:D

So first off, we always ask members if there's any kind of service that we can help them with, and of course whenever anyone asks me what I did back home, the only thing that really stands out, if at all, is photography. We had a member ask me if I could borrow her camera and take pictures of a family for her. Then, she wanted me to do their family as well, and I've gotten them done, and now they kindly told another family that what I say at the dinner table is actually truthful and they want me to do their family pictures too. Of course, I make sure to not do it for too long, like 45 minutes a family. And on days that dont mean much for missionary work. I do love it though, and it makes me all sorts of excited to be able to have weight in my hands again. That, and a camera that zooms. :)

Anyway, I'm sending a couple pictures of the capital building that I took with that camera. One is from our apartment at sunrise. Another is later that day, after church, when the weather was getting funky.

the work was ok this week. I'm starting to get sick, which doesn't suprise me since there's been a ton of missionaries getting sick in our mission lately. It's quite unfortunate. It's just a cough, but it's wearing me out. We get home as soon as possible, plan really quick, and i crash until my Elder Stoker goes to bed, then he wakes me up and we do prayers. I'm gonna get a blessing today so that I can just get this thing knocked out quick. It's also making it hard to think of anything too exciting too.

It's weird that Elder Stoker is most likely going to be transferred in 2 weeks, because it means that we've been together for two and a half months alreaady! It's sooo crazy! Time is flying by way quick. I can't wait to kick this sickness in the butt and get back to work so that we can tear it up here in C town!

We had a good Thanksgiving, in that we ate at 3 different families homes, one of which was actually at a restuarant that their family owns, and there was like 40 people there. Also, each dinner appointment was like an hour and a half apart. I was stuffed. Could hardly walk. I have to say that it was thee most physically uncomfortable day of my mission thus far. It was all way good though, and I'm happy that we had a bit of a day off. Christmas is soon upon us, and it's going to be tough keeping the missionaries motivated during the holidays and with the cold weather coming as well. We'll keep it going strong though! :D

Love yall!

Elder Shain C Wiederholt

888 Oakwood Dr Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314

WE HAVE HAD AN AWESOME WEEK!!!!!!!!!!

It's really something that I needed. I was having a tough time for a couple weeks since we didn't have anyone to teach, but everything always seems to get better right on time. Unfortunately I wasn't in town for most of our finding, because we were on exchanges a couple times. When they found the most, I was in Beckley, WV helping them to set up a teaching pool of Less-Actives to work with. Although it was a super successful week, it was also a super stressful week. We had to arrange for the 27 missionaries in our zone to come into Charleston, including rides, places to sleep, food and places to go work for a couple hours each day. The reason being the whole mission came into Charleston to see Elder Neal L Anderson speak at Stake Conference. he spoke to just the missionaries for about 2 and a half hours, and it was great. We all got to go up and shake his hand and introduce ourselves. Over the course of the weekend, I got to meet him a couple different times. After the mission conference, we had to zoom back to our chuch building 25 miles away with 10 other missionaries in our Cargo Van(which the mission lent us for a couple days) in less than half an hour to get to our baptism on time. It went great! Sister Pitt and the sister missoinaries from Morgantown showed up randomly with an investigator and saw the baptism too. It was good to see them, since I came out with one of those sisters and havent really talked with her since. The baptism was way spiritual. His name is Lawson, and he's just 18. He was taught here by elder Stoker and Elder Jones, then moved up to Conneticut for school, where he continued taking the lessons, and flew down here for Thanksgiving and his Baptism. I hadn't even met him until that morning! Haha! Afterwards, we cleaned everything up, and got dinner. I'm pretty sure that we made Taco Bell's pay roll for the day.

After dinner, we dropped companionships on random streets to go knock doors, and we went and did some ourselves. We didn't do a whole lot, because we got let in on our first door. It was way cool to talk to someone that was as receptive as he was. We were in the same apartment complex as Charleston South, and they were let in on their first door as well. We went and picked up everyone after than, and 3 of the 4 companionships were let in, and all loaned out copies of the Book of Mormon to some people who were all super excited to have us come back. We're so thankful for those blessings. It's quite the miracle, truely.

We finished up the day by going to go see Elder Anderson once more, then went home. The next day we got up nice and early and picked everyone up in the Cargo van to go see Elder Anderson one last time. It was way cool just how strong the spirit was at each meeting, and the countenance that he had, even though he's just a regular guy. He was waaaaay funny! He kept joking with me and my companion because every time he spoke we somehow found some seats up in the front couple rows. He offered some awesome insight on how the stake can do better on different things, so we can get a temple out here. Hopefully someday, that's all I gotta say. If we could get all of Utah to move out here, then I think it would work well. It's sad because there's so much potential out here, but there's just an attiude of "we've already done that and it work this time" that must be in the water or something.

We've got a ton of appointments today, and we only get until noon for pday since we essentially are getting Thanksgiving off from how many meal appointments we have. I'm way stoked!! ;D

Love yall!

~Elder Shain C Wiederholt

888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310

Charleston, Wv 25314

Same old

Nothing too exciting going on. the only real exciting stuff is coming this saturday. Neal L Anderson of the Twelve Apostles is coming to Stake conference and the mission is all coming together for the first time in the mission's history. We're all really excited for it! He's going to be speaking to all the missionaries from 11-2pm, then Elder Stoker and I have a baptism at 2:30, about 30 miles away, so we're gonna be booking it. We'll be safe though, all is well. We're way excited for it all. Other than that we're staying way busy with going to district meetings and teaching the zone in smaller groups than the entire zone all at once. Needless to say, we've been traveling a ton and teaching other missionaries a ton as well. The only thing that stinks about that is that we sacrifice the time to find and teach people, so sometimes we feel bad that we're not seeing as much success as other missionaries. We're always trying though!

