4 months have come and gone since I lasted hugged my momma and only have 20 more till I get to hug her again! This week has had a ton of things happen and it has had its lows, its highs, and definitely learning moments! I have another bash story for ya’ll. Last Pday we had gotten all that we needed to do done so we decided to go to a thrift store because it’s always fun to see what is sold there sometimes. Anyway... Elder Nelson and I were going around looking at shelves and all of a sudden I see Ken...He is a known bible Baptist basher that has actually bashed every single mission in Pensacola for the past 2 years, honestly I was scared but it was my second time meeting him so I knew how he was. The rule for our mission since it is in the south is try to get out of the bashing situation, which we did(tried to walk away), then if he catches up to you tell him that we don’t have anything to do with him(which we did). THEN if all else fails....let him have it! The awesome thing is you can tell your growth of knowledge from bashing someone. Elder Nelson and I confounded this guy like nothing, enough to make him walk away instead of us stopping it, the big thing was "we believe that we can become Gods" which we do. My argument to end the conversation was...was Jesus not born of an earthly mother??? That’s how it’s done folks, south101. I don’t recommend bashing though! We did what we had to do and this guy is always asking for it.

   I also had my trade off with my boy Elder Lane from Page, Az...He is about to go home though (January) I’m going to miss that kid so much! This week we ended up having a lot of sad experiences too. We taught these two boys that showed up to basketball a few weeks ago and have kind of been keeping in contact with them but this week we found out that their dad passed away and that they would be moving. I felt so bad for these two boys and my prayers are with them. We also had a recent convert from the Orlando mission move up here a few weeks ago who is about 50 and he had asked for a blessing before he went into surgery the next day, so Elder Nelson and I went to give him one and left. Two days later Bishop gives us a call and tells us that this brother had died in surgery. We also hear of two more missionaries dying in the field. Be grateful for the life you have, for the trials you have in them, and always be worthy if you are called on a mission on the other side of the veil! In all honesty being a missionary is really safe, 11 out of 80,333 is a pretty good statistic and I know they are doing just fine in the celestial world.

   Yesterday was the baptism of Ladarius and who baptized him??? That's right, TJ! My first recent convert that I baptized was the one performing the ordinance this time and it was super awesome! I gave a talk on baptism and the Spirit was really strong throughout the whole meeting, the Lord has blessed this area and our companionship more than we even realize.

    The message I want to share today has a few stories to go along with it. Yesterday was obviously the Sabbath and with the week that we had had I wanted and needed to be spiritually uplifted so that is was I prayed about in my morning prayers. I have never had a crazier/weird sacrament meeting in my whole life. This sister who was a convert to the church talked and was walking the whole row where the Bishop sits and the other speakers while she gave her talk and honestly I don’t even know what she was talking about. It wasn’t her fault, she didn’t know any better, and it was just different to what we know. Then in gospel principles we had a lady who was also a convert into the church and was recently Baptist. We were talking about the gifts of the Spirit and the gift of tongues came up. As we all know the gift of tongues is given to missionaries that go to foreign speaking missions but the Baptists believe that it is some weird language they speak when they feel the Spirit. She still believed in that and there was an argument between her and the teacher on that subject for about 10 minutes. To put what I’m trying to say into words, I wasn’t having the most spiritual uplifting Sunday in the world and I was upset about that. We then went to young men’s with Ladarius and that lesson really hit home. We talked about being grateful and showing our gratitude. As I took a step back and realized all the things that the Lord has blessed me with, my family with, my mission with, and the ward I am serving in with... needless to say I was hit with the humble stick. At times it feels like we can never catch a break and I think that Elder Holland put it best when he said; “If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong". The Lord has blessed us all with so much and we are selfish, I know I am. Before I pray I always think to myself, "Ok what do I need from my Heavenly Father, what can He do for ME"? In Mosiah 23:21 it says; “Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith." It is never as bad as we think it is, the Lord has blessed us so much, give a thankful prayer sometime. Sit back and think of all the things the Lord has given you and will yet give to you.  If you are in a hard time drink the bitter cup and know that every stumbling block is just a stepping stool so we can reach a little higher. I love and miss ya’ll so much. 19 years old here I come! All is well!

