Feliz Año Nuevo!

Happy New Year!

Spain welcomes in the New Year with grapes. Traditionally, as the bells are sounding in the last twelve seconds of the old year, you eat a grape each time that the bell sounds. So for the last bit of 2014, we were eating twelve grapes with a bell keeping time. It was fantastic. 

A couple of cool miracles from this week. Almost a month ago, we stopped a woman in the street, and asked her if she would like to hear a message about Jesus Christ. She said yes, gave us her address and phone number, but ever since then, we haven´t been able to get in contact with her. We have passed by a number of times, but she´s never been able to meet. One day last week, I was on an exchange with another elder in our district, and we knocked on her door, and her husband answered. He let us in, and we started talking about what we do as missionaries and talked about how families can be eternal. The son and the father listened and at the end told us that we could definitely come back. They seem like they have a LOT of potential.

This last week was fast and testimony meeting for our ward. One recent convert and one less active girl that we have been working with got up to bear their testimonies. One, Dana, is from Romania, and is a CHAMPION. She is the only member in her family and has to shoulder a lot of the responsibility that a sixteen year old girl should never have to deal with. She is inspiring. She got up and bore her testimony and it was so simple and sincere that you could just feel the love that she felt for the gospel and how much it has changed her life. The other girl, Valentina, is great. She stopped us in a locutorio (telephone/internet store) about two months ago and asked if we were from the Mormon church. We told her that we were missionaries, and she told us that she was a member! We were a little shocked, but it turns out that she had gotten baptized when she was nine, but she hadn´t come to church since. We´ve been meeting with her since and have been encouraging her to come back to church. She really is amazing. Her mom doesn´t think much of the church, but she comes anyway. She was really afraid to bear her testimony, but I told her that it would be my last testimony meeting in Alicante, and that she needed to, and thankfully she did. Really powerful experience to hear someone that has been away from the church testify about how much happiness the church really does bring.

It´s been a very good week. I´ve learned a lot about perseverance. Sometimes it seems impossible to keep going with a smile on our face and a really cheery attitude. But the important thing that we always need to remember to is keep going. To endure to the end, even though it may seem impossible. God asks us to do impossible things at times. But through him, all things become possible. And if we keep that in mind, our trials and obstacles that we have to confront become more bearable. The problems that we have seem smaller. We just have to keep an eternal perspective. It´s hard, but when we have that mindset, we become so much more capable and so much more ready to confront life´s challenges. The mission has taught me that more than anything. We may never know why we have a specific set of challenges, but if we do our best to overcome them, God will help the impossible become possible.

I love you all. Thanks for all of the support that you give to me. I love and miss you all a lot, but I love being a missionary and I love Spain, the Spanish language, and the culture that it here. I am so lucky to be serving in Spain. 

It´s a great day to be a missionary!

Elder Weenig

New proselyting clothes :) These were cool. Traditional Spanish suits. Each of them about $1000 each. (No worries, just looking, no buying) :D

Us just about to eat the grapes on New Years. 

This was Christmas Eve night, the family we ate with are awesome. They are from Brazil. 

Aaaand this was on our way up to the castle on our last pday.

Christmas!

I think hands down, the best part of this last week was getting to talk to my family. You all look so good, and really, it was the BEST Christmas gift ever. I love you all a lot. Really, being in Spain for Christmas puts things into perspective as to why Christmas is so important. Really, being with family on Christmas is the best, so, treasure it while you have the opportunity.

Alicante is good. Things have gotten COLD! Really, really cold. It´s crazy to think that only a month and a half ago, we couldn´t sleep without cranking up the air conditioning to full blast. But it is very, very humidly cold here. 

Christmas here in Spain is pretty similar to the United States. Generally, people celebrate Christmas Eve as a large event, and then they have their large Christmas meal on Christmas day during mediodia. We were invited to eat at a Brazilian family´s home. They are really cool to talk to, because both the mother and the daughter have both served missions. The daughter actually just got back from serving her mission in Madrid, and they give us lots of advice and tell us a lot of very cool stories. We loved spending Christmas Eve with them. We had four other elders come and stay in our piso during Christmas, which was great, because it felt a lot more like having family over for Christmas. 

The rest of this week has been very calm. A lot of people here in Spain take vacations this week, so we have been able to find more people at home, and have been able to teach using the message of Christmas. We use the He is the Gift video a LOT here, because Christmas time doesn´t end for Spain until January 6th, which is the day of the Three Kings. We get to keep sharing the message of Christ's birth up until the first week in January. It´s awesome.

