So our district has had some pretty funny experiences. Since our second day here we have to teach a 30 minute lesson to a fake investigator in Spanish. My companion is actually really good at Spanish and I am surprised that he will be in the MTC for 6 weeks since he´s been able to carry on a conversation in Spanish since our first day here. So another pair of missionaries in our district were teaching the investigator the other night, and one of them, Elder Ward, meant to say ´´will you come to church with us at 9:00 am on Sunday´´ but actually said nunca instead of nueve, which means he actually said ´´will you come to church with us at never on Sunday´´. Apparently the fake investigator just started laughing and then Elder Ward realized what he had actually said. But the next day Elder Ward´s companion, Elder Mecham, also made a language mistake. They were teaching the same investigator and Elder Mecham accidently said mujer (woman) instead of mejor (better) during his lesson. Luckily I haven´t made any mistakes like that in any of my lessons. I just want to let all of you know how much of a blessing it is to be here and how grateful I am for this opportunity to serve. I can definately feel the spirit a lot stronger here at the MTC and I know that through obedience to the mission rules and that through our faith that anything is possible and that if we have the spirit alongside us that we can accomplish anything, including learning a new language. I look forward to this next week and I will try to send you guys some pictures before I have to get off.
Above is my companion, Elder Heymeyer
From left to right: Elder Waite, Elder Mecham, Elder Ward
This is Elder Mecham´s bag. He had a big container of Head & Shoulders that exploded in his bag.
Week 3
So this week was a lot better than last. First of all, last wednesday night it rained soo hard and hailed. I will send you a video of it if I have time. Second my Spanish is slowly improving. After the first two weeks you feel like you just hit a wall to where you stop learning, so I have had to work really hard this week to test what I know and start planning on how I am going to continue to learn the language. This past week I saw the two best church videos/devotionals ever. One was called ''The Atonement and Missionary Work''. I am not sure whether it is on LDS.org so you can probably find it on Youtube. It was really inspiring. The other was a talk from Jeffrey R. Holland. I dont know what it was called and I think they only show it at MTCs but it was about missionary work and had a really cool story about some missionaries in Czechoslavakia. You will have to check it out if you can. So we just had 187 missionaries arrive two days ago and the MTC is really packed now. I am so glad that I got here earlier. Also you should find out if there is anyone who is going to be coming to this MTC in the next two weeks that is from Dixie. So besides that not a lot of things happened this week. Me and Elder Hemeyer were supposed to do TRC like everyone else but they didnt have enough investigators so we taught Jorge (Elder Mecham) and Winter (Elder Ward). We actually tried to teach them for real but we completely lost it when 1. Elder Ward said his name was Winter and 2. when Jorge (Elder Mecham) said his entire family was dead. So were hoping to teach someone this week. Were also leaving for the temple in one hour. It will be the first time we go so I will make sure to take some pictures. I love all of you and I hope to learn even more this next week.
Week 4
So this past week was really good. After emailing last Thursday I was able to go to the Mexico City Temple. It was a really cool experience and it was cool doing it in Spanish. So far it is definitely my favorite temple. I will send you guys some pictures later. So first of all, sadly one of our Hermanas had to go back home this past week to get surgery because of a torn miniscus (dont know how to spell that). She is not going to have to go back through the MTC again but we are all pretty worried because it will be really hard for her to go back home and forget a lot of the things she learned in the MTC and then have to go straight to the mission field. So besides that nothing else crazy took place this past week. I am still learning a lot in my language study and it has been fun here but I am definitely ready to get out of here. Our computer lab changed and the one we have right now has air conditioning which is absolutely amazing because it is the only place here with AC. So we come here a lot and we always set it at 18°C (like 64°F). So I´ve had a cold this past week but thankfully I have a lot of cold medicine with me. Lets see, apparently I grew about 1-2 inches since arriving here. Everyone here says I am 6'4" because Elder Mecham says he knows for a fact he is 6'3'' and I am about an inch taller than him. Anyway so things are going very well here. Elder Drew Higley from St. George who is going to the Montevideo West mission arrived a week ago and I forgot to mention that in last weeks email. It is cool that he is here and we talk a lot about St. George and DHS. So I only have about 10 or 11 days left and I will get my flight plans in a few days. Thanks for all of the support and the letters and the packages. I will talk to you all next week!
