What a great week it has been! I will try and type super fast but we don't have much time to email today so forgive me if it is a shorter email. These past couple of weeks have been a growing process for me. I really have been trying to get the most out of the last few months of my mission and have made promises with President that raise my commitment level, the Lord is blessing me with opportunities to grow. Monday was a LONG day in the office. There are a lot of apartments closing so we had to move a lot of companionships around in a mini transfer to make arrangements for that. Tuesday we had a zone training. My zone leaders right now were two elders that I was a zone leader over in Mobile so it was cool to see them up there teaching me. I went on a tradeoff with one of them after that and it was a pretty good day. We had a super cool experience that night with a less active member. Missionaries had been trying to get him to come back to church since the late 80s and there wasn't much progress at all. When we just dropped in on him and after a lot of small talk he said "if you want me to come to church this is what you have to do..." and just told us a few points of criteria. Blessings!
The rest of the week we have basically be contacting the campuses and setting up appointments. We are on FAMU campus and in about an hour and a half we taught 3 lessons and had 4 new investigators. Even though there have been experiences this week that have made me struggle a little but there has definitely been blessings as well! I love being on campus due to the fact that we have so many people around us to talk to.. we've OYM'd and left a commitment with 270 people this week. loving life! All is well
Boy do I love serving on campus's. Monday was a busy day in the office. With our missionary numbers going from 250 to 185 in a span of 6 months we have had to get rid of a ton of cars and apartments so we decided which cars and which areas are getting shut down. On Tuesday we had our first district meeting on campus and it was so good! Elder Hintze is our district leader(he came out with me) and he just barely got done being a zone leader for about 7 months, he did such a good job! We had a tradeoff with the Dothan zone leaders that day and worked campus! For some reason it was freezing in the south this week! It was floating around the high 30s low 40's and with humidity that is freezing! Wednesday all we basically did was tradeback and then went to the office to figure out more of the logistics on cars and apartments. On Thursday we had another exchange but with
the Panama City zone leaders.
Elder Smellie came to tally with Elder Palau and I. We worked on FAMU campus that day and we were blessed so much! FAMU is rated the number one school for black people in the nation so it's easier to talk to people for some reason. It was election week on the campus so people were literally coming up to us asking us if we were going to school there and what we were doing. The best part about it all is that we talked to the entire student body. President, Vice President, everybody! We are in with the top of the food chain, it tall trickles down from there!
Yesterday we just finished up our final touches on moving our apartment. I love the work! Hope all is well this week!
Elder Welch
I knew that this week as going to be crazy but I didn't think it'd end up being this crazy. On Monday we had the black box guy from Salt Lake in the office so things were hectic! The black boxes are super cool though, Im definitely putting one in my teenagers car when I get to that point. They track your speed, braking, seat belts, if you go over a bump too hard, and if you turn too sharp. Depending on the severity of the violation it is put on our driving record and President gets a summary of it every transfer...good thing I drive like a grandma already. The guy was here all week to train us and all of the missionaries on these things so we travelled with him. His job would be so crazy to have, he is over all of the vehicles in 32 different missions...about 2250. We generally have zone conferences every other transfer but with how many general authorities have come into the mission the past year the last one we had was in April of 2014. We taught on the survey that I talked about a few letters ago, the mission...for the most part loved it.
Thursday night we went to a baptism in fifth ward. Our new investigator Eric came and we taught him a super spiritual restoration message. His fellow-shipper just got off his mission in Mexico 3 weeks ago and he is kind of having a hard time with English but we still used him in the lesson haha. Friday and this morning all that we have been doing is trying to move into our new place that is closer to campus. That has been a task in and of itself. Sorry that this letter is so short but honestly most of the days were the exact same, just in a different part of the mission. Love and miss y'all, all is well.
Elder Welch
Hello Everybody!
This week has been so good! On Monday it was a bit hectic because President needed to change transfers up a few times so that means we were busy calling people and informing them and also organizing the logistics of the whole event. Later that p-day we also had a bi-zone dodgeball tournament, we came into it being 2 time champions but this time we lost it in the finals...sad day. The plus side of all of this is that our district now will destroy in the tournament, I'll mention that later on in the letter.
