One Year!

Well, ladies and gentlemen... I have made it one year! That seems so crazy to me... I feel new still. In celebration of this event, I put on a new shirt. That's all. I had been saving it for a year to wear on that very day. It was nice to have a new shirt. It was also nice to see what all of my shirts used to look like haha.

This week was an awesome week! The work was absolutely exhausting, but I had some very good experiences this week, the first of which I shall share below!

We had a miracle baptism this week. For a few weeks, J-------- was telling us that her father wasn't going to let her get baptized. She had already brought it up with him, but he said,"No. I am catholic, your grandfather was catholic - we are catholic." I for some reason never doubted my feeling that she would be baptized. When we first invited her to baptism, I made a promise that she would be baptized on June 27 if she had the true desire to do so. I felt a lot more strength behind that promise than normal which helped me realize that it was an impression. Everything eventually came down to this Thursday. Her father had still not given her permission. We had tried everything we could think of... So then we went and visited him. I don't know what I said to that man, but whatever it was, he gave her permission to be baptized. It was amazing to hear her pray after her father left. She said that she had been praying for weeks every night that she would be allowed to be baptized. Finally, her prayer was answered. We pulled together a quick interview the next day and she was baptized on Saturday. What a wonderful experience. She has shown so much faith the whole way through. Even though she had people with her everytime we taught, she was the only one that would come to church on Sunday. Alone. She didn't have a skirt either, which made her super uncomfortable because everyone else had one. She came anyway. It was so great to finally see her baptized.

We are still trying to figure out the most efficient way to work in this area. We have three major areas that we are focusing on right now and are considering bridging two together. We tried it out the other day and we were EXHAUSTED by the time we got home. We walked so much that day. Poor Elder Sabio was not used to that much walking so he essentially walked in the door and fell asleep. We will keep trying to see if we can make the area more efficient. We just have to walk SO much. I imagine it's probably around 10 or so miles everyday, if not more. Maybe not. I'll find out.

About the transfer, mother; I had a great realization from my trip there. I hope you all learn the same thing that I learned from this. Here is my journal entry(with some notes to fill in the gaps):

On the way to Bacolod at 3:00am, I was not a happy camper... I was stuck in the middle seat of a small car(taxi because it's cheaper than the bus), traveling way too fast with too many twists and turns and curves, and probably even loop-de-loops. Not only that, but I was car-sick too because the driver hung too much stuff on the rear-view mirror, so I couldn't even see the road! In my thoughts at the time, I was thinking, "Okay...Whichever MORON made this piece of junk road is gonna have to be dealt with..." SOOO bumpy, uneven, and just plain miserable. I was lucky to have been able to survive. I was not looking forward to the ride home.

The ride home was worse. Now there were FOUR men made to sit in a space meant for three Filipinos, which converts to the American standard of two grown men comfortably. It was stuffy and cramped in addition to the two packages I was carrying in my lap the whole way AND everything else I experienced on the way up! The road was the same, miserable road, just in reverse!

As we approached Sipalay Zone, we came right along the coastline. As we came out of the trees and fields, it opened up into one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. Snset-beach show with calm, slow, rolling waves lapping up on the beach. I almost completely forgot about my dreadful circumstances in the middle seat, feet on the hump. Suddenly I thought, "Ya know...... who needs a good road if you can look at this!" I then realized that I no longer felt in pain, but rather privileged. The road was the same, the situation in the car was worse, but my attitude was completely changed. I thought, "had I not only been able to see that 14 hours ago on the ride up, maybe my ride would have been more enjoyable!" I had no idea that I had just completely missed the joy of the journey just because of the lack of light earlier that morning. It's interesting how in life we also tend to miss the joy in the journey. But looking back, with more light, we often see the beauty that we already missed.

If only there had been light that first time. We will most likely never understand our trials while we are going through them, but perhaps we are missing the bigger picture. Our eternal destination cannot quite yet be seen because it's still "dark," but we are most likely going through something that we will later on view as being "beautiful." Maybe the next time I am on a horrible road, I will stop and think, "Perhaps this road is going by a beautiful beach-sunset scene that I just can't quite yet see."

I wish I could explain to everyone the things I am learning on my mission, but I can't even give a small portion of it all. Just like Elder Bednar says at the beginning of every talk, I hope and pray that the Spirit will fill my words with the ideas I am trying to share.

Have a great week!!

Elder Welton

Emergency Transfers Liwat?? Palagpat gid

Hello Family and Friends!

This has been a crazy week! Lots of awesome...things happened!