Other than that, we're not doing a whole lot since we dont have any real investigators. There was a guy whose in jail that asked the jail to get ahold of us for him. He's way solid. He told them that he didnt want to go to church at the church jail because they didnt have the proper authority. He's solid!

Love yall!

~Elder Wiederholt

888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314

Where's the mission going?

Time really feels like it's going by so quickly. This transfer has already started and it's already 1/6th of the way done. I'm almost at a year and two months. This is way crazy. Halloween is already past, and Thanksgiving and Christmas is just around the corner. But anyway, I'm not really trunky or anything. We've been having a tough time finding people, but we've still been teaching members quite a bit, so that's good. Today's been kind of a tough day where it seems like one thing after another is just going wrong, one small thing after another. But thankfully the scriptures save the day because in my reading of the Book of Mormon, I just happened to be reading in Alma 8, where Alma went to go teach in Ammonihah, and was cast out by the people. He was way down but was visited by an Angel who told him to be more positive, and to go back and work, and it really helped me. I don't usually write home about this kind of stuff, but I thought that it was kind of cool.

We're working hard since it's the beginning of the Transfer. Meetings and training going on for the next 2 or 3 weeks. Elder Neal L Anderson is coming on the 19th and 20th, and he's going to be speaking to the mission on the 19th. We're all way stoked for it. There's a new Assistant, Elder Hilton, who I've been around for most of my mission. Elder Moen, who was the last Assistant and my trainer, is now training once again up in Morgantown. Elder Ames, one of the other missionaries in our ward, is also training a brand new missionary from San Diego, he's pretty cool. They're getting along good so that's better than his last companion. Elder Stoker and I are together for at least one more. We'll see because he's starting to get a little bit older in the mission.

We were talking with some people at church yesterday. There's a couple of younger girls, around 9 and 13 years old I think. We were talking with the lady that brings them to church and we found out that they're not members, but their dad is Less Active. We were saying hi and introducing ourselves to them, and they didn't say a word, didnt smile, didnt look us in the eye. Maybe it's just me, but children have a certain light in their eye, and when it's not there it makes me just want to do what I can to help them to get it. Their names are Ariel and Storm. Not even kidding. The oldest is Storm, and apparently when she was born, there was a huge storm that came out of no where, so her parents named her Storm. She seems the most unhappy. Back home, I know that there would be people that would tell me to just mind my own business, and to leave them alone, but that's the problem with this world. No one cares enough to help each other out, and those kids are the ones that could be teaching my children in school someday, or leading the country I'm in, or pulling me over when I roll through a stop sign. I guess, it's just been bugging me since I met them, sorry for kind of rambling.

There's not a whole lot going on other than that. Just meetings and more missionary work. We're working hard and trying to find more people to teach. Unfortunately knocking doors isn't too effective, and finding through members isn't exactly what it's cracked up to be, at least not yet. Fall is all around, and there's no more green. I really do wish I had a camera that could do all the colors justice, but I would be too distracted by it if I had one. There's a member who asked if I could do a shoot for their family if they provided the camera for some service, so we'll see. That would be a dream come true, for sure.

Well, until next week, Love y'all!

~Elder Wiederholt

888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314

When a large, naked, Cuban man answered the door with a Machete and screaming Spanish...

You realize that you didn't learn the things he was saying in your high school class.

True story.

Anyway, at the beginning of the week, we were asked by President Pitt to go to Ravenswood for a couple days to help out the companion ship there because they were having it kind of rough. We helped them a lot, and now they're being split and a new missionary is going up there. I have a feeling we're going to have to do it again, because its a new missionary coming in. Then we went up to Parkersburg North for a couple more days, and helped out the area there. Their companionship was going kind of rough as well, and they're being split tomorrow as well, both are getting companions that they are going to be great match ups for.

Then we finally got back to our area on Thursday and didn't really get to do any work until Friday. As far as working and numbers go this week, it wasn't so good, because all our investigators dropped us pretty hard, and that includes our two that had dates for baptism. :/

Oh well! We'll find more people to teach! Speaking of the naked guy. We found him yesterday. And the situation actually happened! He didn't speak a lick of English, so we mustered enough Spanish to ask for a computer, where we got onto Google and used the translator. We're pretty resourceful. I think I'm gonna pick up a Spanish workbook or something though. I never took Spanish, but I could catch a word or two. He could also speak Russian! I mean Russian is hard enough as it is, but when it's with a Cuban accent, yikes!

Transfers are tomorrow. Elder Stoker and I are staying together for another transfer, but we're getting a new Assistant. My trainer, the senior assistant, is going up to Morgantown to train my "brother" in the mission. The mission is getting way cool every transfer. This transfer, Elder Neal L Anderson, of the Twelve Apostles, is coming to Charleston to speak at Stake Conference. He's also asked that the ENTIRE MISSION gather in Charleston for a couple hours of hoo-rah. To my knowledge this is the first time that the entire mission will be together in the same place. We're all pretty excited!

Well, we gotta get going! gotta go do laundry :/

Love ya'll!

~Elder Wiederholt

888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314