Wow! That Is Crazy That So Many People Are Coming Home And Heading Out!

April 27, 2015

Me and my trunky papers
(a.k.a. the papers that tell us
to work hard these last months!
 And travel info) I am looking
a lot more sad than I am.
 But I am still freaking out.
 It has become real now!    

Dearest Family of Mine,

Thank you for REMEMBERING TO TAKE PICS when Bro comes home!!!! ... Film would be cool, too. I can't believe it! Bro is coming home and Sister King and I JUST got our trunky papers. I am so happy that we did together. Question: Will I still be getting a flight itinerary?

Wow! That is crazy that so many people are coming home and heading out! Yes, I do remember Miles!! Yay him! I will tell Sister Cox that 4:00 would be nice...Also, I HAVE NO IDEA if I am getting transferred or not next week so who I am doing the Mother's Day call with I do not know!!! But I hope I stay for another! It is weird that I only have two transfers left of the mission.

I have not met more prepared people than I have this last week. Sarah has always been studying and searching for the true church and surprisingly enough she hasn't studied the "Mormons" before. She has such a strong Spirit and everything we have taught her rings true and "makes sense." She has been consistently reading and praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true and her husband also has questions. She wants her children to learn too!

A woman named Linda referred herself online after one of her customers invited her to do so. She began to cry as she pled with us as to why life was so unfair. I bore testimony that life is hard. But God is aware of us and loves us. He has given truths to cling to and live to make it back to Him and feel Him more in our lives. Sadly, those truths have been lost for a while, so there is a lot of confusion. But because the Lord loves us, He has brought them back again. After teaching her the Restoration, she says that this is what she is looking for. She has been looking for a reason to keep on going and she wants to work towards baptism on June 13th.

(...SO, in answer to your question about what I would bear testimony of in the 2 minute time-span, that God LOVES His children! It is what every person needs to hear. It is why we are here.)

We received a member referral from a less active that is searching as well and has always been drawn to the Mormon religion. She wanted to know what to do to be baptized before we even finished the Restoration. She is also blind, so she has a nurse read the Book of Mormon to her. It is difficult for her to come to church because she has a hose in her trachea for oxygen so she needs special permission, but she really wants to go. We agreed to keep meeting with her until we all could figure something out.

New member discussions are still coming along. We are trying very hard to get Amy to church and Brother Lissner is going home teaching and doing well! Blake Nichols brought his friend to one of the lessons and he loves coming to church with him, so his mom is also interested and his younger brother, too! Yay families!!

GUESS WHAT???? Eric, that guy from Sun Prairie who we met and taught for a while got baptized on Saturday!!! Finally!!! I had fasted and prayed he would and now he has made a covenant with the Lord that will bless him and his family for generations!! Plus check out the amazing work that our zone is doing with baptismal dates!

Part of the bap date record for the mission    

(I love seeing so much yellow!) I can't believe that so many miracles are abounding in the Wisconsin Milwaukee mission! We had a Zone call with President Pleshec from the Stake and he testified that the best missionaries he has ever known are in the Wausau Zone. Ahh! My heart!!

Thank you for your sweet testimony! I am so blessed to have a family like you! Love you as much as I love the fact that I will see your faces soon!

-Sister Weaver-

Sorry it's fuzzy :(
We are in the library.
Nothing too snazzy: just a trim.    

We Went On Two Exchanges This Week So I Am BEAT!

April 20, 2015

Sister Payne and Sister Cook. 

Sister Cook is 24 too...and older! 

WAHOO! Also, guess what? 

I cut my hair. 

For the first time since on the mish. 

I missed my bangs. It was weird.

Dear Family & Friends,

I LOVE that talk! I will have to finish it during studies.

We went on two exchanges this week so I am BEAT! In Sacrament, we have missionary moments where people from the ward with kids on missions give updates and one of the letters said that they may admit themselves to the hospital upon returning home, and place themselves in an induced coma for a few weeks, just to keep up on sleep. I agree.