We got a surprise call last night around seven o'clock that Elder Averion would be transferring the next day. Luckily, we had been put in one of the farthest areas from the mission office haha. We were told to be there at nine in the morning. SOOO he packed, we slept for about 2 or 3 hours and then left in the middle of the night! So now I am really really tired. I'm going to miss Elder Averion. He was fun. I am really excited about my companion right now, though. Elder Sabio is two transfers behind me and we were in the same district during our training. We were way cloase and always joking about being companions eventually and, lo and behold, now we are! I was so surprised because he had already stepped up to senior companion and then he's my junior now. So there is a chance that I could be transferring really soon again because we are getting a new mission president. I don't want to transfer. Pray for me.

About the language, mom; yes my mouth gets really tired sometimes. I try my best to have a good accent and to speak at a normal conversation pace, so sometimes my mouth gets really tired because it's not my natural language. If I were to get lazy with my accent, I wouldn't get worn out as fast, but then I wouldn't be understood as much. I am super quick in the language if I mix English root words a lot, which can work when I am talking to most people, but I still put an accent on my English words for it to flow better. Something interesting earlier, I was in McDonald's (yes!) early this morning and I was listening to a group of people talk behind me. So was Cherryl, one of the members that rode up with us because she had a meeting in Bacolod. I had been listening for a while, not quite able to pick out what they were talking about or even the main idea at all. The sound of the words counded familiar, but I couldn't put them together in my head! I figured it was just a different dialect that I had never hear before, but then Cherryl said, "Oh! I was wondering why I couldn't understand them! They're speaking Chinese!!" I was so shocked! It sounded so similar! I remember how weird Chinese sounded before my mission, but now it sounds so normal. It just couldn't make sense of what they were saying! Super weird. Hard to explain.

You're probably wondering about the special sacrament! It was AWESOME! We had about fifty people all together. I was surprised. We had about 20 investigators too! Awesome. I attached a picture of the place. It's so cool haha. There are actually not a ton of members in the area. We are basing the group on our recent convert family that was just baptized. We have met a few less-active members and we are hoping to help them return to activity. All of the people who attended yesterday were actually investigators that we have been finding and teaching for the past few weeks. And we even had some of the members that came with us go invite some of their friends! A few of them actually came! It was a really cool experience.

My memorable experience from this week was during the Sister's baptism. They asked us to baptize their investigators and they were so funny. They reactivated a less-active family and then baptized the children who had not yet been baptized. Elder Averion baptized the little girl in the family and it was so funny. She was tiny and the water was deep, so she was basically 80% baptized before he even started speaking. It was up to her shoulders, near her neck. After he dunked her (yes, "dunked" because it was rather forceful) she proceeded to "swim to the edge" frog-stroke. I'm not sure if that's a stroke, but that's what it looked like hahaha. It was great. Then they all gave their cute testimonies. Very good baptism.

A quick thought on what you said about Isaiah, mom. A few months ago I read in 3 Nephi where Jesus commands us to read the words of Isaiah. His reason was that his words are "great". "And now, behold, I say unto you, that ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah." I don't know why we need to, because I think it's so hard to understand! We have also been told that the Book of Revelations is the most simple book of scripture we have. If we don't understand it, that means we "lack the spirit of revelation," as stated by Joseph Smith. I imagine that's probably the same with Isaiah. I do remember one missionary said to me at the beginning of my mission, in effect, "you will not understand the book of Isaiah or Revelations if you are simply seeking to know the future or to understand for the sake of simply understanding them. It takes a lot of work and revelation from the Spirit and it won't come all at once." So that's what I have for you, mom. I don't understand it yet. Let's both try to get it!

Thanks for all of the prayers and the support everyone. I see miracles every day and I know it's because of those praying for me.

Elder Welton

special sacrament meeting

Hiding under a tarp during storm on the way home from sacrament meeting.  Our clothes were super dirty.

Language Craziness

Well. Another week. The time honestly goes so fast. I feel like nothing has happened since I last talked to you. BUT, I'm sure it was a great week! I just can't remember what happened haha.

We got rained on a whole lot, that's for sure! Yesterday, as we were headed up to Manlucahoc, we got ABSOLUTELY drenched sitting in the back of the truck of one of the councilors. It was actually kind of fun! But, boy were we drenched! So, yeah :)

This week has been a lot of preparation for the special sacrament we have been planning. Things are looking good! Earlier this morning we worked on the little canopy-thing that is next to Bro. Dellera's house, which will become our meetinghouse for the sacrament. We had to finish the rest of the roof and started making chairs on each of the walls made of bamboo. The whole time I was thinking, "man, I could make SO many longboards out of all this bamboo!" I am sure dad would have been thinking the same thing. They just have bamboo SITTING around here... It's one of the cheapest materials to build with here, so that's what we used. It's not finished yet, but it's coming along. I will be sure to try and take a picture next week for you all. It's really a must see.

