Elder Jake Welch: 03-01-16 to 03-07-16 Transferred to Cali! Nah just kidding.‏

As the title states, this week sure felt like i was transferred to Cali haha. We had Missionary Leadership Council (MLC), but since Cali is more or less 10 hours away in bus, we lose 3 days. On top of that, the assistents took advantage to do divisions Thursday!

So Tuesday I was on a bus from 9am to 8pm.

Wednesday was MLC. It was a really good council, different from normal. Usually they teach us how to teach the missionaries, but this time they were training us zone leaders. We learned a TON about verification and why it's so important. Also, they unbanned soccer! woohoo! you should have heard the cheers from all the missionaries (i honestly dont really care but hey something to do Pday)

Thursday Elder Roman and I went in divisions with the assistant Elder Mejia. He's super rad. He's a latino american, which means his dad is Mexican but hes from the states haha. He's SUPER cool. we had a really successful day. I learned a lot from him about testifying and asking inspired questions. We found a few families, and invited LOTS of people to baptism, Always a good experience learning from my leaders.

Friday was another 9am-8pm bus ride. PHEW! those are rough.

Saturday we finally got home to work in our area. It was a long day of looking around for people but we didnt really find many people home. We had a really spiritual lesson with the Delgado sisters on temples which was good. It started out kind of contentious but we're handling it.

Sunday was my birthday! It was an alright day. At church the Delgado sisters came but only the first hour which sucked. Later that day we found 2 new investigators, which are 2 penacost ladies. Theyre super humble and full of faith which made it a nice conversation. That night some other investigators bought me pizza for my birthday but i felt really bad because it was the Sabbath! My idea of a "perfect birthday" would be finding like 3 families or something haha. But what can you do?

Today we played soccer (obviously) and just relaxed.

So yeah what do i tell ya? a kind of boring week. the work is going slowly but surely. We feel REALLY determined to baptize. This week should be good though because we finally have the full 7 days!

Here's some pics i took from my apartment window of Pasto.

Love you all!

Elder Welch

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I told him that a couple of sisters in our ward had just returned home from their missions and this was his reply,

"NOOO CLAIRE IS ALREADY HOME? that scares me haha! Nooo!"

That's the first I've heard him express that he's not ready for his mission to be over. It does a mom's heart good to know he's happy and loving it :)