Well my first real transfer on my mission is finally coming up! I know that I am not going to be leaving and thank goodness because I love it here! Today the President is flying down to Kazakhstan to have a Zone Conference with us and then he is staying to see the baptisms on Saturday! It is going to be great!
So I guess a lot of people still don't understand the me being in Kazakhstan thing so let me explain... My Mission is the Moscow West Mission. It includes cities which surround Moscow, also Belarus, and also Kazakhstan. But, in Kazakhstan and Belarus we only can be in one city. So, that is why I am in Kazakhstan and not Russia.
Well the sad news of the week... Our investigators are not prepared for baptism this Saturday :( so that sucks really bad... Katya (our Golden Investigator) could not ever meet within the past two weeks so we couldn't help here progress and now she is doubting the thought of baptism because she was already baptized when she was a baby in the Russian Orthodox Church... so we really need to meet with her again as soon as we can to clear her doubts up! Luckily she already has that foundation and testimony of the Book Of Mormon so I know that it will work out in the end..
Rooslan, our other should be baptism, has stopped coming to church and never has time to meet with us either. He used to come every Sunday and then we would just pull him aside and teach him as much as we can. He is the one who usually comes to church all the time but is not a member. So we need to work really hard to get him baptized.
Nona, the grandma we teach, is doing really good! She is not ready for baptism yet but we are doing great progress with her! I feel really good about how much we are progressing with here because Elder Nutt said that before I came she had not progressed for almost seven months! She would not even look at the Book of Mormon. Now she is almost to Alma and is doing amazing! This last week we watched the movie called Journey of Faith with her.. It was amazing! The movie just goes through where Nephi and Lehi possibly could have traveled and just explain their story in really deep detail.. it is a great movie and I definitely recommend it!!
I have like ten piano students and we also have 5 english students... so it has been crazy! Our days are packed and busy! Sometimes I really get down because I was called here to preach the gospel and not teach piano and such things.. with our english students we can lead into the Gospel really easily and that is actually where a lot of gospel investigators come from. But, most of my Piano students are investigators of another companionship, already members of the ward, or just not at all interested... So I am trying to figure out how I can lessen those lessons..
There was an older couple who were here but they left last week. Their name is Shaw. Last night we got a new old couple and their name is Moore. I have not had much time to talk with them but I am hoping that maybe one of them knows how to play piano so maybe they can help me out with those lessons.. haha it was kind of funny though because Elder Nutt and I had so many lessons the past week that we accidently almost broke the Mission record! But, then we realized it was because of all of the piano lessons lol..
This week I have progressed so much in the language! I finally had an experience where I stopped someone on the street and understood everything that they said! I am learning so much every single day! Obviously somedays are better than others and I have my up days and down days but eh I am having a good time and loving every good and even bad day!
I have felt the Spirit very strongly this past week.. it is really interesting how the Spirit works. I have felt it in such a different way here than I ever have on my mission... it comes to me more as a feeling of peace and knowing that everything will be ok as long as I do all that I can... I working really hard at trying to recognize and work with the Spirit, it can be really hard to recognize sometimes tho! :) but I guess that is an eternal process!
Well I hope that life is going great back home! It is great to hear from you! I feel the effects of your prayers and thoughts everyday! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Weihing
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20,2010
Hello everyone! Everything at home sounds like it is going great! :)
Well this week was yet another great week in the service of the Lord! The first thing that happened this past week was going to the Muslim Mosque! It was so pretty and cool! I will try to send pictures if I can find them.... But just to explain a little about the Muslim beliefs, they believe in Allah, aka God, and they believe that Mohammad was his last prophet on the Earth. Mohammad claimed to have been given Holy messages from the angel Gabriel and Mohammad memorized and taught these messages to the people. They believe in a book called to Koran and they only read it in Arabic. They believe that you pray at certain times of the day and that you can only pray in the Mosque.... This was such a cool experience to be able to go here! Before we went inside the Mosque we went into this separate building where we took off our shoes and then bent down and washed our feet and washed our hands and face. You don't have to do this but hey I wanted to cultural experience! After washing off we went into the Mosque, before entering you have to take off your shoes. I think that the entire building is marble or something like that. But, inside was gorgeous! Right when you walk in is a huge empty hall where they pray. Muslims always pray facing Mecca. But, on the ground were little separate rugs where people can come and do their own prayers. When Muslims pray they go through certain kneeling motions and certain chanting motions. In the middle of the Room was a HUGE and very beautiful chandelier. It was very beautiful. There was also a ton of Arabic writing on walls and Mohammad and Allah's name written in Arabic were there too.
The most interesting part was what the Muslims call prayer I guess. When it is that certain time of the day to pray the leader of the Mosque gets on the intercom and starts chanting. You can hear it not only inside the Mosque but also outside all around the area. So he calls for everyone to come and then they all come in, line up, and he leads them in prayer. It was really interesting because I actually felt the Spirit. I was a little confused and so I asked my companion about it later. He told me the same thing happened to him the first time he went to the Mosque so he gave me an article about the Church's viewpoint on Mohammad. The article said that our Church believes that Mohammad was an inspired man of God who helped lead people of that time away from a life of worshipping idols. But, he was not a prophet! Interestingly enough it also said that if there is any link between the Muslim society and the Christian World it is through the LDS Church because our beliefs are so similar. So that answered my question. The Mosque was an amazing place and very beautiful! I took pictures and will see if I have time to send some but probably not till next week.
