04-12-16 to 04-18-16 Struggling with Samanes‏

Wow!  This week we've been battling the area! 

Tuesday we had interviews with President.  It went really well!  We waited forever, but i was grateful when it was my turn.  i love president, and sister Pricoli!  Also, Sister Pricoli brought me some things i had Elder Roman buy for me in Pasto!  I got a rad new Poncho, and a few other things!  I'll send the pics next week!  Something interesting is that night i met a guy who claimed that 13 days ago he had died, went to the 3rd heaven and talked to God.  He said God told him that there are no true churches and that he had to start his own.  His evidence was he said when you talk to God a lump comes out of your forehead.  Sure enough, he had the lump!  hahaha gotta love people.

Wednesday, all our appointments fell through.  We've been trying to set up a ton of FHE lately to try and get some references.  There really isnt a way to contact in the street because everyone closes in their houses during the day.  And member references are the bomb!

Thursday was another day of walking with few appointments.  But in the night time we met a family that had listened to the missionaries a while back and almost got baptized!  the reason why they didnt is because the husband is from a country next to Israel, and was married over there.  And in his country divorce doesnt exist!  So he can't get married here!  kinda crazy!  But theyre really good, and the wifes sister we met lives in the US and is here until January.  i wanna baptized her so i can have a convert in the states hahaha.  I just hope they progress!  That night we had a FHE with a family but the person they were gonna invite didnt come...

Friday we had few appointment.  Again.  That night we had a FHE with he Branch president, but the people he invited couldnt come.

Saturday we had a pretty good appointment with F.  But Guess what we found out?  HE'S BAPTIZED.  He got baptized when he was 14 (He's 42) and has been inactive ever since!  Frick!  But I dont care we're gonna activate him.  His family that's active said he seems more motivated than he's been in a while.  That night we had a FHE but the people the members were gonna invite WENT OUT OF TOWN!  We feel like some unseen force is fighting to keep investigators away from us hahaha. 

Sunday we had a conference for the area (Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador)  transmitted from SLC and Elder Oaks, Elder Hales, Sis McConkie and a member of the 70 talked!  It was funny, Elder Oaks did the first part of his talk in Spanish!  His Spanish was awful and he said he prepared it just for this haha but he wanted to address the people in their own language.  I found it VERY thoughtful and awesome!  In the afternoon we joined the branch council in a group effort to visit all the less actives and recent converts in the other elders area and next week we're gonna do the same in our area.  I think it went well and it motivated the members a lot. 

Today we went to a place called The Paradise thats a house where they filmed a Colombian soap opera called La Maria.  (soap operas are HUGE here).  It was a good time! 

Ive made a decision this week.  If worse comes to worse here in Palmira, and i dont baptize (WORSE COMES TO WORSE) I feel like I can at least try and motivate and edify the branch here.  My plan is to teach them how to work effectively as a branch council and hopefully the reactivation and retention can go up.  But I'm not discouraged!  Frustrated... kind of... 

BUT NOT DISCOURAGED! 

Pray for my area :)

Love you all!

Elder Welch

"Playing Janga and eating cookies haha (funny face)"

(He say's "funny face". I say, "concentration" face :))

 "Baking cookies!"

"The Paradise" 

04-05-16 to 04-11-16 Arrancando (that means "getting started")‏

This week has been a battle, but hey.  Opening area haha. 

Tuesday i gave my first district meeting since Andalucia.  I'm a bit rusty haha.  But it went well!  My district is just me, Elder Ramirez, and the zone leaders Elder Herrera (who lived with me in Ipiales) and Elder Lish from Idaho.  Phew, tuesday was a good day for references.  In the afternoon, a member presented us a family (THEY'RE MARRIED), a member named Andres Cruz (he always accompanies the missionaries here) presented us another family, and in the night time our pensionista presented us ANOTHER family!  We were pretty happy, what do I tell ya? 

Wednesday was a bit less busy, but it was still good.  We had some lessons with some of our best investigators.  One is Gui.  He's excellent.  The missionaries met him recently and just in time, because he's been passing through some AWFUL trials.  One being divorce, and the other lung cancer... in my boat that's gotta be 2 of the worse things you could have happen.  But he has a very positive attitude all the time and trusts in God.  He reads his Book of Mormon chapters we leave and prays.  He's waiting for the answer to get baptized.  At the end of the lesson, we offered him a blessing of health.  It was very spiritual.

