Cops, Technology and New Hair Cut

The first picture is from Sister Yoder, she didn’t know how to send you a picture with her phone so I assisted her! But I love when people do that! We ate dinner at their house and they fed us spaghetti... I love the Yoders! We are not getting any snow over here in Maryland. We have been getting rain and frost that is it. Sometimes the wind blows pretty hard, but no snow! I have no problem with that. haha 

       I am glad that Caleb’s basketball games went well. It looks like he is scoring quite a bit! I’m glad he is doing well though. 

       Ray received the Priesthood yesterday and he was ordained to the office of a priest! Then Ashton was ordained to the office of a teacher! Ray was able to stand in the circle! It was so amazing to see! He was so nervous to stand in the circle! But he did it and it was awesome. We have another baptism coming up this Saturday. Her name is Dekota and she has come a long way has well. Her husband committed suicide last April and left her with 3 kids. She has had a really cool conversion story! I have loved every second of it! Her kids, Mason (6 yrs old), Kenzie (4 yrs old), Lucas (2 yrs old), they all call me "Elder Wellington" and it is the cutest thing ever! The little girl Kenzie just had her 2 front teeth pulled and when she woke up she started crying because she wanted her two front teeth back! They are the cutest little kids ever. I will get a video of them calling me Elder Wellington!

       We were knocking doors this week on a road called "Old Williams Road" and we were just knocking every single door on that road. Every door said no no no no no. So we just keep knocking doors. Well Elder Cook starts walking on the sidewalk towards this house and I was still standing in the road behind this car that was parked in front of the house. So I was on one side of the car, and Elder Cook was on the other. Well this lady who’s car this is comes out of her house to let the dog out or something, and all she sees is 2 males on each side of her car.... She immediately slams the door and so we awkwardly walk away. We thought she just saw that we were Mormons and slammed the door in our face. But then she starts her car alarm.. We awkwardly walk away from this house, and the car alarm is just blaring. The whole neighborhood was wondering what the heck was going on. It being nighttime, and Me and Elder Cook assuming that she thought we were breaking into her car, fled from the "crime scene" lol But then, Here come the cop cars.. The police find us walking and ask if we had been knocking on her door. I slowly and carefully explain what was really happening and he said "Oh, well no worries... You are doing good things out here! Besides, I don’t think her elevator goes all the way to the top floor. She came out of her house with a hammer when we were there!" He then took our names and told us to have a good night! I got to say.... that was the first time that has happened on my mission. lol I see something new out here every day! We kept knocking the road and this man answers his door and tells us he has read the Book of Mormon and that he is very familiar with our church. He says he has been a minister for 32 years and wouldn’t have a problem talking with us. He wants us to come back. I am not to sure about it. I’m pretty positive he doesn’t want to "Just talk" haha We will see though!

       We also had a Zone Conference this past week and it was awesome.  It was 8 hours and 5 hours of it was a video instruction from Elder Bednar on smart phones in the mission field now. I am super excited to be a part of this work. It’s hastening. The way Elder Bednar explained it, it was amazing.

          Our priority is to still go and find those lost sheep. Our purpose does not change. But in today’s world, the sheep are moving. Everyone has technology. Everyone has a smart phone. SO our new objective is to go and find them faster and more efficiently! For every 100 houses that missionaries knock, only 1 person is normally interested. Now, we can narrow that down using technology.... It was awesome to see. We will be skyping lessons to those in our area but as well as everywhere! They are teaching us to use technology in a righteous way. It was interesting.. They told us they want to immunize a generation from Pornography. The brethren believe that learning how to use the technology in a righteous way on your mission will help you the rest of your life! It was so cool!

The Lord is hastening his work faster than I ever would have imagined!

      Well thanks for all you do! And thanks for the continual support coming my way.  I will talk to you next week! Have a great week and enjoy all that Wyo snow!! lol Love ya!!

                                                                               Love, Elder Welling

Baptism!!!

Hello Everyone,

Rays baptism was great!! Everything went well and the water was warm! Elder Cook actually got to baptize Ray! He had never baptized anyone so I thought it would be good for him! Anyways a member from our ward went and bought Ray a brand new white shirt, tie, pants, belt, and nice shoes! He looked so good. You will see him in the pictures. But he looked great! The guy never ceases to amaze me! I had the opportunity to confirm him though and that made me happy. Bishop Werner interviewed him for the Priesthood and he will receive it next week! 