So, I haven't told you much about my companion yet! Elder Averion is from Tarlac, which is in the northern part of the Philippines. The language there is Ilocano and it sounds like aliens talking. Even Elder Averion says that. He says when he's out in public, he speaks Ilocano with people, but when he's at home with friends or just his family, he speaks Tagalog because he doesn't like speaking Ilocano. That's basically how things work here. It seems so weird to me, but that's how it is here. I was talking with a member the other day and she said, "Yeah, even I sometimes can't understand everything people are saying in Ilonggo, even though I grew up here." The only studied languages here are English and Tagalog, so most often, Tagalog is the most "clear" language for people to understand, but not necessarily speak. Elder Averion can understand a little bit of English, but we just speak Ilonggo all the time. Sometimes my mouth gets a little tired, but that's okay. I am also learning Tagalog from him because it will help me out the rest of my mission, probably. If people talk at a normal pace, I can get the basic idea of what they are saying in Tagalog, but it's like I'm lagging behind a bit still. I'm still translating Tagalog to Ilonggo to English because Ilonggo is a lot closer than English. This area is basically the same as my first area because there is a lot of Cebuano here, except I can't get away with mixing as much English because I'm way out here in the mountains, so I have to learn a lot more of the vocabulary. Amat-amat lang ah. :) Elder Averion and most all of my companions read the Book of Mormon in English, but he still looks back and forth to his Tagalog copy for the words he doesn't understand and then writes them in or looks them up in his dictionary. If our investigators can understand English well enough to read, we just give them an English copy because all of the Filipinos say it's easier to understand. If they can't we recommend the Tagalog version over the Ilonggo version because it's a more studied language. If they are pretty old or live way far out in the mountains, we just give them the Ilonggo because that's usually all they will understand.

Talking about all of this language craziness here makes me so grateful to speak English. We are so fortunate to speak a language that is so established around the world, especially because we can understand the restoration so much easier. It's so hard to get people to have personal experiences with the scriptures here because they can't fully understand it all the time! It really takes a lot on our part, as missionaries, to explain things so simply that they can't be misunderstood. It's a great experience because it teaches me how to become a much better teacher.

I finally got to see Meet the Mormons, I forgot to tell you about that! It was WONDERFUL. What kind of reaction was there after the movie was released? That's something I'm curious about.

Well, that's all! Have a great week!

Elder Welton

P.S. Sorry, no pictures... Nothing too noteworthy this week...

June

Hello sa tanan!

Well. It's been another week! I honestly don't know what to tell you about. I feel like I was just barely sitting here writing yesterday! It's also really crazy that it's June already... I still have memories from the weeks before I left FRESH in my mind. I still remember conversations like they were yesterday! Crazy how that works. Time has really flown.

This was a really good week! It was a little difficult because everyone started school again, but it was all okay. We have started working out in one of the far parts of our area, Manlucahoc, and we are seeing some really good potential. We are starting a special sacrament there one June 21st, so for the next two weeks we are going to just be finding there so we can get people to attend. We have already met some great families there and are super excited about the work. The key to this area has really been the D------  Family that was baptized last last week. I really feel that they were prepared by Heavenly Father to further to work in this area. Before they were baptized, there was almost no way to start a sacrament there because we had no members in the area! All of our investigators there couldn't come to church because they couldn't afford the tricycle ride there and back for their families. This family, however has a daughter working in Manila who was actually a contractor on one of the chapels built in Manila. Her boss was LDS and he referred her to the missionaries. Long story short, she was baptized and then referred her family to the missionaries here. She was then sending them the money for their ride to the church every week so the whole family could attend. Their family meets the correct requirement for starting a group, seeing as we need three priesthood holders, one being a Melchizedek Priesthood holder. The father will be advanced in the next District Priesthood Meeting and then be set apart, probably, as the group leader. The timing is incredible, really! There just so happens to be a Priesthood meeting this month! It's truly amazing to see how the Lord is hastening his work with just the right timing.

We had some good picture moments this week! One day, we decided to go to the top of a mountain to teach an investigator. Lucky for us, after our 20 minute hike up a muddy, steep incline, they weren't home. But it was definitely not a waste. You could see the entire valley! So pretty. The picture doesn't do it justice. I also tried to take a selfie while we had five people riding on one motorcycle in our area. We went exploring/finding in our area and ended up really far away. That was the only way back. So we went for it. it was awesome. One of the members that worked with us had to side-sadle the gas tank in front of the driver hahaha. And then finally, we took a picture overlooking a nice valley. I'm not sure what happened in this picture, or why Elder Averion is flexing his muscles, but I liked it :)

That's about it for this week! Have a good week everyone!