The other is F.  F is the uncle of a missionary here in Palmira, and he has recented the discussions before but FOREVER ago.  He knows a lot, but never got baptized.  This time around, he told us he's trying harder.  He reads and prays and is also waiting for an answer.

Thursday we spent the majority of the day visiting members to get references.  But wow, we're starting to need more ideas to find investigators.  In Palmira, almost NO ONE is in the street.  So contacting families doesnt work.  References is good, but it doesnt give us the quanity we need to stay busy.  Me may result to knocking doors... (that's heresy in this mission haha)

Friday i completed 18 months!  Crap!  And to make it worse, our plans A,B,C,D, and even F fell through.  Zero appointments.  Bummmmer.  On top of that i got a mad stomach ache that killed me all day and sent me to the bathroom more than once... haha ugghh

Saturday We worked on getting some investigators committed to come to church.  As a result, we found out that the day after we gave Gui the blessing, he heard something burst inside of him and had to go to the clinic.  So we went with Andres Cruz to the clinic to visit him.  I'm not sure what happened to him, but he's getting better.  it was nice to go to the hospital and visit... but i hate hospitals haha they remind me of zombies movies.  My companion was a bit confused why the blessing didnt work like he thought.  I explained that sometimes the Lord's will is different.  or maybe his body reacted like that so he could get to the hospital and treat something more serious.  We just dont know. 

Sunday was my first sacrament meeting in Palmira!  It was rad to play piano again, and great to take the sacrament.  This branch has very little attending, only like 40 or 50 and it's in a house chapel.  But the house chapel is actually pretty nice!  Sunday i was reflecting a lot in the type of missionary i've become, and so quickly.  I've become VERY organized (are you happy mom?) :) and VERY obedient.  I'm trying to be very strict to receive the blessings.  But I feel good where im at, even if the success isnt coming like i want it to. 

Today we made cookies with Andres Cruz!  He has an oven so we made them and played Janga, and connect 4 haha.  It was a nice day.  So yeah that was my week! 

We're taking a bit to get started, but I'm sure the Lord will bless us.  My son (Elder Herrera) is doing great, he's learning fast and is trying to be good to apply what i teach!  We get along well, and all in all, i'm grateful im training.  it gave me the push i needed to better myself. 

love you all!

Elder Welch

03-28-16 to 04-04-16 My son and general conference!‏

This week has been a lot of changes. 

Monday I traveled all day, and wow.  It hit me.  The HEAT.  It was SO HOT!  From cool Pasto to the humid hot valley of Cali.  I was dying!

Tuesday I was in divisions with the zone leaders of the Versalles zone in Cali, and I'm not gonna lie.  I was pretty bored all day haha I don't like not being in my own area.  I feel like there's so many things that aren't happening that I want to do!  But it's alright.

Wednesday I went to the offices to have my second Training for the trainers meeting.  It was the same as the first time when i trained Elder Chaiña haha and every with me has trained before too!  So it went by rather fast.  After, I met my son!  His name is Elder Ramirez, and he's from Santa Fe Argentina.  He's 19 years old, a member of 5 years and he's a really good kid.  He's got a peculiar personality but it makes it kind of fun hahaha. 

As soon as we got to the house, he opened up the area book and started looking for investigators!  His initiative surprised me!  So we immediately set out looking for the pensionista and other members.

Thursday we did a lot of walking.  All day.  And had zero appointments.  I felt kind of bad for my son, but he's a good sport.  The struggles of opening area... I'm used to it though haha.  Technically my 4th time, but you could say 6th or 7th if you consider that I've arrived to areas that had nothing.  I'm kind of good at opening areas now.

Friday we finally had some appointments!  We found some really solid investigators, one being a married couple that was gonna get baptized 2 years ago but lost contact with the missionaries when she left to take care of her sick mother.  It was a pleasant miracle. 

Saturday and Sunday was GENERAL CONFERENCE! 

I had many feelings during all the talks. 

1. I'm SO grateful for temples and my family!  What a miracle, and a blessing.  (I got kind of trunky)

2. We need to get to work to rescue our lost family and friends!  We need plans!  Ideas! 

3. I'm so grateful for repentance.

4. We need to start family council when i get home mom and dad hahaha

All in all, nothing beats listening to the inspired and chosen leaders that God has sent us.  We truly are blessed to have the restored gospel in our lives.