So its been like 10 days since you last heard from me. So when I got to Montevideo at 1-2 am my mission president- President Eddy, and his assistants picked all of us up from the airport. They took us to the Montevideo temple and we stayed the night there right next to it in a church owned hostil (hotel thing). The next day we kinda just hung out there the whole morning and later in the afternoon they showed us a lot of presentations and talked about the mission and the expectations. We ate some really good food there. It tasted amazing especially because my standards for food had dropped significantly while I was at the MTC.
So the next day we were introduced to our companions at 11 am last wednesday I think. My comp is Elder Harkness from Fresno, CA. He is really cool and we get along super good. He liked to play Battlefield before his mission which is exactly what I was doing too so we get along great. He took me to our area which is Maldonado. It is what everyone here says is the best area to serve in Uruguay. It is a really cool place and our ward has a lot of members and they are all really cool and very active in the church. Compared to other areas in Uruguay it has a lot of jovens (youth). We are however on the outskirts of Maldonado so it isnt as nice as the actual city is. E. Harkness took me to our house which we share with the zone leaders- Elder Gehring and Elder Fernandez. They are super cool and really fun to be around. Our house is really crappy though but I guess thats how mission life is. It is cold and damp like that place we stayed at when we were in Italy. Our shower curtain is just a garbage bag and the bathroom floor is always covered in water because the curtain isnt wide enough to keep water out when showering and also the toilet spills water everywhere because when you flush it water shoots out of the back. Our house is actually always colder than it is outside. Besides that everything is good though. We have a fridge which is nice since we didnt have any at the MTC. And there is always hot water so thats good. Uruguay is so great though. Their Spanish is so different from the Spanish I learned in the MTC and they have a ton of slang that I had to pick up. They also talk like Italians and dont always like to pronounce their S´s. I am starting to understand people more and more now when they speak. My comp is awesome and loves to help me out.
This past week has been so great. The food is really good and I have had some great experiences this past week. I dont have time to talk about everything but me and E. Harkness were clapping doors (they dont knock here, everyone has gates so you have to clap) and we found this family of like 8 who are really young and we were able to go into their house on initial contact and sit down with them and share with them the BofM and talk about prayer and just some basic beliefs for about 20 minutes. It was super cool and they seemed interested. I talked about the BofM and then gave one to them. We invited them to church and said we would pick them up. We went to their house like 30 min before church started but no one answered the door so we are hoping to see them tomorrow and follow up on them. I am hoping that they will allow us over again and that we can talk some more. But it was still a really cool experience being able to talk with them and that I was able to teach them a little about the BofM and bear my testimony on it. Well thats about all I can write right now and I will be sure to let you know how this next week goes. I will send you all some pics that I took. Love you all!
Week 2
So this last week was so great! It has been going by really fast. So we actually did celebrate the 4th of July here at the MTC. They decorated the comedor (cafeteria) red white and blue and served us some mediocre "American" food. Also thanks for the package and no I havent found Dafne Espinosa yet, there are a lot of teachers here at the MTC. So this past week kinda just blended together for me. Our schedule feels about the same each day. We go to class in the morning until noon to work on our language. After lunch we get some study time, then we head to the gym for an hour which is by far the best part of the day. After that we do language study in the computer lab which is always the worst because I always fall asleep while I am sitting there on the computer. Then we have more study time, then dinner, and then we teach a fake investigator, then we have even more personal study time and more language study before heading back to our homes. And then we do about the same thing the next day. But it really isn´t even that bad and for the most part it is pretty easy.
This past Sunday was the best part of the week. We fasted two meals here at the MTC, which really isn´t that hard since nobody here looks forward to the food here anyway. Me and Elder Hemeyer did sacrament and blessed it in Spanish which was really cool. That should serve as a reminder of how blessed the other priests in the ward are who only have to bless it in English. At the end of the day and after all of our meetings we got to watch a few short films. They showed one of my favorites which is the story of John Tanner, who gave up just about everything he had for the church. My favorite part of that story is when John Tanner is taking the missionary lessons, and one of the missionaries asks if he will be baptized. John Tanner tells them he would but his diseased leg would prevent him from doing so. One of the missionaries then asks if he has faith in Jesus Christ and he also asks him if he believes that if we have that same priesthood power that existed during Christ´s ministry, then wouldn´t that priesthood power be able to heal his leg. John Tanner says he believes and the missionary commands him in the name of Jesus Christ to stand up and walk. That is just one of my favorite examples of both missionary work and priesthood power. I know that that power is real and that we can perform many other mighty miracles as missionaries if we are worthy of that power. This week I have really been focusing on being diligent and striving to be the best that I can be, because as long as we are trying are best then we are always doing something right.
