Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Monday, May 11, 2015 - Mother's Day



Hey everyone! First let me just say a HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY JESSICA!!!!! Wow, 22!!!!! I can't believe how old you are! I would sing to you, but that is too cliche. hahah

Let me just say it has been one roller coaster of a week. Wow.... Ups and downs, feeling queasy at times, and then at the very end of the ride, saying "Lets go again! Lets go again!" haha but really, this week has been crazy!

To start off, we had a very exciting Tuesday! And by exciting, I mean like really weird. It was just a lot of meetings. We met with the Stake President and our Mission President and gave a report of all of the missionaries and the wards and how well they are working together. It was actually a very fun meeting and I had a lot of fun because I learn a lot about how the Presidency of each stake actually really cares and plans for each individual ward. It was very neat and it gave me a lot more respect for stake leaders. These guys don't sleep!

On Wednesday we had a way fun day because we left with a young teenager from our ward named Manual! He is 16 and he has a big heart! He's really funny and it was really fun to be with him all day! Actually, we had a day of success! We met up with the Matta Family (Jhonathan and Yisenia), and they have made plans of getting married, and also of keeping the Word of Wisdom. But even better than that, Yisenia has made the decision that she wants to get baptized! :) Jhonathan is already a member, but he is less active, but he has decided to come back and make mends with God as he says. But they are progressing SUBSTANTIALLY. They have both received an answer to prayer about the Book of Mormon and they know that it is the true word of God, and that is the key to conversion. We see a true change in them every time that we visit. After our day of work, Manual bought us some pizza and we feasted like champions. It was amazing! I've never enjoyed pizza so much. Haha!

Thursday we had yet another great day! As always! I mean man, we had a lot of good days.... haha Anyways, the big thing that happened in our day was that we took Jhonathan and Yisenia to a FHE with Presidente Navarro, who is part of the stake presidency in our ward. He let us watch "Only a Stonecutter." That short movie always hits home to me, but it really had a different meaning to me this time. I never realized that after John breaks his leg, as he continued to labor, there is one part where his child is walking by the temple as he is working on the outside, and his son looks up and yells "Father! I love you!" That hit home to me, because there was a true love in the family. That is a love that isn't from living together every day, that love comes from a true understanding of the importance of both the gospel, and the family. I reflected on that for quite some time. I know that Jhonathan and Yisenia also really liked it. I don't know if you can tell or not, but we are really focusing in on them! We want to make sure that their conversion is true, and the best experience they can have!

Friday was one of the down days of the week. I was feeling a little sick, but I worked through the sniffing and headache. Bad thing was, no one was home.... so we walked around all day and only visited with one person, Jennifer, who is doing a lot better from the last time we saw her. Sounds like she has worked things out with her husband and everything is going well for her now. So that brought joy through the suffering. :) Oh and the fact that it was Jess's birthday, so I kept a smile on for you. :)

Saturday I felt a lot better. We had our first zone meeting in this area and it went really well! We talked about obedience and we also talked about focusing in our investigators. I was actually asked by our President's Wife, Sister Nuckols, to sing in a trio with two other missionaries from our zone for a zone conference coming up on the 14th, so we practiced that a little bit after the meeting. The rest of the day we just punched the pavement. Like we literally got on our knees and punched the ground. Why? Because we are that awesome. 

Sunday we went to church, and it was awesome. We had four investigators at church and two less actives, two of them being Jhonathan and Yisenia. We are definitely seeing the blessings of the Lord in this area! We are also planning on seeing a new house in the near future (hallelujah)!!!! Maybe next week or so we will be moved into a new house and then life will just go super great! Although it has been really annoying and tedious going to all sorts of houses and having arguing Dominicans tell you that we are white, so we must pay more than Dominicans pay to live in a house and dumb things like that. It makes the stress just step up a little bit. But I love that about the mission. I have really found a control in the stress level of all things. Like I have found my yin to the yang and all that. I knkow there is stress in my life, but I can't feel it, nor do I really notice it. It is kinda nice. I definitely feel like that is the Lord helping me so that I can complete my tasks as a missionary!

Oh, A big late Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and future mothers! I hope the day was amazing for you! It was amazing to be able to talk to my family and I hope they know how much I truly love them and how grateful I am for their support. Love you all! I love the work of the Lord! :) It is beautiful and perfect! I testify that this is the true gospel and church of Jesus Christ in the world today. And with that, I end! :)

Con mucho amor,
Elder Weiss :)

Mother's Note:  We Skyped with Parker on Sunday for Mother's Day and his Mission President said they could still send emails on their P-day (today). So that was awesome. Some highlights of the Skype:  Seeing him look well and with meat on his bones!  Listening to him speak Spanish. Meeting the kind members that shared their home and computers to him. He sang a Mother's Day song in his Adam Levine voice. It was awesome and I wish I had the foresight to have recorded it! Meeting his new companion (very briefly as he was skyping with his family too) and just shooting the breeze.

He said he was really cold in the chapel and wanted a blanket cause he was shivering and his comp. said, "Dude, it's 74 degrees in here. That's not cold!"  So Parker laughed that when he comes home in October he'll be layering the coats on. haha  (He used to wear shorts and t-shirts all winter here).
It was amazing to Skype with him! The next time we'll see him will be at the airport!!!!!!

 Pictures of when we had pizza to celebrate Elder Zúñiga's birthday!