I've been doing college stuff so this is going to be a little shorter than normal, sorry! This week has seemed as if it has just blown by! It may have something to do with the fact that last week was a 9 day stretch from p-day to p-day. For everyone that is unaware, I will be staying in Troy for my last 6 weeks with Elder Pusey, Im pumped! As for the week, it was a lot less wet than last week so that is a plus right off the bat! I have probably mentioned it a million of times in my previous emails but with campus closing we are slowly trying to get off of it, some how the investigators we have right now just keep pulling us back! On Tuesday I had my final exchange with one of the district members and Elder Pusey took over the area for his first time, he did a great job; I went down to Ozark with Elder Moss. The first people we went to see were basically the stereotypical southern people, i love em! We taught at 20 year old kid and after the lesson his 80 year old, toothless grandma came out and started talking a lot about how the death of others has ruined her faith. The reason Im telling you this story is because of this. When we were about to head out she turned to me and said "you're new." I explained that I was from Troy and was just there for the day. She proceeded to tell me how much she loved the missionaries and as we were walking away she got our attention and said "boy, if I was 40 years younger I would take the new one for a spin." Thats right, I have been on college campuses for 3 months and the first person to hit on me is an 80 year old lady, Ill take what I can get I guess! The funny thing is thats not the only story. On Saturday we were doing service for the city of troy at an art festival. We ran into some of the students we teach english to and it was small talk. Eventually one of the girls that is rather out spoken says this in broken English..."why are you two always together? (looking at me) do you love him?(pointing to elder Pusey)." Trying my hardest not to die laughing we explained who we are. I love Asian people.
This week has been a little bit of ups and downs in a small period of time. Within the week we have had 3 different people bash us but have also given 4 blessings. We have see a lot of amazing things happen, preparing us for the area:
1) Rob- we found rob a few weeks ago through a family history contact. He had an emergency appendectomy so we hadn't seen him for about a week. We finally saw him this week and worked on his family history once more. Last time we only got to about 1900s on both sides but after an hour of research we were blessed to go back to the 1300s. He was blown away! It was a perfect opportunity to extend an invitation to learn more about why we do family history. He accepted and we will be teaching him this week.
2) Megan and Mallory- Elder Pusey contacted Megan on the exchange and she set an appointment up with and him also referred him to her twin sister, she accepted to come to the appointment. We taught them at the end of the week and they have been the most prepared people we are teaching up to this point. One of the great things about them is they don't go home until July so we can teach them this transfer!
3) A less active/recent convert family came to church for the first time in months!(she had her leg amputated)
All is well here, until next week. Love yah!
Elder Welch
9 days between p-days makes for a long week! The biggest thing this week was trying to work around all of the southern rain, for some reason it was a down poor all week. Not only was it hard to think of backups but a lot of the appointments we had didn't show and a lot of the time it was because of the rain, the Lord always provides a way though. Tuesday we had district meeting in Ozark and I was really excited for it because the assistants were having exchanges with the zone leaders last week so they got to come to my district meeting, it was really good to see them again. One positive thing about it raining that we saw this week was that people feel bad for us when we tract in the rain so we had some good success with that this past week, a few good potentials for the coming weeks.
I feel like this week was all that different than most weeks so it is hard to write about but some of the major lessons learned this week was. 1) Effort is all that is required, if we have good intentions then the Lord will provide a way to do the things he need and wants us to. He blesses those that work. 2) We have all seen that satan usually tempts us right before and right after a big spiritual event and I have see that the Lord also preps us for times when our faith will be tried. Two specific experiences.
The first one was on Saturday. All of my studies seem like they are about district meetings for some reason and I feel like the district here needs a revamp on their potential so I studied about that, that night however; we just got out of a priesthood session of stake conference and had about an hour before the adult session so we decided to go get something to eat. While we were at the restaurant a random guy bashed us super hard! His main jab was us believing we have divine potential. It wasn't until the next day that I realized i was prepared for that experience.
The next time was when Sunday night. We have an awesome ward mission leader and he had set an appointment up with his friend for us to teach. We started the lesson out and a lot of times I feel like we work the spirit up to be the strongest at the restoration but for some reason the beginning of this lesson was extremely powerful, one of the more powerful ones Ive been in when talking about the first two points of the restoration. Within 5 minutes after that he was on a 40 minute shpeal about who knows what, all he cared about is that we were wrong. I think the only reason the spirit was more strong at the beginning was because we needed that before what was coming.
If we're good to the Lord, he'll be good back. Very simple. Love and miss yall
Elder Welch
It doesnt seem like much has happened since last pday so forgive me for the length of the letter.
