storms and pictures!

  

The pictures I'm sending are from a photoshoot that a member did of us this transfer. Transfers are on Wednesday, and I'm staying. My new companion will be Elder Weitz, from Billings, MT, and he came out the same time as me. Elder Confer will be moving to Roanoke North, and working with the family ward there. It's sooooo crazy how fast time is flying now, because it seems just like yesterday that I met Elder Confer, but now hes all growed up and stuff. It's incredible. He's come so far and it's nice to see that he's doing well. He's really excited, and I'm excited for him.

 This week has been really crazy, as was last week. the weather especially has made it hard to work effectfully. That, and all of our investigators have been out of town or just havent been home. hopefully that'll change here soon. I'm looking forward to tearing it up with another really experienced missionary. First time that I've had this opportunity on my mission and havent had any leadership that would take up time as well. We're pretty stoked. We did find this super awesome lady named Pattie. We're really excited for her. We just tracted into her and she really opened up. She's really excited to read the Book of Mormon and she has great hopes that her family will have a unity of Faith one day. We're praying for her!

 

 Also we've been cleaning up our fair share of trees. We've cleaned up well over 20. It's incredible.

Well, sorry its short, but we got a TON to do. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

~Elder Shain C Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
charleston, WV 25314

storms like crazy!

 The weather here has been sooooo crazy that I dont even know what to do with myself. A week ago, it was 70's, two days later, it was 90's. the next day, it was 107 at one point while we were tracting(A thermometer on a porch told us) and then that night we had 80mph winds, and crazy lightning and rain. More storms to come baby! We've been doing a lot of service clearing trees. Some of the pictures I'm sending are of trees down in the yard of a member. a couple trees actually fell on their house! It's pretty crazy some of the carnage. We were without power for just a night, but because we're in town, we didnt have to wait on it too long. We stayed the night at another missionary apartment that had power, and we've been good since. We're all good, but be sure to keep the other missionaries in your prayers because theres still several companionships without power or water.

Because of the weather, things have been really slow. We're done our best to go out and work diligently, but we gotta be smart when the temperature is in the 90's, because the humidity takes it into the hundreds, and it stinks! especially having to wear shirt and tie in it. We were still able to teach, but all of our return appointments from our finding efforts last week fell through. :/ We're still working hard though. No worries! We're also still trying to figure out what we're going to buy today that we can actually use in case the power goes out again. We're gonna buy a lot of bread, peanut butter, granola bars, water, and tuna. mashed potatos for a good day. :D


Other pictures! besides the stormy pictures, one of an awesome view that we found when we were tracting in Glasgow. Also, one of the sticker on the back of my tag that I got from the National Day of Prayer last year. It originally just said "I Prayed" but I put the "to know" part on there to say that I prayed to know that these things are true. I thought it was cool I took the picture because its got the red, white and blue on there and thought it would be cool for the 4th coming up. We'll see how that goes. NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN! Gah!

Love yall!

~Elder Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314

tender mercies!

Things are going pretty good. We had a lot of success tlast week, and really witnessed some tender mercies in our finding. It's nice to find people who are actually genuinely interested. AND who know what theyre talking about. It's the best thing in the world to a couple missionaries to meet someone that can legitimately have a religious conversation, without it getting heated. It's awesome! One guy was really cool, because he had a ton of awesome questions, and as he let us answer them, he started to realized that we might be able to answer all his questions. So although we had to get headed, he asked us to come back, and he's apparently excited to have us back, according to his less active mother.

Elder Confer and I are doing awesome. He's such a cool, funny kid, and we love to make jokes as we flex our "muscles" and say "Someone call the vet, because these puppies are SICK!" and other things like that. Hahahaha Everyday is an adventure! We might be parting ways here in 2 weeks, with transfers coming upon us once again. It's crazy how much faster time is flying now that I'm getting to the end of my mission. I dont like it. Also, I found out that my trainer, Chris Moen, is engaged! WHAT?! Apparently he's engaged to a recent convert in Morgantown. Good for him, for sure, and I truly hope to be there for it. Maybe even to take pictures if he lets me. We'll see. Haha

We had a specialized trained a couple weeks ago. It was a really awesome meeting, and President Pitt watched Elder Confer and I teach, and he sent us a letter telling us how awesome he thought we were doing. It really helped me a lot because we're in a tougher area since people are scarce, and people are generally uninterested, so teaching and baptized is scarce too. It's good to know that we're doing good in the sights of President and Christ even if we're not getting the success that we're hoping for.

Well, other than that, everything is just the usual. We're just knocking on doors and doing what we do. Love ya'll!

~Elder Shain C Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314

not a whole lot happened this week :/

Well, not a whole lot happened this week, unfortunately. We were sick this week, and could only work a few hours at a time. But, we worked hard regardless, and we were still blessed. It was really awesome being able to finally teach some English speakers. Haha. One of them also speaks Spanish, but thankfully prefers English.
Also at church, there was a girl that just showed up. She had been to church at the BV ward a couple times, but her friend that she went with moved to Provo to go to school, and is now in Spain on a learning abroad trip. Plus, she hasn't been in years, but she decided to just come. It's quite awesome. Hopefully she will be able to get permission from her mother to learn from us.