We had a very cool experience yesterday with a man named Antonio. Antonio is investigating the church, and he really, really loves the feeling that he gets when he comes to church, but he wasn´t sure about how he felt joining our church. We read through part of Alma 32, and talked a lot about faith. Alma compares the faith that we need to a seed. We really only need to exercise a tiny particle of faith so that God can bless us. There really isn´t much more to it. Even if we have a difficult time believing that we can believe something, or that our testimony is struggling, we just need to exercise a particle of faith. God doesn´t ask us to do something huge just to get a response. He just asks for us to exercise our faith, no matter how small it is. Our question for Antonio yesterday was how could he show faith in God, how could he exercise his faith. He thought about it for a little while then said, "Praying and reading the book of Mormon, I guess". Which is so true. It may seem small and a Sunday school answer, but what we know is that God works by small and simple means. In a recent conference talk, Elder Bednar describes revelation in two ways: as the sunrise and as a light switch coming on. He says that more often that not, it is the former form of revelation that we receive most often. We learn precept on precept, rather than all at once. Our trials of faith are the small actions that we do to receive revelation. We exercise faith, regardless of how small it may be, and we will see the results. I know in my mission, I´ve had to put my trust in God in a lot of things, from learning the language to going forward even though it is very, very difficult. But, the small actions we do, regardless of how small they may seem, truly do make a difference. They are what make up our ´sunrise´. And if we can learn to trust in him, and if we can learn that God really does respond to our prayers, we can get the responses that we are looking for. If we ask in faith, God will respond. It's a principle that has guided our church since its beginning. The restoration started with someone asking in faith. 

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I love you all.Thanks for all that you do for me, I love you all more than I can say. I really, really do. It´s really true that there´s no place like home for the holidays, but I am so glad I am out here. It is amazing, being a missionary.

And really, it´s a great day to be a missionary!

Elder Weenig

The Best Gift

Merry Christmas!

This last week has been AMAZING. For the majority of this week, we have been preparing Rosa, one of our investigators for baptism. She is a very amazing lady, and I think I talked about her a little bit before. She is from Bulgaria, and she has a lot of faith. Because of the language barrier it was very hard for us to communicate our message to her at first, but as time went on, she started reading from the Book of Mormon (in Bulgarian), and she started to really show how much faith and desire to learn that she really does have. Our last lesson with her before her baptism was amazing. She talked about Nephi and building the ship and how he was willing to do what his brothers were not. She really knows and feels that this Gospel is true. The day of her baptism was amazing. Really, a gift just to be there. Her family came out to support her, and she kept telling us how nervous, but excited she was to get baptized. I remember walking down into the fount and realizing how big of a moment this was for her. She was just about to change her life, and completely become a new person. Literally, in a matter of seconds, she was about to become a spiritually reborn person. It was amazing. Unfortunately, her dress was very loose, and I ended up having to baptize her four times before she got completely submerged. She joked about how now, she is EXTRA clean from her previous life, and that I got a lot of practice for my next baptism. She's great. We had our first recent convert lesson with her, and she was telling us about how she felt, when she received the gift of the Holy Ghost after her baptism, that a weight was lifted off of her. She is so much happier now, and has so much confidence in herself and in her faith. It is a miracle, and our own little Christmas miracle that we've gotten to enjoy here in Alicante. 

Also, today we found out who our next mission president and wife will be....drum roll please....DarVel and Marilyn Anderson, from Blackfoot, Idaho! They sound great and still have a while before they get here, because President and Hermana Deere will finish in July. 

We're really excited about this upcoming week, with Christmas! It's very different to see Christmas without the mountains covered in snow, or just no snow in general. It has been pretty cold, which is so different from when I first got here. But we've noticed how great the message of the gospel ties into the message of Christmas. God loved us, so he sent his son, and approximately 1820 years later, he restored his church so that people everywhere can be happy. It's really the same message. God loves us. He wants our happiness and is so willing to make us happy, we just have to be receptive to him. But his son really is the best gift he could ever give us. He really is the best gift. A gift of unconditional love, and unconditional sacrifice. During this time, it's such an opportunity to remember him. Remember what he's done for us and remember why He did what He did. 

This Gospel is amazing. Share it with someone today, because it will really change their life and I know that it will make them happy. That's the purpose of the Gospel, and with God as its founder, it can make every person happy, if they choose to let it into their life. 