I really hope that this next week will go by just as quickly and that I can get to Uruguay soon. I am still working really hard on the language- it is slowly coming. I keep all of you in my prayers each day and I can´t wait to talk to all of you next week.
PS. The only thing I hate about the MTC here is the mosquitoes. I kill about 10 before I go to bed and I still wake up with mosquitoes buzzing around me. Luckily the mosquitoes here are really big and slow so they are easy to kill and they never even bite us. I only got one mosquito bite while I was sleeping during the two weeks I have been here
This past Sunday was the best part of the week. We fasted two meals here at the MTC, which really isn´t that hard since nobody here looks forward to the food here anyway. Me and Elder Hemeyer did sacrament and blessed it in Spanish which was really cool. That should serve as a reminder of how blessed the other priests in the ward are who only have to bless it in English. At the end of the day and after all of our meetings we got to watch a few short films. They showed one of my favorites which is the story of John Tanner, who gave up just about everything he had for the church. My favorite part of that story is when John Tanner is taking the missionary lessons, and one of the missionaries asks if he will be baptized. John Tanner tells them he would but his diseased leg would prevent him from doing so. One of the missionaries then asks if he has faith in Jesus Christ and he also asks him if he believes that if we have that same priesthood power that existed during Christ´s ministry, then wouldn´t that priesthood power be able to heal his leg. John Tanner says he believes and the missionary commands him in the name of Jesus Christ to stand up and walk. That is just one of my favorite examples of both missionary work and priesthood power. I know that that power is real and that we can perform many other mighty miracles as missionaries if we are worthy of that power. This week I have really been focusing on being diligent and striving to be the best that I can be, because as long as we are trying are best then we are always doing something right.
I really hope that this next week will go by just as quickly and that I can get to Uruguay soon. I am still working really hard on the language- it is slowly coming. I keep all of you in my prayers each day and I can´t wait to talk to all of you next week.
PS. The only thing I hate about the MTC here is the mosquitoes. I kill about 10 before I go to bed and I still wake up with mosquitoes buzzing around me. Luckily the mosquitoes here are really big and slow so they are easy to kill and they never even bite us. I only got one mosquito bite while I was sleeping during the two weeks I have been here
This is our classroom: Left to right: Elder Hemeyer, Poulson, Waite
Week 3
So this week was a lot better than last. First of all, last wednesday night it rained soo hard and hailed. I will send you a video of it if I have time. Second my Spanish is slowly improving. After the first two weeks you feel like you just hit a wall to where you stop learning, so I have had to work really hard this week to test what I know and start planning on how I am going to continue to learn the language. This past week I saw the two best church videos/devotionals ever. One was called ''The Atonement and Missionary Work''. I am not sure whether it is on LDS.org so you can probably find it on Youtube. It was really inspiring. The other was a talk from Jeffrey R. Holland. I dont know what it was called and I think they only show it at MTCs but it was about missionary work and had a really cool story about some missionaries in Czechoslavakia. You will have to check it out if you can. So we just had 187 missionaries arrive two days ago and the MTC is really packed now. I am so glad that I got here earlier. Also you should find out if there is anyone who is going to be coming to this MTC in the next two weeks that is from Dixie. So besides that not a lot of things happened this week. Me and Elder Hemeyer were supposed to do TRC like everyone else but they didnt have enough investigators so we taught Jorge (Elder Mecham) and Winter (Elder Ward). We actually tried to teach them for real but we completely lost it when 1. Elder Ward said his name was Winter and 2. when Jorge (Elder Mecham) said his entire family was dead. So were hoping to teach someone this week. Were also leaving for the temple in one hour. It will be the first time we go so I will make sure to take some pictures. I love all of you and I hope to learn even more this next week.