There wasn't a whole lot more that really happened. Haha. It's too bad. But hopefully more will happen this week. Love yall!

Elder Shain C Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314

Things are going good. All of our investigators are currently Spanish speakers and so it makes things really interesting. Whenever we go over to teach them, we take with us a couple spanish speakers to translate for us since we obviously lack the spanish speaking ability. It's interesting because although we can teach, we're not able to create any sort of relationship with them, and then also theres all the little things that someone might say in a lesson that could clue us something as to what they need, but whenever our translators translate for us, they just summarize what they said, and we dont get the details. It makes it so that we have to go in  and teach 100% by the spirit, and it's tough. But totally worth it because we started to bear testimony and it totally filled the room with the spirit.

And one of them, Luz, totally felt it. The amazing thing is that her name means "light" which in a gospel context isn't light by which we see an object, but at the same time it is how we're able to "see" things in a gospel perspective. That's why when Brigham Young was talking about the "Man without Eloquence," he said that when a simple man that had no talent for public speaking could only say that he knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that mans testimony filled him with light. It's an incredible thing, and something I definitely something I want to study more about.


We had an awesome experience being in a parade on Saturday. I just can't get away from them. It was my 3rd on the mission, and we might be in the July 4th parade too! What we did was we got into a back of a pickup, and stuffed it with cold water bottles and ice-pops. Then all four of us would go grab a bunch of stuff and pass it out to people that were watching the parade. It was way cool, and was an awesome way to be charitable with no strings attached, which everyone seems to thing that it's meant to be. Just to assure myself that charity is meant to be no-strings-attached, I read 1 Corinthians 13 and Moroni 7, which together explain perfectly what it means to be charitable.

I love being a missionary. It's great. :D

Pictures:
Elder Confer and I before service
Myself with an ex companion of Fletcher's
Myself preparing to cook
Us with the Rockbridge Elders "doing service" at a childrens park called Boxerwood, and then getting a picture with a prop there. :D


Love Elder Wiederholt!
888 Oakwood rd ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314

Stone henge in Virginia??

This week has been awesome! We've found a couple people that we're really excited to start teaching. It's really amazing how Heavenly Father blesses us when we do something as simple as a fast, too! It's crazy, even just yesterday we fasted as a zone of 18 people, all for us to be able to find people that are really prepared. Well, that was only yesterday, and we ended our fast at dinner with some members and the zone leaders. We left dinner, stuffed of course, and went on our way to an appointment like 30 minutes away. We were a little late, and it fell through, so we made our way home to take our studies.

A house that's been standing out to us was along the way home, so we stopped there and knocked on the door. It was in the middle of no where, and we had no idea what we were gonna say or do. Well, we didnt have to do anything, she spoke first, introducing herself. It sounds like its not a big deal, but if you've been a missionary, you know how rare that is. She then started asking all these awesome questions, and told us that we were lucky to stop by right then, because she just got back from a week-long trip in DC. Oh yea, she was visiting the temple's visitors center. TOTALLY ELECT. 
It's just so crazy how if we put faith in a sacrifice that we make, even if its something small, like a couple meals, and hold through to the end, the blessings will come. And not just blessings like everyday, mundane things that we thank God for, but legitimate miracles. What are the chances that would've just happened. Also, we keep running into people that speak ONLY spanish. It's great, but we cant talk to them. They welcome us back and we teach them with a translator. I kind of wish that I took Spanish in High School now. Haha. Oh well.

Last pday we went to a little thing in our area called the Foam Henge. It's actually not little. It's a life-size replica of the Stone Henge and its also in the middle of no where, like most things out here. There's a famous artist that makes all these sculptures out of foam and makes them completely public. He usually does some awesome April's Fools day jokes. This year, there was a 40 foot russian submarine just hanging out in the Maury River right next to BV. Anyway, he's a way awesome guy, and his daughter, Sunny, is investigating the church right now. He might be next. Watch out Mark Cline! Haha, just kidding. I'll attach pictures!

Oh yea, a dragon fly landed on my leg and stayed there as I walked for 10 minutes. I got a picture of that too.

Well, those are the highlights of the last week. Sure do love ya!

~Elder Shain C Wiederholt

2754 Maple Ave C-9

Buena Vista, VA 24416

888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310

Charleston, WV 25314

Dearest family,

Things are going alright. We found 5 new investigators last week. Unfortunately, 3 of them being a family, are wanting to drop us. They agreed to read and pray, and we're praying really hard for them as well. Hopefully things change.

Transfers are tomorrow as well, which is why we're emailing today. Elder Confer aren't going anywhere, but we're getting a ton of new missionaries around us. Some of them are missionaries that I've been close to since the beginning of my mission, including my 3rd companion is now my new Zone Leader! I'm way excited because we share a ward, and he's such an awesome guy.

Just some pictures about us all doing some service at a member's home by sanding their deck. It's an incredibly slow process. Also a picture of a Cicada. We also did some other service with some members by cleaning up someone's house and yard. There were some pretty ronchy things that we saw. Yikes!






Love ya family!
~Elder Wiederholt
888 Oakwood Rd Ste 310
Charleston, WV 25314