It's Great to be a Missionary

Hey All!

I cannot explain how much of a blessing it has been to serve Jesus Christ for these last 18 months. I never could have imagined before I left the experiences and feelings that I would have while serving.

I've learned a lot of important things the last 18 months, that will stay with me my entire life. I often times wonder to myself which are the most important things I have learned. It's so hard to narrow it down! But I have managed to narrow it down and chose one thing. The number one most important thing that I have learned for myself is that The Atonement of Jesus Christ is REAL. It is an actual power that works within us. The Atonement of Christ brings mercy, forgiveness and peace to everyone that asks for it. It amazes me how quick The Lord is to forgive if we repent and Change. Everything that I have learned, everything that I have changed, everything that I am, has come from The Atonement of Jesus Christ.

It took me a really looooong time to figure out why mission are so hard. I would always sit and think and think and think on why it had to be so hard. Why we were rejected so much. Why we were made fun of and laughed at. This is the true Church. This is the truth and the way in the world today. But, after a looooong time of thinking and wondering why it had to be so hard to serve, I came to the conclusion that if missions were easy there would be no point to them. It would be pointless to go and serve for 2 years if missions were easy. God purposely intended them to be difficult because He needs us to learn, grow, and experience hard things. My mission has also allowed me to see, in a small degree, what Jesus Christ went through as He walked the streets trying to help and save people. My mission has given me the upmost appreciation for what He did for us, and has allowed me to be grateful for the hard times I have had. He walked through all of my hard times for me 2000 years ago and that has helped me in so many ways.

This week we taught a man in Front Royal named Shane. This man has gone through a lot of trials and a lot of hard times. His wife passed away 6 months ago. She was a member of the church and he is not. As we talked with him about The Restoration, he told us how badly he wanted to be sealed to his wife. How badly he wanted to be with her. Since she has passed, he has gone to the cemetery every single day for 6 months and sat at her grave. But as we taught him about The Restored Priesthood power that seals families on earth and in heaven, he felt the joy of the gospel! It was a great experience to feel the power of the spirit that night in his home as we talked about the sealing power that has been restored to the earth.

We also got thrown out of an apartment building this week and that was pretty wild. Haha all we were doing was talking a guy about the church and the manager lady came up to us yelling and cussing us out, telling us to get out of there or she was going to call the cops. The sarcastic Nate came out of me there and I fired back at her.. I just couldn't go down without a fight ya know? She didn't really like that I fired back. But it made her be quiet Haha anyways, we ended up leaving. Even though I didn't want to. Hahaha 

It's been a great week here in Luray and I love being a missionary. It has allowed me to distinguish what temporary happiness is, and what lasting joy is! I hope you have a great week in WYO!! I miss that place. I love and miss you!

Love, Elder Welling!

Many Miracles

Hey All!!

What a week of miracles and blessings I have witnessed. To start off, we all witnessed one of the biggest changes ever to the missionary work in quite a while! I was studying American Sign Language on Thursday the 16th and I received a message From Elder Munden. In the message was a link. I clicked on it and it took me to Mormon Newsroom. And then I read the announcement and I almost fell off my chair.. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a joke!! But as you all know, missionaries are now allowed to call home, Skype home, or text home each week! As you all know, members everywhere in the world either endorsed the announcement and change, or they disagreed and spoke out against the change. I for one support this change 100%. This is going to bless sooooo many missionaries life. Don't doubt this change at all! I trust with my whole heart that Jesus Christ instructed President Nelson to make this change. Here is why I believe it was made. Missionaries all over the world struggle with many many things while serving. Some struggle with depression. Some struggle with anxiety. Some struggle with Homesickness. Other struggle with things that they tell no one about. I believe that The Lord instructed this change because a weekly call home to the people you love will encourage, bless, and strengthen the missionary. I know that when I was very young in the mission, and I was struggling with the early months of homesickness, a weekly call home would have strengthened me tremendously. Members everywhere doubted this change saying: Missionaries these days are weak. “When I was on my mission all we had was email and letters”. My answer to these is simple: "believe that [God] has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." Members of the church as well as missionaries do not understand all that God can see and understand. So trust that it came from Him!! There is a reason for everything. For this big of a change, there is obviously a reason. Trust in God, and trust in His called servants, the Prophets. I love this change and look forward to implementing it into my mission. What a blessing this will be for thousands and thousands of missionaries.

