WEEK 32 - TO BE BORN AGAIN

Hey everybody, it's-a me again! Elder Z.S.Weber is back, with an update on how life as a Missionary in Kimball, Nebraska has been treating both me and my companion, Elder Tapia. Before I get to that, however, I realized this last week that when I posted the link for the #BecauseHeLives website, I accidentally used the wrong link. So, if you tried to find the site, and Mr. Google came back to you and said, "Sorry, this site doesn't exist," well, that'd be the reason why. So, just so no one ends up making that mistake again, I'm here to fix my small error from last week. The website for #BecauseHeLives is actually on HeLives.mormon.org, so it's through mormon.org, and not lds.org. So, if you go there, you should be able to sign up for reminders about #BecauseHeLives, and be prepared for when the video goes global this next Saturday, on March 28th.

Now, onto this week...sadly, I don't really have much that I can say for this week. Don't get me wrong, this week was awesome, just as all weeks as a missionary are, and it also had some rougher patches, as all weeks as a missionary do. But to be honest, I didn't pay much attention to any of those points in the week. I mean, really, the whole week, from Monday afternoon when I finished emailing y'all, to Friday evening when I was waiting to fall asleep--it all passed in a frenzied blur. Why? Because both I and my companion had only one thought on our minds--Bryan McKay's Baptism.

 

Elder Weber and Bryan McKay

 

Yep, it's official. At two-o'clock on Saturday, March 21st, our friend and Spiritual Brother, Bryan McKay, was finally baptized and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The whole week leading up to the baptism, Elder Tapia and I were rushing about, trying to get people ready and assigned for different parts in the service's program. We needed to know who could play the piano, what songs to be sung, who was willing to say a prayer and who was willing to give the baptismal talks for Bryan. In the end, though, it all worked out great. We even had more people at the baptism than we'd been expecting, with about twenty-or-so members coming with their families, eager to see their newest member and Brother baptized. Bryan's son Morgan even came, which took me and Elder Tapia by surprise, but we were both very glad to see him there.

 

Elder Weber, Bryan McKay & Elder Tapia

 

Elder Beste and Sister Beste, the Senior Missionary Couple that had met Bryan, friendshipped him, and taught him all of the lessons, came up so that Elder Beste could baptize Bryan and confirm him a member the next day during Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. It was truly awesome, to feel the Holy Ghost just filling the room as Bryan was brought down into the baptismal font, was fully immersed in the water, and brought back up as clean and as pure as the day he was born. Sister Beste gave a beautiful talk on the importance of the Gift of the Holy Ghost after Bryan had been baptized, and as she spoke, the Spirit in that room just continued to grow and bloom, it was almost hard to breathe sometimes. I know, now more than ever before, that our Heavenly Father is truly proud of the steps that Bryan has taken to return to Him, and proud of Elder and Sister Beste, Elder Tapia and myself in helping Bryan return.

 

So, today I want to have my spiritual message centered on Baptism. Back in the New Testament, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was asked by the Pharisee Nicodemus how one can return to God. Jesus's response is said as thus; "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Seeing that Nicodemus was confused by his response, Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:3,5) There are several different ordinances or requirements that we need to have in order for us to be able to return to our Heavenly Father and live with Him again. These ordinances are like gates, each one leading to another. The first of these gates is the gate of Baptism--to be born again.

 

In baptism, the body of the person being baptized is dunked completely under the water and brought back up again. This is done to resemble two things; first, the 'burying' of our old, sinful life and letting it die; and, second, the 'birth' of our new, pure life--one in which we are made Children of God once more. However, when Christ spoke to Nicodemus, he didn't just say that a rebirth by water was the only step we need to take. The confirmation, where the Gift of the Holy Ghost is given, is just as important, if not more so, than the actual baptism itself. With the baptism, we are cleansed from sin and given a new, fresh start to travel to the next gate on our journey back to Heavenly Father. But we didn't get to the gate of baptism without someone helping us. We can't always have someone there to help us find or reach the next gate on our journey. That's why we have the Gift of the Holy Ghost, so that as long as we are following God's commandments and living as He would have us live, we can have the companionship of the Holy Ghost, to lead and guide us on the rest of our journey to our Heavenly Father.

 

I bear my personal testimony that I know of the importance of both the Baptism of Water, and the Baptism of Fire, or the Gift of the Holy Ghost. There is, as Nephi of old so eloquently stated, "none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God." (2 Nephi 31:21) This is the only way back to our Heavenly Father, and it's only just the first step. It's a long journey, filled with ups, downs, and crazy in-betweens. But I know that our Heavenly Father has given us the tools to make it through. There is nothing in this world that we are going through now that cannot be overcome when we work in unity with our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and our ever-vigilant companion the Holy Ghost. It won't be easy, that's for certain. But nothing that is truly worth it ever is. This I bear testimony of, as a representative of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

Well, that's it for me. Hope y'all have a great week, and hope to hear from y'all again next P-Day!

