Spaghetti and Service!

Hey! Its was good to hear from you! Elder Fitz most likely will get transfered.. so if you have things for him then send them early! haha This week was sooooo crazy!! The Lord has been placing people in our path that have been prepared by his hand! That is for sure! This week we have found 5 new investigators and they were miracles. I will include the details in the hand written letters.. I write faster then I type! 

       My week has been awesome!! Me and Elder Fitz found 5 new investigators this week and have already committed one to baptism!! The work is hastening!! haha. The burn on my comps hand was pretty bad!! I told him it was a third degree burn, but he didnt think it was! lol From the sounds of it, you have been quite the busy guy lately!! All that bishop stuff and work sounds tiring! haha I wish the bishop here worked has hard as you do. The bishop here doesn't really like missionaries and he never feeds us! haha Hes also very negative. We will tell him about our investigators and he judges them and acts like he is better then they are.. so I get really frustrated with him. But thats okay! Im glad Weston is doing good and all. Im sure he is crapping bricks right niow. I know I was when I was that close to leaving! haha Im sure he will do great at his farewell and Im sure his mother is a mess. It is her first missionary! haha  The members feed us most nights. We eat out alot and I think that is where some of the weight is coming from lol. My face is filling in.. But Im working out harder in the morning now! lol The worst meal so far has been spaghetti! Ive eaten so much spaghetti here it is ridiculous! I didnt have to be called to Italy to get pasta.. Im getting it all here! haha My favorite meal so far has been with Bro and Sis Beauchamps! They are from central America and they always make the besttttt food ever! So I love going to eat there! Tell Weston good luck for me! The first part of a mission is the worst. But as you put all the faith in the Lord, the burdens on our shoulders will be lifted and he will find joy in this life and also in the mission. Like Alma says, You will reap the rewards of your Faith. TRUTH. 

   Its sad to hear about joseph.. Hopefully he will find a way! The Lord will help him, especially after 2 years of service! This work would be impossible without the Lord!

This week I have been studying the New Testament alot. Ive been studying the last week of the Saviors life. And I would encourage you to do the same thing! Studying in Mathew, mark, Luke and John Helps me look into the Atonement. The Atonement stretches far beyond Gethsemane and the Cross! 

   Im so glad Aynslee hasnt forgotten who I am yet! lol And im glad she knows I am on a mission! The ward is feeding us well and I am for sure not going hungry! haha Sometimes I feel like I should stop eating..  I just dont work out has much as I used too! We never have the time to get a solid work out in! haha About the sweaters, I would prefer you buy them from Utah somewhere, but if that is to expensive then Send money and I can go get them! So I had to buy some new pants... The lady in my ward kinda messed up on them and they look kinda bad.. She wasnt has good has grandma Welling, but she tried! haha 

   Im so glad to hear that the Book of Mormon has been making a difference! Now that you are reading it and feeling the difference, Mark in red every time it references God and Jesus Christ! (Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, etc.) I promise that you will grow closer and closer to the Savior has you do so! It has changed my life for the better and it just keeps reminding me how true the Book of Mormon is!

   Im glad the little boys have been keeping up on the grades! haha Im really glad I no longer have to worry about it! I honestly do miss high school though! I never thought I would say that! 

