Goodbye to the Deeres and Hello to the Andersens!

A busy week, but it´s been an incredible week. We have been prepping for the arrival of President and Hermana Andersen tomorrow. I do not know if you have ever heard this before, but I know that it´s true: the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days on the mission. It is very, very true. Especially here in the office. We've been busy with trying to balance studying for our driving test, getting ready for a new president, getting transfers ready, adjusting to ipad bugs and on top of that, we are moving offices in about two weeks. Yay.

Hey, but cool little experience this last week. I don´t know if you remember my MTC comp, Elder Voss? He is serving in Madrid and is in the office there. This last week I called up there for some questions, and got to talk to him for a little bit. After telling him how much better Malaga was than Madrid, I realized how long it has been since I have seen him! He´s a stud. It´s been such a great journey.

Actually, being in the office really has been a huge blessing. I´m learning that you can´t procrastinate anything and you need to be organized. Something that I believe mom really tried to teach me. Unfortunately, I didn´t really learn that until things depended on it. So thank you mom, for being very patient, sorry it took me so long :)

Today was great. It really was. All of the missionaries from Fuengirola and Málaga had the opportunity to go with President and Hermana Deere on a hike nearby. We started singing the mission hymn up at the top of the mountain that we climbed. So good. We are going to miss them a lot.  They have done a lot for this mission, and I am so grateful that I have gotten to be here while they served.

We have worked hard to get more proselyting in our day.  Now we have a solid schedule. We have been able to get it to about half and half. We do office work in the morning and are able to get out and work during the afternoons. I miss being able to do full time proselyting, but we have been able to see a lot of miracles. We received a really cool reference from Chile. A mother and her children live here in Spain and have not been able to get to church. We visited them. They are fantastic, and have such a huge desire to go to church. Such a cool experience. We are starting up a family night with them tonight. They don´t live in Fuengirola, which makes it difficult to get them to church, but we are going to see if we can get members that live near them to take them to church. The members here in Fuengirola are great.

It´s been a crazy big week. Lots of great moments. I think my favorite moment in the day is when we get to go out and speak with people. We get told by a lot of people that they have ´prisa´ which is basically saying that ´I am busy´. But one of the coolest experiences is when we get to say that we are representatives of Jesus Christ, and that we are here to invite others to come unto Him. Although many tell us no and that they are not interested, it really strengthens my personal testimony. That is what makes it a great day to be a missionary. 

Love you all!

Elder Weenig

Hermana and President Deere

Ronda!

We´ve had a crazy last week. Another missionary came and stay with us. It was a surprise, so we kind of impromptu planned what to do. It was a really cool experience.

Today was probably one of the coolest pdays that I have had. We had the opportunity to go to Ronda, which is an old Spanish city up in the mountains. It´s famous for it´s massive bridge that spans between the two parts of the town. The bridge kind of looks like it is a part of Lord of the Rings. It was kind of my heaven. I love history and this town was literally overflowing with it. I love my mission. I love the Spanish language, and want to use it for the rest of my life, and I get to be in a place that is chock full of history. It´s amazing. Also, the Spanish people, I love them. Legend has it that JRR Tolkien based the hobbits off the Spanish people. If only second breakfast was a tradition here in Spain.

To update on our ward situation, we are now currently going on a switch between wards. We are technically assigned to the Mijas International Branch. The members there are amazing. I really am blown away by some of their conversion stories. We have people from Belgium, South Africa, Iran, the Philippines, Norway, England, and last, but not least... America. It´s a really cool experience. Anyway. We are changing wards because of a change in our area. Our proselyting area, when I got here, was in a city called Benalmádena. However, it is a 20 minute commute by car. President Deere just recently changed our area to Fuengirola, which is the city where we actually live. We are starting to see growth. It is going to be a lot of work taking on a new area with a lot of members and work from other missionaries, so we´re working hard to make sure we utilize time in the office to the maximum so that we have time to get out and work. It´s definitely a new challenge. 