So this past week was really good. After emailing last Thursday I was able to go to the Mexico City Temple. It was a really cool experience and it was cool doing it in Spanish. So far it is definitely my favorite temple. I will send you guys some pictures later. So first of all, sadly one of our Hermanas had to go back home this past week to get surgery because of a torn miniscus (dont know how to spell that). She is not going to have to go back through the MTC again but we are all pretty worried because it will be really hard for her to go back home and forget a lot of the things she learned in the MTC and then have to go straight to the mission field. So besides that nothing else crazy took place this past week. I am still learning a lot in my language study and it has been fun here but I am definitely ready to get out of here. Our computer lab changed and the one we have right now has air conditioning which is absolutely amazing because it is the only place here with AC. So we come here a lot and we always set it at 18°C (like 64°F). So I´ve had a cold this past week but thankfully I have a lot of cold medicine with me. Lets see, apparently I grew about 1-2 inches since arriving here. Everyone here says I am 6'4" because Elder Mecham says he knows for a fact he is 6'3'' and I am about an inch taller than him. Anyway so things are going very well here. Elder Drew Higley from St. George who is going to the Montevideo West mission arrived a week ago and I forgot to mention that in last weeks email. It is cool that he is here and we talk a lot about St. George and DHS. So I only have about 10 or 11 days left and I will get my flight plans in a few days. Thanks for all of the support and the letters and the packages. I will talk to you all next week!
Week 5
This past week was good. Kinda the same old thing. Everyone in my district is very excited to leave the MTC. This past week we got our flight plans which is exciting. We are flying to Panama City and then to Uruguay. I have been trying to speak has much Spanish as possible this past week to prepare for the missionfield. I was talking with a missionary here who is from the Dominican Republic and he doesnt speak English. We were talking for about ten minutes and he said that my Spanish was really good. I am really good with pronunciation but I still need to work on being able to listen and understand what other people are saying. I also need to continue to learn more vocabulary. FYI Elder Welker I already started the flashcard idea my first week here and it helps a ton for learning new words and phrases. So today we are going to the temple again and it has been a very busy day. Me and another elder were up really late doing laundry and then I had to pack all of my bags today so that I can weigh them before I leave. I am very excited to leave and very excited to get to Uruguay. The CCM (mtc) has prepared me a lot and I think I will do just fine. I am also very excited to leave the CCM because I really want to listen to my music since they dont allow it here at the CCM. This MTC has been great though and they do such a good job training missionaries. All of my teachers have been great. I never did see the Porras´s cousin here. Anyway so thanks for everything! Not sure what else to say but I am just very excited to leave.
Best foosball team right here! Me and Elder Jones. He is from Cedar City and he left Sunday night for Omaha Nebraska
So the next day we were introduced to our companions at 11 am last wednesday I think. My comp is Elder Harkness from Fresno, CA. He is really cool and we get along super good. He liked to play Battlefield before his mission which is exactly what I was doing too so we get along great. He took me to our area which is Maldonado. It is what everyone here says is the best area to serve in Uruguay. It is a really cool place and our ward has a lot of members and they are all really cool and very active in the church. Compared to other areas in Uruguay it has a lot of jovens (youth). We are however on the outskirts of Maldonado so it isnt as nice as the actual city is. E. Harkness took me to our house which we share with the zone leaders- Elder Gehring and Elder Fernandez. They are super cool and really fun to be around. Our house is really crappy though but I guess thats how mission life is. It is cold and damp like that place we stayed at when we were in Italy. Our shower curtain is just a garbage bag and the bathroom floor is always covered in water because the curtain isnt wide enough to keep water out when showering and also the toilet spills water everywhere because when you flush it water shoots out of the back. Our house is actually always colder than it is outside. Besides that everything is good though. We have a fridge which is nice since we didnt have any at the MTC. And there is always hot water so thats good. Uruguay is so great though. Their Spanish is so different from the Spanish I learned in the MTC and they have a ton of slang that I had to pick up. They also talk like Italians and dont always like to pronounce their S´s. I am starting to understand people more and more now when they speak. My comp is awesome and loves to help me out.
