Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Monday, December 29, 2014

Well, being as I was only on a couple of days ago, this will also be brief. Let me just say that the Christmas season is such a great one. It is an amazing time to be together and to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World. It is a real special time as a missionary! Being able to Skype my boss family was so great! It was great to feel close to them and share a period of time with them on such a special day! 

Now, to get on to the work! In the last couple of days, one amazing thing has happened. An investigator that we have taught like once, his name is Fransico, he read all of the pamphlet, and when we passed by, we felt a strong impression to give him a baptismal date. So we did. He felt a little unsure, but we reassured him that God is going to bless him if he truly has the desire to serve Him and follow His ways. He got a little more excited and accepted. Then on Sunday, he showed up to church for the first time. The Lord is really blessing him. He is very curious, and it is really good to see that someone is so desirous to know the truth.

As for Yeni and Nicolas, we are still waiting for them to get the rest of their papers for their marriage. Once they get those, they will be baptized, and I can't wait. :)

So taht is my big news for the week. Not much! I hope that you all have a Happy New Year and make some sweet goals for 2015! I can't believe that my black year is almost over. Time has gone fast! I love you all! Thank you for all the prayers and everything you do for me!

Guarda la fe! 

Elder Weiss :)

Mother's Note:  Parker didn't email until quite late and this is why...

I have had a nuts day with Elder Mortensen. I will tell you, all he did was we played basketball in the morning. It was very light play, and Elder Mortensen shot a real easy shot, and a Dominican shoved his foot underneath Mortensen's. So he landed on it, and he heard a pop, and fell to the ground. This isn't the same ankle that just was damaged, this is his other one. We are pretty sure that a ligament is ripped, so we went to the doctors, got x rays, and we have been with our assistants all day, that is why I am getting on later. He is taking it like a champ. The doctor says it is something that he can heal here and that he wont have to go home, but I ask you to just keep him in your prayers, that he'll be able to withstand the pain that he is in. He has crutches, so he is once again in another healing process. It is really sad, but as his mom said on Christmas, he has "Glass Ankles". Haha But seriously, I have seen the pain he is in, and he is a trooper. I just hope he'll be okay....

Glad to hear everyone is safe and doing well! If you are on, I would love to talk! But mom, Have a great New Years! Make some goals! And remember, the year 2015 is when I will be able to give you a big Teddy Bear hug again! :) Lead the family in the light and gospel truths! And remember, I love you! Also, once again, a very happy birthday to you on the 3rd!!!! Feliz Cumpleaños! :)

Love you mom!!!!

I asked Parker more about what happened with Elder Mortensen and what is being done. Elder Mortensen is in a boot cast and has crutches. The Doctor said it looks like a bad sprain but Elder Mortensen previously tore his ligament (same ankle) before his mission and was delayed coming to the DR because of the injury and he says the pain and pop he heard feels the same as that first injury did and is worried the ligament is re- torn. Parker said he will give him a blessing and make sure he takes his medication and will let us know what happens. Hopefully Elder Mortensen won't have to go home to AZ because of this. So any prayers his way would be welcome.

Hear are some pictures Parker sent. I told him he get's his obsession with fire from his my dad!  Crazy child!!

This is a fire that we made from all the boxes we burned that Catmull's parents sent to him. haha It was huge! My companion stood by it for a comparison of how big it really was! haha



To show how many ties I have... (this one is for my
 family.... who have dubbed me the king of ties...) ;)




Christmas Day!! (Highlight's of our Skype and email)

Skyping with Parker on Christmas was definitely our highlight! We talked about everything! We got to show him and some Dominican kids and Elder's that were around the snow that fell on Christmas Day to them. Some of the kids had never seen snow before.  We were able to meet Elder Millward and Elder Mortensen and they were awesome. Parker showed us what he bought us for Christmas because he tried to mail them (in different ways) but they were too heavy, so we'll wait a few months.

He told us more about his investigators, the life there and food and hot Christmas weather and how his training is going with Elder Millward...which is good. He spoke to us in regular Spanish and then in Dominican Spanish to show us the difference. It's almost completely different then Spanish.  His other calling is playing piano for church so he played for us. Haha...he suckered us in because he's never played before and he played a perfect "Hark, the Herald Angel's Sing" and then showed us it was a player piano with all the hymns pre-played. He just has to set the code and push one key and the entire song plays by itself. :)

We were able to Skype for hours as that was a Christmas gift from his Mission President.

On Christmas Day while waiting for his laptop from a member so he could Skype with us Parker wrote this:

Merry Christmas to all!!! This will be short! Sorry!

This week has been amazing! But I won't be writing a lot. Other than a couple things. Yeni and Nicolas will not be getting baptized this week, but it is coming soon! They had some issues with their papers for marriage, so we are still waiting for that to pass. Once they get that all worked out, they are good to go!