Elder Welch

 I’m sure many of you have heard of this "tropical storm" Karen that was supposed to hit me. The storm was pathetic, I have had worse rain storms in Nevada and way worse in Florida, and I guess it hit New Orleans...again ha-ha. They can never catch a break with that kind of stuff.

Let me tell you a story of how members made me break the word of wisdom...On Tuesday we were going to dinner over at a member’s home and we ended up having an awesome meal. Until dessert that is. I saw that it was brownies and I was super excited...I take one big bite out of it and can tell something is different about these brownies...I know many of you are probably thinking special brownies but the people down here aren’t THAT crazy ha-ha. So after the meal Elder Nelson and I are driving to our next appointment and we came to the conclusion that there was coffee in those brownies. We only had one and didn’t know so I think the Lord can forgive us on this. They were active members too!

This week I got to do some service that I was semipro at thanks to Brother Condie. I moved a piano! Unfortunately we didn’t have any equipment to do it.  It was just Elder Nelson and I so we just bare knuckled it and carried it. Slow and steady won the race for that one!

We only have one investigator at this point in time and we taught him the first two lessons this past week, his name is Ladarius. He is planning on getting baptized this next Sunday and he already has a testimony of it!

How awesome was general conference?! I honestly cannot pick one talk that was the "best" out of them all or that touched me the deepest. We have prophets of God on the earth today. They have told us what to do to become successful. I want to touch on one area that they all said would help us in our daily lives. Personal spiritual preparation for the day is key in how our whole life will be shaped. "Our small everyday choices will develop into who we will be as life comes to an end”.  I know we have been commanded to do things out of His servant’s mouths this weekend and that if we heed their counsel we will never go astray.

I love and miss you all and am thankful for your support!

All is well

Elder Welch

 This week seems like it flew by but looking back to last Monday that was forever ago! It was a great week! Tuesday was a bit of a hard day because it was our biking day since the sisters have the car and it rained all day! We were able to get out and work for about an hour or two but other than that we were inside all stinking day! On Wednesday we were able to go to Crestview and have our half mission conference. Elder Pino of the seventy came to speak to us. I got a little bit of a taste of a foreign mission since he didn’t speak a lick of English and needed a translator but his talk was really good.  He talked about the importance of our studies and being obedient. It did get hard to focus at times with him speaking a different language. On Thursday we went around seeing people and finished planning Cody’s baptism but the best part of the day was going to see my boy Jimmy MacArthur! He lives in a manor and isn’t all there but he is an awesome guy. We all know how manors are and there is this one lady there that is pretty crazy. Well we were in the lobby of the manor and this lady rolls in. Jimmy leans over to Elder Nelson and I and said "don’t talk to her, she’s crazy and she swears" we kind of chuckled and let it be. Some time goes by and we hear her swear at this older man and threatens to flip his wheelchair over and Jimmy leans back over to us and says "see, I told you she was a crazy" Elder Nelson and I couldn’t contain ourselves. We got two new investigators this week who have been hit by the humble stick pretty hard, we taught them the first lesson and one of them committed to baptism on the 20th, and we’ll see how it goes though. They argued with us about dinosaurs, they think they should be in the bible. I had a tradeoff Friday with the new greeny and I feel like that was me yesterday ha-ha, I can relate to him well and hopefully helped him out. We walked ten miles that day because they had used all their miles I was so tired. Not to mention that the very next day we moved 3 people in and out of their home.  We then did some yard work. I was exhausted by the time Sunday came around! Sunday was the baptism of my boy Cody! He has been so ready and he is the person I have come the closest to on my mission so far. He will bless his family for eternity for the choice he made.

 This week I would just like to bear my testimony. Did you know every time you bear your testimony your sins are forgiven? Share your testimonies! I know that this church is true. I know that obedience is the law that governs heaven. I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. I know missions are meant for everyone sometime in their life where ever it may be, home, work, or fulltime. I know Thomas S. Monson is called of God and all others called into leadership positions. Bishops, Stake Presidents, Deacon Quorum President, etc.  I love my mission, I love my area, and I love this gospel.

