Well the time is flying by! This transfer with Elder Malanin is already almost over and I have the feeling that I am going to be transferred.. I really hope not because we have so many potential baptisms right now! This week Nona is finally going to be finishing the book of Mormon and praying about it! I can't wait to see what happens! I know she will have an amazing experience if she will just ask sincerely... Ratmeep is doing good as well. We asked him about baptism and he said that if he found out that the Book of Mormon is true he would definitely get baptized. Gulshat is doing good progress and still is coming to all of the activities. We just have to figure out how to help her make that step towards baptism...
Well I have one story this week but I don't know if I have already told it. Here in Kazakhstan when you cross busy streets you don't cross over the streets you actually walk underground in a tunnel like thing. Well to get to our church we always walk under one of these places. There are a few businesses under there and one of them is a beer place. When Elder Nutt and I were working together they would always come out drunk and try to talk to us in English and it was kind of annoying. But, one time one of them came out drunk and surprisingly knew English well and so we just took out his number not expecting anything out of it. Well Elder Nutt and I never called him, but elder Malanin and I saw him again a few times after that and so we decided to meet with him. I didn't really know how things were going to go because I guess I just judged him for working at a beer shop. I found out that really he is interested in our church! He said he has been searching for truth and he has been praying and praying to find out if God really exists. He says that he hasn't received an answer from God and doesn't know what to think so he wants our help.. haha I wanted to just say that I think him meeting with us is a sign of God. Anyways, it is going really well with him! He has such desire to know truth! Teaching him is seriously like teaching a child... he knows nothing! He has never even heard of a prophet and didn't even know what that was! I really am expecting good things to come from our lessons with him... oh ya haha and his name is Arstan, Anyways, that was just another small experience for me telling me how important it is that we don't judge people. We never know peoples circumstances and we should always look on others as beloved children of our Father in Heaven. I think I am probably the worst at this and I hope that I can start to follow the moral of my own story and give all people a chance to accept the Restored gospel... you never know what will happen or what a person is truly looking for.
Well that was my story this week. thank you for the love and the support! I love you all! Remember who you are!
Elder Weihing
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Hello!
What a week! We just barely got back from hiking up in the mountains! It was so beautiful I can't even describe it! I will send pictures next week because I have to write fast before our lessons start tonight!
Well Elder Malanin and I have been doing great. It is still hard sometimes of course, but I think that we are starting to understand each other a lot more everyday. I can't really get mad at him ever because he has such desire to be an amazing missionary, he is just... very opinionated! Lol I would call him a Russian version of Grandpa Bailey :) love you gramps! But, the work has bee great. We have been working hard as always and teaching a lot! This week the Assistant's came down so I got to see Elder Nutt again. He is doing great and actually really likes traveling around to see all of the cities in our mission and getting to work with all of the missionaries. But, I went on splits with the other AP, his name is Elder Husaneof. It was great and he helped me out a lot! He is a Russian. It was a good experience for me to work for him because he couldn't preach... for those of you who don't know you have to have permission from Kazakhstan to preach the gospel and he didn't have permission.... so I had to all of the talking and teaching during the lessons and had to do all of the talking on the streets about our church. It was great! It really gave me a chance to push my Russian and see how much I knew... surprisingly I felt really good and we had a really good day. It is amazing how God really gives you that help when you need it! That is definitely how I would define the gift of tongues... you don't always have it... but when you need it then it is there!
Our investigators are doing good. We tried to set a date of baptism with a woman named Gulshat. She really loves to read the Book of Mormon and is always at all of the activities that we invite her to, but she still just doesn't know about the church because she was born a muslim and said that her whole life she has grown up expecting to be a muslim... so now we have some real work to bring the spirit to our lessons so that she can really feel that this is the right choice. That is probably the biggest thing that really happened this week. Ratmeep, the guy who said he wants to become a missionary, could not meet with us this week so we will see how that goes this week. Nona is still reading the book of Mormon and is so close to finishing! I just hope and pray that she keeps her end of the bargain and prays about it after she finishes! We taught a lesson to Danyar this week and he agreed that he would repent, so we will she how things go with that. I made a deal with him that we can both repent and pray for forgiveness and then talk about what we felt. The work is going on and things are great! Time is moving to fast and the mission is flying by! I love you all! Remember who you are! Thank you for the love and support and the prayers and the letters!
Elder Weihing
What a week! We just barely got back from hiking up in the mountains! It was so beautiful I can't even describe it! I will send pictures next week because I have to write fast before our lessons start tonight!