On Tuesday we had a really good district meeting and President threw down in the mission wide conference call about consecration. He listed like 5 things he wanted missionaries to be or have as attributes and then asked for 50 elders and 50 sisters to email him this week to volunteer. I know if the mission takes this seriously that the work here is going to BOOM. The rest of that day we were preparing for the new missionaries to fly in. We were lucky that the flight got delayed about 30 minutes, it helped us out a lot. Transfer time has to be one of my favorite parts about this assignment. We get to see the new missionaries fresh off the plane and spend that whole day with them and train them. The rest of the week we get to spend with the missionaries that have been here for a while.
Wednesday we had a fantastic meeting with the missionaries that are training the new ones. Even though we were the ones that were teaching, I learned so much for the people in the room, we had a lot of fun role plays too. We got a new companion. He actually goes home at about the same time as me, he is a spanish missionary so they go home at weird times. He was a zone leader in the Fort Walton zone for the past 9 months and he made that place boom so we thought we'd see what he could do for the mission. His name is Elder Palau. The rest of the week we have been trying to figure out what we are doing on campus and get a lot of the information on the church records all squared away. We had a little bit of time to go on campus yesterday and there was SO MANY PEOPLE. I was quite overwhelmed. We not only cover FSU now but we also cover FAMU. We got to walk around FAMU for about an hour and we saw two black guys singing and holy smokes they could throw down! I have never heard anything like it in my life. It was one of those situations where you don't want to mention that you sang in choir too because you don't want them to make you sing haha. It's been a great week full of blessings. i hope all is well at home. Love and miss y'all!
Elder Welch
So I'm going to apologize ahead of tie for the terrible email I'm sending out right now, we have been running around like crazy with it being transfers time! I love it! Like I said last week, we don't have any investigators so that meant that we have a lot of finding time. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't looking forward to tracting for a full week but there was a method that we used that made it fun. A Survey! The first thing that it does is helps us get into the door, it's super bold! We did family history survey which asked people their options on things and then used that to interest them in family history, it worked wonders! The first door that we used it on we not only got in the door but were in there for 50 minutes talking about their family. Just to give you a glimpse of how out of the ordinary that is...I've been on my mission for about 20 months and have only gotten into 4 doors from tracting, three of them being from the survey. We even got to go to FSU campus for a few hours and try it out on how it works with an OYM'ing situation. There were a lot of other good things that came from that survey, we will be teaching the whole mission about it in two weeks.
Other than the survey and contacting, we worked on transfers with president all week. There was one night where we were at his house until 11:15 working on it and there has also been some changes today as well. Riley received the Aaronic priesthood on Sunday and will be going to the temple on Saturday! All in all it was a great week with a lot of blessing to account for. Love and miss y'all, hope all is well.
This week was packed with a lot of different activities that have ranged all across the mission.
Monday we were supposed to go to Dothan to help some sisters move out of their apartment but that ended up getting cancelled so we were left Monday evening with an empty schedule. We ended up staying busy in the office though so no problems there.
Tuesday we had district meeting and our district leader was super sick the whole meeting! An hour into the meeting he had to sit down and I taught the rest of it for him. I love training missionaries, we don't get as much an opportunity to do it as zone leaders or district leaders. We had to help a senior couple the rest of that day with unpacking the things they acquired when they moved people.
Wednesday was a special day for me but also kind of a tough one. We travelled to Fox Run (where I started my mission) to help the elders move, yes one of the two companionships in that area aren't going to be there anymore. The bright side of the day was that I got to go on a tradeoff with the elders for that day. I didn't get to see a ton of people that I taught but I did get to see Cody Cousin, someone that I baptized when I was there, He is doing great and I saw the ward mission leader and it was just a good reunion to be back in fox run all together.
Thursday we travelled back to Tallahassee all day. Friday we had to do a lot of our weekly duties that we hadn't gotten taken care of yet so we weekly planned, unloaded our trailer, went to the dumps for the first time on my mission, they are TOTALLY different in the south. Saturday was a great day. With not having many people to teach we contacted for about 3-4 hours. I honestly wasn't as use to it as I was in Mobile so I was kind of rusty and I was super intimidated! We had ward conference Sunday and Riley was confirmed, great meeting! When we contacted on Sunday I felt a lot more confident. Sorry for the short email but know I love and miss everyone, all is well!