 Love and Miss Yall! All is well

Elder Welch

 This week was really long if I think back to last Monday but it doesn’t seem like it was taking forever to get to this Monday. It has been a good one though! On Tuesday we went out to a less actives home to do our district activity which was football and it was really fun but I was so tired and am still not use to all of the sweating that goes on here in the humid states! That night we went back out to this less actives home to have dinner and after dinner we were watching his daughter jump her horse. Elder Nelson and I were standing by the fence and my legs started to get tired so I wanted to lean onto the fence. Once I grabbed onto the fence I found something out....it was an electric fence! It didn’t really hurt, it just startled me but it definitely was a memory! 

  As many of you have seen this week there was a pirate day at Krispy Kreme where we got a dozen free donuts which was so awesome! I have definitely gotten more of a sweet tooth down here in the south and I have felt it....I have love handles that I never had before and the unfortunate thing is they are useless on a mission! Ha-ha jk! 157lb. I lost some today though so I’m more like 155; I’ll get it down to 150 and keep it there. I also think that I am growing a little bit! My pants are starting to fit me a little better in the length, I don’t have a tape measure to find out but I’m hopefully at that 6' mark! The Porters got a grandbaby this week as well! I got to hold it for a few minutes. TJ hasn’t really been in contact with us too much this week but he has been good since his baptism, he did say it has been harder for him since his baptism. Satan is just as active as Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, unfortunately. Cody has a baptism this weekend at 11:00 and I am super pumped for him, he is such a funny guy and I love him. We taught Ladarius for the first time this week and it was about the atonement, they have a pretty messed up life but are on the right path now. His baptism is still scheduled for the 12th so we will keep on him!

   This week I feel really strongly on what I am going to share with you. I have been having a really hard time this week mentally and spiritually and did not understand what I was doing wrong and why I felt that way. I actually felt that way until yesterday. Obedience is what I want to talk about. I read in my personal study in Helaman 13 about Samuel the Lamanite chastising the Nephites about how wicked they have become and that the Lord was going to destroy them if they don’t repent. We can see today that we are WAY worse than those Nephites. It says in that chapter that it is because of the righteous they are spared. Today we are the ones standing up for truth and are the ones saving the nation.  I definitely don’t want to be a disobedient missionary, there is a spirit of the law that sometimes comes into affect! We have all been on that line of obedience and not so obedient in our lives. I know for myself that there is a fine line between obedient and disobedient and if we find ourselves teetering on that line, get on the right side. Once we take one step to the other side we might as well have been one of the roman soldiers making fun of Christ. We know what the Lord has commanded. Alma 41:10 says wickedness never was happiness and it is true! We know what we signed up for when we were baptized and any other covenants we’ve made. I knew what I signed up to do and the rules I would have to follow as a missionary. I testify that obedience brings blessings! Obedience is for our learning and for our growth. The rules are for us. I love and Miss Yall! All is well

   What a great week! First off shout out to Erin on getting her call to Lima, she will do great down there! On Monday we taught Cody again.  They told us a story of how after our lesson with him on Sunday his wife was trying to cuddle with him or something, and he moved away and said, "Don’t touch me, I’m in a holy place", hahaha funniest thing I’ve heard in response to asking anyone if they felt the Spirit in the last lesson. We have taught him basically everything with in this last week and his baptismal date has been moved up to the 28^th.  I’m 99.9% sure he will get baptized, I love that guy! 

  On Tuesday we went over to Pine Forest ward missionary's apartment and we fried Twinkies, I don’t know why, because I don’t even like sweets that much.  The south has converted me a little bit! I’m only 155 though, no worries! Thursday my companion gave me a buzz cut basically and it is so nice! I love not having to worry about how hot it is when my hair is that long. We also were getting the font all set up for TJ that day and Elder Nelson was trying to kill this cockroach with a pole...well somehow the cockroach gets flung up into the air and I book it and get clothes lined by this pole Elder Nelson was holding and had a fat lip for a day or so, it was really funny. On Thursday night we went out to a less actives home and did service for him, he has a gorgeous home! When I picture retirement I picture his house, he's in charge of all of the airplanes down on force down here. I guess his wife got offended somehow but he is a really good guy! I can eventually see him in a bishopric someday! Saturday went down in the record books! TJ WAS BAPTIZED! I was lucky enough to be able to baptize him and he was ordained to the office of a Priest yesterday. Bishop has big things in store for him in this ward and we know Heavenly Father has big things for him as well, I’m proud of him! Transfers are this week but I am staying here for this transfer! I love the area and Elder Nelson and I are doing WORK! The Lord has blessed us so much. There is opposition in all things so we love it when times are good. The Lord is too good to us! I cannot wait for General Conference and we are having a general authority come the 24th so that'll be awesome as well!

