Isis?, a baptism, and challenges of a mission

Hi.

So many exciting things going on at home! I love hearing about all the things people are doing at home and everything. It's weird to hear about life still happening back at home. I realized how truly cut off from the world I am here, being a missionary, when I got into a discussion with one of the newer missionaries last week. This was essentially the conversation:

Me: "Hey the news was playing on a tv the other day and they said something about some "Isis" group or something? I couldn't understand it... You know anything about that?"

Him: ".....you haven't heard about that..?"

Me: "Umm... no... is it important?"

Him: "You've been gone a while, haven't you?"

Me: "Yeah, I guess so..."

He then proceeded to recount everything that has happened since I have been gone. Wow. I guess I have missed some stuff.

It's weird to think that in two days I will have been gone for eight months already. I feel like I just BARELY left... It's really starting to hit me now that I hear about all the people getting their mission calls and everything! Wow! It's quick. The days just keep getting faster and faster...

We had a baptism this week! His name is R---- and he is AWESOME. This kid is super mature for his age, he's only 11 years old, but he seems a lot older. I was honored to be chosen to baptize him. Yes, the font was still dirty... but it was still great!

My favorite part of the baptism was when they gave their testimonies after. Unfortunately, I think we should have taught him more about testimonies. When he saw the other person get up to give her testimony, his eyes darted over to me like, "Man, you didn't tell me about THIS?!" Sensing the fear in his heart, I decided to give him some quick instructions on bearing his testimony. "Look, just start out by introducing yourself, say whatever you want about your baptism and what you felt, and then the important part is to just end it by saying, 'in the name of Jesus Christ, amen' You can do it! It's easy!" As he walked to the front, I began praying for him in my mind, hoping he wouldn't start crying out of fear. Here is what happened:

"Hi, my name is Renzi....... ummm..... I don't know!.... inthenameofJesusChristamen"

I got a good chuckle with that one. Good kid. Next time I need to remember to give them a few tips.

People have been asking me about the hard things of my mission. I will tell you some of them, but I can't share everything because it would be really long, and I never know who might be reading this, so I have to be careful, so as to not send the wrong message!

The hardest part is being tired. I just want to SLEEP all the time. But I feel guilty if I sleep in even just a minute after that alarm. I will sleep for a week when I get home. It's also hard trying to find the correct desire to go out and work. Some days I go out and work and I just don't want to at all. But some days I feel love for every person I meet. I wish it could always be the latter. The food is hard for me, I miss American food, I still don't understand the language (actually, languages), and I never feel like I am competent or capable enough to do this work. It's always hot, and it's only getting hotter every day right now. I don't fit in the tricycles because my body is too big, and I got REALLY sunburned the other day. BUT it is all worth it, no matter the struggle. I have the opportunity to see people make changes in their lives and to make choices that affect things not now, but later. It's all worth the sacrifice.

I am excited to tell everyone all about the culture when I get home from my mission. The Philippines is a great place!

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Welton

Dirty Water

Hi.

So this was a good week! Crazy week, but good week!

We managed to pull off a wedding and baptism this week, so that was pretty great! The process was intense. So the first four days of this week, we had to travel to the office to get this paper work started. We were going back and forth from there, getting birth certificates, filling out forms, and getting things "notarized", which I think is a strange practice anyway. But by the end of the week, we had completed the preparation for the wedding in just a week, which normally takes a few weeks! Normally you have to attend classes and all sorts of things, but we were able to take advantage of a part of the law that has exemptions from that sort of stuff. Great legal advice from one of the Stake Presidents in Bacolod.

The wedding itself was rather simple. It was just a few of us Elders and a few members who joined as well. It really put a lot of the focus on what promises were being made to each other. I really liked that part. I also got to video the wedding, which was awesome. I'm still making wedding videos half way around the world! :)

It was a great opportunity to baptize Sister G after her wedding. It was even greater to hear her testimony about how peaceful she felt after she came out of the water, knowing that her sins were gone. Cool experience. Great sister.

I have a parable for everyone this week. I know everybody just loves those. Especially because I seem to send one every week. Actually, I'm not even sure that you call those parables..? You know, where you like relate life stuff to gospel stuff..? I'm not sure what qualifies as a parable, but I think that's correct. Anyway, here's what happened the morning of the wedding and baptism:

We noticed last baptism that the water was super murky after we filled it up. Unfortunately, we didn't notice until it was already full and the baptism was about to start. We performed the baptism anyway, even with the dirty water. But this week we decided to go and clean the font beforehand. It was super dirty and we spent about 2-3 hours just scrubbing away and rinsing it down. We were pretty proud of our work after we were done. Unfortunately, by the time we were done filling the font, it was STILL murky. Even though we had spent so much time cleaning it, it was still murky. The reason for this was because it was actually the water source that was dirty, not just the font.

Do you see where I'm taking this analogy? OH! That's what it is! ANALOGY. Maybe that still qualifies as a parable..? Oh well. But do you see where I'm going with this?