Thank you all for all that you do, I love you so, so, so much! 

IT'S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig

Rosa's Baptism,-- Me, Rosa, and Elder Sharp

Rosa's family and friends

The Worth of Souls

This week has been a great experience. It´s really changed my perspective on a lot of things that before the mission I hadn´t even thought about. Before the mission, I had thought a lot about how everyone has their own divine destiny-mission, but I hadn´t really considered what that means. That everyone, EVERYONE, has a divine purpose here on the earth.  For that reason, we need to try and help every single person try and reach that divine potential.

This last week, Rosa fully committed to be baptized this Saturday. Her conversion story is really special to me because she is a completely new person through knowing the Gospel. When we would go over to teach her mother, she would sit in the back of the room, and didn´t interact. She is from Bulgaria, so we figured that she didn´t understand the questions.  One day we decided to start asking her more questions and seeing what she thought about what we were teaching.  When we did, she began to change. She began to respond when we asked questions.  She started to get more engaged. It turned out, she speaks Spanish very well, and only needed a little bit of help to get started.  Her confidence started to grow. When she started to read the Book of Mormon, she changed.  If I could see the before and after personality of Rosa, it would be hard to tell that she is the same person. She has completely changed, and all for the better. The Gospel changes people. She has gotten more confidence through it, and has really started to realize her potential. 

This experience that has really made me think about the worth of souls. In D&C 18:10, it says that the worth of souls is GREAT in the sight of God.  It doesn´t specify which souls are great, and which are not.  It just says that unconditionally, universally, and without anything held back,  God loves all his children and recognizes their divine worth and potential.  For us, that should be motivation enough to want to give them the good news of the gospel.  Maybe it doesn´t even have to be a huge act of kindness.  All it has to be is an act of sincere, loving desire to help someone.  Because once we truly recognize every soul as something precious and as someone unique, we start to see them as our Heavenly Father sees them. 

So go out and makes someone´s day.  Make somebody smile, and try and lift someone.  Small things can make a big difference in the lives of others. 

Anyway, I love you all. Thank you so much for all that you do, and thanks for all of the support that you have given me. 

IT´S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig

An Alicantine Christmas

Merry Christmas! We still have a couple of weeks, but this is by far my favorite time of the year, so I feel like you can never wish somebody a merry Christmas too many times.

I will be spending Christmas in Alicante! I´m pretty happy about that, I will be spending one more transfer here in Alicante with Elder Sharp.

So. Alicante in winter time is COLD. It doesn´t snow, but it will get to where we have to wear coats. It has suddenly dropped from being hot almost 24/7, to being cold. The temperature is actually pretty moderate, but the humidity makes it freezing. We are loving the change. It has been a great week.

Rosa is getting baptized! We were a little worried about her at first, but she has come to church on her own and is getting very excited about her baptism. She is from Bulgaria, and is loving the gospel. Her mom, Mina, got baptized a few months back, and we have been working with Rosa preparing her for baptism. We are very excited. 

Antonio is another investigator that we have been working with. He is pretty amazing, because he contacted us on the street and asked if we could talk a little bit about our religion with him. We have been meeting with him, and he is progressing well. He has met with missionaries before and knows a lot about our church. 

Trinidad is a Spanish lady who was introduced to us by a member. She is very prepared. She is reading the Book of Mormon, and is loving it. She works on Sunday, and when we asked her to come to church, she said that she would ask her boss if she could change the schedule on Sunday so that she would be able to attend. Her boss let her. She is so willing to change her life so that she can learn more about the gospel, and we are very lucky to know her. She asked us to give a blessing to her son, who was having nightmares, and after we had given the blessing, she told us that her son´s nightmares went away. 

Yesterday, we were going over to a Family Home Evening with a woman named Maricarmen in our ward. Usually, it is her, her son, and her son´s friend that are over when we are teaching them. We had planned to show them the ¨He is the Gift¨ video, and talk about the Christmas season. As we got to their door, we heard a LOT of voices inside. As we walked in, we saw a family that we had just barely shown the video two a couple of nights prior, along with other members that we had shown the movie to. Maricarmen had invited over for to listen to us. We realized very quickly we had to share something else. We pulled out a scripture from section 121 of Doctrine and Covenants that talks about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail. It talks about the perseverance that we need to have throughout life, because we will pass through problems and trials, and we may not know why. All we really can do, is pray to God that He will deliver us from our situation that we are in. We didn´t realize it until about halfway through the lesson, but that was a perfect theme for the family that was there. The parents have been waiting years to finally get the paperwork to get married, still have to wait for reasons outside of their control. They are such amazing examples of persevering. They haven´t been baptized yet, but will the second the paperwork comes through and they are allowed to finally get married. It was a testimony to me about how God really will fill our mouths, all we have to do is open them.

