Week 72: Primera semana cumplida en San Jorge! 9/26/2023

Howdy family and friends! How are yall doing? I hope that all are doing good!! I know it isn't Monday ahaha, today was my pday because yesterday we had our zone conference so we changed our pday to today! We had a great week this week!!

Elder Johnson and I right now are teaching some awesome people, who have a lot of potential! I would ask that you would pray for some of them in specific. 

1) Familia Vera

2) Familia Mcpherson

3) José

4) María Teresa

These people in this list are our friends that are progressing the most. They need your prayers, so please pray for them! The Vera family is a great family! The dads name is Hector, and he is that guy that Elder Johnson and I found his first night on the mission outside of Grido. We are trying to get his family baptized because he wants to go too the temple badly so that they can be sealed together! The Mcpherson family is a family that we found when I had Elder Westwood here for exchanges! They are doing a lot of research about the church, reading the Book of mormon, and have told us that they are looking for a church to congregate as a family. They didn't come to church on Sunday, so pray that they will start to come too church! José is a guy we found knocking doors! He has been reading the Book of Mormon, he also has shared it with his friend so I have a lot of faith in him! The problem is that his parents aren't to big of fans of us. So when we teach him, we only can when his parents aren't there. María Teresa is our friend who will be baptized on October 6! She is doing so good! Her baptismal interview is tomorrow, but she is ready for this! I don't know a whole lot of people that were that committed to focus on there baptism. She has been sharing the gospel with everybody! She even told us that she set up a meeting with the mayor of San Jorge, to offer us to teach him! She is also telling the police to protect us when we are out on the streets haha, she's a good lady!

Yesterday we had zone conference!! As a mission, we are very focused on our purpose as missionaries to baptize. The conference was very focused on that! We did a lot of practices of inviting people to be baptized, which was good because that night I did an exchange with one of the Ap's and my zone leader, and we invited literally every person we saw to be baptized! The Lord blessed us with many miracles! We were able to put a family of 5 on date for baptism!! It was so cool how we found them. We were running down the street with a lot of urgency to find the elect, when we stopped at a house. The family was inside eating criollos and drinking mate cocido. Which is your basic Argentine snack. We asked them if we could show them a picture, we had a giant picture of Christ being baptized! We explained to them what the picture was, and then explained to them how the Restoration was necessary for our salvation. They loved it! And accepted to be baptized on the 14 of October! "The field is white, and ready to harvest"

It was a great week! The mission is going by really fast. I have been greatly blessed as I have done my best to sacrifice everything. It is hard to sacrifice some things, but I promise that as you do the Lord will bless you. He wants you, to achieve your highest potential as His child! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Élder Weese

Week 71: Transfers!! 9/18/2023

Howdy everybody!! How are things going for ya back home!? I hope all is well!!

Well lets get to it! We had our transfers!! Right now I am opening an area that has never seen missionaries or heard of the church of Jesus Christ, with my new companion and SON Élder Johnson! He is from Heber Utah so he will be getting a visit from me when he gets back!! The area we are in is called San Jorge, and it is in the providence of Santa Fe!! We are a long ways away from Córdoba baby!

So explaining the area a little bit there are a total of 2 members here. A girl named Eliana who moved here a couple of months ago, and her fiance Kyle who moved here from Seattle about 3 weeks ago!! Other then that, that's what we got haha! 

Yesterday we had church in Kyle's apartment! There were 9 of us in total! My companion and I, the stake patriarch and his wife who live in a town called San Francisco which is about and hour east from here, another married couple that live in a town called Trebol which is 30 minutes south from here, one of our friends named María Teresa who will be baptized on the 7 of October, and Kyle and Eliana!! It was so cool! We all felt like Joseph Smith when he established the church in a home with only 6 members! It was something that will be marked in my heart for forever!!

The people of San Jorge are really receptive! We have a couple of people with possibilities of progressing so I would ask that you all would pray that the Lord will prepare the hearts of the people here, that would be great!!