--Elder Z.S.Weber

WEEK 31 - BECAUSE HE LIVES!!!

Hey there, everyone! It's me again, Elder Z.S.Weber, with a big announcement from the small town of Kimball, Nebraska. Brian McKay, grand-nephew of President David O. McKay, is getting baptized this Saturday, March 21st, at 2:00 in the afternoon! Elder Tapia and I are really excited, as is Brian himself and much of his family. The times we've talked with him and learned from him, we've found that he truly has been preparing for this moment all his life. I'm very glad that I had this awesome opportunity to help him find the true, restored gospel, and lead him back to his Father in Heaven, who truly does love him, and wants him back so very desperately. I know this, because I have felt it. Whenever we taught Brian, and the Spirit came, it was just like a wall, it hit us all so hard. If I gained nothing else from teaching Brian, it's that Heavenly Father loves all of His children, and so desperately, desperately wants them to return to him again!

So, with that exciting announcement out of the way, let's move on with the rest of the week. Like I've said before, things have been really good for Elder Tapia and me here in Kimball, but things are looking to be even better now than before. Last Wednesday, Elder Tapia and I drove down to the Laramie Stake Center (geeze that's a long drive!) for a Zone Conference with all of the 'Banishment' zones. Strange and awesome things started right then, as both Elder Tapia and I saw two falling stars, one of which was burning up so bad, we could see the fiery-red tail burning behind it for at least half a minute. Then, when we got to the Zone Conference and got everyone settled down, we had two shocking revelations told to us by President Brown. First, we now will definitely be getting iPads for our mission, and Second, we will be one of the first missions using the new video initiative, "#BecauseHeLives".

 

 

I'm still very skeptical about the whole iPad thing, seeing as we've heard rumors about getting iPads for about two years in this mission. But the #BecauseHeLives thing is real, and it's awesome. In the Social Media area of our Church, recently there have been some videos released specifically about the Savior, Jesus Christ, and how much he does for us. These videos are called "Because of Him", which is a much more general video, and "He Is The Gift", which is a video about Christ's birth and purpose in life. Well, "Because He Lives" is a new video that's coming out on March 28th, and it's mainly about the Savior, his death, and his Resurrection. Like the other videos, it is unbelievably powerful, so don't be surprised while watching it if you suddenly end up breaking into tears. It happened to me many times with the other two videos, and it happened with this one as well.

 

So, after receiving the initiative and returning home with our pass-along cards that are for #BecauseHeLives, Elder Tapia and I sat down and seriously thought over how we would put these cards to best use. Well, Thursday gave me an opportunity to test these thoughts and plans out. As you all probably remember from my past emails, our Subaru had a huge cracked windshield for a while now, and have had some trouble getting it fixed. On Thursday, in the morning, we finally got someone to come out and take care of it for us. While he was fixing it, we had an interesting discussion with him about our Missions, which weaved in and out of our religion. As we were talking, I had the distinct impression to give him one of the #BecauseHeLives pass-along cards we had. I was a little nervous, but once the job on the windshield was done I was able to bolster my courage and hand him the card, which he accepted in a very pleasant and thankful manner.

 

And thus, the #BecauseHeLives initiative had begun!

 

The rest of the week passed on with ease for me and my companion, as we tried using #BecauseHeLives more often throughout our activities in our area. We really feel that this new initiative will really be awesome and successful for us here. If you want to jump on board with this, by the way, you can head over to HeLives.lds.org, the new site that the video will be shown on. There, you can enter your email so you can receive updates on the initiative and learn more about Christ and his purpose in our lives. You will also be able to find the video on Youtube after March 28th--in fact, during the Easter Weekend, Youtube's homepage will be dominated by ads and videos from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I highly encourage you all to watch enjoy these videos. Though they're just a few minutes long, watching them could very well change your entire life.

 

Well, that's all I have to offer today! Hope to hear from y'all next week, and have an awesome day!

 

--Elder Z.S.Weber

WEEK 30 - SCRIPTURE POWER!!!