This past week has been so great. The food is really good and I have had some great experiences this past week. I dont have time to talk about everything but me and E. Harkness were clapping doors (they dont knock here, everyone has gates so you have to clap) and we found this family of like 8 who are really young and we were able to go into their house on initial contact and sit down with them and share with them the BofM and talk about prayer and just some basic beliefs for about 20 minutes. It was super cool and they seemed interested. I talked about the BofM and then gave one to them. We invited them to church and said we would pick them up. We went to their house like 30 min before church started but no one answered the door so we are hoping to see them tomorrow and follow up on them. I am hoping that they will allow us over again and that we can talk some more. But it was still a really cool experience being able to talk with them and that I was able to teach them a little about the BofM and bear my testimony on it. Well thats about all I can write right now and I will be sure to let you know how this next week goes. I will send you all some pics that I took. Love you all!
Week 7
This past week me and my comp had a few more miracles.
First of all, before I get to that, the family that we were able to teach last week and give a full lesson actually wants nothing to do with us and just thought it would be funny to have us over. So they were basically joking with us. We have tried to go back many times because we know the spirit was there in that lesson but they denied it.
Anyway so me and my comp found this really cool area where he hadnt contacted before and the people are super friendly and we contacted so many people and within a couple days already know a lot of the people there and they know who we are which is good. The first day we contacted that area we ran out of pamphlets to hand out and shared a lot about the gospel with a ton of people. We found the niece of Walter Gonzales- I think thats how its spelled. He is the president of the Seventy of South America, I think thats what the title is called. She knows a lot about the church but after asking her many times last week she doesnt want to attend church. She isnt a member but me and my comp are really trying to get her to church because we know we found her for a reason.
We also were walking down the street when a guy pulled up to us on a moto and asked us if we had any pamplets we could give him. His name is Fredrico and turns out that his stepfather is a member that is less active. Fredrico wants to learn more about the church and tomorrow we are meeting with him to give him the first lesson and ask him to be baptized. We actually saw him again yesterday. We were in that area and we went to his house. He wasnt there so we started walking up the street and 30 seconds later, there he his on his moto and he pulls up to us cause he just got off work. We were talking with him and he was asking what the age limit is for missionaries in our church cause he is 23 and me and my comp are thinking that he is really serious about learning more about our church. Then, another miracle. As we are talking it turns out that we are right in front of his stepfathers house and he comes out to talk to us. Turns out that his previous marriage he was married to a woman in Elder Harkness´s last area in Montevideo. She was in his ward and her whole family is active and knew Elder Harkness very well. Then the stepfather told us that he used to serve in different church callings but it seems that after his divorce is probably when he went less active. As we were walking away he shook our hands and asked us to help him come back to the church. We knew and he knew also that we werent there by coincidence. Also, I almost forgot that Fredrico also has a niece who is 11 who lives in his stepfathers house who also really wants to learn more about the church. We are really hoping to have success with them and are going to commit Fredrico and if his niece is there then her also to be baptized. Keep them in your prayers!
Anyway to things are good here and one last thing. Today we went to Punte Del Este which is the nicest, most touristy part of all of Uruguay. I will send you all some pics. It was super cool!
Thanks for all of the support! I really hope to get a baptismal date with Fredrico. I will let you all know how things go next week!
Love you all! -Elder Welker
Week 8
ok so I dont know where the time goes cause I thought I was just emailing two days ago. So a ton of stuff happened this week and I will try to get through it quick. And sorry but there are no pictures for this week.
So earlier this week me and Elder Harkness had our first lesson last Tuesday with Frederico and his stepfather Hermano Castro. It went pretty well. We talked about the Restoration and after I talked about the BofM and Priesthood Authority I shared 2 Nephi 31:4-5 or maybe it was chapter 30 but I then asked him if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized to which he said yes! Me and Elder Harkness are very excited for him. We had another lesson with him on Thursday and answered any of his questions and shared with him a message about Sabbath Day and church attendance. Turns out he read the whole introduction to the BofM and also the testimonies of the witnesses and Joseph Smith. He also read through the pamphlets and so we gave him the pamphlet on Plan of Salvation. We went to his home a third time on Friday but only his stepfather was there because Frederico had to work. We talked with Hermano Castro for about an hour. Turns out Frederico was in prison for drug problems and theft and got out of prison a year ago. He took bible classes during his time in prison and really wants to change his life around. He doesnt do drugs anymore and is really wanting to have God more in his life. We also found out a lot more about Hermano Castro. Turns out he was the Ward Mission leader for a long time and during his time as Ward Mission leader he worked a lot with less actives and reactivating them. Apparently he had a very efficient plan and got a ton of people going back to church. He also shared a ton of stories with us about him and working with the missionaries. We found out why he is less active now but turns out he isnt a less active but he was actually excommunicated. He was serving as a counselor to the bishop and they always got into arguments over priesthood authority and I guess one thing led to another. He has however expressed to us many times how he knows that we didnt find him by coincidence which we also agree with. He also told us that he wants us to help him because right now he isnt legally married to his current wife and because he is excommunicated he has to get baptized again. I know he wants to change though and he is the biggest help during our lessons with Frederico. Also on Sunday Frederico came to church and we didnt even tell him cause its not a rule but he decided to shave that morning which just shows us that he truly cares about all of this. He could only stay the first two hours but thankfully the First Presidency just changed the rule about investigator church attendance which now says investigators only have to come for the first hour of church for 3 times before getting baptized. Really glad it was this week. Anyway please keep those two in your prayers and also Fredericos niece because we are going to start teaching her also this week.