  This week I wanted to talk about trials. Why does the Lord give us trials? Why does he let bad things happen when we have the best of intentions, and are working are butt off? This trial isn’t to punish us it’s to strengthen us! We learn through hard times, we grow through hard times, and most of all we turn to Heavenly Father in our hard times. My challenge to everyone that reads this is to be grateful for all things the Lord gives us. They are ALL for our benefit and growth. I love ya’ll and hit my 3 month mark last Thursday! All is well

  Elder Welch

 This week has just flown by, it was a really good one too. So something I'm going to tell the family but not put in my regular letter. So Elder Nelson showed me a missionary tradition this last week that I did more for a memory than for the actual things it did. I drank magnesium Citrate....its a laxative. It wasn't that bad and they do it because missionaries eat so much nasty stuff that they want to clean out every once and a while. I thought it was cool until I started peeing out my butt...never doing it again but it was fun while it lasted! 

   This week has been amazing! It started off slow and kind of was weird with labor day being last Monday but it didn't faze the work. Last week I talked about how in zone conference presidents vision for the mission is to get more involved with family history work. I want to share how that has changed our missionary work. I OYM'd(opened my mouth) some guy on the street and taught him about family history, he ended up not living in our area but the cool thing about this was this was the single moment where my mission changed, I don't know why, probably because i followed the counsel of my leaders but that very moment is when I started to love my mission, love sharing the gospel, and love where I am. Not everyone comes into the field with that and I needed to find that passion for what I am doing and the Lord blessed me with it. FOLLOW OUR LEADERS! On Thursday/Friday I had another tradeoff with Elder Lane and all we did was service...for 4 hours! It was fun but i was so tired after that. We saw a HUGE caterpillar and banana spider which Ill send a picture of, it was cool! The 70 year old bishop we did service for put up 200lbs for bench press though...I was sore amazed! Now to the good stuff! On Saturday we set up a full day trade off with TJ our investigator. He studied with us and went to all of our lessons. Before Saturday we didn't think he was ready or even wanted to be baptized on the 14th but afterward he told us he was ready for it so pray TJ will be strong through this week! He bore awesome testimony of the restoration in one of our lessons too. The cool thing is it wont only be my first baptism but he has asked me to baptize him. I'm humbled and honor to do so. His member friend might be coming up from south Florida and if he does he will baptize him but that is still questionable. It doesn't matter though! TJ IS GETTING BAPTIZED!  We also went and saw brother curry yesterday, he's one of our less actives and he told us a story that he felt that if the elders came over that day that that would be a sign from heaven that it is his sign to quit smoking, sure enough when we came over he slapped the last pack he had in our hands and we chucked them! He also gave his first talk in church yesterday and he was so nervous but the spirit was so strong! It doesn't matter the words we say its the spirit that we bring into the room. Last week we went over to the Porters who are an active family but one of their daughters are married to a nonmember and he was never interested, in fact when elder nelson talked to him last week he said "this gospel will bless you life if you just let it" Cody(the nonmember) told him not to preach to him and we left it at that. Resume to this week and Sister Porter invited us to dinner and to teach Cody the first discussion, we were so surprised! He is so ready though. When we taught him and I was quoting the first vision I was about in tears because of the spirit in that room! He committed to baptism on October 5th(dads bday)! The message I want to share this week goes along with what I've seen this week with my own two eyes. Gods hand is in the lives of ALL of us. He guides us and sets us up for the future. Follow the promptings of the spirit. This is my testimony. Love and miss y'all

Elder Welch

 I don't have as much time to email today so this might be a little shorter. This week has been a CRAZY one! I have gone from depressed and discouraged, to on the verge of tears, of loving my mission and not wanting to leave, mood swings are crazy out here! We met with TJ this week and set a baptismal date with him for September 14th. (It will probably get moved back) He has gotten his answer, we just had to show him that. He said that when he went to the Orlando temple grounds before, there was a feeling he couldn't describe...here's your sign! We also got to meet up with a less active member who is LOADED!  He is in charge of all of the airplanes for the military down here. We did service out there and hope he comes back to church! On Saturday we had a 5k for the Pine Forest Ward that we were going to help out with and I decided to run. I took the lead at the beginning and was going pretty good for most part of it.  The race just seemed to be way longer than it should, come to find out that I had gone an extra 2k! I still won though because everyone follows the idiot in the front haha. First 5k(7k) and I win!  Representing Nevada baby! I don't know if y'all have seen that website that shows crazy Walmart people but I am sure that they take ALL of those pictures in the south, some of the people I see down here are crazy!

