Greeter Falls

Greeter Falls.  It was pretty wimpy today.

Glen was baptized today!

 Elder Overfield is on the left ( loved that he could come back for it!), Glen, and Elder Majzer and me on the bottom.

June 20, 2016


Chapter 47:  Here, There and Just About Everywhere!

This week was so huge there's not even room for a clever intro!

Monday we went to Greeter Falls. Elder Majzer never did get the chance to go. The waterfall was pretty weak because it hasn't rained in awhile. The first time was the best. That's usually how it goes. People where swimming to and going crazy so it wasn't as peaceful. Later Monday night we saw Glen and Terri really quick and we high tailed it to Monteagle for our blitz with Jasper and Winchester. I got to go down with my Winchester buds. Tuesday was a rough day during the morning. Tracked in the heat which wasn't so bad but the sweat was. It was nice because it rained on us halfway through. But later in the evening we had a member exchange and I took off with Elder McFarland to visit a girl named Danielle. This would have been her third visit. As I walked into the home the spirit was present but gradually grew and hit me like a ton of bricks! This girl shared her amazing story of her life and her struggle to find God and be right with him. She repeated to us many times how she felt different, but right around us. She kept on saying 'right' as in everything about us meeting and what we were saying was right. We taught the plan of salvation but went off on a spiritual tangent when we reached the part of the lesson talking about the atonement. She began to tear up and said she knew that was true. This whole time I was shocked. I never had a lesson like this before in my life. But the best part was yet to come. The member we had with us for some reason kept mentioning baptism. Baptism baptism baptism. Over and over! So I thought about it and I showed Elder McFarland the calendar. I said how about July 16th? He whole heartedly agreed. As we invited she said, yes that is what I need. That is what's missing. Of course I would. 

From this lesson I learned two things. 

1st - God will and is preparing his children to receive this gospel message.

2nd - don't be afraid to talk about baptism.

Wednesday we had district meeting which is always good. I hen got to head off to Pikeville with Elder Neyman on another exchange. I feel for those guys. Pikeville is like Altamonts brother. But the issue is their area is in a major gospel drought. As in nobody is interested. But we had an awesome time. Still did some great work. 

Friday we had to head up to Nashville because I had to meet with a mission doctor but on the way home we saw some really cool stuff like the Parthenon in Centennial Park. It's bigger on the inside then you think. But we had some real good food as well that day. But the best part of the whole week was seeing Glen baptized on Saturday. He was just so happy to have this day finally come. It seems like everything went the way we had planned it too. I know God had a hand on that one. It was real good also to see Elder Overfield again. I am just so happy I can't put it into words. I remember when I first came out I had a goal of finding somebody and teaching them and seeing them be baptized. Just one person. I have been able to see this with Glen now. My goal is full filed, now it's time to exceed it. 

I am happy I have had this chance to write again. I am enjoying my final days in Altamont. My suspicions are that I will leave finally at the end of this transfer which is in two weeks. I have been here for a total of 7 months. If I stay I will be very shocked. 

Love y'all, take care and remember who you are and what you stand for.

Sure love ya, so does Jesus 

Elder Weight

 

Upper Falls

Blue Hole

Some gnarly big spiders...

Elder Majzer and me

"It is impossible for us to fail as we give our best and as we are in the service of the Lord."-M. Russell Ballard

The Parthenon in Nashville

Had to get me some chicken and waffles!

Add caption

June 13, 2016


Subject: Chapter 46: Livin La Vida Espiritual

Hey howdy hey! 

This week was pretty cool. Good stuff happened here, there and everywhere. 