One last thing that was really cool this week. So after teaching Frederico for the first time on Tuesday me and E. Harkness decided to go find a reference given to us by the Hermanas. We couldnt find the street so we stopped in a store to ask for directions. As E Harkness was asking the owner for some directions a woman approached me and asked if she could talk to me outside. I went with her and she explained to me that she had a son with drug problems and she wanted our help in order to help her son turn his life around. She asked me a question after and I cant remember what she said but I didnt know how to respond so I grabbed E Harkness and they talked for a little bit and we then followed her down the street to her house. She said her son wasnt home but asked us to come back tomorrow to talk with him. We asked her if she had met with missionaries from our church before which she said she had. She said she took the lessons but was never baptized. We asked her if she would want to take the lessons again and be baptized which she then said that she would want to be baptized. We came back the next day and met with her son and shared a short message with him and asked him to read the pamphlet and go to church. Ok so its a long story but his mom was moving into her sons house and the moving company came Sunday morning so neither of those two came to church but we will try to get them to go next week. Keep them in your prayers too.
Anyway so we had a very busy week and there are a couple of other investigators that I couldnt talk about because I am short on time but one of them also came to church on Sunday and shes had the lessons and can probably be baptized within the next week or two because she has also been attending church for the past couple weeks. Thats another long story but she has been attending a different ward so we didnt find out about her til this week.
Ok so it was a really great week and please pray for our invesigators. We are going to try to get baptisimal dates for all of them and are hoping to continue to find investigators like these ones. Thank you all for the support and I will talk to you all next week! Love you all!
Week 9
I will try to keep this short cause I had a lot of emails I had to read.
Ok so Frederico came to church again this Sunday which was a miracle cause we werent able to teach him this week because 1. his stepdad and mom got in a car accident and got injured, but nothing life threatening 2. we went to the temple on Friday which was really cool and I would love to talk more about it but I am short on time and 3. I didnt get any photos and if I did my camera is at home, but the weather on Saturday was soo ridiculous! It rained more than I have seen in my life. Luckily for me I had a lot of waterproof clothes but everyone else got soaked and our house got soo wrecked. But anyway we are just glad he came to church and we are going to teach him this Tuesday. This Sunday we will be announcing his baptism which will be next Saturday if he keeps his commitments and goes to church again this Sunday.
We also have one other investigator who is going to church right now named Maria. We dont have a baptismal date with her yet, but will get one this week and could actually be baptized next Saturday also cause she has attended church more than 3 times now.
Anyway so things are great here! I had some photos but forgot to bring my camera. My Zone Leaders just baptized two girls last night. Angelina (9) and Wendy (8). Their cousin Jose who is a priest in our ward baptized them which was really cool to see. I will send you all some photos next week. Thanks for the support and I am really hoping to have some more success this week. Til next time!
Week 10
ok so this last week was pretty rough for me and Elder Harkness.
So on Tuesday I had an intercambio with the comp of our district leader. He is from Brasil and his name is Elder Brasil. He was really cool but the first couple hours with him were rough cause he is bipolar and would get really angry at me out of nowhere so I am glad that only lasted one day. We taught Frederico the Plan of Salvation and I led the lesson and it went pretty well. We just taught using the pamphlet and then bore our testimonies and asked if he would pray about it. I asked him if he was reading and praying each day which he said he was. He is super ready to be baptized and believes in our message and keeps his commitments and comes to Family nights with members and also plays soccer with us and some of the ward members.