But it was great to spend some time with new sisters that had different struggles and strengths pertaining to their areas. I went to Shawano and Oshkosh and let me just say how epically AWESOME it was to spend the day with Sister Straight! She is still in training, so I had to do 12 week training, which was WEIRD since the last time I saw that book was when I was being trained...Bah! But guess where she is from?...The lovely land of Salem, Oregon!!! Her sister married Derek Christiansen from the Singles' Ward. It was so cool getting to talk to her about people I knew from home! How often does that happen to people who aren't from Utah?? She is a very hard worker and wanted to learn how to better teach from the Book of Mormon on first contacts so between appointments we were able to spend more time introducing people to the Book of Mormon. Exchanges with Sister Payne from Gresham/Shawano went very well seeing as she was able to work in her own area. I truly admire the patience and hard work she is putting in toward BOTH her areas.

Yesterday hailed many interesting developments. Thim told us she broke up with her 3-year live-in boyfriend and she took it as a sign from the Lord that this is the path that she must take...being baptized. We hope that she will continue to stand strong for what she knows to be right, despite the heartache :( We hope that we may set a date for her to be baptized this week. Also, I think we're gaining more trust from the members! After Sister King's talk on the Atonement and the scripture study we did as a mission, a couple of people want to do the same thing and the Bishop's wife, who we have just recently been invited over for dinner for the first time, wants us to help strengthen her daughter, whose testimony is dimming, and thinks that we can help her become more engaged in receiving a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

Sadly, we had to drop Kelly's date because she is still struggling with smoking. We let her know that we love her but there is not much more we can do to help her...that if she truly wants this the rest is up to her to overcome this smoking addiction. She is still going to talk to her doctor, but we are limiting our time visiting her, continuing to check in on her to see how she is doing, but we are not sure what more we can do to help her quit.

Sister Chadderdon, the wife of one of the ward missionaries, who has been very sweet to us but refuses to sit in on lessons the missionaries give finally PARTICIPATED in a lesson with Amy Deringer, our recent convert! We hope that this may help Amy continue to want to grow in the gospel and come to church more often than she has been.

Thank you, Momasita! and Familia for all that you do! Keep the faith!

-Sister Weaver-

Exchanging back.
Yup, that's my companion.    

Thought of you Mother, 

when I saw this bumper sticker. 

It says: 

"Don't blame me, 

I voted for the American"

This Week Filled With Much Happiness & Sadness

April 13, 2015

Sister Weaver & Sister King
using whopper candy eggs
as lipstick.  Just saying.

Dear Family & Friends,

Thanks for the pics Momasita! She looks beautiful! I am so proud of her for being such an obedient and stalwart daughter of God being married for time and all eternity in the temple of our Lord! I can't wait to get to catch up with her again. I got Karissa's wedding announcement thank you! She looks so cute and I am so happy they will be married in the temple too!!! Ahh!! Everyone is so cute!

I am obviously not surprised that brosef is a DL. Not one bit. He is epic.

This week was filled with much happiness and sadness between finding, setting dates, dropping people and dates, finding random members of the church we didn't even know existed, the works! But the happiness outweighed the sadness for sure! I was so happy to be on exchanges with Sister Kunz! She helped me so much in asking for return appointments with new people using the Diana Holscher (from "The Missionary Next Door") method: "As missionaries we help others come unto Christ through teaching 6 consecutive lessons about His Gospel. If after the first, you are still not interested, then that's fine, but we know that the message we have will greatly influence your life and help you develop the relationship you have with Jesus Christ even more! Do weekdays or weekends work better?" We found three new investigators! She also led out teaching the Restoration on the doorstep to a man named Maurice who has a family! We will be meeting with them later this week.

As a zone we are working to get our baptismal dates progressing by setting goals to employ the use of members more to help them get to church and keep their commitments. We are also striving to keep finding and inviting more of God's children to baptism. Last weekend was killer stressful seeing as we had to spend ALL of p-day planning for Zone Training Meeting. We weirdly enough were given the bulk of the trainings, but it all tied together quite nicely. The theme that ended up coming about related to Peter and the other fishermen dropping their nets, or the life that they once lived to follow the Savior. It was brought up at MLC how as soon as the Savior left them, they went back to fishing...Are we going to do those same things? Not let what we do on our missions change us enough to forsake our lives as fishermen and endure to the end in the service of Christ? It was a pretty powerful ZTM. Consecration is key. We do this because we love the Lord. We obey the rules because we love the Lord. We sacrifice because we love the Lord. And we will continue to let this His gospel change us after our missions because we LOVE the Lord.

