Week 30: Grindin' and Findin' 11/28/2022

Howdy everybody! How was your week? I hope all is well and that you are all safe and sound right now!!

Well this week for me was pretty good! Yes, I finally got my new companion Elder Krupp hahaha so I'll make sure to through a picture down in this email of him!!! Him and I grinded pretty hard this week and saw a lot of the fruits of our labors!!! This week also we had exchanges with the ZL's, so that went well! I was with an Elder named Elder Ramirez who is from Argentina. Him and I had some cool experiences!!

So we were on the look for this one girl named María, who is a girl that I have been trying to find for the longest time now. As we were asking around, a girl said "hey I'm María!" Come to find out she isn't the same one we were looking for but we shared our message anyways. There were 10 or so people in her family who all seemed pretty interested in our message. We taught a very powerful message of the Restoration of the gospel, and they had tons of questions. One of them being, "How do you know that this is true?" Lemme tell ya that is the golden question to ask a missionary, so we taught her how to pray after and invited her to pray about the message! We are planning on stopping by tonight so I am very excited about it!!

Church was a miracle!!! Elder Krupp and I went out to go pick a girl up named Yani, who is in her 30's or 40's I would think, and she can't really walk because she has horrible problems with her hips. When she walks, she has to hold on to something or else she is going to fall down! Well we went to go get her, and 3 more in her family said they wanted to come so it was really cool experiencing that!! 

We also had a baptism at church for our friend named Milka Bazán, (she doesn't like pictures so I don't have one of her but I will throw a few in from baptism day) it was good!!! I had to dunk her 4 times but at the end of it all, we got her baptized!!! 

Church was a really good turnout! We had about 18 people there which was really good to see! I also gave a talk in church and put a big push on serving missions to the youth that were there, so I hope they take it to heart and go! Missions are very important to me! Missions are where you grow, you change, you leave things behind and you become a Saint through the Atonement of Jesus Christ! You are also able to see people the way that Christ would see them!!

Well I'll cut her off here! I love yall, and hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Weese 

Week 29: Transfers!! 11/21/2022

Howdy everybody! How's it going for yall? I hope all is well back home!!

Well it is Sunday night right now and I am currently sitting on a bus on my way to La Rioja, I'll explain a little bit. We received transfer news yesterday. My companion is leaving to serve in Córdoba, and I will be staying here! My new companions name is Elder Krupp and he just barely got out of training! I am also the new district leader here so that will be fun figuring all that out!

But the question still stands, why am I going to La Rioja? Well we got a text from the office Elders that had Elder Porters ticket for Córdoba, but I had nothing. I figured that my new companion was going to arrive when mine was leaving but nope, he ain't getting here till Tuesday morning! So that would've put me by myself for all of Monday and a little bit of Tuesday morning which is a big no no in the mission. YOU MUST ALWAYS HAVE A COMPANION! 

Well we got a phone call from our AP's after church today, which by the way our church ends at 8, so pretty late! Saying how we needed to run too the terminal to buy me a ticket to La Rioja (which is closer to Aimogasta than anything) so I can hang out with the Elders over there. Luckily the Lord provided that miracle for us!!! 

Now I'll talk about my week for yall! It has been very hot like usual, so I am continuing to get skin cancer everyday from the Aimogasta sun! I walked a lot! But it went well!!

Elder Porter and I have been using our priesthood to give blessings a lot which has been a great opportunity for me! We went over to one of our friends house, their names are Miguel and Shaira. They have 2 kids but they aren't married and they want to be baptized, but need to take some big steps in life in order to do that! We went over this week and their baby was really sick! She had a fever for 3 days that was really bad and the doctors told them that the fever wasn't going to leave for at least a few more days, so we offered to give the baby a priesthood blessing. The next day we get a big long text from Shaira saying how the baby woke up 100% better, and she was so grateful that we gave the baby a blessing!

We passed by there house a second time to have a little lesson with them, and ended up doing a service project right after for about an hour haha! They had to giant dirt mounds that they needed help moving so Elder Porter and I grabbed some shovels and got digging! 

This week we put another girl on date for baptism. Her name is Milka Bazán, who was baptized years ago but they have no record of it. So it came down to us needing to baptize her again, so if yall could keep her in your prayers that would be great! It has been hard for her to accept this!

Church was a miracle!! We got a new branch president, (we are a part of a branch in La Rioja because we are too small to have our own) and his name is President Villafañe. He has been killing it already! He came to Aimogasta with some people who serve in the stake! But the turnout was incredible! We had 24 people at church today which is a record for Aimogasta!! The meeting was great, I know that everybody there could feel the spirit! It was also sad having to watch Elder Porter say goodbye to everybody at the end!

Well this email is wayyyyy too long so I'll cut her off here! I love yall so much and hope you have a fantastic week! Don't forget to reach out if you need anything! Make sure to tell me how life is for you all! I would love to know these things!!! Nos vemos!!

Love, Elder Weese

Week 28: Flirting In Aimogasta 11/14/2022

Hola a todos! Cómo están!? Espero qué todo está bien con ustedes!!! Things are just warming up even more in Aimogasta! When you think it can't get hotter than this, it just keeps warming up haha! I am 99.9% sure that I am getting skin cancer out here! But, I'll be alright!

Well this week was kind of a slow one, but that doesn't mean nothing happened haha! I'll jump right into why I titled this, "flirting in Aimogasta" For those of you who are on my Google photos, if you watch the videos that I put on there you will be able to see why I titled it like this. 

Since day one of being in Argentina, the girls here have FLIRTED! It is non-stop, it just keeps happening! (Don't worry Karli, I'm not flirting back) But this week hahaha Elder Porter and I were walking down the street and we walked past this restaurant. There were 2 girls sitting inside right by the window and when one of them saw us she blew a kiss at us! HAHA the best part was the reaction of my companion hahah! He was so weirded out haha! 