So we got some bad news this past weekend. So Frederico got in a fight with his mom so he asked us if we could meet with him at the church now instead and we scheduled to meet with him on Saturday to have our charlas. We got to the church at 3:30 on sat for our lesson with him but he never showed up which was wierd cause he is always on time. We tried calling him and he didnt answer so we walked to his parents house and they felt so bad to tell us that he got a new job and that he couldnt meet with us that day or come to church on Sunday cause his new job is 6 days a week for 12 hours a day. We were able to talk to him over the phone on Sunday and he asked us to forgive him cause he knew he had to attend one more time to be baptized. We told him it was ok and that his new job was a blessing for him following Jesus Christ in his life. We are going to meet with him tomorrow to talk about the situation but it will be a long process now getting him baptized cause now we can only teach one lesson a week at most with him and his work is very unpredictable.
So me and E Harkness have been scrambling to find new investigators and were pretty upset with the situation but because we couldnt get him baptized this weekend we are now just talking with everybody we see and being very persistent because we want to get new investigators and we want them to learn of the restored gospel and be baptized.
Ok so one other thing was that future elder Scott Welker got me and E Harkness a reference one week ago who we contacted on the phone. She lives in Montevideo near Tres Cruzes which is a bus station that we pass through everytime we go to the mission home. We are going to talk with her (Selene) and we are going to try to hand her off to the missionaries in her area because she doesnt want anyone else to teach her but us two.
As always thanks for the support and keep praying for us and our investigators. Just dont pray too much cause Frederico is having too many blessings now, haha.
-Elder Welker
some pictures of some "great" food we had here yesterday after church
so Mondonga is cow intestines and the picture on the bottom is pig skin. So its Mondonga with pig skin. The first plate was actually really good but they asked if I wanted more which I said I did even though I didnt actually want any more. The second plate had this really big piece of pig skin with whiskers on it. It was really gross and felt really wierd in my mouth. And then the beans and rice were cold and I was forcing myself to swallow that. I would take a bite and then fill my mouth with bread that they had in the middle of the table. It was probably the worst thing I have had yet.
Week 11
So this was the last week of my first change in the mission. To be completely honest nothing crazy or spectacular has happened this past week. Me and E. Harkness have still been trying to meet with Federico who is our golden investigator and his mom said that he is having a really hard time cause he is wanting to quit his job because he hasnt been able to make it to church the past couple weeks cause his job keeps him very busy. We are really hoping to meet with him this week because we only need to have two more lessons with him and have him attend one more sacrament meeting before he can be baptized. We have however been receiving a lot of references and are hoping to contact many of them this week because the best investigators are the ones who have a friend or family member who is in the ward.
Our zone leaders who live with us really killed it this change however. Like I said about member missionary work they were able to baptize four people last change who were references through the members. They led the whole mission in baptisms this change so always remember to use the members as much as possible with finding investigators.
I would encourage all of you to get the book "Tracting and Member Missionary Work" whether you are a missionary or not.
My ZL Elder Gehring lended it to me and me and my comp read it and it has been helping us a lot with our contacting.
Anyway so my comp and I are really hoping to find some good investigators this change and to hopefully help Frederico reach baptism this change.
Thank you all for your support and hope you have a good week!
-Elder Welker
PS.
Also my DL Elder Lang is going to be training this change so keep your fingers crossed that he will train Elder Holland
My Zone Leaders E. Fernandez and E. Gehring
1. Fabiana and Jennifer and the two jovenes who baptized them in the middle- last Saturday
2. Angelina and Wendy- two weeks ago
MOM- I asked Elder Welker to rate his mission on a scale from 1-10. 10 being the best. Here is his response:
9. Would have been a 10 but I miss St. George where it never rains. Also that might drop one more point because I have heard that there are a ton of mosquitoes here and that they bite through your clothes (which reminds me that you should also get me bug spray cause all I have is the bug lotion stuff). Otherwise it is very good. Lots of dogs and you know I like dogs a lot. The food here is really good especially the Milanesas (breaded fried steak) which is basically chicken fried steak which is my favorite food in the world. Also the bizcochos are really good as are torta fritas which are like navajo tacos and go really good with dulce de leche. The overall country is pretty good and most of the roads are paved and the members here are so awesome. Also forgot to add in Alfajores which are super good as well and are very cheap. Some of them remind me of Moon Pies (not sure if you remember these but my cousin Kayla who stayed with us for a bit gave us a huge box of them which I ate) but Alfajores are a lot better.
