It's Lonely at the Top

Hello Everyone!

Hope you're all excited for some Thanksgiving!! As we always say here, "Kaon damo, tulog maayo," meaning "eat a lot, sleep well."(doesn't sound good in english) But it really is such a wonderful season full of gratitude! I can't wait to be able to have another thanksgiving where I can just spend time with family and eat a lot of good food. That sounds like heaven!

We had some great experiences this week! We were able to move another house out in La Carlota and it was quite a joy. When we got there, they already had all of the stuff sitting out, ready to be loaded into the car. Of course we were thinking, "YES, thank goodness they already pulled it out!" That's usually one of the hardest parts. We began taking mental inventory of everything laying out and planning our packing. After getting a good look at the challenge ahead of us, I went to the car, opened the trunk, and just stared at it for a long time. To the unaware onlooker, it must have seemed as though I was entranced by this cargo space, but in reality, I was playing a game of 3D Tetris. It took a few "restarts" before I was able to stack all of the things correctly, but I got it! I turned to Elder Cicon and said, "We can one-trip it again!" He quickly countered, "NO way we can do it again. Last time we had that neighbor that carried their luggage, that's the ONLY reason we were able to pull it off last time!" I looked him in the eyes and said, "No. You're wrong. We can do it." We were met with a few moments of silence and eye contact. He eventually gave his nod of agreeance, signalling "let's do it." Then began one of the most sweaty, dirty, and tiring packing jobs of our lives, very reminiscent of our previous endeavor in Tabugon. Towards the end of our packing, after the beds had been thrown up on top of the cab, we realized, "We only have one piece of rope for two beds and a fridge on the back......" We ended up finding a short length of thick rope that used to hold up a hammock from previous Elders who lived there. It wasn't long enough to wrap around the fridge and be tied down, so we decided to unravel the rope so we could have three thinner lengths of rope! We then tied together each strand until we had one long enough to reach around. How safe, right?? But it worked! It was funny seeing the other Elders sit there, watching us go for it, not knowing how they could possibly help us. When we finished, we took a picture and off we went! We drove about 20 minutes on the highway to where they were moving in - a shared apartment with another set of Elders. We dropped the stuff off, helped them get the majority of it into the house, and then left in triumph yet again. It was hard work.

In response to your email, Dad, about what advice I would give to people preparing for missionaries -- I'm not really sure what I would recommend... There really are so many things that I was told before I was a missionary that I just never did. Everyone told me to read your scriptures, attend the temple, and study Preach My Gospel so you are familiar with the lessons. These are all great, and obviously we should all be doing these things, but the biggest issue I have seen in my mission is a lack of TRUE leaders. I have realized how truly hard it is to be a leader, not just leading from the front of the pack, but even the type of leader that leads from within a group of people. Right now in the Lord's work, I don't think we have too many youth that don't know the doctrines of the church. Even if they don't, they will be able to catch up to the game quickly in their mission through their studies. I think what the Lord is really in need of is people who can APPLY what they are learning and just DO something about it. The Lord needs youth who have ALREADY been a voice and example of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord needs youth who aren't afraid to be the voice of truth when it's the hardest option facing them. And the Lord certainly needs youth who have practiced being a leader and a missionary and an example of Jesus Christ long before they went on their mission. Through reading the scriptures, we can see which attributes of a leader are desirable; we can learn these qualities, we can develop them in ourselves, and after that, we need to help other people desire to make them a part of their own character.

Being a missionary is EASILY the best thing I have done so far in my life. That being said, I can't say that I wasn't a little disappointed to see that many others were not treasuring this opportunity as much as I was. In reality, there are missionaries that seem to have never fully ARRIVED in their mission. Part of their mind is still back at home, some don't really want to serve with all their might mind and strength; even I have been guilty of this. But what I have learned out of all of this is that if you want to be better than what you are seeing around you, you will often have to make that journey seemingly alone. Being a leader and choosing to do what is RIGHT, not just what everyone else is doing, doesn't necessarily mean that you will make friends out of everyone. Most often, you will feel as though nobody is following you. But I can promise that the fruits of our labors will come forth. I found a quote earlier that said to the effect of, "I work one week, people love me. I work another week, people hate me. But every week, I still get paid."

