Is it seriously the end of October already?! I feel like I want to start digging my heels into the ground because of how fast the time is going. Tuesday and Wednesday we had our mission leadership council in Tallahassee. Tuesday we met at the mission home and had a sports night and a fire, those that are going to be leaving this next week bore there testimonies that night as well. Wednesday was the day of the meeting and I felt it went really well, a lot of good Ideas came in from the leaders, I, excited to start doing some of them. On Wednesday night we travelled to Panama City beach and had a tradeoff with the zone leaders there. Elder Sorenson and I went with Elder Condie who will be going home next week. It's hard to do an exchange with a purpose when they won't be there for very long. That night we travelled to Dothan to have a tradeoff there and that went really well. I went with Elder Urquiaga and we talked to a lot of people, we even did service at the old persons home and I got to play some bingo, I even won a game, it was nice. Sorry for the short letter but I have a meeting with president in 5 minutes. I love and miss y'all and hope that everyone is. Safe on Friday night.
Elder Welch
What a week it has been! We have had a really busy schedule with this only being a 5 week transfer. On Tuesday we had our zone training, we learned a lot about unity and the things that we as missionaries can control, Elder Smellie and Elder Garn did a great job. We had an unexpected lockdown in the church during it too because of how bad the weather was and the conditions for tornados, it didn't last long and we are all safe. This last transfer we had a few new missionaries stay in the MTC for some extra time because of illness and after zone training we picked one of them up and he spent the next day and a half with us.
One Wednesday we only had about half of the day in Tallahassee because of having to travel to Fort Walton for tradeoffs, This week we scheduled the biggest chunk of our tradeoffs. The Fort Walton zone leaders are the only spanish set of zone leaders so it is kind of hard but we still make it work. I went with Elder Lovell and Elder Sorenson that day and we were actually in a lot of spanish lessons. I knew enough spanish and the lessons well enough to know where they were at but i didn't know the specifics of what they were saying or what the heck to say back..i just had an interpretor the whole day, it was kind of different but i really enjoyed it. We taught some dude from Peru and he was kind of bashy but Elder Lovell resolved whatever the concern was...talk about feeling useless in a lesson when your companion is getting bashed and you cant say a word haha.
The next day we travelled to Pensacola and this area was actually white washed (2 new missionaries) with the zone leaders. i went with Elder Fortin who is a brand new zone leader and has been out for 6 months, Im just going to say he has a pretty good short at taking my spot when i am no longer an assistant. He is super smart and really humble. We got to their apartment about an hour early and they werent home yet so we tried to break into their apartment, luckily they hadn't locked the window that day. We scared them so bad when the finally came in, it was super funny! The final leg of our tour of the mission was in good ole mobile! Elder Sorenson and I went up to Mobile North and I went with Elder Riddle. I was able to see a few people that i knew and spend my birthday in my old stomping grounds. It was nice to be back.
I have thought a lot about faith this past week. It is said that fear cannot reside in the same place as faith at the same time. Let's be honest with ourselves here, we're human...we are scared to do some things and that fear or anxiety will always be there. I will always be apprehensive to talk to random people or scared of heights..thats a fact. needless to say this fear without faith aspect has given me some grief. The more I have thought about it, I feel I know what is being said. In the equation of faith..if there is such a thing; I think all that really matters is if our faith exceeds our fear. If we have a sum total of faith then there is no fear that stops us doing things that we need to. The world isn't a good place. Without faith strong enough to "stay in the boat" it'll be a scary thing. I just want everyone to think of their personal equation of faith and fear. What is the difference? All is well. Love and miss y'all
We have had such a great week! With this transfer being
a week shorter we are a lot busier because we have to get everything done that
we would have in a five week transfer. This was the only full proselyting week
we had in our area so we enjoyed it while we had it. The first highlight of the
week was definitely the district meeting we had on Tuesday. Since we
now have our old district leader as our companion we got a new one.
He is one of the missionaries that came in from Sierra Leone when they shut that mission down for Ebola. I don't think I have ever
been to a better put together district meeting than that of Elder Rogers this
week. On Wednesday we had our tradeoff with the Tallahassee 1 zone leaders.
Elder Sorenson and I stayed in the area and Elder Peterson (that was in Mobile with me) came to our area. He's as solid of a missionary as ever. We even were able to find a bunch of kids playing basketball on the street and we
played some 3 on 3 with them. They even came to the church on Saturday and we
played basketball with them there too, next week when we do it we will give
them a church tour beforehand. .
On Saturday we had another tradeoff with
the Tallahassee 2 zone leader, Elder McPherson and I stayed in the area and Elder Garn (who was my district leader in mobile) came with us. As far as
investigators go we are just trying to find more. Celine is doing fantastic, she bore her testimony yesterday and is as happy as ever. Derrick has started to look up
lately so hopefully he continues to progress. I've been able to ponder a lot
this week during this time of the year for me and the only thing I wanted to
share was how I believe we all have testimonies. Those come when we feel the spirit bearing testimony of a specific
truth. Conversion comes from acting on those experiences. I hope we
can all recognize when the spirit is telling us something. Our progression is stopped if we cant. Love and miss yall. All is well.
Elder Welch
What a great week it has been! I will try and account for the
blessings we've received this week in this email as well as I can. This week was really busy for us so it
could have been easy for us to overlook many of the blessings we received. On Monday we played basketball for the last time with a few of those elders
because of transfers. All that they knew
was that they were leaving, not where they were going. On Tuesday we had a good
district meeting by our district leader, Elder Sorenson. With the rest of the
week being really busy we had to fit all of the lessons
we had planned earlier into the time we had on Tuesday. The one of significance
was Celine. Since she was getting baptized on Saturday we had to have Elder
Sorenson give her an interview...she passed with flying colors! Wednesday we
had transfers and it was a little different than it usually is. We trained all of the
missionaries that would be trainers, announced their companions, and then
headed to the middle of the mission to announce everyone else companions. We
got a new companion, his name is Elder
Sorenson. Our previous district leader! He is an awesome
missionary and we are stoked to have him with us. That night we had an
appointment with Celine's parents to discuss the decision she was making to be
baptized and explain a lot of the doctrines. They aren't getting baptized but I
feel like not only her parents are more comfortable with it but her sister has
been asking a lot more questions about points of doctrine so it was a
success.
As far as
Celine's baptism goes....it went FANTASTIC! Elder McPherson baptized her and I
confirmed her. We were anticipating about 40 people to show up which I a ton of
people in the first place, there ended up being 80 people at this baptism. It
was a strong meeting. We have a return appointment with one of her friends
because of it. General conference was as uplifting as I hoped it was going to
be. I had four specific questions going into it and I was blessed to have
direction on each one of them. I'm not going to give any spiritual thought
today, Id rather give a commitment. Set goals and live conference. A meeting
does nothing for us(even if we felt the spirit) unless we get something out of
it and set goals to improve. Love and miss y'all
All is well.
Elder Welch
