SO, surprise! I was transferred! I am now "Supply Elder" with Elder Fraire, an American! I never thought I would have an American companion. So now I am in the office. It was only a matter of time, I guess haha. I always had the feeling I would be assigned here. I was talking with Elder Fraire earlier in the car and he said, "yeah, you and a few others have kinda been on the radar for a few months now..." which sounds kinda creepy thinking that other people have been discussing me for a while... But I am excited to be here! I have to go get a driver's license later today and then I am good to go! Basically what our job entails is the managing and renting all the missionary apartments, bringing them all of the supplies they need, entering all of the baptismal record information, and managing all of the mission vehicles. It's gonna be cool seeing what happens on the administrative side of all the mission stuff! I'm still trying to figure out what to think because I got pulled out of the mountains and put straight in the city with a car! It'll be quite a change of pace.
So, I guess the answer to your question, Mom - I don't think I will be getting my umbrella back... It's a few hours away now... I bought a new one anyway last week at Zone Conference because I had lost faith that it would come back.
We had a typhoon this week and so it made working super fun. We had one day where we woke up to thunder and rain and craziness! We thought, "I guess that explains the fallen tree outside our apartment last night." around 10 it just STOPPED and got super calm. Around twelve, we were about to go out, like we had just BARELY stepped out the door and then it just started raining and thundering and the trees were waving around like crazy. I honestly did not feel safe being outside, so I said, "you know, Elder... maybe we should just wait for a little bit until it's safe outside. I don't think it would be wise to travel to the mountains right now... We might get trapped up there..." He agreed and we went back inside. About an hour later, it calmed down enough to go out finally. We worked in a different part of our area so that we could be closer to the apartment if we needed to go home. It rained a lot. But we survived. Two nights before was even BETTER. That night was the night before our Zone Conference and so I still didn't have an umbrella. We were walking down the mountain and all of the sudden it just started POURING rain... I have never seen that much water falling from nowhere in my life. I desperately clung to Elder Sabio, trying to use his umbrella, but, as we had discovered on earlier excursions, it began to rain INSIDE his umbrella. We determined the cause must be the low-quality materials used during the manufacturing process of that particular model of umbrella - a "manufacturing defect," if you will. Alas, we continued on the journey. I eventually decided that, seeing as I was already wet anyway, I might fair better on my own, outside of the comfort of his umbrella. I abandoned my bag under the safety of the umbrella and ventured off into gallons of falling H20. I was soon drenched to the core (garments) and I was hopelessly wiping away the water from my eyes, using a hand that was ALSO wet, which does not work. I eventually thought, "I feel like running..." And so I ran. I invited Elder Sabio to do the same. We then proceeded to run down the moment, laughing and giggling like little girls the whole way down. After a couple hundred yards, I got tired and then just started walking instead. The realization of my circumstances came suddenly. I was on the other side of the world, walking around soaking wet, not being paid to be here, but rather PAYING to be here (thanks mom and dad), and yet I had never felt happier. I turned to Elder and said, "Hey Elder, I think this is faith!" I eventually followed it up a few moments later with, "...yeah, or maybe we are just stupid...... but I THINK it's faith." It was a lot of fun and laughs even in such an inconvenient and uncomfortable situation. Sometimes I am hard on myself, thinking I lack so much in regards to my faith, but at that moment I realized that, "hey, maybe I have more than I give myself credit for." I think a lot of us do that, actually - look only at what is NOT there rather than that which has already been given. It was a very comforting feeling. We should all take time to appreciate the faith we have.
That's all for this week! Have an awesome week! Sorry I don't have any pictures this week... Next week!
Palangga takamo,
Elder Welton
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