Elder Welch
The days seem like a blur to me! On Monday we went to the court house and the office building for the Florida government and it was sweet, with it being such a tall building i could see all of Tallahassee. Driving around I don't really notice that there are no mountains here but it is still weird for me to get above the trees and see the earth curve. On Tuesday I had a tradeoff with someone who has served his whole mission around me, i absolutely love the kid. Elder Peterson is the tally 1 zone leader and served with me in the mobile zone, he is such a stud. We we had about an hour to proselyte and then had to go to presidents to help with with something and ended up being there all night and eating dinner with him. We taught Sister Baumeister about Elder Anderson and how apostles speak on whatever we desire and need answer for then committed her to come with a specific question.
On Wednesday we did service at a homeless shelter to tradeback with our companions. Im not going to lie, i was kind of nervous to know what I was going to be encountering there but it was so much fun, there was surprisingly quite a bit of missionary opportunities there with the staff. Elder Sorenson and I had a few hours to proselyte that day and then that night we taught Riley his last lesson and Elder Sorrel conducted the interview. Thursday was great! The missionaries in Tallahassee basically got to spend all day long with him. from 1-4 he held a special conference for the entire mission to come to. We gave him 4 questions we wanted to know and he talked all 3 hours about them. I learned a lot! I think the main points i took away were what he said about honesty and focusing on the unseen. I loved him being here specifically because he is from Florida so I felt like he could relate to us more than the previous general authorities, it felt that way when he was talking to us too. That night there was an hour and a half meeting for the Tallahassee stake and then missionaries in that city could go to the meeting. The main take away I had there was that I need to surround myself with greatness spiritually. If I'm around people that are spiritually uplifting and have high standards as well that will accelerate my spiritual growth that much more!
Friday I had an exchange with Elder Christensen and I learned so much. There are few missionaries in our mission that alma 48:17 applies to, i can only think of 3 that I've been around but Elder Christensen is one of them. I love the caliber of missionaries I get to go on tradeoffs with, i at times feel like they are the leaders on the exchange.
On Saturday Elder Sorenson and I helped Elder and Sister Bell with some of the housing duties, that took up all of our day other than doing our weekly planning that night. On Sunday we had the baptism of Riley and that must have been the most missionary oriented service I have ever been to. Riley's whole family was there and everyone who talked sounded like they were talking directly to them but not making it noticeable. Our ward mission leader bore a powerful testimony after the baptism, we watched a video about the book of mormon, and the music was perfect...it was actually performed by Marvin Goldstein...I love that guy, such a saint.
I love the gospel and I love being a missionary. I love the spirit I've felt in this setting. I hope everyone recognizes that when we receive the gift of the holy ghost the wording "receive the holy ghost" is an invitation, not a command. It's up to us to live worthily of it, it's not a freebee. Love and miss y'all! all is well.
Elder Welch
What an eventful week, believe it or not, we drove over 1000 miles this week and didnt even get past the half way point of the mission! We had a tradeoff with the Mobile zone leaders so it was back to the homeland for me! With Mobile being 4.5 hours away we needed to leave about half way through preparation day, not too much happened in the car that was exciting enough to note other than we were jamming pretty hard to the new 2015 youth album, its so good!
We stayed the night in Daphne, Alabama because the zone leaders needed to go to another district meeting. I really do miss that part about being a zone leader, I love seeing how different district leaders teach. On our way up to Atmore after the district meeting we stopped at Rick Wells's house for lunch. Rick is the guy that we found my first Thanksgiving in Mobile and was actually baptized after I left Mobile so it was nice to see him again, they always feed us a lot too which isn't a bad thing at all. The day in Atmore brought me back to many exchanges that I had been on previously with missionaries that served there. Its surprising the things missionaries can remember just from being to a place a few times, it was nice to know a little bit about going into an area for a tradeoff, we usually go in as blind as a bat. Wednesday got up early and went to mission leadership council. A lot of missionaries thought that it was hard to get specific direction on things they need to do in MLC so president changed it up a bit and it was so good! We found out we needed to teach about 3 days before the council and we had tradeoffs for almost all of that time in between so we were sweating it a little bit going in there but Ive learned that if there is no time to prepare the spirit helps you a lot on what we need to say. Its a lot of fun to have those experiences but Ive also learned that winging it is a totally different thing, if we had time to prepare and didn't, it wouldn't have went so well. Once we got back that night we taught Riley part of the fifth lesson and he is progressing so well to baptism. We taught him yesterday and went over the baptismal interview questions so he knows what will be asked, we will have the baptismal service next Sunday! Blessings!