Well Elder Malanin and I have been doing great. It is still hard sometimes of course, but I think that we are starting to understand each other a lot more everyday. I can't really get mad at him ever because he has such desire to be an amazing missionary, he is just... very opinionated! Lol I would call him a Russian version of Grandpa Bailey :) love you gramps! But, the work has bee great. We have been working hard as always and teaching a lot! This week the Assistant's came down so I got to see Elder Nutt again. He is doing great and actually really likes traveling around to see all of the cities in our mission and getting to work with all of the missionaries. But, I went on splits with the other AP, his name is Elder Husaneof. It was great and he helped me out a lot! He is a Russian. It was a good experience for me to work for him because he couldn't preach... for those of you who don't know you have to have permission from Kazakhstan to preach the gospel and he didn't have permission.... so I had to all of the talking and teaching during the lessons and had to do all of the talking on the streets about our church. It was great! It really gave me a chance to push my Russian and see how much I knew... surprisingly I felt really good and we had a really good day. It is amazing how God really gives you that help when you need it! That is definitely how I would define the gift of tongues... you don't always have it... but when you need it then it is there!
Our investigators are doing good. We tried to set a date of baptism with a woman named Gulshat. She really loves to read the Book of Mormon and is always at all of the activities that we invite her to, but she still just doesn't know about the church because she was born a muslim and said that her whole life she has grown up expecting to be a muslim... so now we have some real work to bring the spirit to our lessons so that she can really feel that this is the right choice. That is probably the biggest thing that really happened this week. Ratmeep, the guy who said he wants to become a missionary, could not meet with us this week so we will see how that goes this week. Nona is still reading the book of Mormon and is so close to finishing! I just hope and pray that she keeps her end of the bargain and prays about it after she finishes! We taught a lesson to Danyar this week and he agreed that he would repent, so we will she how things go with that. I made a deal with him that we can both repent and pray for forgiveness and then talk about what we felt. The work is going on and things are great! Time is moving to fast and the mission is flying by! I love you all! Remember who you are! Thank you for the love and support and the prayers and the letters!
Elder Weihing
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Well it has been a crazy week like always!
I guess the first thing that I should talk about is how I had the opportunity to talk to the fam on mothers day through skype.. haha wow that was a crazy opportunity! It feels really weird talking to your family from Kazakhstan let along seeing them! It was great! I know a lot of people think that talking through skype would bring a lot more feelings of home sickness but in reality I found a lot of new fire and inspiration in seeing them! The best part was when Nathaniel sang for me probably.. the little kid is just too cute sometimes....
In fact, the next day was one of the hardest thus far on my mission. We did a mission wide fast because we are all so young out in the field right now so we really need to grow up and learn how to do everything faster.. also Satan is really working hard out here because the work is on the edge of just taking off! So we did a fast and it just so happened that on the day we did the fast almost all of our lessons didn't show up so we had to walk to hot streets all day.. and to make things worse I forgot how to speak Russian that day. (lol some days are better than others concerning the language) To say the least it was hot, I was hungry, and no one wanted to talk to us! The life of a missionary is great! I was lucky I had just talked to my family and had received a lot of new inspiration to keep pushing forward in the work!
Well the day after the fast brought amazing success.. weird how things like that tend to work out :)... not only was I the most comfortable that I have ever been with Russian, but we got a lot of new good potential contacts on the street, and had some really successful lessons. It was just a really good day overall...
I just want to talk about one specific experience that happened to me... One day I was having a rough time because my companion can just go off talking like crazy to people on the streets and knows the perfect questions to ask them... he knows really deep questions that get people thinking... later we were at our apartment and he could tell I was really frustrated so we decided to just sit there and try and think of really good questions for people. I was in a bad mood and really didn't care but I did it anyways... we came up with some good questions, but my favorite on was, Do you believe in miracles? and What would you count miraculous in your life? Other than those two the questions they were really kind of basic... So yesterday right as we were leaving the church to go contacting I turned and said to him, " I really like that questions about miracles that we came up with." He turned to the next person walking towards us on the street and asked whether she believed in miracles.. she took the bait right away as she started really pondering the question and answered yes. Then we got on this whole discussion of the purpose of life and where we will go after this life. She said that no one knows what will happen after this life. I turned to her and asked If we told you that we had the knowledge of what will be after this life and that you can know too would you want to hear more... after that we went right to the church, had a lesson about the restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon and set up another meeting with her. It is not an amazing story, but just another example for me that shows me that God gives us tough times for a reason. Sometimes we wonder why things are hard. But, when the hard time is passed we see what happened to us or what we gained.. in this case it was just coming up with a simple question for a woman that got her pondering about the meaning and miracle of life. It gave us as missionaries the opportunity to preach the message of the restored gospel with yet another beloved child of our Heavenly Father. For this I am grateful, I know that our Heavenly Father leads us even if not especially in times of hardships.. He prepares us for things we cannot yet comprehend.
Thanks for the love and support everyone! Keep living it up! Remember who you are!