I think the life of Jesus Christ portrays that concept PERFECTLY. While pondering about Christ's life here on earth I realized how truly alone he must have felt. He surely had the Father's guidance through it all, but I don't doubt that there weren't moments that he felt completely alone. We know for a fact that he felt that on the cross when he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Even though he felt alone through this all, he did the Father's will. Jesus was the best leader that has lived here on earth, and if we want to become like him, we must be willing to step out from the crowd and be alone. Even still, we can rest assured that we will never be truly alone, for he will always be at our side. He has been through true abandonment so that we won't have to. What a great thing we have been given to be grateful for in this time of Thanksgiving!

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

Elder Welton

Learning Heaven, Big Spider

Hello sa tanan!

I apologize for not writing last week. Last Monday was SO busy, but everything is great!

We had a good last week. We had a transfer two weeks early because of our President's meeting schedule, and so we had to send some people home early. It's always hard saying goodbye to the missionaries. I have come to know some of them so well and there are many that I will never see again. It's amazing how influential someone can be on you, even for just a short amount of time. This group of departing missionaries was actually a very weird one for me because there were two sisters in my MTC group who actually went home this transfer. Next transfer is when they will all go home. It's SO weird! Time flies! I don't know how I will feel when my time comes. I saw Sister Schimbeck the other day(probably a few weeks ago?) and said, "Hey! Last transfer!" and she just glared at me and said, "You stop that right now! I don't want to talk about it." So, we didn't talk about it. But, man, that must be so weird to be in that situation.

Elder Cicon and I were very blessed proselyting this week. We were only able to get out to work for our standard amount of time, probably a total of 8 hours this week, but we were able to meet some new people that show a good interest! We are hoping to start planning baptisms for December, but we will see how things go. We also have a possiblity of a wedding, but we are still working out the details on that one. Goodness... Such a complicated process.

Last Monday, as a reward for us managing transfers along with some other big events, President took us to this new buffet place that we had seen ads for. Our previous President, President Ferrin, said that, "Vikings is the best buffet I have ever been to. Not just in the Philippines... The BEST I have ever been to. In my life." So, naturally we were quite excited when one opened here. You should have seen all of us in there. It was like children in a candy shop. I had to get after some of the Filipino elders for getting rice. I explained to them that, "Eating rice is a rookie mistake... If you eat rice, you won't have any room for all of the good stuff! The two rules are (1) avoid any heavily breaded or 'filling' foods. and (2) DO NOT eat eat rice or bread alone - it will take up too much space." President laughed as I explained this concept. It was a very fun experience, and much needed at that. I was able to fill my sushi craving that I have had for the past year and a half.

Yesterday, Elder Cicon and I fought the biggest spider of my life. We got an awesome video. I have basically mastered the flip-flop toss. I can sling those things from across the room and it's right on target. No targetting computer or anything. But seriously, this thing was like ready to eat a small animal. The way we found it was that Elder Cicon was about to sit down at his study desk to take his socks off, but right as he did so, he saw a spider right where he was about to put his hand behind him on the wall. He let out the loudest, "Holy!!!!!" as he near ran me over. After eyeballing his dimensions, I knew I had to practice; after all, it had been quite a while since my last encounter with a species of this size. I practiced my flip-flop tossing on the wall, ensuring my ability to throw accurately even despite the awkwardness of his position on the wall. I found the "back-facing, downward-hammer-throw" technique to be the best, seeing as he was just a little under waist high on me. The first throw, fearful, was a complete failure. He was on the move! Fortunately I had planned wisely and had my left flip-flop sitting conveniently in my left hand just in case a situation of this nature should arise. Using my last round, I fired. Missed again. We noticed that, because of his size and the gauge of his legs, he was a little slower than normal, thus giving us time to recoup for a second attack. As he continued scaling the walls, climbing under our desk, all the while being lit-up with our barrage of flip-flop attacks and eventually losing a limb -- he was slowed. Elder Cicon then took the cockroach killer to him to give him a little spice. It did the trick. Long story short, he eventually passed away and is no longer there to cause trouble.

