This week has been full of miracles! Our main focus in coming into this area was to work with the members to find success and so we talked to a few areas in the mission having success with member work and have come up with a series of lessons to teach them...it works Beautifully. Our first lesson with a member family was the Whiting family. The Whiting family has the reputation to be hard on missionaries and have high expectations for them so for this being the first one we were doing was super nerve racking! We taught the restoration focusing on the process of revelation God has for us to be guided(the first vision was a form of revelation, prophets, etc), we ask them how they came to know the Book of Mormon is true(basically how they've used and gained revelation in their live), and then share the quote by Thomas S Monson "Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together to labor in the Lords vineyard, to bring souls unto him." We emphasize revelation again and tell them this quote is telling us members can get that revelation for missionary work too. This is just one of 5 lessons but it has yielded great results...if any of my missionary homies out there want more info on it, hit me up! We have to type the series up for the AP's next week so i can send it to others as well. Monday we went to a members house and they gave us one referral already(we will be teaching them Monday). The Whitings have already given us one and are working on another one, it's just going really well, we've been blessed. 

   This week we have been in the building up stage from the whitewash and so we have been able to teach the Restoration quite a few times but now its time for us to help them progress. It's easy to teach people on a campus but a lot are noncommittal. I taught my first district meeting this week and I felt like it went really well, I'm focusing on those member lessons. 

   With being on a campus there are a lot of activities that we do to try and get in contact with people and interest them in the gospel possibly. The highlight of my week probably is every Thursday when we get to teach Chinese students english...there are millions here in little troy, they crack me up! I want to teach one super bad! Other than that a lot of this week was trying to get a committed teaching pool and contacting! Im pumped for general conference. all is well, love and miss yall #BecauseHeLives 

   Elder Welch

  Tuesday we had a good district meeting! Elder Hintze is the best district leader I've had on my mission and I am patterning a lot of what I want to do in district meeting after what he did. We picked up the new missionaries that day and it was fun to know who my companion was going to be and watch him that day before it was announced on Wednesday. On Wednesday was a very emotional day for me. I am not one for change, I think I get attached to things pretty easily, and I knew I was leaving behind something I had worked on so hard for the past 9 months. The bright side of leaving was that I got a hug from Sister Smith! That is something that no one usually gets until they are going on the airplane, it was the closest thing I got to a momma hug in a long time. 

  I was really unsure what Troy was going to be like but the best thing I can describe it as as far as size goes is about the size of Wells. The bright side to it is that there is Troy University which increases the size about 30%. We have done a lot of planning the past couple of days because we need to get a direction before we work and a lot of it is now starting to come together. Our plan for this area is to work the campus in the day time and during the night to have at least 1 member lesson a day about missionary work. We really want to involved the members in the community. We can baptize all we want on campus but it wont give support to the branch because they travel back home after they are done with their schooling. We think its a good combination. I love everyone, I love missionary work. Expect miracles! All is well! Love yall 

 

    Elder Welch

   Tender Mercy #1- We were walking around on FAMU one day trying to find anyone on campus and we came across one dude. His name is Sekou Muhammad...guess what religion he is!? It doesnt matter though. We shared a family history card with him and he was down. Not a huge miracle that we saw him and got a return appointment with him but it leads up to our second tender mercy. 

   Tender Mercy #2- We were at the family history appointment with Sekou and the library was about to close. He said we could go to a different room and continue but because of our busy schedule that day we ended the appointment with him even though he wanted to continue. As we walked out of the library in the architecture building we said our goodbyes to him and started heading for the back door (the same door we came in from). As we approached the door we all stopped and thought that it might be smarter to go out the front door to save some time, especially since we were in a rush! 

   When we went out of the door we were walking up to the sidewalk and crossed paths with a guy. His name was Clayton and he talked to him for maybe 15 seconds explaining the family search website, gave him the card, and then said goodbye. About 30 seconds later when we were about to get into our car he yelled back to us and asked us if we were affiliated with the "Mormon church." We all turned on a dime and concurred! He talked about how he is from Brazil and was wanting to get in contact with missionaries to learn more about the church, he even tried to call the 3rd ward bishop but no luck. We set up an appointment with him. 

The amazing thing about this story is the chain of events that led us to this man. 

 1) We scheduled the Family history appointment with Sekou at the perfect time and in the perfect place..and might I add, on a week where no one else was there! 

 2) Even though Sekou wanted to continue and was extremely interested, we ended up leaving a little early. 

 3) We were prompted to go out a different door.  

 4) We were directed to Clayton at a perfect time. (We were in such a hurry we wouldn't have went out of our way to talk to him.) 