   I was on exchanges this week with our zone leader named Elder Bowcutt and I was driving him around Cumberland, and we saw this part member family on our rolls so we decided to stop by. We walk in and we have a 64 year old woman who is a member, married to a 40 year old man named William. There daughter isnt a member! So we started sharing a message and all went well! After the lesson, the older woman turns to me and asks if her and her husband get sealed in the temple, will they go to heaven? So I proceed to answer the question and after I answered she asks "Arent we all from mars?!" And I was like no!! She looks at her 40 year old husband and she says "I told you we werent from Mars!" I was really weirded out by the question.. so later that night I call Elder Fitzgerald and ask if he knows the Orbans? (That was the name of the family) and he says urgently "Wait did you go over there?!" and I said uhhhh yes..? and he says "Bishop said to never go back there because William looks up anti and the temple videos and shows the missionaries!" So Then it all hit.. William thought we came from mars?! haha thats some weird doctrine we dont teach.. then I thought, william kind of just sat there and acted like he knew something we didn't. He always had a weird smile on his face and whenever we said something he would smile and act like he knew something more!  So that was quite the experience this week! Other than that nothing huge is happening! We still meet regularly with Hunter and Barb.. We found out this week that at the beginning of January Hunter is getting deployed to South Korea.. They are taking all the national guard over here! Hunter will be in South Korea for 24 months.. So that was pretty sad to hear. Hes pretty worried about it and I would be too! 

   Im glad to hear from you!! Thanks for the emails and thanks for everything you do for me! Thanks for the quotes also! I love to read them! I pray for you all daily! 

Love Elder Welling

Halloween and Miracles

How’s it going?! I’m glad Halloween went well and that the boys had a good time scaring the crap out of the kids!! I’m kind of jealous you have snow over there. We don’t have snow but it still gets pretty chilly. It is humid at nights and it gets really foggy! I’m glad that dad official hiring day is coming up! I’m very excited for him and this new journey!! 

   So Sister Short is the other sister in the Cumberland area. And yes! We have talked about how she is related to Evanston people!! She lives in Ogden Utah and she is related to Devin! 

   I’m glad that you saw the pictures on the Facebook page. We are in the Martinsburg zone and Sister Christiansen always takes pictures of all of us! So always look! I remember thinking to myself.. "I wonder if my fam will see these?" haha And sure enough they did.

  This week has been pretty good! We had a lot of the day off on Halloween! Me and Elder Fitzgerald and Ben and the Sisters all went to the church and just played games and had fun! Then on Wednesday we had an 8 hour zone conference. But it was so good! They talked about the importance of the sacrament and it was awesome!! I’m pretty dang sure President Christiansen will be a general authority! haha After that on Friday I got to go to Martinsburg and go with Elder Percy and Elder Parkinson for the day. They both have only been out for about 2 weeks! So I was kind of the head honcho for a day! We knocked on some doors and found 2 Jehovah witnesses! Too our surprise we found that they were quite open to our message and they accepted the Book of Mormon! They also invited us back later this week! Too bad I won’t be there.. haha it was really fun. And I got to drive a mission van around all day! You will see it in the pictures! 

  Don’t worry!! We get food all the time! We either eat out or we eat at a member’s home or the member takes us out! We never go hungry I promise! There are a lot of great people in the ward I am in. We have been working with the kid named Ben. He was  jewish. and he was converted to our church like 3 years ago. His family disowned him and he’s had a rough life. He now has a girl friend that is a member of our church but now hates the church. She has been showing him anti stuff and he is struggling. He is 23 and has already been in the military. He lives in his girl friends basement too! But yesterday he came up to us and told us that he has been prompted to serve a mission.. I can’t tell you how happy I was. This kid has decided to throw his past away and serve the Lord. He won’t have anyone to email him though.. If he goes, he won’t have anyone. Which is sad! So I am going to email him every week! But I was So happy to hear!  This past week or so I have really focused on becoming a consecrated missionary. It’s frustrating sometimes!! It’s taking a lot of hard work, prayer and scripture study! I still have quite the long way to go!! haha But I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to obtain the word for more than 2 hours a day. In order to preach the word you must obtain it first! This past week we had quite the experience! Every week we are required to find 2 new investigators.. it is the standard of excellence. Well me and elder fitz have been busy with meetings and we just haven’t had time to go out find! So last night before going out in the world, we prayed together and asked the Lord To put 2 new people in our path.. I will go in to detail in my hand written letter, but The Lord gave us 4 new people last night. It’s the tiny miracles that make it all worth it. I love the Lord and I know he is at the head of this great and marvelous work. Well that’s all that has been happening this week!