We found a few promising people this week: Ricky, a young 15 year-old Hmong boy who the Elders are now teaching and committed to baptism. We also contacted a referral who is an undercover former whose house burned down 6 years ago and wanted to replace her bible and Book of Mormon! And she has a family! Also one of our less-actives Cammi brought her friend Veronica to church and she is interested to learn more!

Sadly, Kelly is not doing very well with her smoking :(. We will have to drop her date for now, until she can commit to quitting for good! We hope to teach her more about the repentance process and the Atonement more this week. We feel that she has the desire to quit, but does not fully understand the concept that it is a sin.

Love you all very much! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you all in your endeavors/stress :).

-Sister Weaver-

P.S. It's like 75 degrees and I'm wearing no tights! Boo for having to shave your legs!

April 3, 2015 Mission Leadership Council

For Easter We Went To the Johnston Family For Dinner

April 3, 2015 Mission Leadership Council

Sister Weaver and Sister King, Wausau

Sisters at Lunch

April 6, 2015

Dear Family & Friends,

For Easter we went to the Johnston family's for dinner and then I used the egg full of the symbols of Easter you sent me last Easter for an egg hunt for the kids and then they all had one of the symbols. We made the Elders search too :) It turned out to be a good lesson as we used each thing to tell the story of Easter. Thanks!

Thank you so much for my necklace!! I have gotten so many compliments on it already...and the candy also of course :) Thanks for sending me the Church News, too. It's nice to see what is happening in the world (sorta). I about had an aneurism when I heard Kim B. Clark's name read from the pulpit during General Conference!! I was like ahhhhh!!!!!!! I'm really not surprised he got called as a Seventy. I remember when he came to our Stake's Q&A at BYU-I once and when he entered, I was slapping my FHE bro's shoulder: "He's here! He's here!" And I got an annoyed answer of "Relax, he's not a General Authority." Well WHAT NOW! haha It was after General Conference I read the article about him being released by Elder Nelson. I think I would have shed some tears if I were there. Just saying.

Yeah if you could wish Brittany and Karissa all the best of luck and congratulations in the world, that would be so epically awesome! I am so proud of both of them for moving on to this chapter of their lives with faith. PLEASE send me Brittany's announcement! I feel so bad I haven't spoken to her in a year and a half! But that's so cool she's getting married on the day Eric (from Sun Prairie) gets baptized! Woohoo!

Yeah UVU would be cool because it's in Utah (where the majority of LDS future hubby-potential will most likely yield promising results) and it will probably also yield more promising potential for missionary opportunities for sure more so than BYU. But we will see where the Lord wants me.

Thank you for those words of inspired counsel from our dear prophet, seer, and revelator Thomas S. Monson.

This week has been a busy one but miracles never cease to pour out on this mission! The Because He Lives video initiative has helped so many people come unto Christ and remember him this Easter season. Every person who we gave cards to said they would watch the video so we look forward to following up with as many as we can this week :)

We went to contact a less active and decided to walk there, hoping the Spirit would prompt us to talk with everyone we saw. And lo and behold we were led to Angie! She talked with us for a while about her faith in God and how He has helped her overcome her struggles and we were able to teach her the Restoration and give her a Book of Mormon. Although she said she was sort of studying with the Jehovah Witnesses, she was willing to read and pray to know if this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We look forward to following up with her on Tuesday!

We met a lot of promising potentials as well. Brad, a man who had given up looking for the right church, took a Book of Mormon and we told him to not give up searching! He will become a new investigator soon!

We finally met with Blake and taught him the next lesson! The Lissner's are doing well and are on the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson...Sister Lissner wants her Patriarchal Blessing and she and Brother Lissner are prepping for doing baptisms for the dead. They look forward to being sealed!

Kelly is down to 2 cigarettes! We hope that she will quit for good this week and maintain it!

I'm going to re-iterate what I told sissy in her email:

I stand by what I said before conference: this one would hail A LOT of new and surprising things. I feel like we as a world and a people in the church are teetering on the precipice of something terrible...but eventually good. The second coming is closer than we realize...men's hearts are beginning to fail them more, just like President Bednar said in his talk. And those in the First Presidency, including President Monson, and those in the Church are feeling that weight. But all is not lost...I'm reminded of the scripture in

Mark 10:

  25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

 26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved?

