Happy New Year

Hey all!

This week has been an interesting one! But to start off it was so good to talk to you all on Christmas!! I loved seeing and talking to you all again. I can't believe I have called you all 3 times on my mission already. It's crazy! 

After Christmas we actually ran out of our monthly miles on our car.. So we had to walk everywhere the rest of the week. So it has been pretty brutal. Haha we added it all up and we have walked 28 miles the last 2-3 days!

This Sunday our branch building was full! There wasn't an empty chair in the entire building. Which was super unusual. Haha usually we have about 12-20 people there!

The general gist of our week was a lot a lot of walking and talking to people with not to much success. Haha it was rainy and it was a slower week. But we found one new friend to teach this week and her name is Trey! We are going back this week to teach her! 

Tomorrow is officially 2019 ..which is insane. I remember when I first came out in 2017 people would ask when I go home and I would say 2019 and they would just be blown away. Haha but now I am telling people 2019 and that is this year! Buckle up. Haha

Well sorry there wasn't much to report on this week. Thanks for the emails and everything! I love and miss ya!

Love, Elder Welling!

Merry Christmas All

Hey All!

First off, Christmas is tomorrow!! I'm super excited to talk to you all tomorrow. I can't believe it has already been 7 months since I Skype home last. But tomorrow Will be so good!

I am so grateful to be a missionary around Christmas time! Being a missionary has helped me look at Christmas in a whole new light. It's not just about all the presents (even though those are great) ;) it's about celebrating Jesus Christ! Christmas always has a sweet spirit that follows the season.

My week has been great! We started it off by dropping Elder Jex off in his new area and picking up an elder named Elder Kershaw! He is from Kaysville UT. He is 22 years old and he has been out on his mission for 21-22 months! Which shocked me. I thought I was older than him in the mission. But it turns out he only has 2 transfers left!

After we picked him up we had a great first week together. Early in the week we had our Christmas Zone Conference. It was really good! And I loved the gifts you all sent me! Thanks for all that you gave me! The funniest part of the Christmas Conference was when we were all in line getting food for lunch, put of no here a black Santa runs into the gym and starts running around laughing like an African man. Haha President Mutombo was dressed up in a Santa suit and was running around taking pics with everyone. It was sooooo funny! Haha he just kept saying "I'm a black Santa!" hahaha we were all dying!

This week we have found 3 people this week to teach here in Luray. One really cool one was a guy named Joseph. He was walking passed us and we decided to talk to him. As we were talking he told us that he had talked to missionaries before. He told us it was 2 older guys the first time though. So we told him that it was probably the Jehovahs Witnesses that talked to him the first Time. He then told us that he stopped talking to them because they couldn't answer his Questions. So we asked what his question was. He then said: "What happens to your spirit after you die? Are you just done when you die? Where do you go?" first off I was blown away. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit world and we are going back Friday to teach him! This experience let me know that there are people everywhere that really are searching for answers to questions like this! They wake up day to day not knowing where they will go when they die. It was so cool to run into him and talk with him about it!

Alright so here is a little awkward situation and experience for you this week. Earlier this week we were in a trailer park knocking on some trailer doors. While going door to door no one was interested at all! Everyone was saying no or just not even answering the door. After quite a bit of rejection, we knocked one more door. When we did a man in a dress shirt and tie answers the door with a silver Bible in hand. He says: "Oh the Mormons!" we quickly told him that was a nickname ;) he then said: "Well we are in the middle of our own Bible study right now." I then look in the door and I see the man that owns the trailer and he begins to waive us in to his trailer. So we walk in and when we do I see another man in a shirt and tie... So you have two 40+ year old men in shirts and tie and two 19 and 20 year old kids in white shirt and tie. Even though I already knew.. I asked what religion they belonged to. They answered Jehovahs Witness. So I asked them if we could join in on their message. And I told them we wanted to hear then out! They quickly rejected the question and then we just started asking them questions about their religion. They weren't very happy that we kept asking questions. So this poor older fella that owned the trailer is just sitting there with 4 missionaries from different churches. Haha it was kind of awkward to walk in on them. But I think it's pretty funny now. Haha I took a card from them and their church. All 4 missionaries were just crammed into this small living room Of this trailer. Haha

Thanks for all of the gifts I have received from you all this far! I love them all and am grateful for the support and love you send my way. 

Love, Elder Welling!

Time is Flying By

Hi All,

How is it going?! Haha everything this week is going pretty great! I know I say this every week... But TIME IS FLYING BY.

So the picture of us with the lady watching the TV was funny as heck! We were all dying. We invited sooooo many people to the branch building to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.. After inviting tons and tons of people the only person to show up was Sister Stanley! We all thought it was against the rules to be in the building alone with a woman.. So we decided to sit outside and watch it through the window.. We all thought it was pretty funny!

We will have Zone Conference this coming week. Not sure what it will be.. I heard we are going caroling around the town where Zone Conference is.. So we will see!! Haha it will be interesting!

I got the Christmas packages from you all and they are great! Thank you so much!! I have loved everything I have gotten so far!!