Love you all!  Have a great week!

With Elder Roman in Pasto

 I sure hope they didn't eat it O_O

 I'm guessing this is the Zone in Pasto

 With Brother and Sister Narvaez in Pasto

"My Pensionista Sister Hilda and her son Diego in Pasto" 

"This is me with all the zone leaders and sister trainer 

leaders with Sister and President Pricoli"

New Palmira Companion, Elder Ramirez from Argentina

03/22/16 to 03/28/16 Devils and Transfers!‏

Hey all!  Sorry i didnt write yesterday.  As the subject line states, I already got transfered.  Not gonna lie, I'm really really sad I had to leave Pasto already, after only 5 weeks.  We were finally getting some super solid investigators!  But what can you do?  In the mission, the leaders command and us missionaries obey.  I've been lowered from zone leader to district leader and sent to the city of Palmira to train!  I'm gonna have another son!  Today i'm in trio in Cali with Elder Cortes and Elder Hutchison, but tomororw I go to get my boy.  His name is Elder Ramirez and the assistents say he's from Argentina.  Che!  More mate! 

So this week was a really interesting one.  It was actually the most successful of all the weeks in Pasto (of course they have to take me out now) and I had another crazy experience! 

Wednesday I was in divisions with Elder Soares from Brazil, and we went to talk to a less active in a poorer neighborhood of my area called Pandiaco.  When we got there, he told us that a devil entered into his neighbor the night before and that they needed our help.  Oh hey!  Not again! 

So we went and holy cow it was a bit crazier than the last time.  We walked into this super poor house made of sheet metal and cardboard and in a room in the back we heard a lady screaming "LEAVE!  LEAVE!  GET OUT!" (but you know in Spanish).  So we went back and a lady was squirming on her bed screaming as loud as she could.  I was kind of shocked not gonna lie.  So we asked if we could move her into a sitting position to be able to put our hands on her, and the less active member and a relative moved the lady to the edge of the bed.  But as soon as they did, she started hitting the relative!  Then she crawled across the bed, grabbed a cross off the wall and threw it at me!  It hit me in the leg, (didnt hurt too bad but still!) and then she layed down and cried.  All this happened in 5 min and I already knew we'd have to come back in fast.  Soooo

(I think he means they would have to come back while fasting from food and water. His sentence structure is suffering from speaking Spanish, haha.)

Friday we went back and the demoniac lady answered the door!  And she was normal!  She explained that her family took her to a Catholic Priest and that he cured her!  NO!  They beat us to the punch!  But we know that he doesnt have the correct authority so its as good as shoveling dirt on top of dirt.  We asked if we could come back Sunday and she said yes.

Sunday we went back, but this time in fast and with the son of the Pensionista and the son of the Bishop (both Elders).  We got there and the lady told us that since that Catholic Father helped her, she's slept well and hasnt seen anything.  But she said she has been getting the cold chills all the time and that it is really unsettling.  So she invited us in to give her a blessing.  We went into a different room this time, sat her down and some of her family came in (all old folks).  I offered to give the annointing, and placed my hands on her head.  As soon as i had said her name, and stated that the blessing was in the name of Jesus Christ i could feel her moving.  When i stated the authority of the Priesthood, she hit my hands off her head, threw back in her chair and starting screaming!  I was stunned as well as the others, and then she starting pointing in the corner of the room yelling "THERE IT IS!  THERE IT IS!"  Shoot, none of us wanted to turn and look hahaha.  She cried and starting saying the Lord's Prayer while we waited for her to calm down.  When she came back to her senses, my comp said "It's okay, it's okay.  Elder Welch is going to annoint you again."  I was like "HUH".  haha so that time i did it a lot faster and a lot more powerful.  I finished and we all put our hands on her head and Elder Roman gave the blessing.  Nothing happened but the pensionista's son said he could feel her hair standing up and touching his hand.  We all felt a bad spirit there.  We finished and she said she felt like her head was burning, but she felt more calm.  So we gave her water, blessed the house and left.  WOW!  What a rush!

So that was a really interesting experience.  Also really cool to see the Priesthood at work.  We were gonna go back during the week to see how she's going, but I guess Elder Roman and his new comp will have to go! 