It´s been a great week. We have a lot to be grateful for. We have been working our hardest. I feel like I´ve worked the hardest I ever have in my entire life. Sometimes I feel like we will never feel fully rested as a missionary. We are ALWAYS doing something. Which is something incredible about the missionary program. Elder Sharp and I were talking about it the other day. We thought that logically, the missionary program shouldn´t work. A bunch of 18-25 year old kids voluntarily going out, living on their own and teaching other people and changing lives. It shouldn´t work, but it does. That´s what is so miraculous about this work. It really is a marvelous work and a wonder. I have a testimony of this work and I am so happy to be doing this with my life right now. It is such an amazing experience. We get to daily see how people change their lives. And I think that the people who change the most are the missionaries, because as we help other come unto Christ, we learn how to do it ourselves. 

I love this! Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers. 

IT¨S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig

 The sunrise from our apartment.

 Made my first tortilla de patatas

My second cousin, Hermana Brown!  Serving in the same mission.

Our thanksgiving dinner as a zone

Filling the Chapel

I love being a missionary. I really, really do. There are times when we are walking and we are tired, hungry, and discouraged, but after we work through those times and we get to appreciate the good times. I love being a missionary, it is one of the best things that I have ever done in my life. We see little miracles daily that make all of the hard work worth it. 

So this last week, we had a week of getting people to Sacrament Meeting. We set our goals, and decided we were going to try and get as many investigators as we could in church. We worked out every way possible that we were going to do it and decided to pray and trust that God would do the rest. Sunday came around and it was raining, hard. I was worried because we were going to pick one of our investigators up to take her to church and was worried she might not come because of the rain. We get to her house and she walked down the stairs with an umbrella and rain boots, completely ready to come to church. Her name is Rosa, and she is awesome. She´s from Bulgaria, and she is getting baptized the twentieth of this month. So we get to the chapel and we are a little disappointed because nobody else had showed up. We sat down up front, and sat through meeting. When we stood up, we saw that two of our investigators had walked in late, Tekki, with her family, and Preston, an investigator from Nigeria. It was amazing. On top of that, Susannah, a less active member that we have been working with to come to church came! She came with her son, Pedrito, who always gives us drawings. It was incredible. 

Henry is a machine. He is another one of our investigators who will be baptized on the twentieth. He is AMAZING: He loves the gospel, and is incredibly prepared. We just got out of a lesson with him, and he is just amazing. 

We had Thanksgiving this week. Thanksgiving is not commonly celebrated in Spain, but we got together as a zone and made our own little Thanksgiving. Elder Sharp and I invited the other Elders over to our piso and we made food as well. (Actually, it was mostly Elder Sharp doing the cooking. I was very impressed, but cannot cook to save my life). It was really fun, but it also gave us time to think about what we are grateful for, and it helped me realize how much we have been blessed. We get two years that we get to spend in Spain and we get to do it in the best way possible. We get to tell people about a message that brings happiness. I cannot think of a better way to spend my time. I love being a missionary. This work is really the best way to find happiness. One of my favorite quotes is ¨The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others¨ (Gandhi). I believe missionary work is exactly that. Losing ourselves in the service of others, and by so doing, finding ourselves and our own testimonies as well.

I love being out here. It is incredible. I know that this church is true and that this is the path that leads to happiness in our lives. It is what brings LASTING happiness for everyone and I am so glad I get to share it with all of my brothers and sisters in Spain. 

IT´S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig

Carpe Diem

I love being a missionary. To be a missionary during this time is one of the greatest blessings we could have. We have such a great opportunity to know about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In no other time in history has knowledge like this been available to so many people. I cannot describe how grateful I am to have had it in my life. It is one of the greatest blessings I have, and I have seen it bless so many other lives. I love this work, and I am so grateful I have this opportunity to serve. 

