"Sol" Searching: Monday, October 6, 2014

THIS WEEK, THAT WEEK, WEEK, WEEK, WEEK.
I am definitely not as clever as Dr. Suess. Excuse me for that horrible title attempt... But man the week was great! It all just kind of turns into one big blur though, so it is kind of hard to tell you what happened ever single day, but I will hit on the big points! But thanks to my handy dandy notebook (Blue's Clues reference, by notebook I mean agenda) I can keep a track on everything that has been happening!!!!

So we have come into the month of October.... Oh goodness, how time is going by...way too quickly it seems! Man...... can you believe in only a couple of weeks I will have been on my mission for a year? Oh goodness..... it all goes fast.... too fast.... but the week has been awesome! We have been focusing on one of our investigators a lot this week. His name is Edvis, and he is a small old man, about 64 or so, and he lives behind the church. He is an awesome person. He reads all that we assign him, and he is really funny, and he is just a really great guy. His only problem, like most, is that he isn't coming to church. So our focus with him this week has been trying to dig into him to find his testimony, so we relied on one of our greatest tools for building a testimony of the true church, The Book of Mormon. He has been reading it frequently, and it was time to find out how he felt about it. So every appointment, we always make the Book of Mormon a big deal. It finally hit home. He asked us, "I know this book is from God, but what does that mean... what is next??" We told him in order to complete his quest to know if this is the true church, he had to come to church, so what happened?? This Saturday, in walks a little old man, shuffling in his slippers, that Mom and Dad recall me saying "my moccassins". THE SAME SLIPPERS.... he has flow... but get this, he stayed and listened to that whole two sessions of conference on Saturday. And boy was the talk that Neil A. Anderson gave about Joseph Smith really hit home.... I hope. He said he really enjoyed it, so I was grateful for that. I know that the Lord was truly preparing the messages that the Apostles, Prophet, and General Authorities prepared for both me, and for some of my investigators. I also had some people in mind that as I was listening I was thinking about, and hoping they were listening.

Let me say, I loved this conference. I took notes on every single talk! But I got to hand it to Jeffrey R. Holland and David A. Bednar. They definitely had the most impact on me. Although I did hit some other really spiritually feelings as I listened to the other talks. I wrote down some quotes I would like to share.

Chi Hong Wong during his talk asked "Do you know someone who is spiritually paralyzed, that just can't do it on there own?"

D Todd Christofferson said "Go to work, so that God has something to help you with."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf at the Saturday Morning session said "If you need to verify a gospel truth, you must first live them." He also in a later session said "Lord, is it I?" Ask that question... powerful.

Jeffrey R. Holland said "Our work is about love, NOT statistics." and when he talked about how he's never been poor, but he feels the pain in the poor's eyes. That hit home to me.

Henry B. Eyring said "Show me counts more than Tell me."

I noticed a major theme in the talks. It seemed to me, on Saturday, all the talks had the scripture "If ye love me, keep my commandments." and on Sunday, it was about the sustaining of our leaders, and of the prophet and his importance. But all in all, what I loved is how they always brought it back to our Lord, Jesus Christ who is the head of the church. What a true blessing it is to have the blessing of having a living prophet and apostles on the earth today. I hope everyone takes the words they shared into their daily lives. I know I got a lot to do. I got a lot of praying to do! But I know what they said is true. It was a reassurance of my testimony, that we are in the true church. This is the Lords church, we sustain our leaders, and by them, we are guided on the path of God. I know this to be true, because I have received my answer from my Heavenly Father through the Holy Ghost. His revelations continue, personally, and for the whole church. He lives, and His Son, Jesus Christ, lives and guides our church.

Now, the rest of the week was pretty basic. I do have a nuts story though. There is a guy we teach, called Abraham, who is a bit Evangelic.... his church is kinda strange. We started teaching him after contacting him. He is a real smart man. He is in his 50's or so, and he knows everything form the bible, but this is why this is a nuts story.... well more funny than nuts.... whenever he "feels the Holy Ghost" he gets these weird seizure things and yells "Santo!!!!" or "Holy!!!!"... When it first happened, his whole body jerked and he screamed this. It caught me so off guard, I started laughing. I wasn't trying to be rude, I just... ya... my bad! But he turned to me and said, "it looks like this brother too is feeling the spirit as we speak. SANTO!!!!" I died... I didn't talk that whole lesson. I was laughing the whole time... Then someone else showed up, from his church, and did it too.... oh man... I lost it... but then this guy started talking to us using some strange scriptures, and then this other guy just busted out talking in some old Hebrew language, and kept saying, "You understand, right?" I look at my companion, and said "Not a word....." Then Abraham says, "He is using the gift of tongues from God." I'm sorry, that is apostasy... The gift of tongues is so that people can understand the word of God plain and clearly, not to speak a random language..... haha but ya... strange lesson... I tried not to laugh, but.... as he said it, SANTO!!!! hahahahaha :)

So ya, that was my week! A total of six of our investigators showed up to Conference, which was awesome. Three of them it was there first time, so I hope they felt the spirit as strongly as I did! Love you all, I will send pictures soon!!!

Love,

Elder Parker Weiss :)

Mother's Note: I asked Parker to tell me more about his companion and the Elder's he's living with. I'm on a Missionary Mom page on FB and have become friends with Elder Mortensen's mom from Phoenix (as well as other mom's). I also wondered if he was able to hear the speaker's in their native tongue or if it was translated in English like it was here in UT. Here's his response.

Well I love the Elder's in my house for starters. You can tell Elder Mortensen's mom that I love this kid!!!!! HE IS AWESOME!!!!! I want to take him home with me. The kid is so amazing. Fun guy, and just a great spirit. My time with him has always been good! Elder Catmull has been awesome since day one when we first met on the plane. He is like a father. He is 24, and he fathers me. Takes really good care of us and I love it. Elder Rosado is a great kid, always helping me with Spanish and laughing every second of the way, so I love it! As for conference, ya, when the Spanish speakers spoke, it wasn't translated. We watched conference in English in a separate room, but when the Spanish speakers came on, we all ran into the main room and heard their talks with their own voice, and it rocked. I liked how they changed it so everyone could talk in their natural tongue if they show choose. The second one who spoke in Spanish is the second counselor over the Caribbean area. Elder Hugo Martinez. I have met him. His wife talks wicked fast Spanish, but he is cool!!!

Parker also told me Elder Catmull was in the CCM (mtc) with him and was also on the flight over to the DR. Catmull is 24 and is like the Dad there, making them food and taking care of them. Parker's companion is Elder Rosado and he is Dominican and corrects them with any Spanish speaking issues.