Tuesday we had to get up a little early to get to the stake center on time for my district leader council with the zone leaders and then zone training afterward. I really really enjoyed the counsel that was given in these meetings. Even though 3 different groups taught they all lined up perfectly not only with one another but also with a lot of the impressions I have been given. One of the main focuses we've tried to have since that point has been families and specifically family history and we have really seen the fruits of that effort.
One good example was on Wednesday. We had set a family history appointment up with a super cool guy on campus named Rob. We went in and did family history with him but he didnt really have much information about his family so we rescheduled with him. As we were walking out of the library I dont even remember what we were talking about but I do remember him saying something about a stake down where he was from so
it caught us off guard. Come to find out his best friend is on a mission right now and he said that he believes and lives basically everything that we believe he just doesnt know much and is skeptical about the Book of Mormon, he has GREAT potential...and all because he was interested in family history.
Our ward mission leader told us an interesting fact. In a poll that was taken a few years back only 7% of people were drawn to the gospel because of the actual doctrine. Only those who truly understand the bible will understand the need for restored truth. So now what do we do? "Enter in another way"-Alma 8...FAMILY HISTORY!
Thursday we had a crazy experience too. So I OYM'd a girl named Alisha our first week here and the appointment we set up originally fell through and so we didn't pay much attention to her after that. At the beginning of this week we got a text from her saying she wanted to set up another time which never happens so we were pretty pumped. When we met with her on Thursday we were just getting to know her and then she called Elder Pusey a greenie. Only Mormons know that. We asked her her last name and come to find out she was a less active member the whole time....white washing problems! She didn't say anything the first time we talked to her. She is super cool though and we are going to start working with her. Other than that we have been blessed with a lot of appointments and just trying to hasten the work here. I love Troy, I love my companion, and I love how my mission has unfolded. I just pray I am learning all the lessons I am needing to. Love and miss yall! All is well.
Elder Welch
Another week in Troy yields great results. This was one of those weeks that when thinking back on it all of the days runs together, I will try to mention the things that stood out.
Troy is a kind of area that we teach a ton of first lessons but anything after that is hard to catch so that has been our main struggle in the work. One such lesson was on Monday. We were teaching a girl named Adrene at the campus and had gone through the entire restoration and was just wrapping up the Book of Mormon and how to know it is true.The next thing we know here comes up one of her "friends," he sits between us and her, and then just starts bashing us...right in the middle of the lesson! I told Elder Pusey to take the investigator off and then I handled the basher..more like occupied him while Elder Pusey finished teaching, we'll see if we see her again.
Embarrassing moment for the week(really for my entire mission). Everyone that has been reading these emails know that we have been doing member lesson to try and find people to teach. We were teaching the Whiting family Sunday and the lesson was the Plan of Salvation. We were to teach it very briefly, do a spirit punch during the atonement, and then relate it to family mission plans. As we were teaching the atonement we wanted to watch the Because of Him from last year and so we were searching it on him iPad, for some reason it was ridiculously hard to find. We thought we had found it so we started playing it but i couldn't see the screen because I was holding the iPad for them. The music was the same and so it had me convinced. About a minute into the video I heard a woman crying on the video and was caught off guard. I quickly turned it around and saw that it wasn't even close to the right one. The members explained it was a woman's testimony of Christ while explaining and showing some experiences from her pregnancy. There was nothing too inappropriate on the video but it definitely didn't give the spirit power punch we were expecting. Super embarrassing. The funny part was this family was the only one in the branch that are pregnant haha.
Monday night we went over to a members house to not only have dinner but to also teach their friends! The lesson went well, they live 20 minutes out of troy so follow up has been hard but we trust the members to follow up with them, thats their job once they are the fellowshipper. Tuesday I taught district meeting and then had a tradeoff with Elder Kimball from California. He has been out about the same time as me so it was nice to talk about the good old days.
Funny story for the week came on Thursday. There are a ton of Asians here in troy for some weird reason but we always try to tap into that as a teaching opportunity by teaching english. Its funny to do that in and of itself but there was a specific experience at the end that made it all the better. Back story: We OYM'd a lady named Nancy our first week and invited her to the class and she showed up. One of the members is really good friends with her husband so we were introduced to him too. I found a Chinese plan of salvation pamphlet in our apartment so decided to give it to him to give to Nancy's husband the day before the class(we see him everywhere). Fast forward to the class on Thursday. We taught about things in the airport and at the end we asked the class if there were any questions. Nancy raises her hand and says "What is the purpose of life?" Because of us teaching it at the college we cant really say anything during the class so we tried to say we will talk about it later, they are super solid! Pray for them.
Conference was great! The weekend always seems like it goes by way too fast. I came in with multiple questions and came out with answers to guide me. I know we have a prophet on the earth today, thats all that matters. Love and miss yall! All is well!
Elder Welch