This week I wanted to share the importance of obedience. I unfortunately have experienced both teaching with the Spirit and without. I can tell you that we need that Spirit and the way to obtain it is through obedience. This does not only apply to missionaries but to all members, we all have commandments and have made covenants that we need to keep. If we do not keep them we are no better than the people that spit upon the Savior, actually we might as well be doing that. Obey the commandments and show your love for the Savior. I love and miss yall. All is Well!

Elder Welch

 What's up y'all?! This week has been quite a roller coaster ride but it flew by! We had zone training on Tuesday and found something out that blew our minds! Our goal for 2013 as far as baptisms go is 450, we are only at like 230, so pretty far behind. President Smith has been talking with general authorities about the changes coming up in missionary work and about goals for next year and has set a goal for 550 baptisms for 2014. What awesome faith that my president has in the new revelation our prophet has given, we're going to do it! After zone training I had my tradeoff with the zone leader Elder Judy in Navarre. I SAW THE BEACH FINALLY! It was a really good tradeoff and I learned a lot from him on how to become a better companion and missionary but the most exciting thing about the tradeoff was at night. We were driving home and it was dark and then out of the trees we see this MASSIVE black bear run across the street, it was so cool! it was a little scary knowing that we were only about a half mile from our apartment but it has been the coolest thing to happen on my mission so far. I have been feeling really inadequate this past week and have been praying and searching hard on how to become better at the things i need to. I always feel like missionaries kind of blow smoke up the green missionaries butts on how good they are doing but Elder Judy, Nelson, Foster, and Wilkey have said that this new generation on missionaries are more prepared. Elder Nelson told me last night he feels like I've already been out 6 months and that I'm training him. Its nice to hear and I feel that that was genuine. I still have things to become better on and still have those feelings of inadequacy which is good because I am, I'm representing the Savior himself here! I feel like I am becoming use to being on a mission since I'm starting to get a few mission dreams instead of dreams about home, they'll always be there though! The count this week is 153lbs! I'm doing a little better. On my tradeoff with elder lane I made my(Kari bates) biscuits and gravy for lunch and they think that I am some amazing chef, haha I love it. Elder Lane was talking about how he wants to lose weight and he said he tried to eat more to exercise his face muscles but it didn't work, hahaha the kid is so funny! We were trading back over at pine forest area and they got these super hot jalapenos from a member over there and I didn't believe them since it was just a jalapeno so I tried a sliver of one. HOLY SMOKES! I've never eaten something so hot in my entire life. I was literally crying and then I made the stupid mistake of wiping my tears with the hand i ate the jalapeno with so then my mouth and eye was killing me, worst decision of my life! I'm good now though. I filled my prescription this week at Walmart and while we were at the counter this crazy guy comes up to us and starts bashing us like crazy! In a Walmart line of all place. He didn't know much and was so rude. Elder nelson and I agreed it was the worst bash session we've been in on our missions so far. He rebuked us to hell in the name of Jesus Christ with no authority so he wont have a fun time on judgement day...punk! I cannot believe school has started all over the nation, one summer down on my mission, one to go!

   This week I wanted to talk about a talk that I studied in my personal study. Its called "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. If you only do one thing that I ask you on my mission from these emails READ THIS TALK. It has changed my life and view on the atonement than anything ever has. I know that this talk was written through revelation. I'm not going to expound on it at all, I just want y'all to go read it. I know that this church is true and that we are the ones that are to take it to the world. I love and miss y'all. All is well. 