This week we have had so many miracles. We have seen so many tender mercies from The Lord. This week we had just finished our branch missionary correlation meeting with the branch mission leader. It was about 8pm and we had nothing going for us. So we thought about it and came to the conclusion to go to some apartments in Luray. I was hesitant to do this because I had knocked a lot of them, and I knew the elders before me knocked them all. But a few weeks ago, the stake president here in Virginia said to us missionaries: We must fish where we have already fished and The Lord will show us that there are fish there. So we trusted this statement. We walk up the apartment stairs and knock on the very first apartment. A young man in his late 20's maybe early 30's opens the door and without a second thought says in excitement: "Come in!" this took us back a little bit because people rarely tell us to Come right on into their homes.. Haha we sat down with him and his wife and talked with them. They have 2 little children. As we talked with them they told us that they have been looking for God and that they want to know that He is there. So we started teaching them both the Doctrine of The God head. Now, the wife grew up Baptist and grew up learning about the Trinity. As soon as we taught that God The Father and His Son Jesus Christ are two separate beings with bodies of flesh and bones they said "That makes so much more sense!!" we then taught the entire restoration lesson and they loved every single part of it. We told them if they wanted to get nearer to God, to read The Book of Mormon Every single day. At the end of the lesson, the man stands up and says: "Alright, I'm gonna pray. Show me how to do it!" (He had never prayed before in his life.) we were blown away. This family is so elect. They even told us that they would like to be baptized. It was a miracle in Luray.

Another day this week we were teaching our good friends Mark and Laura. We decided to teach them The Plan of Salvation and focus on our earth life. We read 3 Nephi 27 and talked about what God required of us while living in earth. We then taught them about the spirit world and the degrees of Glory. They loved it!! Afterwards we invited them to be Baptized and both said YES!!

This week has truly been amazing to see. I hit 18 months this week and that is so crazy. Time is flying and the weeks just keep coming and flying by. I love this gospel and know that it has been restored to bless all of our lives.

I love and miss you. Thanks for all you do for me! have a great week!!

Love, Elder Welling!

Another Great Week and the Luray Caverns

Heyyyy all!

How is it going?? It sounds like Evanston WYO is getting wrecked with some snow. Haha there were a few days here on the east coast that were cold.. But there were also some days this week where it was warm enough for me to wear just a white shirt and no coat! So it was pretty nice. Haha

My week has been good! Again it seems like I was just emailing you all yesterday and here we are again emailing on a Monday. Haha but this week was busy.

So this week we had Zone Conference in Winchester Virginia. Recently, President Mutombo has felt the need to set a baptism goal for the year of 2019. The Goal that he received from the Lord is 1000 Baptisms by the end of the year. Now when I heard this was his goal, I about fell off my chair and my jaw hit the floor. Our mission on average baptized around 250-300 converts a year. Which for the east coast is actually pretty good. The east coast doesn't see a whole lot of growth due to all the other religious parties here. Anyways.. The goal of 1000 seemed unreachable to me. While sitting there at Zone Conference, the Stake President of The Winchester VA stake came and spoke with us for a few minutes. While speaking, he too said that when he heard the goal of 1000 he was just blown away. But he said that as he sat there and pondered and pondered on how in the world we as a mission were going to Baptize 1000 converts he couldn't figure it out. He said he kept thinking and thinking. And then all of the sudden the New Testament chapter John 21 flew through his head. He immediately turned there and found this:

First off I love the chapter John 21 because it's the chapter I read that made me come on a mission! Anyways in this chapter, the Apostles were confused on what they should do, because Jesus Christ their master had left them. So they decided to go fishing. While fishing they caught NOTHING. Day and night they fished and caught nothing. The Apostles looked over to the shore and see a man standing there. Here is what happened:

"4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.
6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes."

After they had caught all the fish, they got to the shore and counted the amount of fish that they had caught. "Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken."