Thanksgiving. Not a thing in Spain, but we as a zone have decided to celebrate it. We are getting together tomorrow to have a big meal and eat as much as we can.  But really, we do have so much to be grateful for in our lives. We get to be in SPAIN. And in Alicante of all places. It is amazing here. 

This last week was great, but it was also difficult in the sense that we lost one of our really good investigators. Antonio, with whom we had a baptismal date, doesn't live in our area or in our ward boundaries, so we gave him to the Elders of the other ward. Tekki, who was going to be baptized last week, was unable to because of problems with her parents. Her baptism has been postponed indefinitely. Which is tough, but I know that after the trials come the blessings. Because this week we set two new baptismal dates with two incredibly prepared investigators, Rosa and Henry. They are AWESOME!!!! Rosa is the daughter of a recent convert named Mina. She, at the beginning of our time teaching them, stuck to the back of the lesson, and generally didn't participate. But now, when we decided to try and start to work with her specifically, she really has turned into a golden investigator. We are so lucky to have her, because she has Mina supporting her, and has a lot of faith. She is from Bulgaria, and has a lot of desires to do what is right. I can't wait to see how she progresses.

Henry is a reference from a member and is the single most prepared person for baptism on the face of the earth. We started talking to him, and he has already been coming to institute at the church for a while now, and loves coming to church. He told us that there, he can feel peace. He also said he loved how no one compels him to be at the chapel, but he feels like he should go. He is awesome. He committed to baptism in the first lesson, and we are definitely going to see miracles with him.

Our mission this last week had the privilege of hearing from Elder Kearon, one of the seventy. While he was here, he talked a lot about how we need to be taking advantage of our lives. How we need to utilize every moment of our missions because we have so little time. And it is so true! How many times a day do we just sit and let moments pass us by? We could be out working miracles in the lives of others, but sometimes we choose to do the easy thing and let opportunities pass us by. We need to 'CARPE DIEM' or 'Seize the Day'. Every day, we need to decide for ourselves that we are going to make this day an effective day, that we are going to take advantage of every moment so that we can progress. Time is so valuable, in fact, I think it is the most valuable resource that we waste. What we need to do is DO! Do something, don't hesitate because you feel too tired or you'll just do it later. If you don't do it now, you never will. I needed that. I know that too often I have let too many moments pass by without utilizing them to the best of my ability. That's also not to say that we need to be going 100 percent all of the time. We need breaks. We need to take a step back and make sure that we aren't burning out. I guess my point is is that we need to be the best we can be. That's what the Gospel is all about. being the best we can be through Christ. And I know that's what he wants for us. He wants us to become perfect, and we can show that we are willing to follow him by trying everyday. While Elder Kearon was here, I had the opportunity to be chosen to have an interview with him. He is an incredible person. When I am older, I want to have that sort of presence. He is really, an incredible person. I learned a lot from him as well. He taught me the importance of how we start our days. If we surrender the morning to the snooze button, we have already lost our first battle of the day. Paraphrase, but that's what one of his key messages was. It was a very amazing experience, and I feel very blessed to have been a part of it. 

I love this Gospel. It is one of the things in my life that can ALWAYS bring me happiness. I cannot even describe to you how much I have been able to learn from this opportunity. I have grown to love the scriptures. They are such a source of power, and combined with prayer, they can and will carry us through trials. God knows us. He knows us individually and knows our infinite worth and divine potential. At times, it may not seem that way. It may seem that we have not worth, and that basically, we are stunted in our progress. But I know that He sees us in a way that we cannot. He sees us for what we can be, the finished product, and that is why he will NEVER give up on us, even when we do.  

I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers. I cannot describe how grateful I am for this experience. It is one that has and will continue to change my life. Anyone who is considering a mission, it is amazing. I would suggest it to anyone who has the desire because it will make you a better person and will make you come closer to our Savior.

IT'S A GREAT DAY TO BE A MISSIONARY!

Elder Weenig

There is somewhat of an fantastic story behind this picture. This is President and Hermana Deere, and the rest of my travel group from the MTC. Funny story. Getting here, we all took a picture at the airport. We were all really happy about it until we noticed one thing: every single one of our cameras had taken a blurry picture. We were all pretty sad, but fortunately, when we all went in to Fuengirola to get Spanish residency, it was President Deere's birthday. We all went out to Subway, and decided to take advantage of the situation and re enact our coming into the airport. The background looks nothing like an airport. And that would be correct. We are in a mall, standing in front of a screen that has a soccer game going on. But hey. We got the picture :)