Elder Welch

This past week has flown by and I think that this next week will go by even faster since I have a tradeoff with the zone leaders tomorrow and one with my boy Elder Lane on Friday! He goes home in January and he’s already requested me as a companion. I really hope I don’t "kill" him (Serve with him his last transfer). This last Tuesday I had a tradeoff with Elder Simmons and stayed in Fox Run.  He hits his year mark this Thursday. On Thursday we did some mormon.org things so we could get use to that since that’s what we will be doing once we get iPads. Anyway, we get done with that and go to bike back home and just barely leave the parking lot when I try to hop a curb. Something that happened that happens to all missionaries.....my bike tire popped.  All we could do was laugh about it, good thing bike tires are cheap! Last night we went to a Baptist Manor to visit one of our members there that doesn’t get a lot of company. Once we finished up with him we start heading out to talk with him a little bit in the hallway and out of nowhere all of these old crazy people bombard us! One was yelling, “Please Lord help me".  One was trying to get me to take them out of the manor, one asked me how much they paid me and said she would double it if we would stay the night.  One of them asked me to mow their lawn.  It was the most hectic, crazy, and funny thing that’s happened to me so far on my mission. I thought it was cool that the one old lady saw Elder Nelson and me as representatives of Jesus Christ without us even telling her and she was too old to be able to read our tags without glasses for sure. Elder Nelson and I died laughing once we got out into the car. After we were at the manor we headed to dinner over at the primary presidents house, and no I didn’t call her crazy or tell her she was in the primary because she is crazy.  Anyway, we get done with dinner and her husband was about to give his children back to school blessings when he offered to give us a blessing as well. I had been wanting one just to kind of guide me and a boost so I was so happy he asked. Some of the things that he said in the blessing really helped. He said that I was "saving the world" and that I do more than I notice, he also said that my siblings back home would be going to school teaching the gospel, being examples, and saying how proud they were of me. Mostly encouragement things but i really needed it and it helped a lot. He then asked me to give him a blessing. I use to be so scared to give blessings and honestly didn’t know how to follow the spirit well enough in the blessings to know what to say. The one thing I have noticed that I have gained from my mission is to know and act on the promptings of the Spirit. A cool experience I had this week with a prompting of the Spirit is when we went to go to a potential. We taught him about the book of Mormon and were trying to discern his needs, all he kept saying to us was "this book won’t give me what I’m looking for".  Then after we testified to him about the book and asked him what he is looking for all he would say is 1 Corinthians 7......Honestly Elder Nelson and I had no Idea what that chapter was so we couldn’t help him.  I did feel prompted to show him a picture of the temple, testify of eternal families and the plan of salvation.   So I did and asked him if he would like that for his wife and family someday.  He looked at me with big eyes and said, “Yes”.  I didn’t think anything of it, just that I freaked him out. Once we got back into the car I looked at 1 Corinthians 7, it talked about marriage. The Spirit just makes my job too easy, I love it and have a testimony of the Holy Ghost.  Right after dinner we dashed over to Marcus's place and I knew he wouldn’t be able to come out and see us but we still made an effort. He has a really bad back and bad arthritis and it acts up when it is overcast. It has been raining for 3 days nonstop so I just figured he would be cooped up inside. I’ll keep y’all updated on him when we get to meet with him. We haven’t really been able to meet with any of our investigators these past few weeks, I don’t really know what’s going on but we are trying our hardest still. That’s the bad thing about agency, if I had it my way I’d be in the font all day long! "Onward, ever onward" and "Press forward", are my motto right now. After that we went to another less-actives house and gave them back to school blessings as well (we'll be giving a lot this week). It was really cool to be on the other side of the blessing for the first time in my life. I took the priesthood that I had readily available to me in my home for granted. I’ve always been thankful for my Dad’s worthiness and willingness to use his priesthood and all men everywhere should be striving for that.  If you’re not, I’m going to be blunt about it. You are not fulfilling your purpose on this earth or in this church or as a father and husband. Get worthy and be willing to serve.