 27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

 28 ¶Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

 29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,

 30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

 31 But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

May we all leave all the things that bind us to the world and seek after things of God. For it is in Him that we have safety and salvation. He is always there, so why have we need to fear? It truly saddens me to hear how many do fear to the point of their hearts failing to act upon what they once knew to be true and instead shift their values to things that really don't hold any value...like twisting what once was viewed as "religious discrimination."

Keep up the faith! I love you all more than I love Cadbury eggs (especially when they make my tummy hurt!)

Love,

-Sister Weaver-

Last Years 

This year! Didn't mean to do that!

MLC with the peeps from the MTC!    

Yessirie Easter Is Upon The Horizon!

March 30, 2015

The Mission

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you so much for your email! That women's meeting really made me think about you all and the different things you all are pursuing in life. Although I felt a lot like the woman who said that she has no patience for kids and was glad that I was not alone in that respect :) I was very pleased to hear the women be so bold about defending the doctrine of the family. I'm ashamed to sound like a feminist but I sometimes dread going to the women's meeting because some of the speakers fall into the habit of sugar-coating things, but they certainly didn't this time. I went with the question of how we as women can better defend the priesthood and our brethren in it and obtain power to do so; I absolutely loved that story of the girl who fought off an angry mob with the word of God. Yay women!

Yessirie Easter is upon the horizon! I hope that it is a spiritually uplifting and beautiful one for you all. I hear that the church is taking over Youtube homepage again for the whole day of Easter. Nothing but LDS links and no stupid/sleezy ones! What a cool break THAT will be! And soon we'll celebrate Mommy's Day! How weird will it be when I skype home and bro will be there?? BAH!! I may or may not already feeling a bit trunkified, but I will not allow myself to become the full aspect of the word "trunky"! I can't afford it! Too many things are happening! However, if I was truly trunky I would not even stress about about setting some goals upon coming home (i.e. go out with the missionaries; working a couple of jobs, hopefully one at a school; applying for college (again) maybe at UVU (open enrollment!); transferring my records to the Single's Ward ; etc.).

I am so PSYCHED for General Conference! So many cool things will be revealed, I can't stand it! It's like Christmas! (Christmas and Easter all rolled into one? BAH!!)

Our car is back safe and sound (or as safe as can be expected except for an annoying rumbling noise when it doesn't have time to warm up). Luckily the weather is a-warmin! Slowly but surely!

Everyone in our Zone is working so hard it is truly miraculous! We have 40 bap dates after we set the goal for 30, woohoo!!

Thim, Brother Lefferts, and Brad all came to church! I was so amazed at the wonderful reception the members gave to Brad. It was his first time at church and he stayed for all three meetings, plus the potluck afterwards. Since it was the fifth Sunday, he truly enjoyed the third hour all about missionary work and he gave a referral to the Elders saying that he wanted to bring his friend to church with him next time. We look forward to seeing him progress in the gospel and work toward May 9th, but will be giving him over to the Elders to teach :) Thim enjoyed the testimonies, but her daughter and niece were desperate to get home, so she didn't stay for the rest :( But I was so happy to see them there.

The "Because He Lives" initiative has been a wonderful finding tool, although not many people were interested in inviting us back to hear more. Still, we were able to get the word out there in a way that would not have been as heart-softening if we hadn't. We shared the card with Alina, who we met a while ago, and she is open to meeting with us this week! And she has a family!

We set a date with Andrea and she is excited to watch General Conference; she asked us also if we could meet with her more than once a week which was incredible!

I loved that quote you concluded you email with: we ARE standing in the the place of the Savior for we are representing Him. If I can help but one more person this week understand more about the Atonement, it will verify this truth. I love Elder Wirthlin's message he gave about the Savior's Atonement and how each child of God's "Sunday Will Come" for our Lord and Savior is the one with whom we can overcome all of the frailities of life...even death. I love when Elder Christiansen also lighted upon this eternal fact when he stated: "You can't do this. If you rely solely upon your own strength, then there is no way that your mission can be fulfilled. Only with the Lord can this work be done." Use His Atonement, and you never need fear that the burden is too heavy.

Love you all more than I love boxes of cereal for $1.00!

-Sister Weaver-

P.S. We passed a store today called "Cartridge World" and I had to quote: "Do you sell cartridges here?" ..."Here? At Cartridge World? Gee, I dunno..."