Thursday there was an emergency transfer so we were driving along the coast all day, it was gorgeous! However, it was 35 degrees outside so lookin from inside the car was plenty for me. Ive become such a baby when it comes to the cold Friday we traveled to Panama City to do a tradeoff with those zone leaders, I was on the beach with Elder Smellie. With it being so cold there weren't too many people outside for it being a vacation spot so we had to get creative! We went on the pier! We were there for about 30 minutes and only talked to 1 person so I was feeling kind of guilty but on our way out a lady and her husband stopped and talked to us about how he use to be mormon, just a really good conversation...we are led to places for a reason!
Im loving being a missionary and have no complaints, hope all is well back home!
Monday we went to the mall and meet up with Elder Hintze and Elder Peterson. We just walked around and looked at stuff. How bout that game. FSU got their butts kicked but i still root for them! Hopefully Oregon wins and they can rep the West Coast! That evening we went and taught Celine. We got her a copy of Preach My Gospel, we then studied with her. That was our lesson! It was a lot of fun! We studied about Christlike attributes and focused on Faith.
Tuesday was zone training. That went really good! After zone training we went to lunch then tried to see some less active and find new people to teach! That has been the hardest thing to do in this area is find. We don't get a lot of time to do it so we are going to be working on setting aside more time to find. Because if you cant find you cant teach! As simple as that!! We went out to dinner with the Tally 2 Zl's, Tally 3 B elders and the Tally 3 Sisters and President and Sister Smith! We went to a Hibachi grill. It was really good! Our cook was sorta vulgar with his jokes. Sister Smith didn't take any of his crap and sorta called him out and he calmed down! He was just making immature jokes. It was Elder Garn's Birthday so we sang to him and he got this cool little fruit boat. Fun night.
Wednesday we were in the office for a little bit! I have been able to learn a lot about computers and stuff while i have been assistant, that was never something that i thought that I would learn as a missionary. We had dinner with the Wahlquists. They are so good to us! We always leave with left overs and candy! Love that family! We went over to President's so I could Skype Whitney! It was super cool to see her after 19 months and it honestly was kinda hard but i loved it! Then we did a conference call with all the zone leaders talking about goals and what not this new year. The mission had to come in early so that we weren't on the roads with all the crazy drivers late at night. Elder Sorenson and I made sure we had our sparking cider and made a toast. PARTY!! :) Happy New Year by the way!
Thursday we did a lot of planning and office work. We taught Riley at the Ladles home. We taught some of the commandment to him! He is progressing really well! He is still on for him baptism on the 18th. The Ladle family has been so good for him, they are super solid and the spirit is very strong in their home! Its so nice to be able to teach in a members home where the investigator can see the gospel working and blessing a families life and feel that special spirit: Also to show the investigator that we are just normal people!We drove to Marianna late that night and meet the Ozark zone leaders there and stayed in the Marianna Elders apartment!
Friday morning Elder Urquiaga and I drove to Tallahassee and spent the day working there! He is a super smart guy and a deep thinker, he asked some super inspired questions to me as we talked and it was what i needed, i was thankful for that. We met up in Dothan that night and then we drove over to Enterprise for a baptism that was happening, Elder Sorenson found her when he was serving there!
Saturday was Kathie's baptismal service. The service went really well. We went to lunch with the Bishop in that ward. He said he wanted to recruit me for my last 3 months haha. We traveled back to Tallahassee that day and worked a little bit in the office.
Sunday was great! We have church at 1 o'clock here and though I don't like it very much it is a lot better for our schedule, we get to do more in the day.