This week I wanted to share a message about an experience I had Tuesday at district meeting. Elder Nelson committed us to write in our journal attributes that we each wanted in our future spouse, and to bring it to the next meeting. Not physical attributes of course but what kind of person we want in a spouse. It was really hard for me to do it and honestly took a lot of consideration.  This is eternity we are talking about here people! Once I got my list written down and then it dawned on me why he wanted us to write them down. "If I’m expecting to marry a person with all of these attributes, I have to be worthy of it myself and live up to the standards I have set for my wife." Why should she deserve less than what I wanted? My challenge for y'all this week is to write down either those attributes you love in your spouse or the ones that you want in in your future spouse. Then to take serious consideration of where you stand in meeting those standards. I promise you and testify as a representative of our Lord Jesus Christ that if you set appropriate, good and eternal goals for your spouse and try your hardest to achieve being worthy of a person like that, that you will become closer to your Savior and will be more like Him. When we try and look at Christ like attributes, it is sometimes hard to think you can achieve that (even though we can).  By doing this you take a look at what potential you think you have, it gives you a goal and incentive to achieve that goal, and I would hope that the things you wrote down would be things that Christ himself would have had as an attribute. I love this gospel, I love Jesus Christ, I love my Heavenly Father, and I love y'all and the support you give me. All is Well

Elder Welch

 It has been a good week. Transfers happened and I actually really haven’t even been homesick since Elder Nelson came on Wednesday which is nice, I’m too focused on directing the work in the ward and trying to be obedient. I like it. So when Elders have a string on their ties or pants or shirts we burn them off because it takes the string clean off, I was burning a sting off my pants and kind of burnt a hole in my pants ha-ha, so they’re getting patched up! I didn’t see they were 100% polyester. It’s all good though. I heard Bishop called y’all and had a nice chat, hope that was nice. I love Bishop Smith.

This week was so long, day by day, but looking back it flew by! For all that haven’t heard our most promising investigator; Eileen, has been on a trip in New Orleans and was with family. She must have heard a bunch of anti-doctrine and got talked out of it by her family.  I say that because when she came back she was not interested in the gospel anymore, so no baptism this last week unfortunately! Transfers happened on Wednesday and Elder Nelson came on in to Fox Run! He is a great missionary and is so funny. He is absolutely massive, he played football, rugby, and wrestled in high school. He's been out 14 months and his personality has reminded me a lot of Brendan Smith. I love him. It’ll be a great and fun transfer! I’m excited for it. I love this southern food and it has definitely gotten to me, yes it is possible for me to gain weight unfortunately, I am now 150lbs, I have a baby fat role. It’s ok though, I’m going to watch it this week and rebuke it. I’ll be emailing next week at 145lbs. Crazy story for this week happened last night! We were at this younger couple’s house for dinner and he is in his residency for becoming a doctor. We were just eating and talking and all of a sudden he gets up casually and goes to the sink and it looked like he was going to puke, then runs over to his wife and starts hitting her shoulder. She is 8 months pregnant and she turns and starts giving him the Heimlich maneuver! She was literally picking him up every time too, I’ve never seen a little pregnant lady with so much strength. The funny part was her dad was there and it didn’t faze him at all, he just said he was fine and kept eating while he was choking. He was fine after that though. Today I hit my two month mark! Crazy how fast time has flown, 22 months left, but who is counting?! On Wednesday I got a text from my bishop and he told me that he had just gotten off the phone with my dad. I was pretty surprised and then he asked me to sing in sacrament meeting, so I got to sing One Voice yesterday and from the response I got I feel its touched a lot of people so that was nice. Although Eileen fell through we didn’t get 1 BCD this week (baptismal/confirmation dates) Elder Foster and I had been teaching Marcus since I got here and he had always been the hardest to teach because he won’t pray and ask for things cause he doesn’t want to question God and last time he asked Him for something it went completely wrong. Yesterday we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and I have never been so guided by the spirit in a lesson before than I did in this one. He committed to baptism on 9/14 and to ask if this church is true! He also felt like baptism was cheating because he screwed up and didn’t feel like he should be clean if he has messed up. I explained to him how it would be cheating Christ if we didn’t use what he died for. I explained that it would be like if he gave his son a new motorcycle and his son put it in the garage forever because he doesn’t want to break it, it would be useless.  I compared it to that and it helped him realize the purpose of baptism and why we need to use it. It was awesome and it was all because of the Spirit. I’ll be praying for him that he has the courage to ask and continue to baptism.