                                                           Love, Elder Welling!

It's Amazing.... The Lord is Hastening the Work

Hows it going?! Hope everyone is studying the Book of Mormon, Something cool that I have been doing is in my Book of Mormon, Every time I have a prayer answered, I high light the verse, and then I put the date and put "Prayer Answered". It has been pretty cool to see! Now when I am going through my Book of Mormon I can see all of my answered prayers!! You all should do it!! 

      This week has been pretty good! We have done a lot of street contacting this week! Which I’m not a fan of street contacting because it’s really not the most effective thing to do!  We do have 1 new investigator and his name is Daniel. He was a street contact and we left him with our card and number and a Book of Mormon. Usually street contacted people don’t call us.. But this one did! So we have been teaching him and he is a single dad with a 4 year old kid.  We could sit in down town Cumberland all day handing out Book of Mormons and people would just chuck them in the trash. In the libraries over here the Book Of Mormon isn’t even on the religion shelves.. Its under the cult shelves. So it really bothers me! That’s why member missionary work is soooooo important. When they give us referrals, it’s like heaven on earth! haha We have been eating pretty well and I have actually gained a little weight.. haha Im not proud of it. But it’s happened.. So, the last 6 months of my mission I’m just going to do the "6 months till sexy" ;) haha  One of my most favorite people in our ward is an older fellow by the name of Brother Anderson, He reminds me so much of Grandpa Welling, it’s Crazy.

      I’m glad all of my buddies are doing well on their missions! That’s weird that Chandler got moved to California. haha Im sure it’s weird to change all of the sudden! Not much has happened this week. We have been teaching lots of people and have been street contacting lots of people. We knocked on a guys door this week and his name was Turner. He’s an older fellow and he goes to 2 different religions. We shared with him the restoration lesson and told him that there was a prophet on the earth today named Thomas S. Monson. And he just laughed at us and asked if we really believed that.. haha Then he asked me if this prophet was a human being? And me being the sarcastic human I am say "uhhh yes. Wasn’t Moses and Abraham and Noah humans too?!" He didn’t know quite what to say. haha 

      One thing that people struggle with out here is Anti stuff. I feel like everyone watches anti videos on Mormons.. We have been asked some wacko questions by people! They all think that we have more than one wife, they think we worship Santa Clause, and they all think we are a cult. I can’t help but look at these people and ask where the crap they saw that?! haha

      One thing we did this week that was pretty fun was we went to a little branch building in Keyser and me my comp, Lexie, Hunter and Ashton had a huge nerf war in the building! It was actually really fun!! haha 

          We were doing some service for Bro and Sis Baker in our ward this week and they wanted us to wash their car. So we went inside to get water boots on so we didn’t have to get our feet wet. So I get my boot on and am ready to go. And Elder Fitzgerald reaches in his boot to make sure there is nothing in there like spiders or anything. So he reaches in and feels something that he thought were sticks. So he pulls it out and it is this quite big, dead mouse! The mouse was stiff as a board and dead...lol He screamed like a little girl!

           Honestly I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I am out here in the middle of the Lords Work. It’s weird to think about. Like, ive been learning about missions my whole life, and now I am really on one! haha Its really weird to think about. But the work is moving forward quite fast. The Lord is hastening the work in so many ways. It’s amazing to see!

And out here you just have to be straight up with them. Because everyone out here thinks that we are just saved. That’s all they say "We are saved". Not true. Being baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority is being saved. People don’t like it too much when we politely tell them that their baptism wasn’t really valid.

      It’s starting to get pretty cold here. Some places actually got some snow last night! But other than that nothing huge has went on this week! Hopefully you have a great week! Thank you for all of your prayers and love. Today for p day we are going to Martinsburg to have a Halloween party with our zone! So it should be pretty fun!! And we have Zone Conference this week! Have a great week.  Tell Grandma Welling hi for me. And tell her that I love her and pray for her.