This is just like repentance. There is one crucial step that we often forget in repentance. After we have repented for our sins, after we have confessed them to God or to our Bishop or whatever we need to do to make it right -- we need to change. After we have "cleaned our font," we need to fill it with clean water; we need to fill it with good things. Obviously if the things we are doing, our 'water source", is dirty, repentance is useless. We will spend so much time scrubbing and scraping and cleaning up the mess we made, only to have it get dirty again. That's no fun. Whether it's the people with whom we associate, the entertainment we view, or even an addiction, we won't be able to avoid it if we don't fill it with something better. Like reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church. Primary answers.

SUPER funny experience really quick:

A few weeks ago we were on exchanges and we OYM'ed this one sister with a baby. Babies are OYM magnets. We started talking about her baby, "Oh he's so cute. How old is he? What's his name?" To the latter, her response was something like "Hoog." So my companion and I were a little confused. Elder Cancel then asked the question, "Where did he get his name, Sister?" I couldn't understand everything she said because it was quiet, but I understood the word "movie" and "Jackman". I about lost it when I realized where she got the name. Turns out she named the baby after Hugh Jackman from X-Men, but I guess she wasn't sure how to pronounce the name correctly. I then informed her nicely that his name is actually pronounced like "Heew". She then looked at her baby and said, "Ohhhhh! So you're name is actually Hugh..." So in just a few short minutes I managed to meet this sister, talk to her, get to know a little bit about her religious background, and then rename her child.

That's all for this week! I included a picture of the wedding.Enjoy!

Elder Welton

Birthday Week

Hello Family and Friends and neighbors and anyone else who reads this :)

I would like to thank everyone for the birthday wishes this week! It made my week to see that people remember me still. I don't remember all of your birthdays, so I really apologize if I don't send you an email on your birthday... But I will remember you for sure :)

This week was a great week! We baptized Brother Hernandez, someone we have been teaching since I arrived here. He is so great! Such a humble man. He is a trisikad driver, which is a type of transportation here, and he is always willing to COME HOME from working and listen to us. And then when he's done, even if it's late, he goes right back out to work. It really showed me how much he wants to follow Jesus Christ. Awesome. Unfortunately I don't have a card reader with me, so I can't send any pictures. But it was great! The water in the font for some reason was dirty even after we scrubbed the font down. We just decided it would represent the sins left in the water after we are baptized. I would consider this misfortune to be rather symbolic, actually.

It's so weird having a birthday on my mission. It's just like a normal day! One of the members found out it was my birthday and then somehow the whole ward found out eventually. Our bishop found out the day after my birthday and said, jokingly, "What? Elder? It was your birthday yesterday? I should have killed my dog!" ... so that I could eat it, of course. Sounds like happy birthday to me :) I have not yet tried dog. We will see what happens by the end of my mission I guess!

I was reading in the "Teachings of President Ezra Taft Benson" book and I really liked what he said about prayer. Something he said was, "Everytime we go to pray, if we do not yet have the desire to pray, we should kneel there praying until we DO have the desire to pray." Pray for the desire to pray, basically. And so I applied that in my prayers. I sat there last night having a conversation with myself -- "Okay, why am I praying right now? Do I want to pray? Of course you want to pray, Elder Welton, don't be ridiculous. Okay, I'll pray then. I'm kinda tired though, maybe just quick... Okay, then, just go to sleep if you're too lazy to thank Heavenly Father! .....Yeah, okay, I guess you're right." After this internal struggle of wanting to pray quickly and go to sleep, I realized how important it is to thank Heavenly Father for everything and to really ask for his help with things, let him know how I am doing, and most importantly, to report what I did that day. It's so important that we follow up with ourselves everyday. Follow up on our decisions and our goals to see if we are progressing. And to even make new goals WITH Heavenly Father so we have someone to keep us accountable. "And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments." I really like this scripture because it tells us why we need to be praying. If we do not confess his hand in all things, we are offending him. And I don't know about everyone else, but I don't think I want him on my bad side. So I'll just be grateful :)

Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Welton

Upcoming baptisms

Hello Family!

I would like to apologize in advance for this letter. This was not the most eventful week in my missionary life thus far.

We are looking forward to some baptisms in February! We should have one this Saturday and then hopefully a family later in February. And then also on February 14th we are getting everything arranged for the marriage of one of the sisters we are teaching. We will get her married on the 14th and then baptize her later that day! So I am really excited for that! It will nice to be able to see people baptized again.

I only have one person from my MTC group in my zone, Elder Slater, but I see a lot of the people from different zones because the zones are so close in Bacolod. Elder Goodmansen is an American in my apartment, he's really nice. I can't really remember who else is in my zone. I will see this week at Zone Training, there's probably some new people here now.

My area is kind of a half and half area. It is somewhat similar to Old Sagay, but a bit more town-ish. We have this one part of our area that we have to walk out a bit to get there, and Iove it. It's quiet there and I love that. It's so peaceful there. I really like working in the moor... I don't know what to call it in English. I think the closest idea is "out in the boonies," haha. But I love it there. We don't go there a lot though because there is only like one investigator there. But we ride the tricycle things to the rest of the places in our area.

That's all I have time for today! Have a good week!

Elder Welton