It somehow keeps getting hotter here.... whoo.... I wish there was some snow, but nothing wrong with a Caribbean Christmas. :)

I just want to write a little about the importance of Christmas! Boy, have I seen a lot of things in this country. Saddest thing I have seen has to have been in the last week. It seems as though everyone is drunk, which is real sad to me. To see how they celebrate the time of Christ's birth is so sad. They drink and they party, but they are forgetting the true beauty of why it is that we are celebrating this Christmas season. It has been real hard to walk around and contact all these drunks, when I know the true reason on why we are celebrating. We actually had a cool experience yesterday. We were eating at a members house at night, and when we got home from that, we felt a big impression to talk about the birth of Christ, so we read in Lucas 2:1-20 as a house, and such a comforting feeling came to us, even with all the noise and music in the background. I know that Christ lives. That He was born to change the world. He was this world's biggest gift. His sacrifice is so perfect and unforgettable, and we are the ones who partake of that sweet blessing in almost every moment of the day. I am so grateful to be able to work out here every single day and preach of the blessing of the Atonement. This Christmas has been merry, although it has been sad to see how people believe the birth of our Saviour is to be celebrated. I have become very humble with this week, and I am grateful that I am here to be able to serve and bring so many more to the knowledge that I have come to know! May all have a very Merry Christmas! :)

I love you all! May you discover your Gift this Christmas. :)

Elder Weiss :)

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Monday, December 15, 2014

Wow.... It's so close..... Christmas is just around the corner!!! I am so excited!!! Our President is giving us such a great Christmas present, but I have already shared that I believe... but anyways... this week has been full of Christmas cheer! 

On Tuesday, we had our big Christmas conference, and it was a blast!!! We had a great time, we got to see a slide show of this year, full of great pictures! Then we of course did all the plays! Every zone did a play, and we did ours. I was chosen to be Alma Younger, to represent his conversion.. so I was a bad boy. It was a huge hit, everyone was laughing, but it was great! I will send some "in the moment pictures" from that. I was dressed in regular clothes for our play, along with the "4 children of Mosiah" to really seal the deal. It was way fun! Then we had lunch and I got to sit in between Elder and Hermana (Sister) Clawson, the office couple that does all our financing and stuff like that. They were to my right, and I got to sit next to a new Sister in our mission, Hermana Angeles. She is from Mexico. It was really awesome to get to know some new awesome people. I called our table the "where it's at" table, because we were just having a good time. We were where it's at. haha I was able to take some pictures with some old companions and housemates, so it was a good time all around!

Elder Millward and I had a great week. The lessons came slow and difficult, but we worked hard in contacting! We contacted all week! Literally. We were passing out the "He is the Gift cards" to all and it was a great success. We have met some amazing people that I will later on explain, but we were able to meet 178 new people this week, and I just feel happier than ever to be able to share this amazing gospel, or a little message of the gospel, with so many! 

On Friday Elder Millward and I got to go to the President's home to see an A'capella group and to have a Christmas Activity thing! Best part was we were able to bring Yeni and Nicolas and their kids with us, so that they could experience the spirit there as well, and it was a huge hit! Yeni and Nicolas are super excited for their baptism that will be coming up next week. They still have to get married, but it will be really cool to see. Haha. Anyways, that was great to go! I snapped a picture in the President's house next to a cool picture, and also one of their Christmas tree. Their house is so nice.... oh geez... but it was fun.

Now, onto a sad part of the week. This Saturday was the end of transfers. That means I am already half way done with the training program! And Elder Millward has learned a lot! It has been really cool. But, I do have some bad news. Elder Catmull will be leaving us tomorrow morning. The rest of us are staying, but Elder Catmull has been called to serve in Barahona, in Neyba. Close to where I was before. We are happy for him, but we are also sad, because we were excited to share the Christmas with him and all that, but you know, the Lord has bigger plans for him. The new Elder that is coming tomorrow is Elder Alvarez. I know him, he was training when I first came in the mission. He has about 20 months in the mission, but he is a real cool guy too! Just kinda sad to say goodbye to one of my favorite new friends. He was always a big help to me in the MTC, I just wish him the best of luck! He'll do good! But I am staying here for another six weeks, so up until about the 24th of January! So I am ready to work and getting this Mission Plan into action! Also, we are right now putting together a Christmas Devotional for the ward, so that will be fun! It's for the 18th, so I am sure I will have photos of that next week! But anyways, that was our big week! I love you all! Hope everyone is doing well! I love you all and I am praying for you all!

Feliz Navidad, y prospero año, cuando llega... :)

Elder Weiss :)

Mother's Note: We email chatted and talked a lot about Skypping at Christmas and such and Parker mentioned he has given up Coke (unless a member offers it to him). But that is a huge thing for him! But I wanted to include what he wrote just before we signed off...

But hey, we've got to go. We've got to go to some parties for Elder Catmull to say goodbye. Tonight is going to be hard for our house, not going to lie. Like you said, we've all grown so close, but at least we'll be able to see him every now and then! Well, hopefully anyways! Elder Catmull and I plan on hanging out after the mission! He lives in Idaho though, so he told me that I should come up and spend a weekend at his house. He lives in the mountains, so we'll go like ATVing and stuff. So I know this won't be the last time we hang out. 

