyone of us.  His is a plan of salvation.  This is a marvelous work and we have the great opportunity, as we live worthy of it, to help our Father in Heaven in His work and glory.  I testify of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I love you all very much.  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Weaver

Good Morning

April 22, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you for your emails and updates.  It sounds like spring is finally springing out there and you are able to enjoy some delightful weather.  I love the springtime!  People are out more and seem more willing to talk with people.

I just got to this point in my letter and the guy next to me started talking to me.  He asked me where we were from and I started explaining we are missionaries from the church etc. and he says, "yeah, I can tell there is something different about you guys.  You carry a light with you and I noticed it when you walked into the room."  We just spent about 20 minutes talking and I learned that he travels quite a bit.  As we kept talking he talked about how his mom passed away about a year ago and he just finished a song about that experience that he went through and how God helped him.  He asked if he could keep in contact.  I gave him a mormon.org card with our names and number on it.  I am pretty much positive that if we are able to keep in contact with him we could help him to start meeting with the missionaries somewhere in his travels.  He just left for a conference call, but I was able to show him a little of mormon.org on my computer screen before he left.  He seems super solid.  He travels a lot with his job but I think he is ready to learn and accept the restored Gospel. If we can keep in contact with him it would be super easy to set him up with some online missionaries while he travels and then when he stays in a place for awhile get some Elders or Sisters to come visit him.  Very cool experience what just happened.  Can't really express it in words, but God definitely directed this to happen today because I was going to sit some place completely different when we first came in. 

Due to our conversation however my time on the computer is now pretty short.  I will talk more about our other investigators next week.

Love you all lots,

Elder Weaver

Busy Day Today And We Don't Have Much Time Left!

April 15, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

Sorry I am only able to write this one brief email to you.  Busy day today and we don't have much time left!

We had a great week in this Ward this week.  We are teaching a couple of new investigators; Tinisha and her son Leeneal.  They are a referral from their mother who lives in the Ward.  They have investigated in the past and are now ready to be baptized.  We taught them the Restoration this past week and they easily accepted to prepare for baptism on May 18th.  Tinisha has 3 other children who are not currently baptismal age as well.  Then one of the other sets of Sister Missionaries in our Ward had a Baptism of a family they have been working with.  Kenia and Ernest (16) joined the church and will be a great strength to this Ward.  Ernest shared his testimony at the baptism and I can tell he is going to be a great missionary.  On Sunday they were confirmed and we had an invite a friend to church Sunday.  We are still figuring out if members brought more friends because we were helping a Unitarian church group who came to visit.  I think they had about 25 adults and children there.  Following Sacrament meeting we gave them a church tour and helped them become familiar with how the church runs and how our programs within the church work.  It was fun being able to do a tour with a big group!  This group has been visiting many different churches over the school year to learn about other faiths and ours was the last one they are studying for the school year.  

Thank you so much in advance for preparing and sending me a package :)...however, could I ask that you don't send treats and goodies?  I don't eat them very much because if I ate all the goodies that are sent here along with ones that members give us I would very likely get diabetes.  Something that I have very much enjoyed was the package of dried mangoes!  Love them! :)

Well I need to run.  I love you lots and hope you have a fantastic week.

Love,

Elder Weaver  

What A Great Conference Weekend!

April 8, 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

I love conference time.  So many inspired messages from wonderful leaders who have the authority to give us direction from our loving Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.  I love being able to listen and obtain direction for specific questions I have and to receive divine counsel as we feel and listen to the Spirit during these conferences.  What a marvelous time to reflect on and adjust our lives to bring them in closer harmony with the teachings of the Savior. Some great direction we received is how to be a lifelong missionary.  Missionary work doesn't need to be this secular activity that we do in life.  Instead, it is a part of life that we can do naturally day by day.  Inviting and helping others to come unto Christ often times is through our small and simple actions or words that we may often times overlook if we are not listening or willing to follow direction the Spirit is giving us.  When I think of all the blessings of the Gospel and see the effect that it has in all the lives of those who faithfully live it as opposed to the lives of those who do not or partially live it I am reminded of how good the Gospel of Jesus Christ is.  It truly is the way to peace and happiness in this life and immortality and eternal life in the world to come. How blessed we are to have this knowledge.  How blessed we are to be able to have the Holy Ghost to help us fulfill the divine command to share the Gospel.   