Elder Weihing :)
I guess the first thing that I should talk about is how I had the opportunity to talk to the fam on mothers day through skype.. haha wow that was a crazy opportunity! It feels really weird talking to your family from Kazakhstan let along seeing them! It was great! I know a lot of people think that talking through skype would bring a lot more feelings of home sickness but in reality I found a lot of new fire and inspiration in seeing them! The best part was when Nathaniel sang for me probably.. the little kid is just too cute sometimes....
In fact, the next day was one of the hardest thus far on my mission. We did a mission wide fast because we are all so young out in the field right now so we really need to grow up and learn how to do everything faster.. also Satan is really working hard out here because the work is on the edge of just taking off! So we did a fast and it just so happened that on the day we did the fast almost all of our lessons didn't show up so we had to walk to hot streets all day.. and to make things worse I forgot how to speak Russian that day. (lol some days are better than others concerning the language) To say the least it was hot, I was hungry, and no one wanted to talk to us! The life of a missionary is great! I was lucky I had just talked to my family and had received a lot of new inspiration to keep pushing forward in the work!
Well the day after the fast brought amazing success.. weird how things like that tend to work out :)... not only was I the most comfortable that I have ever been with Russian, but we got a lot of new good potential contacts on the street, and had some really successful lessons. It was just a really good day overall...
I just want to talk about one specific experience that happened to me... One day I was having a rough time because my companion can just go off talking like crazy to people on the streets and knows the perfect questions to ask them... he knows really deep questions that get people thinking... later we were at our apartment and he could tell I was really frustrated so we decided to just sit there and try and think of really good questions for people. I was in a bad mood and really didn't care but I did it anyways... we came up with some good questions, but my favorite on was, Do you believe in miracles? and What would you count miraculous in your life? Other than those two the questions they were really kind of basic... So yesterday right as we were leaving the church to go contacting I turned and said to him, " I really like that questions about miracles that we came up with." He turned to the next person walking towards us on the street and asked whether she believed in miracles.. she took the bait right away as she started really pondering the question and answered yes. Then we got on this whole discussion of the purpose of life and where we will go after this life. She said that no one knows what will happen after this life. I turned to her and asked If we told you that we had the knowledge of what will be after this life and that you can know too would you want to hear more... after that we went right to the church, had a lesson about the restoration and gave her a Book of Mormon and set up another meeting with her. It is not an amazing story, but just another example for me that shows me that God gives us tough times for a reason. Sometimes we wonder why things are hard. But, when the hard time is passed we see what happened to us or what we gained.. in this case it was just coming up with a simple question for a woman that got her pondering about the meaning and miracle of life. It gave us as missionaries the opportunity to preach the message of the restored gospel with yet another beloved child of our Heavenly Father. For this I am grateful, I know that our Heavenly Father leads us even if not especially in times of hardships.. He prepares us for things we cannot yet comprehend.
Thanks for the love and support everyone! Keep living it up! Remember who you are!
Elder Weihing :)
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Talking to Kenneth
Today we were able to talk to Kenneth on Skype. It was so awesome to actually be able to see him. He is doing great. He was even able to bear his Testimony to us in Russian! We are so proud of him.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Subject: Hey Guys!
Hey! How is everyone doing! It has been quite a week!
This week Elder Nutt along with another elder and sister left Kazakhstan, the bad part is that we haven't gotten the new elders and sisters to replace them yet, so we are down three missionaries out of the eight that should be here! I am not with my new companion yet, I am with an Elder Putnum from Bountiful this week. We have to juggle all of his investigators and my investigators this week so we have already had a ton of lessons! It is weird because I am basically all alone in the sense that I have all of these investigators who are now all in my hands. No one else knows anything about them but me, it is a different transition and feeling for me. I am responsible for them where before it was me and Elder Nutt. I should be with my new Russian Companion next week, Elder Malanin. I am excited to get to work with him.
Sergei's baptism was great! He is an amazing guy! I have seen a few baptisms since being here, but it is a completely different feeling when it is your investigator who is getting baptized. The Spirit was so strong as I watched him go under the water! Now I realize what a miracle he really was for us.. haha when he went up to bear his testimony he did a great job. In our lessons he always does this thing, we kind of talk about something random and start laughing before the lesson and then in one instant he gets all serious and says, " Let's pray my brethren to bring the Spirit of the Lord.." it is so random and amazing. He did the same thing when he went up to bear his testimony. He finished his testimony and then said, " Let us pray brethren and sisters to bring the spirit of the Lord.." and then he prayed. Haha it was so random and funny. He is a great guy. When he received the Holy Ghost on Sunday President Wooley gave it to him. The Spirit was also very strong there. President Wooley started crying during the middle of the blessing and afterwards he said he felt the Spirit so strong tell him the Segei is going to be an amazing leader in this branch. It was a great experience.