To start the week off we had exchanges with one of the district leaders in our zone. They are both Spanish speaking. I was able to take Elder Bayles back to Altamont and do our thing. saw Glen and Terri again. This time we talked a great deal about the baptism itself and also about his goal to take Terri to the temple. He is super giddy about the 18th. He just wants to be a member already. I love Glen. It's people like Glen that make the rough times of missionary work worth it. Tuesday was a pretty tough day. Tracey City is not showing to many fruits yet if you catch my drift. (Nobody wants to listen.) Spent half the day there and didn't have to much luck. Our one real investigator we have there was real sick and couldn't have us come. Agh! We tried our luck in Monteagle and had better luck down there. We had a lesson that made me want to pull my hair out to a degree. We have been teaching Blake and he knows a ton about everything. So when we would tell him a single principle he would over complicate it. So when we tried to explain things as simply as humanly possible he told us we needed to make it more simple. Again, agh! That moment when you try to explain something so easy and they still don't get it. But in the end he finally did get it. Thank heavens. Later we got to eat dinner at the ward mission leaders house and train him a little bit more. Wednesday we went to Shelbyville to take back Elder Bayles and go to their district meeting. It was about planning and goal setting. Very good. Later went to Wendy's. Always good. After that we saw Audrey. We were worried because her date is coming up and she hasn't been taught everything still and she hasn't been keeping all her commitments. Also Amber, our other date wasn't either. We were pretty worried about them but it changed around. I'll tell you in a second.  After an eventful Thursday of going back to a lady who speaks in tongues and seeing Glen once more, we come to the weekend. Friday we saw Audrey at the local service station. She had read the chapter we had left her and it made sense to her and she was planning on reading more later! Yes! She also was planning on coming to church the next week again to! Yes again! But the craziest part was with Amber. Bro and Sis. Fults bro her to church again and there was a little girls baptism right afterwards. We went to it to see what she thought. After the baptism, her first comment was " it's not as deep as I thought it was." But after we had a lesson at the Fults home with amber there and she said she was ready and wanted to move the baptism to an earlier date😮😯😧. That's a first. As much as we wanted to agree we told her that first there are some things we need to teach you and things we need you to do before hand. She agreed and said she'd leave the date for now. She committed to finish the lessons and read the book of Mormon and pray. She said she made a point to do it every night for an hour. Holy cow! I think the spirit hit her on the head like a sack of hammers or something! She 180'd after the baptism. She wasn't really going anywhere before hand and now she wants it bad! Long story short, if possible, take investigators to baptisms! 

So after that long email I hope you enjoyed, I just want to say one word...

Magical. Indeed this week was magical. We can recount the Many blessings God's giving to us this week. Thank you Lord. Amen hallelujah. Well I should also have plenty of things to write about his coming week. Our calendar is stacked with events. 

To close I will offer this simple testimony and quote from the prophet.

"There is no tomorrow (or yesterday) to remember if we don't do something today..."-President Thomas S. Monson 

I agree. I testify that this church and mainly gospel can change lives and attitudes and people. I have been blessed to see the change in many who at first were nothing more to me then random strangers but have become some of my dearest friends and heroes. God changes people. He does every day. We can always change for the better. I know this to be true. I remember all y'all and pray for ya. Hope y'all can feel the love. 

Keep it classy, keep it real,

Sure love ya,

Elder Weight

 

Me and the presidency

McTown zone represent!

MLC

Some things never die.#thebeach ( me and Elder Richins at the mission home)

June 6, 2016

Chapter 45:  A Week's Worth of Adventures

This week has so much stuff crammed into it it was unreal! To make this easy to comprehend I will do it by days of the week.

Monday: Monday was pretty mellow actually. I spent the day trying to finish up painting the bathroom. Man I forgot how much I dislike painting. Got most of it done though so cool cool.

Tuesday: Tuesday we had MLC so the day consisted of driving all over the state of Tennessee. We loaded up at about six and made it to Shelbyville to meet up with the STLs. We then carpooled from there all the way to Brentwood (Nashville). We got to get mission home early. We waited and watched all my buds walk in. Got to see alot of people that I came out with there. But I got to see Elder Richins for the last time. His whole zone is being taken over by the Knoxville mission so we loose a good chunk of the mission. Last time I will get to see a lot of friends I made at the beginning. Hopefully I'll still be able to see ya, Mickey. Anyway we had a lot of awesome trainings. We learned new things, spirit was strong, they fed us breakfast and dinner, hey, what more can you ask for? After a long day of spiritual overdrive we got on the road back to home but we had Elder Danielson with us(AP) so it made for a tight squeeze in the back of the sisters Carolla. We stopped and ate a Chinese buffet in Tullahoma. It wasn't good. You know it's not good food when you say" I've had worse" while your eating it. You shouldn't have to say that in any restaurant! Anyway we talked to the girl that worked there and got a referral for the Tullahoma elders. We got home at 9 so we planned and went to sleep.

Wednesday: We had interviews with President Andersen one final time. That took up the whole morning. It was cool because president and sister Andersen signed my poster. I sure will miss them. But at about 12 we had three elders with us instead of me and Elder majzer. We had Elder Danielson and Winchester elders. Their ride didn't come til 4 so we went on a blitz. Elder majzer and Davis went to teach Audrey and me and Elder Danielson and McFarland went on an adventure that ultimately led to me having to use the bathroom at a service station because of the Chinese buffet the night before. Then we sent the winchester elders on their way and went to stake correlation. All in all the day flew by.