One thing that I have come to realize here in Fuengirola is that God has got a plan for us. When I first got called into the office, I was discouraged, because it had a reputation for not having much opportunities to proselyte. So when we got here, we set a goal to work and change that. We have seen a lot of opportunities to work here. But it was not like that at first. I remember there were a couple of nights that I felt like something was just telling us to stop. That it was not going to work and that it would just be easier to stay in the office all day. I was worried. I did not know if it would even be possible. Through a lot of prayer, there has been a lot of improvement, and we are going to continue to work hard. So that´s why I know that God has a plan. I didn´t know (and still don´t) why I was asked to be in the office, but I know that it has been a blessing and I know that we will continue to see even more miracles. The more difficult a situation, the greater the success. We will strive to do our best.

Hey and cool news from La Línea! Antonio´s been passing the sacrament these past couple of weeks!!!!! So cool. Also, Rosa (from Alicante) talked to me this last week, and they have gone to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. SO COOL. I love this work. I´m so glad I get to be a missionary. It´s easily one of the best things I have been able to do. Thank you for all of the support and love that you give me. Thank you all for making it a great day to be a missionary. 

Elder Weenig

 Birdseye view of Benalmádena and Fuengirola

Really cool church in Ronda. 

Some of the most AMAZING architecture that I´ve seen. Highlight is the Ronda bridge, which is essentially this enormous bridge spanning a chasm in between the two sides of the town. 

With Elder Fife, my companion, and Hermana Nielson, a senior missionary serving in the office with us. 

Benalmádena and Sushi

This last week was great.

So to give you a brief overview of what the general office day looks like, I will show you what it means to work as an oficinista.

Normally, we get up, exercise, and get ready and head over to the office. We work there in a nice, air conditioned unit, for the morning and into the afternoon, and at two o clock, we go to lunch and studies. We study until about five o clock and then we go out to proselyte. We´re really trying to push this schedule to work consistently so that we can transform our area. The area in which we are working, we are restarting. So it´s a great opportunity to grow. It reminds me a lot of the situation that we were in in La Línea. It´s not a very easy start, but we´re seeing a lot of miracles. 

I think that the biggest miracle that we saw this week happened with a woman named Eva. As the office missionaries, we attend the international English branch. We were sitting there in Gospel principles class when a Norwegian lady walked in. She looked a little confused, but quickly introduced herself as Eva. She had met a couple of sister missionaries on her way back from Salt Lake City. She had been there for a conference, and loved Utah. She felt like the people there were some of the best that she had ever known. She loved the way they acted towards her, and had really felt something important while she was there. She felt like someone had guided her to Utah. So when she got back to Benalmádena (which is where she lives), she decided that rather than going to the beach on Sunday, she was going to go to church. When she came, she had an incredible experience. She told us that she loved it and was very willing to listen. We told her that we would stop by on Thursday. Wednesday night came around, and Elder Fife and I still did not have anyone with whom we could visit her. It´s a rule as missionaries that we can´t visit single women unless there is another male present. That night, we were talking with President Deere. When we told him that we did not have anyone with whom we could visit her, he volunteered to come along and that he would bring Hermana Deere. It was very cool. It´s not very often that we get to teach with our mission president and wife. They teach very well. We talked about baptism with Eva, and she told us that she would need time, but she really wants to know.

After the lesson, President and Hermana Deere took us out for Sushi. It was my first time ever having Sushi, and really, it wasn´t until we were there that I realized that I am completely incompetent at using chopsticks. Fortunately, the Deeres were nice enough to help me figure out how to use them to eat sushi. It was really good, super good.

Anyway, this week has taught me a lot about how much God is able to help us. In the office, we have almost no time to proselyte. But fortunately, we have the power of God on our side who really is willing to help us see miracles, but we have to be willing to put forth the effort. We really are so fortunate. We have seen so many blessings here, and I can´t wait to see what else we will experience. Because, it really is a great day to be a missionary.

I love you all,

Elder Weenig

Castillo de Benalmadena. Benalmadena is our area

Castillo de Benalmadena. Benalmadena is our area

Sushi with President and Hermana Deere