Hey there everyone! It's Elder Z.S.Weber, here again with an email on what's up and going on with me and my companion, Elder Tapia, on our missions. Things have been going fairly well for the two of us here in Kimball...or at least as well as things can go when you're out in the "banishment". We met with the Senior Couple that had been serving in Kimball before us this Thursday, and they said something that I found to be very true and interesting. Those who serve in Kimball are the most alone missionaries in the Mission. At first, I didn't believe it, but then I stopped and thought about it. Kimball doesn't have a Ward, has only a few members in it, and is forty miles from any of the nearest cities that have both a Ward and Missionaries. So, in all actuality, Kimball is the loneliest area in the mission. So, what do you do when you're all alone?

Surprisingly, a lot.

Last Wednesday found Elder Tapia and I giving aid to the young men from the Sidney Ward as they worked over a major service project in Kimball. Apparently, the Kimball Historical Society (didn't even know those things actually existed!) want to take the old high school building they have on the main road and turn it into a museum of Kimball in its glory days. So, what we were doing was helping them tear out the carpet they had in this one section of the building and sweep up all the dust and rubble they'd built up by tearing through one of the walls. The air was so thick with the dust that even to today I am still sneezing up dirt clods! However, it was still a really awesome experience, and they had so many cool things in there to look at, like an old printing press, an original type-writer, and even an old-style automatic calculator that was about as big and as heavy as a bowling ball. Looking at all of that made me very glad I live in the 21st century!

 

 

Thursday was also a really interesting day, as we got to travel to and from Sidney and Kimball twice, rather than the usual once. We went to Sidney because we had our District Meeting there, and we had a great time talking about how to implement our scriptures into our teaching. Afterwords, we had to book it back over to Kimball because we had called up the windshield-repair guy (yes, he still hadn't made it to our place to fix the window) and had managed to squeeze an appointment in for right after our District Meeting. We were just starting to roll into our driveway when we got a call. The guy was sick as a dog, and couldn't come to fix the window! So, we have to reschedule our appointment for later in the coming week. So, mildly annoyed, we drove off to Sidney, where we were having dinner with the Jones', and really just enjoyed the rest of the night by talking with the Jones' and sharing spiritual messages that we found very fun.

 

Friday was the real pinnacle moment of the week, however. At around 4:30, we got to meet with Brian McKay again, and talk over baptism with him. As you all probably already know, we have been trying to get him ready for baptism by March 14th. Well, after talking with him and seeing how he feels, we all agreed that he would be baptized on the 14th! It was great, and we were really excited. Afterwords, we decided to have a mock-up baptismal interview with him, just to make certain he understood everything correctly and was ready for the questions asked. Things went well, and I felt that he was all set and ready to go. However, when we mentioned his responses to our Zone Leaders, they seemed a bit hesitant. Finally, we found out that our Mission President, President Brown, would have to come an interview him, so we had to push the date back to the 21st. However, I have no doubts in my mind that it will go great, and that on March 21st, we will have a new member in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

 

Well, that's my week! So, what do I have to talk about this week? The answer is simple--Scriptures.

Back before my mission, I used to watch this youtube channel that was basically a cyber nerd giving advice and counsel to other cyber nerds, and one time he did a video about what he called an "Existential Crisis", which was basically whenever he stopped and thought about such fun topics as; the inevitability of death, the crushing fact that all humans will ultimately end up alone, and the meaning of life. I remember watching these, and I couldn't help laughing. Not because he was funny in how he portrayed these problems (which he seriously was, by the way) but by how completely clueless and unaware that he was of the truth. His answer to these questions was that we as humans can never know the answer, and therefore shouldn't worry about it or about our lives. The truth, however, is not only that we know the answers to these questions, but these answers have been around since the time of Adam and Eve.

 

If one wants to learn about the answers to these questions, all they have to do is turn to the scriptures. The scriptures have always had the knowledge of these questions and more hidden within their pages. All the prophets, whether they were Adam, Enoch, Noah, or even our modern prophet Thomas S. Monson, have had these truths revealed to them, and they have preached and teached these truths to their brothers and sisters on the earth. So, if you find yourself questioning the worth of your soul, or wondering about the meaning of life and the universe, or just want to know what God has in store for you, my advice is simple. Read the Scriptures. Read them, for in them you will find the words of Christ, "for behold, the words of Christ will reveal the truth of all things unto you."

