March 25, 2013
Dear Family & Friends,
What a great week! We have
found a couple new/former investigators who are interested and we have either
met with them or will be meeting with them this coming week. We went
through our area book and dead pool looking for former investigators who may be
willing to meet again and have had some good success with it this week.
We found 2 that we have taught now and have a few more scheduled for this
coming week. The two we met with are Cortina and Hayden. Cortina
met with missionaries before Elder Berryessa and I got here and for some reason
just hasn't been able to meet for about 2 months. She is now currently
working towards baptism on May 11th. Hayden is a college student here in
Cleveland and met with missionaries until right before Christmas. She had
some family emergencies and the missionaries lost contact with her for a while.
She is very interested and has great questions. We will be setting
a date for baptism with her this coming week when we meet her again. As
far as my goal as a family goes we may have found at least one of them. There
is a part member family in the ward that we met this past week. The Dad
is a member and the rest of the family, numbering 12 kids and his wife, 13 all
together are un-baptized. They are a busy family, and he became less
active soon after he was baptized. We met with him finally this past week
and in talking with him he expressed how he has been looking around at other
churches. He then expressed that he didn't feel like he belonged in the
church. He felt like something was still missing after he joined and so
he stopped coming and started looking into other churches...what he was missing
was doing his family history. He expressed a great desire to know where
he came from. He had been feeling the spirit of Elijah to do his family
history and to research and find out whom his family is. The problem is
that he had no idea about the church's resources in this area, and more
importantly about being able to perform ordinances for their behalf in the
Temple. We read from Doctrine & Covenants 110 when the Lord, Moses,
Elias, and Elijah appear in the Kirtland Temple and restore the keys of the
Gathering of Israel and the keys for the work of redeeming the dead. We
read this and testified of these events. We helped him understand that he
was feeling the spirit of Elijah and that he very well may have ancestors who
are waiting for him to do their work in the Temple. We then gave
information to him about where the family history center was and some other
resources he could use in searching out his family. At this point his
entire attitude changed and he now would like to meet with the Bishop and us
and to prepare to go to the Temple. We are hoping to meet with him again
this week and then start bringing the family in soon as well. Getting all of
them together will be a trick though...nothing a miracle can't solve though.
I am glad to hear that our extended
family is doing well! I hope all continues to go well, if not, then I
know that as we continually exercise faith in Christ, all will be well in the
end.
At home MTC huh? I like it!
Sounds like a great Ward Conference you had. The Lord is truly
hastening His work here. We are seeing that each day. What I have
noticed is the time that the Lord is preparing the next years of missionaries
is becoming younger and younger. The change in the youth curriculum is
going to make a huge change. What that curriculum teaches youth to do is
missionary work. Being able to teach and testify simply and clearly of
the truth. The missionary force around the world is being strengthened
daily. How incredible it is to see the strength of the youth and I know
that we will see that strength become stronger and stronger in the following
years.
Sounds like a great idea for our
trip! Start in Kirtland and then go visit people and then out to Palmyra.
That sound like a good agenda. I am realizing I need to get in
touch with some people from my past areas that I would like to visit so that
they know I will be visiting...hmm, I will work on that. It's tricky
communicating and setting things up with former areas. Mission Rules make that
part difficult. I will see what I can do though.
I love you all lots. Have a
great week this week.
Love,
Elder Weaver
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