I had two other lessons that were really cool this week. With one of Elder Putnum's investigators named Alya and with a lady named Endyra. With Alya I was not sure how things were going to go. She started talking about how she took a break from meeting with the missionaries and she realized that she missed the feeling and presence of whatever was in the church. So, obviously we wanted to talk about what that feeling was, the Holy Ghost. But, the lesson got a little side tracked and she started talking about trials and failures in life and why we have them even when we try our hardest. I was able to tell her about a person experience of mine and the spirit was so strong. After she told said that she had met with a lot of missionaries and she always had the feeling that those missionaries believed really strongly in what they were talking about, but she said when Elder Putnum and I taught she was caught in an almost trans, a feeling that she said she only gets when reading the Bible. So it was a very good lesson! Endyra is a girl who has been coming to the church for a long time. She started coming for english and then ended up learning all of the lessons. She will not accept them and believes that Islam is correct even though she doesn't live the laws of Islam. She is always at the church, comes to all of the activities, and is always trying to make up excuses to be in the church and be with the missionaries. But, she just wont recognize that everything that she has felt here is because it is true. So, Elder Putnum and I were tired of this and so we kind of just started like nagging at her a lot. We were just really bold and upfront and told her exactly what we thought. She has never made much progress and will never ever pray, she has never made the commitment to personally pray and ask God what is right. We talked to her about how God knows all and it is just that simple, just ask and she would know. Finally, after everything she made the commitment to finally pray! It was the most progress I have ever seen with her, so hopefully she will pray!
Anyways, it was a great week! Things are moving along! thanks for all of the love, support, and prayers! I love you! Remember who you are!
Elder Weihing
Hey! How is everyone doing! It has been quite a week!
This week Elder Nutt along with another elder and sister left Kazakhstan, the bad part is that we haven't gotten the new elders and sisters to replace them yet, so we are down three missionaries out of the eight that should be here! I am not with my new companion yet, I am with an Elder Putnum from Bountiful this week. We have to juggle all of his investigators and my investigators this week so we have already had a ton of lessons! It is weird because I am basically all alone in the sense that I have all of these investigators who are now all in my hands. No one else knows anything about them but me, it is a different transition and feeling for me. I am responsible for them where before it was me and Elder Nutt. I should be with my new Russian Companion next week, Elder Malanin. I am excited to get to work with him.
Sergei's baptism was great! He is an amazing guy! I have seen a few baptisms since being here, but it is a completely different feeling when it is your investigator who is getting baptized. The Spirit was so strong as I watched him go under the water! Now I realize what a miracle he really was for us.. haha when he went up to bear his testimony he did a great job. In our lessons he always does this thing, we kind of talk about something random and start laughing before the lesson and then in one instant he gets all serious and says, " Let's pray my brethren to bring the Spirit of the Lord.." it is so random and amazing. He did the same thing when he went up to bear his testimony. He finished his testimony and then said, " Let us pray brethren and sisters to bring the spirit of the Lord.." and then he prayed. Haha it was so random and funny. He is a great guy. When he received the Holy Ghost on Sunday President Wooley gave it to him. The Spirit was also very strong there. President Wooley started crying during the middle of the blessing and afterwards he said he felt the Spirit so strong tell him the Segei is going to be an amazing leader in this branch. It was a great experience.
I had two other lessons that were really cool this week. With one of Elder Putnum's investigators named Alya and with a lady named Endyra. With Alya I was not sure how things were going to go. She started talking about how she took a break from meeting with the missionaries and she realized that she missed the feeling and presence of whatever was in the church. So, obviously we wanted to talk about what that feeling was, the Holy Ghost. But, the lesson got a little side tracked and she started talking about trials and failures in life and why we have them even when we try our hardest. I was able to tell her about a person experience of mine and the spirit was so strong. After she told said that she had met with a lot of missionaries and she always had the feeling that those missionaries believed really strongly in what they were talking about, but she said when Elder Putnum and I taught she was caught in an almost trans, a feeling that she said she only gets when reading the Bible. So it was a very good lesson! Endyra is a girl who has been coming to the church for a long time. She started coming for english and then ended up learning all of the lessons. She will not accept them and believes that Islam is correct even though she doesn't live the laws of Islam. She is always at the church, comes to all of the activities, and is always trying to make up excuses to be in the church and be with the missionaries. But, she just wont recognize that everything that she has felt here is because it is true. So, Elder Putnum and I were tired of this and so we kind of just started like nagging at her a lot. We were just really bold and upfront and told her exactly what we thought. She has never made much progress and will never ever pray, she has never made the commitment to personally pray and ask God what is right. We talked to her about how God knows all and it is just that simple, just ask and she would know. Finally, after everything she made the commitment to finally pray! It was the most progress I have ever seen with her, so hopefully she will pray!
Anyways, it was a great week! Things are moving along! thanks for all of the love, support, and prayers! I love you! Remember who you are!
Elder Weihing
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