As far as we can tell we did not have any investigators view Conference. We invited many over the last couple of weeks so I pray that some of them will have viewed at least a session and felt the spirit as they did so.  We did have a few less-active individuals watch that we know of.  We have a few investigators we still need to get a hold of to see if they viewed the Conference however.  Thank you for your prayers on there behalf.  Our faith when it is united works miracles and helps to prepare the hearts and minds of God's children to receive the Savior's love and to repent to bring their lives in harmony with His Gospel.  

This week we had Mission Council on Tuesday and then held our Zone Training Meeting on Thursday in the Kirtland Visitors Center.  As a mission we have been finding more and more over the past month.  We pray that this trend will continue to grow and remain high as we continue to exercise faith and are united as a mission in achieving the goals that have been set. They are righteous goals and we are seeking diligently to achieve them for our Heavenly Father.  

So the bike, I could probably get about $250 out of it if I put it on Craigslist. Also, I very well may use it back home.  I'm still conflicted over whether to sell it or not.  Most bikes go pretty quick online though.  I will keep thinking about it this week.

Thanks for the great topic on faith for my talk in June.  There is a lot you can talk about with that one.  I will be thinking of something specific to speak about from that topic.  Is their any specific part of faith that the Ward could benefit from right now?  If there is let me know and I will base some thoughts around that as well.

I love you all lots!  Thanks you for your prayers, love, and encouragement you always give to me.  I appreciate your great examples so very much.  

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Weaver

Easter Was A Great Day!

Apr 1, 2013 at 8:54 AM

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you so much for the package and all of your notes and letters.  I enjoyed reading them very much.  I received a few other Easter packages from members of the Ward and will be writing them some thank you cards soon.  I have such an awesome family & ward family.

Easter was a great day!  We had church, really great lesson from the Bishop in combined Priesthood and Relief Society.  Then the Sister Missionaries in the Ward shared a good lesson in Sunday School on the last week of the Savior's Life.  Following which the Sacrament meeting was very good with the Easter Program, several members invited non-members, and a new family of 7 moved into the Ward from Nigeria.  We had a great opportunity to offer service all Easter afternoon as well.  A couple in the Ward is moving and we had helped move some things into their truck with the Ward's help the day before.  After church we were talking with them and Elder Berryessa and I knew that they still needed some help getting the rest of their house in order before moving.  She is in bio-medical research and has been working 16-18 hours a day and he is a busy businessman.  We went over that afternoon and were able to help them load up the last of their belongings and get their house cleaned up before they had to be out today.  It was good to be able to serve them, especially on Easter.  Christ went about doing good and I am glad we had that opportunity to follow His example on this Easter Sunday.

Investigator/people we are teaching updates:  Cortina is working towards a date for baptism on May 11th.  Her mom is actually meeting with missionaries over on the West side of Cleveland right now as well. Cortina's fiancé proposed to her so we are having them meet with the Bishop to discuss potentially getting married at the Church by the Bishop. Still about 5-6 months away.  However, she is inviting her cousin, mom, and fiancé to come to a session of General Conference this upcoming week.  Pray that they come.  Julio is doing well.  We took a great member over to his home this past week.  The member served his mission in Brazil and was able to effectively communicate some of the difficult words/parts of the message we were discussing.  Now that Julio is able to better understand all that we are sharing I think he will commit to work towards baptism on a specific date.  His family is warming up to it too I think.  The member wants to invite Julio and his family over for dinner in 2 weeks. What a great fellow shipper! Julio is on a cruise with his family for the next two weeks.  Hope there are some fine upstanding members on board that he befriends.  Brother Archie is the man that you think is Hayden, Dad. Hayden is a girl that is a college student.  We are meeting with her again later this week.  Brother Archie didn't make it to church this week and hasn't visited the family history center, but we will be meeting with him again on Wednesday.  We met a new investigator this past week as well named Karion.  She is 19 and has been following a blog that talked a lot about some positive things about Mormons the other day and so she went to mormon.org and requested a visit.  We met with her and she has a sincere desire to strengthen her faith in Christ.  She has visited many churches over the years but has not felt that, "any of them were it."  We will be sharing the restoration with her this next week.  She got called into work for our last appointment so we are re-scheduling with her now.

Sounds like you are having a great Easter/Spring Break!  I hope the remainder of it goes well.  I love you all lots!

Love,

Elder Weaver