I'm doing great though! I am happy and healthy! The mission is the most incredible experience that I have ever had so I think I want to extend it, who knows! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Chau!

Love, Élder Weese

Week 70: 9/11/2023

Howdy everybody!? How was your week!? I hope things are going well for yall back home! Sorry I haven't emailed anybody today! We had a zone pday and right after that I got super sick and slept haha!! But I figured I'd send this quick email and write yall again next week!!

So this week was the last week of the transfer! It's crazy how time is flying by. I have 5 more transfers as a missionary, then I'll be home. It's a weird feeling. A feeling of excitement to be able to see all of you again and tell you all about the miracles and change I have experienced here in my promised land of Argentina, but also pretty sad to think I don't have too much time left. I am eternally grateful for my mission, and for the feeling of mercy from my Heavenly Father that I have felt!

The week was really tough work wise. It's been hard finding people and also trying to hype up the members to help, but I have a lot of faith that things will continue to improve! Today was a great day though! Like I said it was a zone pday so we played soccer and basketball all day, ate some lomitos, and drank some mate! After that I came back and went to bed! My head was hurting so bad haha I was out cold until we had to leave for our lesson! 

Today we taught our friend Hugo Angeloni who is progressing for his baptism the 30 of this month! We went over with the second counselor in the bishopric, and while we were there a good friend of Hugo came into the house. Her name is Marianela, and told us the missionaries passed by her house all the time when she was a little girl. She doesn't remember what they taught but she remembers them visiting her mom all the time! So we taught a lesson about the book of mormon and the power it has in helping us grow closer to Christ! Isn't that awesome?? We have an amazing blessing from our Heavenly Father called the book of mormon and if we read it, we can develop a relationship with the Savior of the world. The spirit was so strong in that lesson!

I want to testify of the truthfulness and power of the book of mormon. I challenge all of you to read it, and pray about it. If you don't have it, contact the missionaries they'd be happy to give a copy to you. Through personal experience, I have been able to learn and grow closer to my Savior. He is the Savior of the world! He is also our personal Savior! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! Chau Chau!

Élder Weese

Week 69: God is a God of Miracles 9/4/2023

Howdy everybody! How are things going back home? I hope all is well! 

Well lets give ya'll a recap of this week and how things are going! On Wednesday, I started to get really sick. But the prideful part of me told me that I wasn't sick, I was fine! So me and my comp went to zone counsel with some other missionaries, and then after I looked at a couple of Elderes and told them that we were going to do exchanges together. After all was said and done with zone counsel, Elder Duke and I came back to Parque Capital to do the exchange! The first thing we had to do was pick up our lunch, and then come back to the pension! By the time we got back, I was cooked. I was COOKED! I finally humbled myself and told Elder Duke that I couldn't leave because I was too cooked! So we had an inside the pension work day exchange! It was pretty fun! Elder Duke is a beast so I had a good time. And then the fun happened. At 2 in the morning I got up and had to throw up. For the first time in my mission, I threw up🤦‍♂️ After that, that led to Thursday all day in the pension. I literally slept the entire day on Thursday. Friday I worked though! A little bit weak and slow, but I still worked! 

Saturday is when we had a little miracle! So in order to have a miracle on the mission, you have to suffer a little bit. It's just how it works! All day long Saturday it rained on us, It rained hard! Not a single person wanted to let us in their house so we could warm up a little bit, I started getting sick again, it was bad. At the end of the day, we swung by a house which was a reference from a member. We knocked and a lady named Estella answered the door and started to cry. She looked up at the sky and said, "God exists!" And told us to come in, where we were abe to teach her entire family. They went on to tell us how badly they missed the missionaries coming over, and how they wanted to come too church with us! So the next day, they all came to church! And absolute miracle lemme tell ya!

Well I want to end this by telling ya'll that I love ya, and I know that God is a God of miracles. Yes, He puts each and every single one of us to the grind, but He always keeps His promises. I know that He loves you. He recognizes all of your efforts, and is ready to send angels in times of need. Que tengan una excelente semana!

Love, Elder Weese