Love Elder Welling

Temple Trip and Miracle Car Window

How’s it going?! I’m glad to hear that the annual hunting week was a success! Sounds like hunting was especially funny this year! I can’t believe Dad flashed the Game Warden!! Too bad you all didn’t get anything.. Looks like I am the lucky charm huh?! :0  I’m glad to hear that Ryan got an elk! And I’m glad the boys liked the Gettysburg coins! I thought Kaden would like something for his birthday! It’s so good to hear from you! I’m actually doing a ton better! Homesickness isn’t as big of a problem as it has been. And it all is getting better. 

        Hopefully you get the job!! Ive been praying for you every day! It’s kinda sad that Gordon Hayward already got injured?!? I’m also glad to hear that you all have been studying the Book of Mormon!! The book is sooo amazing and it is the tool of the harvest. It will bless all of our lives if we continue to read and study. We are pushing our investigators to read more than they ever have! haha

We were able to go to the temple with Hunter and Barbara for their first time! We went and did baptisms for the dead and they even took family names! It was so cool to see how much they loved it! Barb was emotional the whole time and Hunter just says that the feeling of peace is overwhelming. A girl in my ward who is 18, named Lexi Taylor is the one who sent you those pictures! She is Hunters girlfriend and she is a member! 

     This week has been a whole week of service!! Last Monday all the way through Thursday, all we did was service! We barely did any proselyting! So the best part of my week was for sure the temple. It is such a pretty temple and I’m pretty sure it is bigger than the Salt Lake temple.. haha

     Yesterday I actually had the opportunity to speak in sacrament! Me and my companion talked on the 11th article of faith. We were assigned that topic, we didn’t choose it trust me! Earlier this week we returned home one night and we were just relaxing and enjoying the night, and we got the bright idea to go outside and enjoy the evening. So we go outside on our pattio (Which is on the second floor) and we are just talking. Well we decided to go back in after 20 minutes or so and the door is locked... So we have no way to get in to the house.. haha So my companion is bare foot, I am half dressed and we are trying to bust into this stupid apartment!! haha So imagine me and my companion trying to scale down the side of the wall, half dressed and bare foot.. We finally get down to the ground and we run to the front of the house. When we get to the front we realize we also locked the front door.. haha So we are like praying that there will be some way that we can get into our house! So we are deciding what to do and we look over at our car and we had accidentally left the window down, and guess what?! The only spare key was in the car!! The window was only cracked a little bit so I was reaching in as far as I could, to reach the door handle.. When I pulled the door handle, the car alarm is just blaring in our whole neighborhood and so we are hauling butt to the front door so we could hurry and get into the house to get our car keys to shut off the alarm!! (This is now 10:20 at night)  haha I’m sure our neighbors were not too happy but that’s okay! Moral of the story is it was a miracle that we left our car window down!! If we hadn’t it would have been a cold night! haha 

         No worries, I am staying obedient and I am still doing great! Homesickness isn’t has big of a problem as it was before! But it’s still there! But I’m starting to realize the severity of my calling more and more each day!! And I’m starting to love it!!

Other than that nothing huge has been happening! We were talking to our investigator named Terry and we were having a sweet lesson and the spirit was strong and we were talking about the plan of salvation and it went soooo well. So of course me and my companion got big heads and we were feeling good so we asked him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.  And he straight up just says "No." He didn’t say anything else with the no.. it was just "NO".  It was the biggest slap in the face ever!! Never get cocky right? I’ve officially been humbled.. haha but other than that its been a good week!

