New District Leader and Cockroaches

Well the time has come again for another Transfer! We received a call last night from our assistants Elder Marshall and Elder Palmer.. And they tell Elder Brown that President would like him to be the Woodstock Zone Leader. Then they tell me that President would like me to be the Romney District Leader!! I was pretty excited. I think it's going to be really fun. Our district is awesome!  We have the Romney Elders, Petersburg Elders, and Luray Elders in our district! So 6 of us which is average size for a district here! Elder Killian my MTC companion is in it!! Elder Brown is my Zone Leader so he and I will be attend a ton of meetings, interviews, and exchanges together!! So he isn't going far. But I am excited for this next transfer! My new Companions name is Elder Mundon! He came in a transfer after me! 

      Well so far this week has been a good one!! This area has its struggles.. But it also has a lot of things that are fun. I can't believe the influence and motivation that our Prophet Russell M. Nelson has given our mission. Ever since conference, our entire mission has been going crazy hard. It's been awesome. Everyone is talking about how great it was. Even the nonmembers Elder Brown and I have talked with have said they saw all of the temple announcements and other things all over the internet!! Haha it's been amazing to see!!

We are very fortunate to live in a time when there is a modern day Prophet!! And he even speaks to us!! Haha

        This past week our mission president sent an exterminator to kill the Roaches in our trailer.. He sprayed everywhere and after he sprayed we sat there for about 5 minutes and then the roaches started falling out of the ceiling cracks, kitchen cupboards, light sockets and more. It was crazy!! Elder Brown and I were just scooping them up and throwing them in the sticky traps!! We caught a ton of baby roaches on the one sticky trap so we had to throw it away.. But we set out another one and caught 5 more big ones! Haha it was quite disgusting.. But I'm super thankful President sent an exterminator! Haha we asked the exterminator how to get rid of roaches and he says.. "Guys.. You can't get rid of these things completely.. They have survived since the dinosaurs."  I thought that was pretty funny! Haha

        So the exterminator did very well this week! He came in and sprayed.. And he told us in about 5 minutes after he sprayed roaches would be everywhere.. Well sure enough 5 minutes later there were roaches crawling out of the ceiling and falling on the ground.. Coming out of cracks.. And out of our sink even. It made me sick. But we killed them and we are still finding some crawling out! 

        Well this last week we were busy knocking doors in Downtown Romney and we knocked on about our 3rd door of the day.. And this older fellow, about late 50s early 60s comes outside towards us with a pamphlet in his hand.. Elder Brown and I both have the instant thought of  "oh crap.." haha  this guy came out with a pamphlet in his hand ready to Bash us! So the whole time he is walking over to us we both knew that the pamphlet was something anti. He gets to us and gives us the pamphlets and tells us to read. He continues to ask us "if we even know what Joseph Smith really taught" then goes onto tell us how we preach a false Christ and false Prophets. I then ask him if he had ever attended a Mormon church? He says no I won't go to a Mormon church. And I say "Sir I don't really think you have the right to judge our church then." he says Have you ever been to a Baptist church (he was American Baptist..) and I say "well to be honest I don't really see a need to ever go to one." and so then he goes off on how Joseph Smith taught about evangelizing the moon and all this crap and how the BOM is a false book. As we finally get walking away, he starts yelling at us that we would and are going straight to Hell if we keep preaching a false Christ. I look back at him and wink and give him a thumbs up.. Hahaha that guy came out ready and prepared to bash against our religion. I've found that all Baptist people do out here in bash Mormons.

                We have been cleaning our trailer all day and getting Elder Brown ready to leave! He is ready to leave! Haha he hopped out of bed this morning yelling and screaming with joy hahaha he is pretty happy to be leaving. He is ready to move on to something new!!

          We also found 2 new investigators this week!! We walked into a recent convert house this week and they had friends over and we began to teach them the restoration! We didn't get all the way through the lesson.. Haha so the next day I was talking in sacrament meeting and they were coming to Church! So I totally changed my talk the night before Sunday and I went to the pulpit and basically taught the restoration from the pulpit! Hahaha hahaha it was actually pretty cool! 
Well I'm excited for this next transfer. It will be good! Hopefully all is going well at home! You all sound like you are doing great! And summer is coming!

        Well thanks for the emails! It sounds like you are all doing great! And I'm excited to see what Colton and Jessica Have! I'm hoping Jessica finds out she is having a boy for her birthday ;) I'm hoping for a boy!! Haha anyways have a great week! I love and miss ya! Thanks for all you do!

         Love, Elder Welling!