The cute Lefferts took us out
to lunch for her birthday
at this swanky restaurant!
It was so nice!    

At the restaurant,
there was this
bathroom stall for
"Special Little People".
Sister King said it
was just for me...
it was like a nursery potty!
 And yes, I used it.    

Happy Spring(?)

March 23, 2015

Happy Spring(?) Family & Friends,

Yeah we were shown the "Because He Lives" video a couple of months ago and it is so wonderful to see people open up more when we try sharing a "card" about a video about Jesus for Easter, rather than charging in with first impressions of the fact we are missionaries and yes, we do want to baptize you, haha.

That's good that you are on break! You sure do deserve it Momasita!

Sad day that bro is getting transferred, but good, too! Transfers are upon us as well! Luckily our whole district is staying the same, but SO many other changes are happening!! WAUKESHA CLOSED as a sister's area :( ! Just the Spanish and English Elders are left! But we are over one more area of sisters as STL's! Woohoo!

I am truly grateful for the inspired missionaries in this mission. This last week we set the goal to set 30 baptismal dates and so far our zone has exceeded the goal by 6. We know what we are capable of and we seek to maintain these dates in which we can help our investigators more effectively progress towards baptism.

I am so grateful for the counsel given at Mission Conference as well. It truly was inspired :) No Elder L. Tom Perry though :( I guess that he was needed elsewhere to prepare for General Conference, because Thomas S. Monson and Elder Packer's health is not doing well, so he is next in command. It was okay though because Elder Christiansen from the Seventy said the words I think we all needed to hear. It will greatly help the mission become a more Christ like and focused people :) ...And I have a feeling that General Conference will yield many changes as well, concerning revelation and leadership. And it was so great to see everyone (still here) from the mission and hear about what's happening in our old areas. I guess that Eric in Sun Prairie is set for April 11th and the Elders are teaching him now! And Candy and Kathy from Waukesha are going to the temple! After the meeting, we were all so emotionally and spiritually drained like WE had just gone to the temple...I have no doubts that the Celestial Kingdom will feel any less like that experience did (except for the draining part :) I look forward to having that kind of reunion with my brothers and sisters I have served with and among once more when we reach the presence of our Lord and Savior. We got to take a whole mission picture, which was very claustrophobic, but it should be on the mission blog.

We saw Brad again and invited him to baptism, where he said that he would if he knew the gospel was true. Lorena, our new investigator with a lot of promise, said she wanted to talk to her husband to see if he would like to learn with her! And Andrea, our referral from the elders who is striving for her May 9th baptism, has been reading the Book of Mormon with her boyfriend Andres, who is continuing to sit in for discussions. Mai Lee, a recent convert, will be a wonderful fellowshipper for them. Kelly, who is set for April 25th, is only down to half a pack a day! We hope she will continue to work towards quitting her smoking habit.

On Sunday we were so pleased to see the Lissner's stay for all three meetings and we will be continuing new member lessons this week. They are both striving to get their patriarchal blessings. Amy also came! Sister Harris, who just got home from her mission, wants to help fellowship her during the new member lessons instead of JUST the Chadderdon’s. Amy is doing very well being a good example of living the commandments to her family...it's just getting her to church that's been the issue. Brother Mar also came to church (all by himself!), and Kelly stayed for all three meetings.

I echo the words of our inspired leaders from Mission Conference, when they stated during the Q&A when asked about how we can stay focused on our missions and our purpose as the Lord's anointed proclaimers of truth: Look to the examples of Christ-like love: Your Mission President and his wife, your parents, your family members your true friends and those who are praying for you and setting the best examples of Christ in your life. Look to them and act in accordance with their examples, and you will never lose sight of your purpose. Thanks for being such wonderful examples of Christlike love to me :) Love you as much as I love this work!

-Sister Weaver-

P.S. Please let me know if there is anything you need or I can help with :)

Our ride to Milwaukee! We stayed in Waukesha
over night with the Blacks!!! My favorite theatrical
family of craziness! I was so happy to catch up
with them and the happenings in the ward!
They made us breakfast and their sons put girly
sheets on their beds (since we were staying the
night in their rooms) while everyone camped out
downstairs. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen!     

I saw Sister Rousseau at Conference!    

Gabby's one-year mark for being
baptized was yesterday!