We had a lesson with Sister Baumeister who is a psychologist and she is dagum smart, thinks way deep. She has been reading Jesus the Christ and has been thinking a little too deep so we had to teach her about keeping our studies and testimony on a firm foundation rather than a sandy one. We taught Riley a lesson about tithing and fasting..he was already living it! Great kid.
I love this time of year to make new goals and account for the ones last year. This life; simply stated, is a time to progress. Heavenly Father helps us progress by giving us trials. One thing I've learned on my mission is that if you want not only to progress, but to gain the christlike attribute of humility: do hard things to make you rely on the Lord. Easiest solution! Set Goals! It is one thing to want to change but its another thing to let the Lord help us do that! I love my mission and I love this church. There is nothing better than the gospel, however, my life with it gets better. All is well, love y'all!
You know, I absolutely love my calling and assignment as an assistant but boy it'll be nice not to have meetings on p-day so I can email a good email, I feel like I've been rushed. This week was full of great blessings!
On Tuesday we had our district meeting with a new district leader and he did a fantastic job! After that we did a gift exchange and had a lunch for our district activity. We had planned on going on exchanges that day with the Panama City zone leaders but it was raining like crazy that day! We were about to leave and I just didn't feel completely right about it. I remember when I was younger and mom and dad at different times saying we couldn't do things for no reason other than they didn't feel good, I am guessing that is what it felt like. Long story short, we didn't go. That night we were going to a lesson and then President called us telling us to lock the mission down because there are tornados warnings all over our mission so it was a good thing we didn't travel.
Thursday was Christmas and it was great to finally open up all of the gifts that had been sitting under the tree, I told Elder Sorenson that on a lot of Christmases there are always like 1 or two presents that you don't care for but this Christmas I didn't have so I was happy. Calling the family was great, nothing to complain about there.
On Friday we went on a tradeoff with the Fort Walton zone leaders, specifically Elder Palau for me. I learned so much on that exchange, he is such a humble guy. On our way back from the exchange we talked about some sacred experiences we'd had over the mission that we had never really discussed with anyone, not even in emails home, it was a good learning experience for me. On Sunday was actually Patrick Baldwins 1 year mark from when we had his baptism. We had a lesson with Riley and he discussed the answer that he had received and set a baptismal date with him. The Book of Mormon has converting power! Sorry for the short, not very detailed letter. love y'all!
What a busy week! We had transfers take place and though it wasn't a big one, there was still a lot of planning that went into it. Usually we would have the new missionaries and departing missionaries come in on different days for their dinners but the church doesn't schedule flights for the week around Christmas because of prices so we had to smoosh things into one day. I'm not going to go into the specifics of the craziness but let's just say that I was constantly on the move until Wednesday at about 7pm. A good thing about all of it is that everyone got to where they need to be safely and in a timely manner, count our many blessings! On Thursday we had a tradeoff with the Tally 2 zone leaders and I went to their area with Elder Christensen. He comes from a broken family but he is as solid as ever, I learned so much on that tradeoff. Something cool that happened while we were working is when we went to a less active's home, her mother was there. Amongst the small talk we asked where everyone was from and the mother said she was from Wyoming. Now in my mind I'm obviously going to ask about Lovell even though I know the chances of them being from there are slim to none, well what did I know! She was from Lovell, Wyoming. 2000 miles away and 1 of 3000 people in that town. She didn't know any Welch's but dad may know about Burlingtons or Wardells.
On Friday we had planned to go to the office for about an hour and a half but that turned into 6 hours. We redid President Smith's board and it took a while, but boy does it look good! Sister Smith gave us gift cards to Chick-Fil-A because of what we did, while we were at Chick-Fil-A a member from a nearby branch bought us 2 more gift cards, and then we had a lesson with Celine after dinner and she bought us 2 more Chick-Fil-A cards for Christmas, good thing I like chicken!
We had a super good sacrament meeting on Sunday, there were a ton of performances with it being the Christmas program. We taught Riley the gospel of Jesus Christ and were planning on extending a baptismal date but it just didn't feel right this time, he knows its coming though. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas this week and that everyone stays safe if there is traveling. All is well here.
Elder Welch