Week 12
I'm really excited for this next general conference. In our house we actually have a ton of old Liahonas from the past 10 years and I have read so many of them this past week and I didnt realize how helpful those talks can be for me. Also in case you were wondering we actually get to listen to gen conf in English this next weekend so I will be sure to get the most out of it.
So we are continuing to have charlas with the family at the panaderia by our house. They always have many questions for us because they are so eager to join our church. They just found out that E Harkness will be leaving in a month from now and the couple there who have been together for 16 years but never married really want to get married now so that E Harkness can baptize them. Either way I just hope they reach that point soon. We showed them LDS.org and they have been watching a lot of videos on their computer and really like what they watch. We are having a charla with them tomorrow night and are going to invite them to watch general conf which I am betting they will.
So Nataly wasnt able to make it to church this Sunday which was kind of a bummer after last Sunday but we went by her house and she was sitting outside with her husband and we talked with her for quite a while. She is the coolest person! She actually had to work that morning but she really likes me and E Harkness and she is going to hopefully come to a family home evening tonight with us.
We are still trying to help Federico be baptized. It is so difficult because he is just working nonstop but all we have to do is fit in 3 more charlas and have him go to church one more time before he can be baptized. We have talked with him a bit this past week and he wants to be baptized and sometimes we drop stuff off at his house for him to read. I continue to pray for him because we dont want to lose him and know that if just his work schedule gets a little more flexible that we can help him be baptized.
So that was about all that went down this past week. E Harkness and I are still trying to find more new investigators to teach and are trying to get more references from members.
As always, have a good week!
-Elder Welker
Week 13
ok so this week was full of improvement over last week although we are still trying to find new people to teach and are going to try harder to receive more solid references from the members.
So E Harkness and I taught the family at the panaderia twice this past week. We talked a lot more about the Restoration and watched the 20 min version with them on their computer. After that we actually asked the father if he had time to watch the hour long version, which he ended up doing before our next lesson. He had a lot of questions for us about it and we were able to answer them all and help him and his wife and daughter with their doubts. We also talked a ton about temples, eternal families, and the priesthood with them. I actually tore out a page from the last general conference Ensign which showed the pictures of the apostles, the seventy, the prophet, etc to show them how priesthood authority worked. We then invited them to watch general conference.
We also went over to Natalys home a couple times this week. We talked with her and her family and also invited them to watch gen conf. They fetching love me and E Harkness and they are so cool. We are hoping to get the rest of her family baptized and help her gain full activity in the church.
We are still just being patient with Federico. It seems now that we only have about 3 weeks left before E Harkness leaves that he is probably the only person now that we could baptize before Harkness leaves. We are still trying to secure a time to meet with him but we leave a lot of reading assignments for him at his parents home and also asked him to watch gen conf. We are really hoping to meet with him soon and his parents keep telling us that they will try to help us secure a time to meet with him. We are also still trying to get his parents to go to church and we also asked them to watch gen conf. So this week we will see how everything went for everybody.
Things are still going good here. E Harkness and I get along great and I dont know if I will ever find another comp like him. We also have to put up with our zone leaders so much recently. I swear that me and Harkness have to babysit them and it really gets on our nerves and they are also very hypocritical but Harkness and I still do fine and just try to do the best we can do.
The language is still coming around very slowly. The hardest part is probably trying to understand what others are saying.
Now that the weather is getting a bit better here we have a lot of spiders coming out of their hiding spots in the house so I always have to be very watchful. There was one on my bed but luckily I had made my bed so it was easy to spot.
anyway thats about it. Here are some pics of my room and the ZLs. Should be obvious which one is mine and Harkness´s
It was the zone leaders turn to clean the kitchen and take out the trash a week ago. They still havent done it and Harkness and I arent going to be their babysitters. However this week Elder Wankier, in charge of inspecting homes, will probably come this week, me and Harkness are hoping
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