So yeah!  That was the most exciting thing about last week.  This week should be an interesting one.  My 4th time opening area!  I sure hope the Elders left an area book this time! 

Love you all!

Elder Welch

He promised me in my personal letter that he has 3 weeks of pictures to upload next week so I'm looking forward to that :)

03-15-16 to 03-21-16 Lots of Divisions!‏

alright, i'm short on time because all day we've been running errands to get ready for the zone conference we have tomorrow, and a zone FHE we have tonight!  But all is well! 

This week we've been doing lots of divisions with the missionaries (haha we put it off until the end of the transfer).  But it's been good!  Honestly, things are still kind of tough here in Pasto, we've been running about contacting all day every day haha but its finally paying off! We're starting to teach lots of families like we like! 

This Sunday the attendance went up 30 which was actually really surprising!  I think the ward should (hopefully) be alright.  Anywho, tomorrow we have the zone conference, and transfers are this weekend!  This transfer was weird and was only 5 weeks.  But i should be staying. 

Love you all! 

Elder Welch

03-08-16 to 03-14-16 The fall of Mariluz

This week was super SUPER frustrating.  But I'M NOT DISCOURAGED!

Tuesday i gave my first zone meeting with Elder Roman in Pasto!  It is way interesting with 18 other missionaries to teach when before there were 8 haha.  But it went really well.  We're talking a lot about verification and focusing on the teachings from the world mission broadcast we had a few weeks ago.  Later that day, Elder Roman started having some really bad knee pains (he damaged them playing soccer awhile back) so we took it easy.  That night we met the N. familie's inactive son.  He's super rad, he's kind of a rocker haha he has long hair and listens to rock.  We kinda talked about class rock music to get his trust and we're gonna start working to help him come back to the church.  The family is really sad about it (him being inactive).

Wednesday was one of those days where we walked and walked and walked and walked like pioneer children haha. We helped bless a member's house in the morning, and talked a bit.  He served his mission in Boise Idaho so we spoke quite a bit of english haha.  He's a great guy.  That night we helped do role play in the mission prep class which was fun with all the young men preparing for their missions!  They're already a lot more prepared than i was!

Thursday We met a kind of crazy less active sister in the morning that is nearly atheist from some bad experiences.  Then in the afternoon we met an active family that lives kinda far and set up a FHE (for tonight!)

Friday we had a really good weekly planning where i set a goal to contact more.  Since that day, ive been going crazy talking to everyone!  haha it feels really good.  Something that was a bummer is that ALL of our appointments fell through. 

Saturday was ANOTHER day where we walked with nearly no appointments.  We're getting really frustrated because we're trying EVERYTHING to try and find and work and lift up this ward, but something always happens to cancel the appointments.  We feel like we're doing something wrong.  But we're being SUPER DUPER obedient, we're contacting, we're searching the member list for less actives, and walking A LOT.  I just hope something works so we can finally get some investigators. 

Sunday was kind of crazy.  We got some bad news.  If the Mariluz Ward doesn't get 150 attending the next 2 weeks (Sunday we had 75) theyre gonna close the ward.  We could even lose the chapel.  The area is really cracking down and theyve already closed a branch in Cali, and have sold several chapels in Bogota.  It's really sad that it's come to this, but it needs to happen.  The members need to step up or we'll lose blessings!  So now everyone is going crazy to bring less actives to church this week.  Super scary! 

Something good is that we got assigned a ward mission leader!  My first one in 5 months, since Valle Grande!  He's a returned missionary as of a year so he knows what's up.  We're happy about that.  So it's NOW OR NEVER FOR MARILUZ! 

In other news, the church came out with a new video for Easter! 

check it out at https://www.mormon.org/easter 

and share with the hashtag #hallelujah

Today we walked around downtown Pasto, and then hung out with Elder Zubiria and Elder Chaiña drinking mate and playing guitar!  It was a good time.

Love you all!  Have a rad week!  HALLELUJAH!

ELDER WELCH

(He actually sent descriptions with the pictures this week, 

which was nice. I'll put them under each picture.)

The Galeras volcano from our apartment window

The clouds in Pasto (we're pretty high up)

Romàn and I chilling out 

        

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

_______________________________________________________________

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 :)

He thanked everyone for the birthday wishes

 and sent a picture of him with the brownie

and candles that I sent :) 

20 years old! How did that happen?