President Groll, the stake president looks up at us after reading this and says when I read that they had caught 153 fish, I thought harder. Then I realized that if each of the 7 stakes in your mission baptized 153 converts in 2019, your mission will Baptize 1071 people... Ladies and gents I was blown away. President Groll told us that the Apostles fished all day and all night in the same place and found nothing. But then with the help of Jesus Christ they caught so many fish they could not pull the net out of the water. It showed me that we must fish where we have already fished for people. And with the help of Jesus Christ, the harvest will be GREAT. 153 converts per 7 stakes will equal 1071 converts for the year of 2019.

We found one new person to teach this week named Evett! She is super cool and has such a cool story! I will make sure I tell you more about her next week!

One funny thing that happened this week was there is a little button on the steering wheel of our car and when you push it, it pauses the music and changes it to a radio station. We'll whole on a longer drive this week, it was dark out, and right in the middle of the song I paused it and acted like the radio was possessed. My companion Elder Kershaw actually thought it was because he saw no one touch the button.. Hahaha so I played with him for a little bit. We both got a pretty good laugh at the end of it hahaha. He was freaking out!

Anyways, I hope you have a great week! I love and miss you! Thanks for all you do for me.

Love, Elder Welling!

I love this mission

Hello All,

What a week you all had with basketball and work and school. Sounds like Caleb was killing it in basketball! 

My week was good! This week has been very successful with finding and teaching people about THE restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!! 

President Mutombo has recently been challenging us as a mission to pray day and night for The Lord to place the elect people in our path every day. He promised us that The Lord would do this, if we will act in Faith. We have been doing so every day this week, and we have seen the promises of our inspired mission president come True!! Before leaving the house yesterday morning we prayed for an elect person to be put in our path. We felt inspired to go and see a potential named Dylan that was in our area book. So we stop by this evening and we knock on the door. An older lady comes to the door, and answers. We ask, "Hey is Dylan here?!" and she very quickly said "No, he doesn't live here." BUT then a young man from behind her stands up quickly and says "I'm Dylan!" he then steps out on the porch and starts to talk with us. (Grandma inside wasn't happy.. Haha) anyways, he then said "it's weird that you two showed up today. I just got out of jail and I was wanting to strengthen my relationship with Jesus Christ. So it's wild that you two showed up." Elder Kershaw and I almost fell off our rockers!!! ANYWAYS.. Praying for the Elect day and night will happen if we act in Faith! It was so cool to see Dylan go against the crowd and opposition ( His grandma.. ) just to come out and listen to what we have to say about Jesus Christ!! A few months ago Elder D. Todd Christopherson came to our mission and promised us very many blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. This is one of many that has come true and been fulfilled. Here is what he said:
"I promise that Scattered Israel will recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd, and embrace the restored truths" 
-Elder Christofferson

Another time this week we were out and about doing our usual thing. Well we decided to go to a man's house named Audre King. He is the coolest guy ever. He is a pastor of a Pentecostal Preacher here! Well, we knocked in the door and he let us right in and he had 2 friends there named Patrick and Tyrone. As we sat there with them Audre King, the pastor asked us to share with his friends what we believe and a little bit about what we do as missionaries! So we sat there and taught them almost the entire restoration! It was sooooo cool. They said that it made so much sense and that they loved it. We look forward to getting in with them again and teaching them more. Once again, President Mutumbo's promise has once again came true.

We had stake conference this last week and we had Elder Milan F. Kunz of the Seventy there! He talked about never ever losing our testimony of The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. And never lose your testimony of our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ. 

With that being said, prior to this stake conference, I have actually been focusing a ton to anchoring my heart and soul into Jesus Christ and building a foundation that will never fall. It has been so cool to focus on building my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Daily repentance, exercising faith, and keeping my covenants has all strengthened my relationship with Christ. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve Him for the last 18 months. Slowly but surely he has taught me, helped me, and strengthened me!

Anyway, my week was so good! I am loving my mission, I love the area and I love the branch! I hope you have a great week! I love and miss ya!!

Love, Elder Welling!