        Anyways.. Ray has always been a little slower. He walks slow, he talks a little slower. But now I know why. I always thought that it was just the drugs and Alcohol he used to be on. But it’s not. When Ray was younger he was actually going to Georgetown University. He finished college and was going to be a veterinarian. While going to college and even after college he built houses! While building one day he fell off a 5 story building and he landed on a car, which put him into a coma. Due to the coma and the damage to his head he lost his memory, his ability to walk, his ability to write and his ability to read. Since then he hasnt been able to go use his college degree due to the accident. He has had to relearn to walk, read and write. I never would have guessed that he had that kind of an accident. Anyways From the time i met Ray to the Ray I know now is a completely different person! This Gospel Changes lives! It has been so amazing to see this guy change and to be baptized. I can’t explain how happy it has made me to see him change and come to church and to quit all of the stuff he used to do. 

         This week has been a little slower. One cool thing that happened though, was a woman called us and told us that her husband was a member, and they wanted us to come visit. So we drive all the way out to their house and we start talking to them. The man, tells us that he wants to start coming back to church. He says he wants to work towards getting the higher priesthood. Then his wife tells us that she used to get all of the missionary discussions. She said that she has been to a lot of churches and there is something about our church that draws her to us. So we taught her the Restoration. I was so excited to find her and her husband!!

           We also have another investigator on date to be baptized in 13 days! Her name is Dekota and she finally gave up smoking about a week ago!! She gave her vape away also! I was so excited to see her quit!

         This week has been a veryyyyyyy slow week. haha This week should be pretty busy. We have zone conference and all of that Jazz so that’s good. Anyways thanks for everything! I will have more next week! Have a great week! 

Love ya!

Elder Welling

EXCITED to stay in Cumberland!!

I have been doing great! I AM STAYING IN CUMBERLAND! I am so freaking excited to stay here. I will be here for more than 6 months now! We got a call last night at about 10 and they told us that Elder Cook and I are both staying! The reason I am so happy is because we have 2 baptisms in the coming 2 weeks and I would have been so mad if I missed them! I am glad you guys got the email on the phones. We are all super excited to get them over here! I also heard that the Steelers lost to the freaking jaguars..? How?! I was disappointed in them. They have been doing good this whole year and they lose to a team who hasn’t been in the playoffs in like 10 years lol 

       I’m glad that Caleb is doing good in basketball! And I’m super pumped to know that he is wearing #10!!!!! It must be the number or something! ;) But it sounds like he was doing really well!! 12 points?? jeez! The hard work pays off. I remember playing nervous when I was in middle school and all the way up to about sophomore year! Junior year was a little better and my Senior year was freaking awesome. I wish I could go back and play for Evanston again! I miss it! 

       Well Ray is going to be baptized this weekend! I can’t wait! He has been sick the last couple of days.. But he is still set to be baptized! He even found a new apartment! That’s a story also! lol It’s a funny story! Also Dakota gave up smoking finally! She through her vape away! We decided that being bold with her would be the best way. So we just asked her what her conviction was. And I think that question got to her and she is completely done! It was weird and cool to see! haha

       Last night we went to a members home. The Taylors! They are actually moving to Utah! We went to their house last night and ate dinner and played family games like mafia and signs and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun!

        This last week we get a text from Salt Lake from the referral center and it gave us the address to this person named Jamie. So when people get on LDS.org looking for a free bible or Book of Mormon, They request it and that request gets sent to the referral center and that request gets sent to us. Little do they know that 2 Mormon missionaries will be showing up on their door with their request. All of them think they will just send it in the mail. Kind ofcool how it works! So we put the address into our GPS and we go to the place.. and we pull up to this church.. And sure enough the address was the address of this random church.. So I get out of the car and we walk up to the church door an knock.. They open the door and we ask to see Jamie, they let us in and in the back room you can just here all these black people whispering "it’s the mormons i think" or "They are dressed up all weird" Anyways.. Jamie finally comes out and we hand her the bible she requested! Then we pull out the Book Of Mormon. And has soon as we did that everyone in the room next to us starts laughing at us and making fun of us. It was actually quite humiliating haha but we hand her the Book Of Mormon, and to top off the humiliation she says: "I will read the bible.. there is no way I’m reading the other book." So then of course everyone started laughing even harder at us. We awkwardly squeeze out the door and walk the walk of shame to our car.. lol It was so weird delivering a Book Of Mormon to a random church!!

         Anyways, my week has been pretty good. We have received 11 referrals this week! It has been so good! We will stay busy this week as well. We are going to try and go to the temple this week and do baptisms for the dead! It should be really fun with Ashton! then after that Elder Cook and I will stay for a session!  

         Well thanks for all the emails and I’m not getting transferred so you can send me stuff! lol Thanks for all you do! I will talk to you next week! Have a great week. Love ya!

                                                                            

                                                                                      Love, Elder Welling