Another cat....

I have a lot of cat stories on this mission, I'm not sure why, but I will talk about that later. :)

This was a good week! It was also a really wet week. Lots of rain. I mean, TONS of rain... Goodness. I really liked it though because it's been a while since I have worked in the rain. It reminds me of my last area. And it also smells like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland whenever it rains. That combined with the bamboo and island "stuff" brings all sorts of nostalgic feelings to my mind. Man, that's such a good ride...

I am also super stoked because next week is MOTHER'S DAY. I will be Skyping, that is a must. I should be calling on Sunday night for you, Monday morning here. So yay! Be ready. Also, maybe you could put Sarah on a conference call or something. Her phone has Skype. Look into that for me. It would be a lot better if it were just a group call!

We have some families that we are teaching right now and they are amazing. They never cease to surprise Elder Domantay and I. We have some of them that want to come around and work with us and to become missionaries. We had one investigator ask the question the other day, "Elders, do you think that after I am baptized and am involved in the church for a while, that I might be able to become a missionary like you two?" We were so amazed! We had just barely finished introducing the Book of Mormon and suddenly we had this question! It's really amazing to see the preparation that God has done in the lives of those we are teaching right now. I wish I could claim these investigators as "my convert" or "the one I taught", but I really can't do that. The faith and conversion that I see in these people could not have come from me or even Elder Domantay. These people have been being prepared their whole lives. I just got the opportunity to be a part of their journey for a little bit. And I also realized that we aren't called here to prepare people from absolute scratch; the very beginning. We are simply here to jump in midstream to the preparation that is ALREADY happening in their lives. We are here to build upon what Christ himself has already built. That's something I learned this week.

Now, about that cat:

Last night, after we had just finished a quick lesson with a new investigator we had just met, we were headed to go eat dinner. It was raining. It was pouring. I'm not sure if anyone was snoring, but probably not because the rain was so loud! It was really one of those - "I'm half-way around the world, tromping around in the mud and rain, what am I doing here?" - type of moments. But all of the sudden, I hear this small little whining sound. From my previous adventures with cats in my mission, I recognized it immediately as the call of a feline in peril. I found, next to some garbage, a little tiny kitten who looked like he had just been born only a few hours ago. Maybe a day. I don't know. But he was so tiny, his eyes still aren't even open yet, and he was just squirming around in the mud. I said, "Elder! Look at this!" His response, "Ay kalu-oy saiya!" In English that's like "ah, poor guy!" We put him in a small plastic bag and carried the little guy home. Then we thought, "Okay, now what do we do??" We made him a little bed in a box and then I tried to feed him some milk. (that's the only thing I could think of) I was trying to feed him the milk and he just wouldn't take it! Elder Domantay said, "Hey he probably doesn't want cold milk." So now I'm thinking, "Oh great. So you're telling me this guy's a picky-eater. I see how this is gonna be..." So I heated up some water, mixed it with the cold milk and got a nice "lukewarm" temperature. I then tried to put it in a straw and feed him. Even though I literally had the straw INSIDE of his mouth, he still was trying to push it away. The whole time I kept saying, "Hey, this isn't fun for both of us, but I'm trying to HELP you! Come on little guy, just drink this. I know what's good for you!" Eventually he drank the milk and then fell asleep. I was worried that I might have killed him, but he was still alive this morning, so I guess I did the right thing :) If I am doing the wrong thing, please let me know.

But as I was watching this little guy struggle for life, I really started to think about life here on earth and everything. It was so intriguing to watch that little cat wiggle around, no control of his little body, not being able to see anything, and just struggling to live. We are all a lot like that in so many ways. We came here to earth, not knowing what in the world is going on, expected to learn and grow and contribute to this world, without even knowing where we came from our what our goal is. Luckily, we have so much help from God in our lives. I got just a LITTLE taste of what it must be like to be our Heavenly Father. In the moment that I had the straw in my hand, trying to feed that cat, I realized how similar that is to God. Here he has given us an example, his son, Jesus Christ, for us to follow. He has given us this gospel, our leaders, and everything we need, yet we all still reject it. If Heavenly Father weren't perfect in his judgement and thinking, I imagine he would probably be saying the exact same thing that I was saying last night: "Hey, this isn't fun for both of us, but I'm trying to HELP you! Come on little guy, just drink this. I know what's good for you!" Even when the straw is already in our mouth, or the gospel is already in our lives, we still try and fight against it. Why? I don't know. But perhaps the only thing we need to learn to do is: Learn to recognize the straw.

That's all I have for today! Hope everyone had a good week! I look forward to Skyping you on next Sunday!

Love,

Elder Welton

The included pictures are;

A picture of the cat in his little bed. We have since remodeled his house. Also, we are trying to find an owner for the poor guy because we aren't supposed to have any pets.

A picture of me using the primary cut-outs that you sent me, mother. :) It is super effective! Thank you.