 

I bear my testimony that I know this to be true, that the Scriptures, whether they be The Old and New Testaments, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, or even the words of the modern prophets will reveal the truth of God's knowledge unto us. We can know the truth of these things for ourselves, if we read the words, and look to our Heavenly Father for an answer. This I bear my testimony of, in the name of His Son, even our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

--Elder Z.S.Weber

WEEK 29 - THE SECRET to a HAPPY LIFE

Hello everyone! This is your favorite Mormon Missionary from South Jordan, Utah, serving in the Colorado Fort Collins Mission--Elder Z.S.Weber! Once more, I am sending out a newsletter to all my friends, family, and wild admirers (if I have any) that want to know what's been going down in that small corner of the garden my Heavenly Father entrusted me with, Kimball, Nebraska. Before I get in on that, though, I'd like to make an announcement. Today, March 2nd, marks the end of my sixth month out on the mission! Amazing how fast time flies, right? Already, a quarter of my mission-life has come and gone, and it's amazing just how wonderful it's been. I've truly loved my mission, and am really looking forward to the coming three-quarters that are just around the corner!

 

Now then, on to this last week. To start off, I'd like to go back to Wednesday of last week. As usual, Elder Tapia and I started off our day with a few hours of service over at the Recycling Center, and then we went about our business as Missionaries as usual. That day, however, we found it fairly difficult to do work, due to how crazy the weather was. Now, I know, the weather is crazy wherever you are. In fact, back in my home state of Utah, the saying is that "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." But, seriously, I swear I saw all four seasons pass by in the space of maybe three hours! Rain, snow, sunshine, clouds--you name it, we had it that day. Still, we were able to get a fair amount of work done, and meet more of the less-active members that live in our area. Hopefully, we'll be able to meet with them more often, as chance permits it.

 

Thursday was another interesting day. Earlier in the week, we had had some problem with our Subaru...we got a crack in the windshield. This wasn't any little crack, either. This crack was probably about five feet long, and went from one side of the window to the other. Now, it wasn't bad enough that we couldn't drive anywhere (at least that's what Elder Tapia told me), but it still needed to be fixed. So, we called up the nearest window-replacement shop (which was about forty miles away) and set up an appointment. Well, the guy that was going to replace our window came over, checked it out, and then said that due to the snow, the wind, and the cold, he couldn't fix our window and feel good about us driving away safely afterwords. So, we just rescheduled another appointment for this week, and prayed that things would go over better than they had Thursday.

 

Though we faced problems on Thursday, Friday was much more wonderful and amazing, and easily made up for the problems from the last few days. As y'all probably remember from my last few emails, we've had an investigator we've been working on named Brian McKay. Well, two weeks ago, we committed him to baptism, and asked him to pray and ponder over a date in the coming weeks that he would feel was the best date for him to be baptized on. So, Friday, before we taught him again, we prayed one last time, together and separately, that we'd know what day to ask Brian to be baptized. And, after praying, we both felt inspired to ask him if March 14th would be a day that he could be baptized on. He said that he'd think about it, but seemed very positive and excited about the possibility of getting baptized very soon. Being there, saying that, and feeling the Spirit so strongly...oh, how I wish my mission could just be filled to the brim with moments like that!

 

So, once again, I'm happy to declare that this week has been amazing. And, with that, I'd like to share a quick spiritual thought with all y'all. It's something that I've been pondering over a lot recently, and I feel it's something we all can gain something from.

 

There's a certain scripture in Mosiah, from the Book of Mormon, that reads as such; "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)"

 

What I'd like to focus on is that statement near the beginning of the scripture,"the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God". As followers of Christ, we all realize that in order to receive Salvation, or Eternal life, or Exaltation, or the Highest Degree of Glory, or call it what you will, we have to keep the commandments of God. However, do we ever stop and think about the joy that keeping the commandments brings? Too often, I feel, we see the commandments as restrictions that keep us from enjoying the "finer" things of mortality. "Because of the Word of Wisdom, I can't have alcohol." "Because of the Law of the Sabbath, I can't hang out with my friends on Sundays." "Because of the Law of Tithing, I have to give up 10% of my income for the Church." These complaints, as well as all others, are a very narrow-minded way at looking at the commandments of God.

 

Let's take a step back. God is our loving Heavenly Father. Therefore, whatever He tells us to do must therefore be good for us. Whatever is good is of God, and whatever is evil is of the Devil. Therefore, we can't have a commandment that is bad. But more than that, because our Heavenly Father loves us, He'll make the commandments things that can give us joy. The worst thing a parent can ever see is a child who is in misery. I can't say that from experience, but from the opposite end of the spectrum--being the child that was in distress, and seeing my parents' reactions. Therefore, all commandments given to us, God's children, must not only be for our benefit, but must also give us joy. So, the secret to a happy life, and a happy eternal life, is to keep the commandments of God. They will give us more joy than we could ever find in breaking them, I know that with utmost surety.

 

This I say in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

--Elder Z.S.Weber