These pics are from our play we did for our christmas conference Tuesday. It was fun and, haha, interesting. we did a funny act of Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah. I was Alma, and my house and one other Elder were the sons of Mosiah so we acted like we were rebels haha, stealing missionary's plaques making noise, etc,

... including harrasing our Mission President (with his permission of course haha) which is shown in the this photo. I did some dancng and Spanish rapping back and forth with the angel haha. It was a good time!









The dance off.. Notice the Batman socks... that killed the crowd... haha


At our Christmas conference. :)

Tennis!


Also, one of our new investigators that we have, his name is Miguelangel. He plays tennis, like the only person here that plays tennis. Elder Millward played before the mission, so we all went to a tennis court with him this morning and got to play some tennis with him. I still stink, but it was fun. :) 


If you notice, in this picture, although the form looks fantastic, in the top left corner.... there is the ball... haha so it proves I suck.... haha I totally missed! But it was still fun! haha








Christmas tree in the President's home and standing before a picture of warriors.
If you look at the tree pic. closely you can see my companion's reflection in the window


My one year mark celebration...I know, it's a little late. Let me explain. Here in the mission, when you hit your year mark, it is tradition to burn a shirt. Well, Elder Catmull and I didn't want to burn a shirt when we hit our year mark. But what happened was that after the Christmas Activity on Friday, we were coming home, and my pen exploded in my pocket. It was unwashable, so we burned my shirt, therefore complying with the tradition. Sad too, it was my best and most clean shirt.... But here are the pictures. :)






 Some awesome Elder's. My old companions...Elder Pena
                      Elder Quinonez and in other picture a cool Elder, Elder Van KatWyck


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Monday, December 8, 2014

Its December, yet I feel like it's been December since September. Man do these people love themselves some Christmas. But I am not against them! haha Christmas is amazing!

This week has been great!! We started an amazing week by going to a trainer meeting on Tuesday. The meeting was really good, they talked to the trainers about how to be effective with our time, and they asked how training was going. I really do enjoy my time as a trainer, although it can be difficult. But no worries, it is all going well. Elder Millward is awesome! After our meeting, our Mission President decided to take just Elder Millward and I home in his car. It was really nice, and when we got to our house, he went up to check on our house. While in our house he asked us if we were ready to take on a special challenge. Then he asked us on behave of our bishop to make the new mission plan for 2015, because our Bishop needs help and had asked our Mission President to ask us. Our President put a lot of emphasis on the trust he has for us to do a good job, so it has been awesome to have got that all together. We worked on it all week, and we got to present it yesterday. To us, it seems the ward is all in on it and they seem like they are ready to help us out! We see big things coming in the future of the ward.

Our work week has been going great! We were able to work really hard, because thanks to all of your prayers, I have been feeling great this week! So I am super grateful that we had a full work week out and working hard. Yeni and Nicolas are getting the last pieces of their papers together, so I feel like by next week we will have a marriage date set up for them, which will be right in time for their baptism on the 27th!

Here is my crazy story of the week. Elder Millward and I were teaching a recent convert of mine on Thursday, and her younger brother, about 10 years old, was playing in the dirt. Our lesson went well, but as we finished, her brother began throwing dirt at us. Now, this was a moment of true discipleship. To be honest, we both wanted to team up and throw buckets of dirt on him, but instead, we both walked past, as he threw handfull after handfull of dirt at us. It was very... challenging. But I am glad we didn't freak. There were lots of people watching, and that could have gave a very wrong message about who we are. I am so glad both my companion and I have been blessed with no desires of ever getting in fights. It was a small test from God this week, but it proved to me that all things, all challenges, have a good solution and a bad. We are in control. We must make the decision.

We've gone to a mall today and I was playing around with a new camera I got, so I have a couple of strange pictures this week, but I think they're cool. Also, we keep finding cool shirts walking around, so I have some strange shirt pictures I will be sending as well!

Keep sharing "He is the Gift" with all you know! Go look up christmas.mormon.org! It is an amazing site! I pray for you all and I hope the week has been amazing for all of you! 

Con Amor,
Elder Weiss :)
Elder Catmull and I were matching, so of course we had to take a picture! haha Our pants match, our ties somewhat match, but even our pens are the same! WOOHOO! WE ROCK! haha


These were taken from Elder Mortensen only moments ago. Showing off my new camera.


I forgot to mention... we were a little spoiled this week. The doctor and his wife asked us to come and enjoy Applebee's with them this week. We did partake, and lo, it was good. :)




My favorite shirt is the batman one. Make sure to check out my socks. ;)

Our house decorations! 

The blue lights are on my desk that I study on. I know, so festive.  :)
Elder Catmull and I have gotten acustomed a bit too much. This was a morning where we both woke up freezing!
I've been meaning to send this to the family for a while. Look.... The switch! Only 1 dollar left. :)
Grandpa Kimball gave us 2 dollar bills when Parker left on his mission 
which we displayed in UT and Parker displayed in DR. After Parker's year mark we both switched to a $1 bill signifying from 2 years to 1 left!






Christmas Anyone?!