Love,

Elder Welling

Missing Hunting Camp and More Baptisms

The winter box arrived safely and I have all of the stuff! Also, can you send me some sweaters? I dont care what color they are! Guess what?!? Elder Fitz did not get transferred! He is staying with me for another transfer! Which is awesome because me and him are doing work in our area! I know the area pretty good and I actually drove for the first time on my mission last week! Im glad hunting week is going great and It makes me sick to think you are already up in Bondurant! Tell everyone up there that they better be missing my back massages ;) anyways, Im sure it is different without Brad! But it will still be fun, He is still there I promise! Tell everyone hi for me. I miss it! And it makes me sick to think about it. But I only have to miss one more!!! I wish I was there with them! haha I love hunting! I am also kinda homesick.. but it will get better! Priesthood blessings are quite the experience. For me, a lot of times, what first comes to mind is to tell people how much Our heavenly Father loves them. The things that come into your mind you just have to say! It is actually really cool and a great experience! We have been teaching Barbara's son Ashton.. He agreed to be baptized November 11th! I was so happy to hear him say yes! We are also teaching Hunters sister and she is really close to baptism as well! She is a pentocostal.. and they are known as the "Holy Rollers" lol, They get up in middle of there meetings and throw their hands up in the air and start yelling and rolling around on the floor! Its pretty crazy! haha Well I have to admit.. the mission makes us awkward. I say the most awkward things sometimes.. and it is so weird! haha I write down all the awkward things me and my companion say to people! We also get asked some weird questions! Like Elder Deardon once was asked if we pray to Santa clause.. Someone told this person that Mormons pray to Santa.. haha Well not much has been going on this week! The confirmations were cool! And Gettysburg was so awesome! We are eating every night and sadly.. We do not play much bball.. Im trying to stay fit because I don't wanna get fat! Haha!! Hopefully all is going great for you! I miss you tons and think of you daily. I also received all of your letters. Thank you so much. Its hard being away from home. But it is only making me stronger. Thanks for the encouraging words and ya better shoot a big one for me! Thanks for the advice also! It will help! The scriptures seem to sink in to me more now than they ever have! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Hopefully there is more to share next week! Love ya!

                                                                                                                                      Love, Elder welling!!

First Baptisms and Gettysburg

Im glad everyone likes my blog, and all that good stuff! Its been pretty hard to stop thinking about home. Im not gonna lie. Anyways, Gettysburg was so awesome! you will see the pictures!! We all need to go when I get back!! The baptisms were great and all too!  Anyways, the baptisms were so flippin awesome. Its totally a different experience watching someone get baptized!! They were baptized by a man named Dan Taylor! He is actually moving to Utah! Then that night after the baptism, we went to barbs moms house and spent the evening with her whole family.. None of which are members and so it was a gold mine for us to teach!!! We get asked a lot of weird questions.. They were asking if we even believe in the same Jesus as they do!! So then on Sunday, I got a text early that morning saying that Both Hunter and Barb wanted me to confirm them members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.. a very humbling experience! I had never done it before and it was so great to be able to do that!! Never will I forget the experience!! I loved it!! We are going to teach a guy named Ed.  Ed has a long grey beard, no teeth, and is messed up because of drugs.. He is so freaking funny though!! A little hard to understand, but that’s okay! Anyways, We were teaching him last week and we were talking about the book of Mormon and all of the sudden he just looks off into the distance all dramatically and just starts speaking in tongues.. So he starts making all of these weird and obnoxious sounds with his mouth and then at the end of it all he yells AMEN! me, being the sarcastic person I am yell AMEN as well and because I was laughing so hard I had to put the book of Mormon in front of my face to hide my smile.. haha It was quite the experience! I also really hope that Elder Fitz doesn’t get transferred.. He has been in my area for about 3 months now! And transfers are the 18th!! Ill be pretty sad if he gets transferred.. But today we are on exchanges so I am with and Elder named Elder Dearden! He goes home next week!! So today is my first day taking over the area! Its been pretty fun so far!!  Everything has been going pretty well. It gets better each day. Of course I get homesick.. But that is part of the experience!! The letters and stuff really helped!! Mondays are my favorite days too! Not much else is going on though.. WE are staying really busy and we are just out here changing lives ya know ;)

                                                                             Love, Elder Welling!