Thursday: we had our zone meeting. All the trainings were real good. Mine was on faith. It went good I think. Everyone said I went Baptist for a little but but hey as long as I got the point across. Right after zone meeting I ventured down to McMinnville with Elder Barrus for another exchange. McMinnville was huge to me. Even though it only has 13,000 people it's still big compared to 1,500 in Altamont. We bashed with alot of people there who were mainly old guys. But we did have some good lessons in the end. 

Friday: Weekly planning. Then we went to go visit people. Finally! Made up for lost time figuring the week. 

Saturday: Our one real day of pure work. Alot of people weren't home which is ironic.  Best part of the day was teaching Glen. He is so ready to do this thing! Pray he gets feeling well so he can be baptized! 12 more days! Heat lesson was awesome. We let the spirit take over and by the end they were in tears. Not by anything we said but because of the strong testimony his wife had. Her saying she new it was true touched everyone in that room. I couldn't ask for a better lesson.

Sunday: Church. Spent most of the time training our new ward mission leader. He is gonna be on top of things. Yes! Not many people at church this week. Not sure what happened. We did have James and Ruby Hobbs come again so Woo-hoo! We spent most of the day with Brent visiting all sorts of people. 

Boy did we get worked! The week flew by so fast it's not funny. That quote is right when it says the greatest secret to missionary work is work. When you've got your head in the game and not off in the sidelines it makes the time go by fast but more importantly it's more enjoyable. I believe the most profound thing I have learned this week has been this. Sometimes when we try and share the gospel with people we have this mindset that if we don't share it we are their in your hope and if we fail they will be cast into outer darkness. But that's not the case. God will give them many chances to here it. Everybody will. While being a missionary to all is a commandment it should be drudgery. It's a privilege. We should be happy doing it. As we share what makes us truly happy we can see others share jn that joy. That should be want gives us joy, seeing others happy. I know that as we freely give of our time to share God will freely gives blessings to us. I know it and u have seen it. Give it a try. You never know what could happen because of a good deed done today.

Sure love ya,

Elder Weight

 

May 30, 2016

Chapter 44: Remember the Vets

To all people that are reading this email.

Sorry it is late and short. We had quite the day doing all sorts of chores and what not. This coming week is going to be crazy! We have all sorts of exchanges and zone meeting and MLC and interviews and etc... So I will have a lot to write about this coming week. This week was pretty good. Got to do service for a widow in the ward. We put a roof on her house. I can say is am a real redneck now. My neck is baked from sunburn. The best part of it was we finally set a date for Glen to be baptized! June 28th. That makes me so happy. His wife is super giddy for that day. He told her one day heat he was going to get baptized and as soon as he could he would take her to the temple. That is a blessing that I will always be thankful for, to see the creation of an eternal family. It's a true honor to be a witness of that. We also found a guy named Mike who is really sincere in learning. He has had three strokes and I think that has humbled him to rely on God. But he is awesome. I'll tell you more about him later on. Well I love y'all so much. I have got a testimony of this church. I know it's true. Never forget that. 

See y'all later,

Elder Weight

(shout out to all of our past on veterans)

Someone's artwork on the road.

Our district. Elder Hagan is dying tomorrow.

Some spider on our house. Don't worry I killed it.

May 23, 2016

Chapter 43: Git 'er Dun‏

Hey y'all,

Sorry that this is coming a little late, we've had a busy day. I've spent most if it repainting our bathroom. It was nasty so I've been revamping it. I'm still working at it so this one is gonna be short.

This week has been pretty good. We had a good exchange this week with Pikeville. I got to work Altamont with Elder Shank. The pest part about the whole week is that we set a baptism date with Audrey! She's awesome guys. She is being way prepared. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to come to church this week because she was deathly sick, but she said she would try to make it the following week. Cool cool. We didn't have as many investigators come to church this week but we are working on a lot of the ones that did come. We are trying to help Glen be baptized. He said he wanted to and afterwards he was gonna take his wife to the temple. But he is stuck in the hospital again. Hopefully he will heal up so he can be ready for this! I know he is prepared! Lots of prayers are gonna be offered from me on this guy's behalf. He is a rare case. We sure love him. We have been doing good here in Altamont. We got transfer calls and I'm staying again. I feel like I pretty much live here now. Haha. But it's all good. Love this place. Well I've got to go but I sure love ya! Keep on keepin! 

Love,

Elder Weight