This week I wanted to share how teaching with the Spirit and being worthy of the Spirit is essential. I have experienced teaching with and without the Spirit and can testify that it is the Spirit that teaches. All I do as a missionary is give information and cry repentance. The Holy Ghost is what teaches and testifies what is true. It makes missionary work a lot easier when we don’t have to worry about being the real teacher we just need to be worthy of the Spirit. How do we do that? Obedience! The things the scriptures and the prophets tell us to do aren’t suggestions, they’re COMMANDments. We have been told to do them and will be judged according to our obedience to them. I’ve said it once and I will say it again because I’ve seen it in my mission work and in my life. Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles. Strive to be obedient and I promise Heavenly Father will pour out His blessings upon you. I know the Book of Mormon is true! In the words of Jeffrey R. Holland, "No evil man could write such a book and no good man would write such a book unless commanded to do so by God". I love y’all and am grateful for all of the support coming from home. All is well!

Elder Welch

 My goodness, I’m already done with one transfer?! Only 16 more to go but who's counting right?? So on Tuesday our zone leaders had a tradeoff with us and I got to go with Elder Wilkey and stayed in Fox Run. I felt before they told us who was with who and where we were going that I was going to stay in Fox Run, I didn’t know why but I was right and I now know why I felt that. We just found out about transfers today and my companion; Elder Foster, is getting transferred and becoming a zone leader. That means I am staying here in Fox Run and kind of taking charge and training my companion on the area. I am overwhelmed with having to do that with only being 6 weeks out. No other person in my MTC group is doing that. It will be hard, it will be tiring, but it will be worth it and I know that the Lord is preparing me for greater things in my mission and in my life. Anyway...back to Tuesday. We had a full day of biking around and knocking on potential investigators and returning member houses and it was tiring! We worked really hard but planning for the next day did take a while, I’ll get the hang of it this transfer for sure! One of the few lessons we had planned for this week was with this lady named Gina. I knew once we got there that something wasn’t normal. She told us to go around the back to teach her since we couldn’t go inside to teach her with there being no male home. So Elder Foster and I made our way back around and saw her friend sitting there and I’ve never seen a lady so drunk and never smelt alcohol on someone so strong. So we sat down since we didn’t think Gina was drunk and could teach her. We were just talking for a little bit and then saw that her friend had no pants on and could tell that Gina was drunk as well, so we ended the conversation, bolted out of there, and dropped her. Craziest thing that has happened on my mission so far! It’s been a rough week though, 9 lessons total and a ton of tracting, August is the hottest time of the year too! I pray that this next week will be better.

    I’ve been thinking a lot this past week on what I wanted to share in this message and I’m still not completely sure where the Spirit will guide me during this so I pray that I will strengthen someone or help them to do missionary work as well. I kind of wanted to shape my message around enduring to the end. I have a story I want to share with ya’ll too, it’s not true of course. This older member of the church dies in a hospital one night and finds himself in heaven. He meets Jesus at the gate and Jesus welcomes him into the kingdom and the first thing that this old man sees are these massive mansions and he asks Christ if one of them is his. Christ says yes and tells him to come follow him. They make their journey down a road that has tons of the most beautiful buildings that anyone has ever seen and they finally reach his. Christ welcomes him inside and the older man is amazed at the beauty of the building. Marble floors, tons of space, and then he looks up and sees that there is no roof on his mansion. He turns to Christ and says, "what’s the big deal why don’t I have a ceiling?! Christ simply turned to the man and said, "We stopped building when you did".  Let’s not be like the man in this story, at many times in our life we feel like we are doing pretty well and settle for less than we and our Heavenly Father knows we can achieve. One way we can do that is by developing a lifestyle that Christ did. He was charitable. That is the one attribute that will lead to success in almost everything you do. Be thankful for what Heavenly Father gives to us, tell Him you are thankful, be thankful for those trials that He gives us to strengthen us, be grateful for the small things in life, and be grateful in bad times, mediocre times, and the best of times. I found myself having the hardest time this week, I was brushing away those things that Heavenly Father has given me and I wanted things my way. Faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ means that we not only have that trust in Them, but to submit our will to Theirs and hand Them the reins. I love my Savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I have felt their influence in my life and so much in my mission. This week will be hard for me, I know it will be. I need to hand the reins over, it’s not my life, and it’s His time to be the sculptor. I know that our leaders are called of God and that this call for Elder Foster to leave will be the best thing for me and for him. I will press forward in faith. I will do what’s asked of me, and I will pray for that charity so that I can enjoy it. I love you all and pray for you daily. All is well!

Elder Welch