Te kakukurei iaon te bong n tina (Happy Mother's Day)

Howdy!  

I hope all is well with you all and that you all had a great week!  And a great Mother's Day!  Mother's Day is awesome!  Mothers are awesome!  They are literally the greatest!  My mom is truly the greatest of the greatest!   I love her so much!

Well, this week was good.  We attended a bootaki (party) for Mother's Day.  We sang "Love is Spoken Here" and "Book of Mormon Stories".  For the Book of Mormon Stories song we did a dance to go with it.... Dance... That is what we attempted. :)  It is okay.  The YSA made up for it by doing Kiribati dancing, which was amazing! :)

Great news, Teruatabu was baptized this week.  Timeon, a branch member, baptized her.  It was a great day!

I have learned that a good morning makes a good day.  A great morning makes a great day.  And so on.... I am doing my best to work on having better mornings so that each and every day is filled with energy and happiness and the Spirit. Win the Morning!  Seize the Day!  It is kinda hard to catch a ball when we have already let the first part pass right through our fingers.  I am so happy that the Lord will bless us all according to our efforts.  He will truly speak to us.  He will guide our thoughts.  If I go to Him in sincere prayer and talk about the day with Him, just as I would talk about the day after I got home from school, that is how I am learning to speak to our Father in Heaven.  I am trying to speak as I would speak to my amazing earthly parents.  I am seeing an increase in my love of God.  Just an idea for how to pray. I know that God listens.  I know that He loves us and cares for us! 

I love you all!  I know that my Redeemer, our Redeemer, lives!  I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that He loves it when we talk to Him!

Love you and pray for you!

Keep on pressing on!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Weenig

Teruatabu's baptism.  Me, Teruatabu, Timeon and Elder Graham

A blessing to Skype with Elder Weenig on Mother's Day

Zone Conference

Howdy!

This week we had Zone Conference!  It was amazing!  They focused on being anxiously engaged.  I liked that emphasis. It is amazing how much we can improve on and become more Chirstlike if we honestly look at our days and evaluate how we can improve.  It is great.  We are working on being more fully devoted all throughout the day, so that as much time as possible can be given to the Lord.

Elder and Sister Jenks, a senior couple in the mission, left and will not be replaced for a few months.  We will as miss them greatly.  I love them so much!  They are truly my role models and I hope that one day I will be like them.  They are so loving, Christ-like, and kind. I love them.  Anyway, the Jenks are amazing!  I hope that all is well with them in America!

Cool experience this week.  One of our investigators would not come to her baptismal interview, she kept making up excuses.  Then I had the thought to ask her about the Word of Wisdom and she was not keeping it.  Bummer!  She had been hiding it from us.  I am glad for the prompting.  The Spirit truly does speak to us.  It is great!

Well, I am grateful to be on a mission!  I hope that you are all loving life, because you are all such amazing people!  Thank you for everything!  I love you all so much!  Thank you for your support and prayers!

Hurrah for Israel!
Love you all!
Elder Weenig

Zone Conference

Cleaning Reitaake's (recent convert) well

Service - cleaning up the Catholic Maneaba and grounds

Elder and Sister Jenks

Elder Graham and Elder Mahanga

Howdy!!!

This week was just swell!  How about all y'alls?  

Well, this week I worked with Elder Mahanga from the Marshall Islands side of the mission.  He is amazing! He is a remarkable missionary and learns the language in a blink.  One day prayers, the next testimonies, the next scriptures, the next bits of the lessons, and the next he flew off to Onotoa to meet his real companion.  He was great fun to work with.  He is awesome!  Learning and growing together.  He is great at connecting with people. All the investigators and members loved him even though he was only here for a week.  He is amazing!  He will do well in Kiribati!

My new companion just came off the island of Onotoa.  His name is Elder Graham.  He will finish his mission at the end of July or the beginning of August.  So, that will be fun for him.  He is great at connecting with people and seems to have a great vision to improve the YSA program, which will be great.  I am excited to work with him.

I did service with the Temaiku 1 elders on Saturday, because I had a section of time that I was companion-less,  Elder Mahanga went to the airport and Elder Graham was coming in on the next flight.  So, it was awesome!  I loved it!  We cleaned up the Catholics area.  Cool, right?  The members were wearing the Mormon Helping Hands t-shirts, so it was a great way to show that we can all coexist and help each other -- no matter the religion.  That is a lesson that we all need to learn, I suppose, but especially here in Kiribati where a person's religion defines their friends, family, and lifestyle.  It was a great service.

Well, I am doing great!  I love you all and pray for you all! You are amazing!  Really, you all are!  Thank you so much for the support and love!  Love you all!

Love you so much! 

Keep pressing forward!

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Weenig