Anyways other than that my week has been about the same. The zone here in Kazakhstan is really working hard at trying to meet our goals of baptisms and investigators. I feel very blessed to be apart of the work here. I am finally getting organized and used to how things are run here in the field, it is much different than in the MTC!!
Well I don't have much to say except for the weird food I have eaten.... this week I finally ate horse! It is delish.. the dish it comes in translates to five finger dish or something like that. It has noodles, horse, onions, and a bunch of weird different meat. I think mine had lamb and some arteries from some animal.. haha it was pretty good. So the homemade juice here look crazy! They bring out this picture of juice but whole fruits are still inside it.. it looks nasty but tastes quite delish. I think my next goal is to eat tongue.. or maybe try the jello that they make from fat and meat. They love fat here and prize it above all.
Our investigators are still the same as before and have not changed at all because they have not been able to meet with us which sucks. But we are going to work hard on finding new investigators this week. We still have the same baptismal dates with two investigators. I am still doing a lot of piano lessons and it is helping me learn but some of my students are better than me!!
I love it here! I love the work that I am apart of and the opportunity I have to bring souls back to our father in heaven in these the last days. I am so grateful for all of the love and support! Thank you!
Well thank you all for the love and support and I hope that you are doing great and having fun!! Remember who you are!!
ELDER WEIHING
Well this week was yet another great week in the service of the Lord! The first thing that happened this past week was going to the Muslim Mosque! It was so pretty and cool! I will try to send pictures if I can find them.... But just to explain a little about the Muslim beliefs, they believe in Allah, aka God, and they believe that Mohammad was his last prophet on the Earth. Mohammad claimed to have been given Holy messages from the angel Gabriel and Mohammad memorized and taught these messages to the people. They believe in a book called to Koran and they only read it in Arabic. They believe that you pray at certain times of the day and that you can only pray in the Mosque.... This was such a cool experience to be able to go here! Before we went inside the Mosque we went into this separate building where we took off our shoes and then bent down and washed our feet and washed our hands and face. You don't have to do this but hey I wanted to cultural experience! After washing off we went into the Mosque, before entering you have to take off your shoes. I think that the entire building is marble or something like that. But, inside was gorgeous! Right when you walk in is a huge empty hall where they pray. Muslims always pray facing Mecca. But, on the ground were little separate rugs where people can come and do their own prayers. When Muslims pray they go through certain kneeling motions and certain chanting motions. In the middle of the Room was a HUGE and very beautiful chandelier. It was very beautiful. There was also a ton of Arabic writing on walls and Mohammad and Allah's name written in Arabic were there too.
The most interesting part was what the Muslims call prayer I guess. When it is that certain time of the day to pray the leader of the Mosque gets on the intercom and starts chanting. You can hear it not only inside the Mosque but also outside all around the area. So he calls for everyone to come and then they all come in, line up, and he leads them in prayer. It was really interesting because I actually felt the Spirit. I was a little confused and so I asked my companion about it later. He told me the same thing happened to him the first time he went to the Mosque so he gave me an article about the Church's viewpoint on Mohammad. The article said that our Church believes that Mohammad was an inspired man of God who helped lead people of that time away from a life of worshipping idols. But, he was not a prophet! Interestingly enough it also said that if there is any link between the Muslim society and the Christian World it is through the LDS Church because our beliefs are so similar. So that answered my question. The Mosque was an amazing place and very beautiful! I took pictures and will see if I have time to send some but probably not till next week.
Anyways other than that my week has been about the same. The zone here in Kazakhstan is really working hard at trying to meet our goals of baptisms and investigators. I feel very blessed to be apart of the work here. I am finally getting organized and used to how things are run here in the field, it is much different than in the MTC!!
Well I don't have much to say except for the weird food I have eaten.... this week I finally ate horse! It is delish.. the dish it comes in translates to five finger dish or something like that. It has noodles, horse, onions, and a bunch of weird different meat. I think mine had lamb and some arteries from some animal.. haha it was pretty good. So the homemade juice here look crazy! They bring out this picture of juice but whole fruits are still inside it.. it looks nasty but tastes quite delish. I think my next goal is to eat tongue.. or maybe try the jello that they make from fat and meat. They love fat here and prize it above all.
Our investigators are still the same as before and have not changed at all because they have not been able to meet with us which sucks. But we are going to work hard on finding new investigators this week. We still have the same baptismal dates with two investigators. I am still doing a lot of piano lessons and it is helping me learn but some of my students are better than me!!
I love it here! I love the work that I am apart of and the opportunity I have to bring souls back to our father in heaven in these the last days. I am so grateful for all of the love and support! Thank you!
Well thank you all for the love and support and I hope that you are doing great and having fun!! Remember who you are!!
ELDER WEIHING
Thursday, January 14, 2010
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