The biggest news is........... WE HAD A BAPTISM!! It's a miracle! It's been really hard only being able to work only a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, but we had some miracles that made it happen! Her name is Regine Ann and she is like the sweetest girl ever! She's so nice. We found her through a less-active family in the ward who were baptized in the early 2000's. It is always a joy coming to their house because they are always ready for us and are so receptive. Regine Ann was so good about doing her own reading and studying and would remember almost everything we taught from the week before, which has been pretty rare for me when we teach so many days apart. She's always been prepared. I was able to sit in and listen while she was being interviewed and she gave these super in-depth answers and wasn't even shy or afraid! Her and her sister even came way early to the baptism because they wanted to help us set up and fill the font and everything! They were so helpful. I'm so excited for her now that she's baptized. Hopefully we can help their family prepare to go to the temple!
We have had quite and eventful week, as I said earlier. We have been trying to find a new apartment for a single senior sister missionary coming soon and so we were looking at this one house. We thought it was awesome. Long story short, we had some communication errors about budget and property value that resulted in us getting quite a verbal lashing from the realtor we were working with. Whoops :) Sorry! Normally we don't work with realtors, so this was a good learning experience. We won't be getting the house anymore anyway because we had transfers just yesterday and so now we have to leave our house so that someone is occupying the "hosting apartment" where all the incoming, departing, and other missionaries sleep for events in Bacolod, seeing as the previous companionship occupying it was pulled out yesterday. Moving houses will be somewhat of a gradual, little-by-little process (I'm not sure if that's the right term... In Ilonggo it's "amat-amat") because we won't have enough time to move everything this week since it's transfer week. We will then be giving our old house to the new sister, so everything just works out I guess!
Man, so much has actually happened this week, now that I think about it. It's so hard to remember when the week started or what events took place, but when I think about it, I realize how much actually happened! It's so nice working so hard because I feel like I have such a purpose. I imagine that will be one of the hardest things when I get home; adjusting to a life without a specific assignment or responsibility.
I started a trend in the office a few weeks ago, so I guess that's pretty cool! I was looking at our monitors after a few weeks of being here and I realized that the monitors move up and down! So you can move it to eye-level if you want, or have the low-rider style going; it's completely up to you, that's the beauty of it! As I experimented further, I found out that the monitor actually rotates and I can flip it vertically. So I started using it the "tall" way and I am fully converted now. The others soon followed after me and that quickly became the standard for every monitor in the office. The internet looks amazing this way... To my disappointment, however, it seemed as if their conversion was yet lacking; little by little, those vertical monitors went back to their horizontal resting place. I have stayed strong, though the journey's been hard. All is well.
I'll attach a picture so you can see what it looks like while I'm emailing you all right now! (so you can admire my geek-corner)
Other than that, I am just learning a lot. I can't remember if I already said this or not, but I am very grateful for the time I have to serve so closely with my mission president. There have been a lot of times where he has made decisions that all of us in the office have thought, "Oh no, what is he doing?? That doesn't seem like a good idea!" But he will eventually teach us the principles behind his actions, and I have really seen how great of a leader he is. I've learned a lot about what it takes to lead in a way that doesn't seem like one person is just leading from the front. It feels like he is leading WITH us rather than leading in the front; such a hard thing to accomplish.
Another thing that came to my mind while I considered this just barely is how important it is to sustain our leaders. This particularly has become such a BIG issue in the world today, even in our own religion. A principle I have learned in this position and while watching our President make some hard decisions is that you will never understand how truly hard it is to be a leader or how to perform that specific assignment until you yourself are already in that position. I have just barely begun to understand some of the principles taught in the temple about leadership and reporting. I have begun to understand how we must honor the holders of Priesthood Keys in any situation, no matter how bad of a job we think they are doing. And I have began to understand how we must first learn how to become a good follower before we can become a good leader.
That's all I have for this week! I am so excited to watch Conference this weekend. I hope all of you enjoyed it in America already!
Elder Welton
I managed to be in the same zone with all of my favorite people in my MTC group for a few weeks. It was awesome. This was our first and last Zone Training all together. Sister Schimbeck just finished training another Sister, Elder Kim was our Zone Leader, Elder Cicon was my companion and I was district leader. Fun time.
A picture of the office team and two departing Sisters. Sister Montemayor (left) was with me in my first area and is one of my favorite sisters. Sad to see her go.
Our baptismal candidate, Regine Ann, with her family and Elder Cicon and I. They are the best.
Geek picture - vertical monitor
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