 5) We only have one side of the story of how we were led to him, we are sure how he was led to us was just as inspired. There is no doubt in our mind that his ancestors led us to him and prepared his mind to accept the message. 

  Tender Mercy #3- The lesson we taught Clayton was amazing! We found out that he is from a small country town in Brazil where he said he never sees missionaries and that he was a foreign exchange student for this year and goes home in June. We taught him the restoration and boy was it powerful, probably top 10 of my mission on the scale of spiritual. He is so good at keeping his commitments...to be continued! 

  There are so many tender mercies that are right under our nose, if we dont look at the big picture, with an eternal perspective, we wont see them! The secret to happiness is gratitude! Love and miss yall!

 Elder Welch

  On Monday it was another busy day in the office and then a long drive over to Crestview to tradeoff with the Mobile zone leaders. Elder Riddle, Elder Palau, and myself stayed here in Tallahassee and worked the campuses. Elder Riddle is currently serving in a super small town so the pace of campus pumped him up, I love my area. We taught Celine and since she is leaving for Utah for the next few weeks it could have potentially been the last time I will see her on the mission. It's no fun leaving converts. Great lesson though! Wednesday was a cool day for a couple of reasons 1) Sabrina's birthday 2) MLC and 3) anniversary when I was assigned as a zone leader, it's crazy how fast a year goes by. We were asked to teach at MLC on Monday and so you can imagine the time we had to prepare for that with the tradeoff in the middle. We had some extra help and it went well. On Thursday we had another tradeoff, this time it was with the Fort Walton zone leaders. Elder MacLay, Elder Sorenson, and Myself held down home base here in Tally. We had a lot of appointments but they unfortunately fell through so we contacted a lot on FAMU. Normally people on FAMU are super nice and open to talk but for some reason Satan was pushing against us extra hard. We were bashed a couple of times, not many people out, it randomly started raining. We knew that there was going to be something good coming up though, Satan doesn't push extra hard for no reason. Friday we had one more experience when he was pushing back. We had an appointment fall through but saw a guy that we started talking to and ended up being able to teach. He had some concerns but the main thing that we saw was that when we were talking about 2 important things people starting coming out of the house or someone called him or some commotion happened that drew his attention away. The first time was when we were reciting the first vision, the second time is when we were teaching about the Book of Mormon, and the last time was when we were throwing down on anti doctrine! When the Lord hastens his work, so does Satan. When the day starting to draw to a close we had one last appointment with probably one of our most solid investigators so far, her name is Jackie. We have taught her the restoration super simply prior to this so we wanted to review it with her. It was such a powerful lesson. She talked about how she had been planning on getting baptized when she went home from break but now was second guessing it because of what she is being taught and what she is feeling. I would probably say it was in my top 10 most spiritual lessons. 

  My overall tender mercy for this week has been something that has been a mission long endeavor, I would possibly say even before that. Story time! About 13 months ago when I was a district leader serving in Mobile I was on a tradeoff with a missionary that was going to be going home a week later. When we were laying in bed he was discussing some of his plans. Whenever missionaries start talking about it I get a large amount of anxiety that comes along with the conversation. I remember the next morning getting on my knees and asking for help to be able to focus and for things to work out in time so that I can dedicate myself. Fast forward 5 months and I am serving in tally. Missionaries always talk about where they are going to school and try to recruit other missionaries but Elder Musgrave, who I only served with for 2 weeks said I should apply to BYU and that time it stuck with me. Eventually I decided to take action but realized I didn't have a good enough ACT score to get in, so that was my first step. Once I took the ACT I received my score back which was the EXACT SAME score as last time. So a little frustrated and upset and with some counsel from my good ole ma I still followed what I felt and still applied to BYU. This past weekend I get an email back from BYU saying that I hadn't been accepted to attend school there. I hope everyone can visualize my faith being crushed with each one of these blows. I was frustrated not only that I didn't get in but that I felt like I had wasted so much time. Why did I feel like I needed to do all of that stuff? Since I knew that BYU wasn't an option anymore I went back and emailed my counselor from SUU to start getting the ball rolling on things I need to do. Then I got the answer of why all of this even needed to happen in the first place. I get an email back from him saying that he was excited about my decision and due to me retaking my ACT my scholarship had been reconsidered and it now didn't cover half of my tuition but now covered quite a bit more. Nothing is a coincidence, all of those steps were necessary. The blessing that I was given here was great but I just love looking at God being so aware. The Lesson learned like I said at the beginning meant so much more than the experience itself. Love and miss yall. All is well! 

 Elder Welch

 

  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 

  Elder Welch

  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

 

  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

 

 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

 

  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. 

   Elder Welch

  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

  

   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