Christmas Morning FaceTime

Twice a year we get to have a video call with Elder Weaver from his mission.  Christmas morning at 10:00 AM MST was our time to get to see and here from him.  I did a video of the call but is over an hour long so I cut it down to 12:45 min:sec of the call.  I had him bare his testimony at the end but I ran out of disk space on the video to get that so the portion you will get is just talking with him.  This is our post for this week.

Aaron Weaver - Daddy-O

Sounds Like The Holiday Season Is In Full Swing

Dear Family & Friends,

Sounds like the Holiday season is in full swing.  I sure hope you are having a great time together.

Tell Peter Coe he is going to love it out there.  I am so glad to hear of so many going on missions.  How many are from our ward right now?

By the way did you get a letter from me and a bunch more to give out to people in the mail this last week?

Last week and this week always move really fast with planning transfers, arrivals, departures, etc.  I will be an assistant for at least another little while.  Elder Metcalf just got assigned to train 2 Elders going to Peru but are waiting on Visa's before they can go.  One is fluent in Spanish so he will train the other Elder in Spanish while Elder Metcalf trains them both to be a missionary.  That was a fun day learning about all that.  Elder Metcalf is super excited to train again.  My new companion is named Elder Skalla.  You might remember him from when I served in Cuyahoga Falls.  He came out at the transfer after mine and served in the same ward as I did for 3 months.  (Tallmadge Ward)  We have been training him the last couple days on our assignments as assistants.  We are having a great time.  I am excited to serve with Elder Skalla, we will have great experiences together.

This next week Elder Myles Gray gets here.  I will be welcoming him into the mission.  It will be great to see him.  We'll see if he recognizes me though.  By the way you can tell Elder Berg's mom that he has a great companion coming his way and is going to love his time serving this holiday season.  We have some awesome trainers this transfer.  Plus, they will be talking to their missionaries next week.  And we all know how fast weeks go around here.

This last week a less active family we are helping to get to the Temple baptized their 8 year old daughter and is excited to get back into the full swing of things by becoming active in the Gospel and the Church.  We have several other families who are excited to prepare to go to the temple, as well as more who we are planning on having invited to prepare to return or go for the first time.  I remember that when this was the focus, along with current investigators that a powerful spirit enters a ward and causes great miracles to occur.  Things are starting to pick up little by little as we continue exercising faith and working hard to bring about our Heavenly Fathers purposes in this area. 

Well I got to get going.  I pray you all have a fun and safe week this week.

Love,

Elder Weaver

Intense, Humbling, Edifying, Uplifting, and Life-Building Week

December 10, 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

What an intense, humbling, edifying, uplifting, and life-building week this has been.  We had a great opportunity to meet with Brother Donaldson and Brother Lusvardi from the Church Missionary Department for some specialized training this last week.  Brother Donaldson went with us teaching on Tuesday, and then on Thursday we met with them and all of the leaders in the mission.  They have toured 34 other missions before ours and had many, many things to share with us and invite us to do better.  They are good.  We as a mission are doing well, however they helped us understand how much more we can improve.  I now have a better understanding of the word BOLD.  They were honest and bold with us throughout the whole process and we came out a little beat up.  What happened after this experience though has made a profound impact on my mission and on each missionary in this mission.  As we have identified where we need to improve we have seen more of what this missions potential can be as we apply ourselves and work to improve on our ability to find, teach, and invite and help others to come unto Christ.  I have come to love this experience and am seeing already the impact of the things they shared with us in the mission.  Elder Metcalf and I had the opportunity to travel to two Zone Training Meetings after the one with all the leadership to assist in training the zones on what was taught at the specialized training meeting.  It's been fun to go and train these things to other missionaries and see a new light come on as they recognize how much of a difference these changes will make in their service.  I am excited for what will be happening in this mission over the course of the next few months.  Also, it's amazing how many more missionaries are headed our way.  We are all going to be training it seems like. 

With the new MTC time being two weeks our departure date is most likely moving up a week, so the last week in May is when I will probably now be departing.  This makes my time here less than 6 months...I think about how fast the last 6 months have gone and can't imagine how fast these next few months will go.  It seems like I just left home yesterday.

I got my package the other day.  Thank you so much!  I have taken out what you wanted me to get now and have put the remainder under our 5-foot Christmas tree.  The cookies are delicious and I am loving the church music.  Just so you know, for some reason the Jeffrey R. Holland talk and the conference addresses wont play on our car CD player or our portable DVD player for missionary training videos.  I am not sure why... the Lamb of God works wonderfully though.  Thank you again.

Well it looks like my time is running short today...this day always moves especially quick.

I love you and pray that you each are safe and have a great week.

Love,

Elder Weaver

What A Quick & Awesome Week!

December 3, 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

What a quick, and awesome week we had last week.  We have had the opportunity to fast and pray as a mission and we have felt the prayers of our families and friends back home.  We as a mission are becoming more united in our faith and desires to go and share the gospel with our heart, might, mind, and strength.  We knelt in prayer across our mission in companionships the last two nights and asked Heavenly Father for help to find 1 family or individual who is one of God's elect and has been prepared to receive the restored Gospel.  Last night in closing our fasts we dedicated ourselves to this goal and promised to do our part to find and teach our dear brothers and sisters that we come in contact with this next week.  Elder Metcalf and I are already feeling the effects of this in our area. We have been able to find 3 potential families, and a single lady over the last few days.  We have had very positive initial contacts with all of them and are praying to be able to meet with them again and help them accept and keep commitments to come unto Christ.  I love this time of year and all of the many opportunities we have to serve and share the love of Christ with the world.  Elder Metcalf and I are doing 25 days of service right now. We are identifying specific service to perform for all 25 days till Christmas and taking pictures of them for an album and a Christmas ornament for our tree.  It's been fun!  We are looking forward to the complete album and a full tree of service ornaments.

Thank you for the package by the way. I look forward to getting it in a couple of days.  Oh and with Skype I will let you know when and where when I know.  It will probably be the P-day before Christmas.

I sure love hearing how you are all doing.  I love each of you and am thankful for your examples each week that I get to read in your emails. I love to hear about all of the wonderful things you are doing and becoming. I pray for each of you daily.  I look forward to talking to you soon.

Love,

Elder Weaver