Ok, now onto the good stuff that happened this week! Our baptismal dates are continuing to progress so we are expecting a baptism this weekend for our friend Yair Pereyra, so if all of you could pray for him that would be great! Our other date, Luciana Huscera is my favorite old lady I have ever met! Everytime we go see her she says, "Awwwww muy guapo!!!" Which means very handsome for those of yall that don't know. We picked her up and took her to church too and it was the best! Pur group leader Hermano Ramos picked us up in his car so we could go get Luciana together and when we got to her house, she was sitting outside all dressed up and ready for church! Seriously she is my favorite old lady!!

Church yesterday was awesome! We had a few inactivos come that we haven't seen in a while which was awesome! The talks were great, the spirit was strong, not much more I could ask for!

Another really cool thing that happened is we went to this guy's house who we have been trying to teach for a long time. We finally got in and we had a great lesson and then gave him a book of mormon. Since that lesson he has not put the book down, he has read it everyday and will text us and ask us a lot of questions about it! The thing that is hard with him is that he is so busy to where we rarely can come over and he never comes to church. So if you could include him in your prayers too that would be great! His name is Roger Moreno!

I almost forgot about this one!!! Elder Porter and I at the start of the week had something REALLY cool happen! We went over to this inactivos house, and everytime we have gone over she goes on to tell us how her sister is so sick! We have offered to give priesthood blessings everytime, and FINALLY this time she accepted! We went into the room where her sister was and she obviously has alzheimers. She was very nervous and we did are best explaining what we were about to do. We gave the blessing to her and right after it looked like the spirit just filled her body! She was so happy and excited that she grabbed my hand and started to kiss it! Haha it is moments like that, that really keep you going as a missionary!

This week we also had exchanges so I got to go out with Elder Wilding my District leader! I'll make sure to throw in those pictures but this email right now is getting way to long haha so if you made it all the way here, I sure do love ya!

Well I hope your weeks were great! You all know that you can reach out to me if you need anything! I want to know what is going on in your lives! Love yall and have a fantastic week!

Love, Elder Weese

Week 27: Missionary Tan Lines 11/7/2022

Howdy everybody! How was your week last week!? I hear that things are getting pretty chilly in the great state of Utah, hahaha basically the complete opposite down here in Aimogasta! I'll send pictures at the end of the email that explains the title just a little bit more haha!!

Well this week was a great week! We have a couple more people on date for baptism so we have been working really hard to keep them moving forward and progressing! Mi hijo amado and I were walking one day and having this conversation of how the work is going. We talked about how we are so used to living this missionary schedule and doing this everyday, so when we go home it is going to be weird! We will wake up and wonder what to do, and why we are not using area book to plan our day haha! But as time goes on I have fallen in love with the work, and for being in the refiners fire so I can become better and help others do the same along the way!

Our baptismal dates that we placed this week are some amazing people! One is named Luciana who is this really old lady that has the most pure heart on this planet. The other one is this guy named Yair who is 24, who was ready to be baptized before we even asked him! Luciana is a lady who has always loved God. She prays all the time and she loves reading her Bible! It is really fun to teach her because she is just so willing to do what we asked her. I'll never forget when we taught her how to pray, like everybody here they have strong catholic believes so prayer is really different. We taught her how, then gave her a paper that had the steps of prayer on it, and she offered a half catholic prayer, and did the other half the way we taught her haha! We will be passing by her house again today so I am looking forward to it!

Yair is 24, and has some crazy life experiences that has happened to him. He struggled with addiction because of that but then the missionaries came over. It wasn't us, it was others but they gave him a copy of the book of mormon, which he fell in love with. He tells us now when he struggles, instead of doing what he used to, he opens the book of mormon. We taught him the restoration and asked him to pray to know of the truthfulness of the book of mormon and he said, "Yo se que es verdad" (I know it is true) It will be a great experience just to continue and watch his testimony grow!

Well this email is way to long! I'll leave it here! I love you all, not a day goes by where I am not thinking about ya! Let me know if you need anything 😊

Love always, Elder Weese

Week 26: Baptism Week!! 10/31/2022

Hello everyone! How are you doing!? I hope life back home is treating you all well, and that you are all healthy and happy! Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Well this week we had our baptism!! We baptized a 17 year old kid named Lucas Peñaloza! This one has been a long time coming, and it finally happened! The baptism was quite the story hahah, I don't have a whole lot of time to write this so I'll try to sum it up really fast.

First of all it was super super windy, it was so windy that the consecrated oil I have hooked to my pants flew off and I lost it. We got to the church to set up the font, which I am so excited to show yall what the font was haha you'll see in the pictures. But we got everything set up and went home to eat lunch, and come back to the church. We then got a text from the seminary teacher in the ward, who said that Lucas told her he wanted to post pone his baptism which would've been the third time. So I bet yall could guess that scared us a little bit, but we still went through with all of it. 

Lucas came to the church on time and there was another one of the youth that was there, but nobody else came. No members, no family, nothing. I was praying really hard for the wind to calm down, for the baptism to go through, and for people to come but it didn't happen. I found myself yelling at God and wondering why He wouldn't help, but I have come to know when you get in those moments, that is when He has miracles. The people came!!! Lucas had family, we had members, and we had a guy that I was texting on Facebook! 

The baptism went so well! All of the people stayed for church and for Sunday school right after which was great, so we have lessons coming up with these people. In fact we have one tonight with the Facebook guy, who is really interested in being baptized!

This week also was REALLY hot outside! So hot that nobody wanted to talk really, and the people that did told us to go home because it was dangerous to be out there in the sun. So that was pretty funny hearing all that!

Well I had more to say but I dont have the time! I love yall and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Weese