White Christmas!

Well, We had an awesome Christmas here in Ashland, KY. On Christmas Eve, we went to a members for lunch and that was our only traditional meal for the Holiday season. And we found 5 new investigators that day! Thats more then what we've found in the past few weeks! That night, we went to the apartment of a couple other Elders who cover Ashland on Bike(we cover Flatwoods, Russell and Ironton by car) and opened presents that we bought for each other. I got a pocket watch and its suuuuuper cool! I pretty love it. They spent the night over at our apartment and we all opened our presents that we got from family and friends.

Santa was kind enough to get me a GPS and an awesome blanket and of course, good music, along with candy and food. Mmmmmm! We went over to a members house for Christmas breakfast and they made Biscuits and Gravy. Not just any gravy either, but CHOCOLATE GRAVY. It was sooo good. I wanted the recipe but its a family secret, and I'd have to marry a guy to get it. haha. An hour later we went to another members house for lunch and one of their sons works at the MTC and loved having us there. He's constantly talking about missionary work and stuff and he gave us some super sweet ideas to try with member missionary work, which we're super excited for. We then called our families and got to talk to them for about 40 minutes and I found that I had a lot to say. It was great!

A few hours later, we found ourselves at our bishops house eating a normal dinner and stuff, and that was pretty much it. We watched the Joy to the World DVD a couple times with members or investigators. Since then, not much has happened. I can't wait to go teach one of the new investigators we found tomorrow. His name is Brad Lyon, and he knows some of the members. He let us in quick and at first said there was the bible and only the bible, but by the end of the lesson we gave him a Book of Mormon and he invited us to come back and possibly teach him and his family the next lesson. He also introduced us to his family and so we're pretty excited. :D

Well, til next week!

Elder Shain Wiederholt
1125 St Christopher Dr #48
Russell, KY 41169

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

As I'm pretty sure everyone knows, this Saturday is Christmas and I'm soo excited! We dont get to go home, but we are spedning Christmas with several families and sharing Christmas messages with them all, as well as going Caroling in Huntington, WV. It's gonna be a ton of fun. Also, we're gonna be able to call our families that day so that will be sweet.

Not much has been happening because of the Holidays. Everyone's super busy and so we have plenty of people to go visit after the New Year, but as of right now our teaching pool is low, and we're stuck wearing our pajamas or long-johns under our pants and 2 or more pairs of socks while we tract several hours a day. Also, it seems like several people over have died all at the same time, Portsmouth, just North-West of us, had a Baptism on the 12th, and then that man died just 4 days later. It was crazy. Then we tracted into a lady that same day he died, and talked with her boyfriend at that time. Well, her boyfriend died that night and we found out the next day when we came to visit her for our appointment. THEN, another lady we're trying to go teach had an uncle pass away yesterday, so she asked for a couple days to grieve a bit. Well, we're pretty easy going in the holiday season and so We'll probably visit her after wards.

We're loving the mission life, especially since Elder Moen and I have both have had some sweet food sent to us. I had Nueskees Bacon and Burgers sent to me and we haven't had that good of a burger in a long time, and Elder Moen's sister sent him Cougar Gold Cheese from WSU(maybe? wherever the Cougars are in Washington). Good, good stuff.

Well, I'm always looking forward to letters from friends and family, so don't feel shy to send stuff. I haven't really taken too many pictures lately so their is none to send today.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

~Elder Shain C. Wiederholt

1125 St Christopher Dr #48
Russell, KY 41169

It snowed!

Again...Last night we got 2 inches of snow and have gotten 2 more since. We're pretty excited to go play in it. Not much has really happened in the past week. We have been tracting a ton cause we only have a couple investigators at the moment and nothing is too promising. We've probably been tracting a good 5 or 6 hours a day for the past couple days. We're setting a goal to loan out 7 copies of the Book of Mormon a day so that'll help out a bit. We've got some followup appointments to try out later on today so thats good. We were going through our former investigators and discovered that Billy Rae Cyrus' brother was taught one upon a time! We swung by to check up on him and to see if he might've been interested but he wasn't home. He lives really close to us! haha.

On the bright side, we had a baptism on saturday! His name is Aung Htoo(two). He's from Burma and is super cool. He has a great spirit around him constantly and his smile is proof of that. Theres a picture attached of us with him. Unfortunately, he's not smiling :(

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone out West!

~Elder Wiederholt

Elder Shain C Wiederholt
1125 St Christopher Dr #48
Russell, KY 41169

Transfer Week!

Well this week was Transfer week, and I didnt get transfered, thankfully. I really like Ashland, the people are great and I rather enjoy being the District Leaders companion. This transfer we get to do 4 exchanges with other missionaries which is always really fun cause I get to leave my area to go help other elders teach their investigators and learn from them and at the same time, teach them! I love it! Our area definitely is not a dead area.

We, in fact, had to split our area in two cause we were covering too big of an area with soo many investigators all over the place. So we just got two new Bike elders in the city of Ashland, and we just cover Russell, Flatwoods, Ironton, Coalgrove, Worthington, Greenup, Wortland, etc etc etc. Haha. The other elders are Elder Hilton from Logandale, NV and Elder Muirbrook from North Ogden, UT.

We also unfortunately lost half of our investigators, but we're gonna build em back up soon. The point is so that we can double the work in a smaller area anyways. Theres not much else thats gone on. OH! Its been snowing for the past 4 days. Its apparently super unusual out here to snow this early, and stick. It's been sticking for 3 days and its snowing now too! :D

I've decided that I dont really want anything physical for Christmas except Christmas cards, pictures and letters from Friends and Family. Especially pictures :D

Til next week!

~Elder Wiederholt

1125 St Christopher Dr #48

Russell, KY 41169