This week has been pretty good!! We found out yesterday that Elder Jex will be leaving and he Will be a Zone Leader in the Chambersburg PA zone! I will be staying here.  I am also the new District Leader here. I will be getting a new companion named Elder Kershaw. I have no idea who he is so I can't answer very many questions about him. Haha but I'm sure he will be cool and he is most likely from Utah. So I will have more details on that next week! I'm sad That Elder Jex is leaving, we had some dang good times. We worked hard and we played hard which always makes a good time! But I am super excited to be staying in Luray. The branch is awesome and I look forward to staying here and working with these great members! 

This week while walking around in the back hill of Virginia we were walking in the snow and it was cold and it was dark. Haha we then found this house in the middle of nowhere. So we park and start walking down this dark long, snowy driveway to knock on the door. But before we could even get to the door, a bright bright light flips on from the middle of nowhere and yells "Hey!" it scared the crap out of us. It turns out, the little old guy saw us coming and then went outside and hid. Then blinded us with this light. Haha and I guess we scared him pretty badly as well! All he saw was 2 dark figures coming down his driveway. So I don't blame him. But it made us scream like 2 little girls. Haha

Our little branch had a Christmas dinner/party this past week and we had 3 investigators there which was awesome. We are just trying to get them all to come to church now.. Haha 

We met a lady this week named Pam. She is a middle aged woman and we met her knocking doors. We taught her The Restoration and it was sooo good!! She told us before we started teaching her that she really likes small congregations and that her small church is about to shut down due to no money coming into their church to pay for it all. Which is perfect because we have a small congregation!! Haha so we will see how it goes with her.

We have continued to work on ASL this week and it's coming along! We are learning fast and now we are in contact with some ASL sister Missionaries, so they are sending us videos and we are learning from them as well!

Anyways I am looking forward to seeing you all on Christmas day! I can't believe it has been 7 months since I have seen you all face to face. It flew. Anyways keep enjoying this season, it's always my favorite time of the year! I love and miss ya!

Love, Elder Welling!

Being Led by the Spirit and Vicious Viper

Hey All,

This week has been a good one. It flew by and it's all a big blur.. Haha but I'm going to try and remember all that we did so I can share it.

This week has been good. This week I have been working on learning American Sign Language a lot. And it's going so good!! I've made so much progress this week and I am so excited about it! I can actually talk in sentences now and communicate with people regularly. So it's going very good. And the Lord has definitely been helping me along the way, so it has been a blessing. Learning ASL has helped me grow and learn so much. Learning a language in middle of my mission was not something I was expecting.. And it's frustrating sometimes. But the Lord has helped me and improved my mind so that I can remember each sign for each word. It's grown my faith so much. There is no way I would have been able to learn this much, this fast, if I were at home! 

This week we had a lesson with an older man named Mark. He is doing really well and he is keeping all the commitments that we give him! Haha this last week in a lesson with him we had planned to teach him and his Girl Friend the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. But as we were talking with him the conversation went in the direction the spirit told us. Instead of talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we ended up talking about the history behind The Book of Mormon. Which I thought was pretty weird and wasn't the most spiritual thing we could talk about. But when we followed the prompting to talk about the History of the Book, we realized that Mark is a huge fan of history. Like he LOVES it. So as we started talking about the record and the ancient history of it, wheels started to turn and lights were clicking on in his head! It was so cool! He was asking so many great questions. We then talked to him about Christ coming to America to visit the ancients here. As soon as we brought this up and taught it to him, he just sat there for a second and said "I have been wondering about that my whole life.. Questions I had been wondering about my whole life, you two just answered." apparently his whole he had been wondering why Jesus Christ wouldn't visit the rest of the world and only stayed in the Middle East. So when we taught him that Christ manifests himself to ALL nations, he was so excited and the spirit was sooooo strong. He was so excited to pray about The Book of Mormon and the Truthfulness of the record! It was so cool to see the spirit lead the lesson and then carry the message right to his heart.

It has officially snowed here in Virginia so I guess Christmas is actually coming.. Haha I'm not too excited about the snow. When the snow comes it means that absolutely no one is out on the streets walking around. Haha which means we have to knock a lot more doors. But I'm excited for this Christmas season. I can't believe it’s already my second one on the mission!

I also tried some hot sauce this week named "Vicious Viper"... As soon as it touched my mouth it made my face go red and my mouth numb. My mouth was instantly stinging! Haha so lesson learned: Vicious viper is pretty dang vicious. Hahaha

We also had a lady knock on our apartment door and ask us if she could use our plunger.. Haha that was pretty random and kind of awkward. Haha in Romney they would knock on our trailer door and ask for money.. Here in Luray they knock on our door and ask for plungers. Haha it was pretty funny. 

Not too much happened this week here in Luray. We have transfers coming up on the 19th. I will probably stay here in Luray and Elder Jex will. Probably get transferred. He has been here for 3! So we will see what happens, we find out this coming Saturday the 15th.

I'm looking forward to this coming week. We have a lot of things going for us and I'm excited to start pushing it a little harder so we can start seeing the real stuff!!! Haha I hope you have a great week!! I love and miss you! 

Love, Elder Welling!