Elder Welton

 

Sipalay - a beautiful place!

Hello Everyone!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAYDEN!! You're 14 now! Tigulang ba! 

This week was crazy... I don't even know how to describe it. This area is one of THE most beautiful places I have ever been in. Goodness... I have tried to take some pictures, but it really does no justice. The area is probably 20 to 30 times larger than my last area, no joke. We have one part of our area that takes about 30 to 45 minutes to travel to and costs 30 pesos each way, whereas in my last area, the charge was always 7 pesos because that's the minimum cost for any ride. This place is like a video game. I am trying to think of a good game to compare it to, but I can't think of it. It's almost like Skyrim because it's so big. The only problem is you can't "fast travel", which would be nice. It has all these mountains and hills and a beach and rice fields and forests and everything! Wow. I'll try to send pictures, but the internet is pretty slow, so I'll try my best.

We had a family baptized on Saturday!! They are awesome! I wish I could have been more involved in the teaching, because they are so fun and nice.The D------ family lives in the fa

rthest part of our area and was referred by her sister who got baptized recently in Manila. She even flew down here to see their baptism, which was AWESOME! It was such a cool baptism.

Elder Cicon and Elder Slater from my MTC group are now my Zone Leaders, which is super fun. They are the only ZL's that have a truck because their area is out in the middle of NOWHERE. We actually got to ride down with them because Elder Cicon just barely became his companion, so that was super nice. Otherwise you have to take the Ceres buses......... Those are dreadful. It's about a 6 hours drive down there and you are cramped... We were super tight in their truck with 6 of us, but it was much much better than riding that bus. #Blessings.

We are planning on opening a special sacrament in the far part of our area and then opening it up out there because it's hardly been touched, from what we know. So hopefully that will go through! I would love to attend a special sacrament and stuff! That sounds awesome. Elder Averion is actually staying here, which is a big help. I though I was gonna train, but I guess not! I love Elder Averion, he's so funny and likes to work. I think this will be a good companionship!

I have a wonderful story to share with you.

My first day in this area was awesome. It was so refreshing to be in a new area, new environment, new people and new everything. I was so pumped for the first lesson. The whole ride up there I was thinking, "Okay... New area. New Stuff. New attitude. Here we go. Energy. Enthusiasm. You got this! First impressions are so important!" So I was trying to get myself pumped up and everything. They live in the "bukid" as we call it, which basically means it's all mountain-y. I noticed the mud was a little slippery because it had just rained, but that wasn't going to stop my Rockport shoes from powering through. As we approached the first house, I saw the mother outside cleaning, but she hadn't yet seen us. She was surely distracted by the miscellaneous pieces of trash that she was sweeping into a pile. I thought, "alright, here we go!" When I was within about twenty feet of the house, she turned around and I went to wave my hand to say hi. When my hand raised to about a 70 degree angle, my Rockports failed me. I'm not sure if a tire blew or what, but traction was lost completely in just milliseconds. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, there was a slight pain in my hand and there was mud all over my shirt... What hurt the most, however, was my pride... I then spent the entire lesson in a different shirt while mine was being washed by Anton, a member who worked with us. The best part was that this shirt had some guys face on it and it was a nice melon color. Very cute. So that was my first day.

What I learned from this was very interesting. The way I took to get to their house was one of the two possible options. Unfortunately, I picked the less safe route. It's not to say I took the WRONG way, it just wasn't the BEST way. You could clearly see that both paths had been being used quite regularly, I just happened to take the slightly more risky path. Both paths would have resulted in the same thing: I would get to their house. But only one of those would result in my arrival without mud all over my clothes. I made a mistake and got mud all over me. But I was lucky because there was someone there to wash my shirt and make it clean again. See where I am going? Often times there are two paths that we can take, and both of them will often seem fine. But perhaps if we were a little less worried about ourselves and our own pride and making those great impressions like I was, perhaps we would be able to notice the danger that's just a few feet in front of us. Sometimes that danger is so little that even if we are paying close attention, we won't recognize it. That's why we need to learn to tell the difference between better and best, because often times that is all that will confront us: better or best. Luckily, Jesus is there to wash our shirt if we happen to slip or get dirty. Yes we will be humbled, and even sometimes we will have to wear a shirt with someone's face on it while we teach. But that's okay, because I got to the house. We will all get to the Lord's house IF we are seeking it. It just depends on us whether we arrive covered in mud or clean and tidy.

That's all I have for this week!

Love,
Elder Welton