Ups and Downs for 1st Week

 I made it to Maryland and I am doing good! Hopefully everyone at home is enjoying life! I’m glad to hear you got my package and all of that! This week has had its ups and for sure some downs. I got here to Maryland and we went straight to the mission home. We then had dinner and got to know everyone. We then were each interviewed by the mission president and we didn’t go to bed that night until 2am.. it was rough! The next day we headed out to our new areas and got our companions! My companions name is Elder Sterling Fitzgerald. He is from Pleasant Grove Utah, and he is short! haha He is also really energetic! 

       I am in Cumberland Maryland. My area has 3 states in it! We have Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia! We have a little bit of everything. We have the city, we have the slums and ghetto places and we have the country. But all together it’s a pretty sketch place. People were not lying when they said it was a scary place! My area has all the seasons we do, it is beautiful here. The leaves are starting to change colors and all! You can send my winter gear and rain jacket and all that whenever!

       We have 60,000 citizens. We have 1 ward in our HUGE area, we have 1 church building in our huge area, and we only have 125 members. So when people see 2 white guys from Utah and Wyoming walking around the streets, they have no idea who we are. This is nothing like Utah. Imagine walking out to half court naked at an EHS varsity basketball game, while everyone is staring at you, that’s what it feels like here. The Apostasy is real everyone. There are churches on every corner of this city, and they are not LDS churches. There are churches of every kind here. The members we do have treat us well though! But for real, no one here has even heard of the Mormon church. And if they have, they have been told it is "evil"

      My experience this week was really bad, but then it got better. My companion and I were walking up a street called Columbia Street. This street has garbage laying everywhere, and bricks are falling off the houses and the walls are cracking and all. It’s just a really different place. There are people smoking everywhere and it’s just a sketch street. Anyways, we are walking up this street and we see a Black guy sitting all alone on his steps, so we walk up to him and ask if we can share a message. He agrees. While we are talking, Black guys just start piling out of this house from the door behind the guy we were talking to. So 2 white guys from Wyoming and Utah are surrounded by a mist of darkness.. lol This being my 3rd day in the field, I am in the process of crapping my pants haha, all of the black guys that came out are smoking cigarettes and using the F word all over the place. Anyways, we just keeping talking to these guys about the Book Of Mormon. A black guy that is freaking huge, stands up and starts trying to bible bash us. When we couldn’t answer his questions they all laughed at us and pretty much just mocked us.. We walked away quite embarrassed. So we continue up this street and we see another black guy sitting on his porch.. of course, my companion stops to talk.. So we ask this man if we can share a message about Jesus Christ and he too agrees.. So we pull out the Book of Mormon and show it to him, and before we could even talk he says

"That right there is a false book"

Me and my companion kind of taken back by the statement say what?

He says "You both are going straight to Hell for preaching that book. It’s evil. Just because you 2 dress up all nice, doesn’t give ya the right to be talking about a fake book. Nothing adds on to the bible."

He then proceeds to say that we will go straight to hell for even trying. He says that we shouldn't play with our lives like that. 

     Its moments like these that leave us shaken. Especially because the LDS community is the only light in this big dark place! but even in our darkest times here in Baltimore, I felt Gods love more that day than ever before. I knew what I was doing was right. Even though it was humiliating. This man yelled at us in middle of a street in front of all the people. But, What I was doing was right. I wanted a stronger testimony so that I wouldn’t be sad in times like that, and I got one. God loves his missionaries. 

    My Elder Oaks experience was awesome. We were in the MTC and we were teaching an investigator named Fernando. He was really really difficult and asked weird questions. And one of the questions he asked is, "How do you even know that Christ lived and died for us? There is no proof."

Well that kind of slapped me in the face. I had never in my life kneeled down and prayed to ask if Christ did suffer for us. Now obviously he did. But I had never asked for that personal witness. So after that meeting around noon I went and kneeled down and asked. Well later that night we had a devotional! no one knew who was coming or who was going to speak to us, so we all went to the devotional and sat down. To our surprise, Elder Oaks comes out and sits on the stand! in awe, we all stand up and are excited! we sit down and Elder Oaks gets up and begins talking about how through the infinite Atonement of Christ and the Ressurection, we all live again. It was amazing. Hearing him bear his simple and short testimony of the Savior was powerful. That is when I knew that My Savior lives. I have also come to know of his divinity by bearing testimony of him. Every time I bear my testimony on the Savior it grows.

    I have had the opportunity to teach a lot of lessons already! I didn’t think there were this low of living conditions out here, but there are.. it is sad to see people struggle. But seeing the light come into their eyes when the Savior in mentioned in unbelievable. I met a man this last week, and his name is John Long. We started talking to him and all of the sudden he just breaks down in agonizing tears. He looks up and says "My son committed suicide 2 months ago" Me and my companion bore solid testimonies on the plan of salvation and he had a light come back into his life. It was amazing. He is our most solid investigator right now.

We have 7 solid investigators that are new since I have been here. We are teaching a total of 22 people! We are staying busy!   Tell Grandma Welling I love and miss her!

                                                                                                                                

 Love, Elder Welling