I have been studying about repentance this past week and I really loved what I learned. I read a few talks about how repentance is all about CHANGE and COMMITMENT. It basically said that repentance is not just about confessing guilt and then being forgiven; it's about committing to obedience. Jesus Christ can wipe away our guilt fairly easily, but I think he leaves the changing up to us. Committing to obedience does not come as a one time choice, but rather a CONTINUAL choice. There was a talk given by Brad Wilcox at BYU and he said some very memorable things. I have listened to his talk multiple times on my mission and I just love it. But one of the things he talked about was "learning heaven" while we are still here on earth. He said that, "heaven will not be heaven for those who have not chosen to be heavenly." As we repent, we are learning heaven. We may have to go through some pain and bitterness, but through that we will "learn heaven." Our Savior truly can help us to overcome those things in our lives. He lives to do that. He wants us to ask him for help so that we can learn how to live with him after this life. He is merciful, forgiving, and wants us to be happy. Depende lang sa aton kung batonon naton ang ginapaambit nya sa aton. Gusto nya gid nga magbulig sa aton sa mga pagtilaw naton kag gusto nya man gid nga kuhaon ang mga kabugat nga ara sa aton. Kis-a, daw ginapaminsar ta nga wa'ay na gid kita chansa nga maghinulshol o nga permanente na gid ang aton nga sala, pero indi gid sia amo na. Wa'ay gid di sala sa kalibutan nga indi naton kaya nga hinulsolon. Repentance is available to everyone. Always.

Sorry about all the Ilonggo. I didn't have enough brain power to try and say what I wanted to say in English. My teaching brain speaks Ilonggo now so it just kinda came out that way.

That's all I have for this week! I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Welton

Pictures - 

One is of me in a hammock. I completely doubted that this thing could hold me, but our recent convert, Jeffrey, said that it wouldn't break. He was right. It was quite peaceful.

Here is a picture of the spider we killed. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Bunch'a Boxes

Hello Everyone.

I was unable to send a message yesterday because we were so busy running errands and everything. But I'm doing fine! This will be a quick email. Sorry!

This week we came to the office one day and there were a TON of boxes out back, like hundreds of boxes.... It turned out to be about 300 cases of the Book of Mormon in multiple languages, pamphlets, and paper supplies. Seeing as we were the Supply Elders, we knew that NOBODY was going to take care of it, so we went to work. We moved about 250 of them to our apartment(where we store all of the supplies) and we were so worn out afterwards. While we were bringing them into the house, the big stack we were building was getting too high, so we decided to build a staircase out of the boxes we were still bringing in. We realized afterwards that we could have made a pretty stellar fort, but we unfortunately missed that opportunity... I guess I'll just do that next time. But sometimes we sit up there. It's a good perch.

The work is going well, not a whole lot to update you on this week, but we were able to work a few hours this week and found some good investigators that we are excited about!! Hopefully we will see progress and conversion.

I heard this fable around a year ago and I have often pondered it since, especially this last week. It's called "The Goose with the Golden Eggs." Here it is.

--

One day a countryman going to the nest of his goose found there an egg all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been played on him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same thing occured, and he grew rich by selling his eggs. As he grew rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.

--

I find this to be a lot like us and obtaining knowledge. Our society has been conditioned to get things instantly; a phone call, fast food, the internet, etc. We have all become used to information overload all the time, 24/7. We get impatient when things aren't quick enough, which causes a lot of trouble for us when learning spiritual truths. God doesn't give spiritual answers to spiritual questions like the internet gives to our questions about making your own makeshift air-conditioning unit for under $20-- He works differently. Sometimes we just have to wait. But God consistently gives us answers to our questions, just not with the timing we may be expecting all the time. Sometimes we do get a little too impatient and we kill the goose, or we try to outsmart God and start going by what we or the world thinks is right. That's fine, and many people get by in life without listening to God, but they sure don't have golden eggs anymore. So when a question comes and doubts arise, we don't need to kill the goose looking for an answer; we simply need to wait until the right "golden egg" pops out. It always does.

That's all I have for this week. I hope everything is awesome at home!

Take Care,

Elder Welton

Here's a picture of the boxes we discovered

Another of us after moving them all

And then finally a picture of Elder Cicon asleep on a piece of cardboard in the back room of the office. We were like zombies after that...

Also there's a picture of the Sister's baptism on Saturday. Sister Pona and Rosario are the BEST. Sister Pona is brand new and she is so great already! Proud of my district.

Jesus is the Christ

Merry Christmas!

In the Philippines, if you're in the "-ber" months, it's Christmas. September, October, November, December-- They're all Christmas. 

This week was the busiest week ever, mostly just because the Masskara festival was going on and it was NUTS. Our offices is literally like a few hundred feet away from the thing and it was SO hard being so close. We would be sitting in the office trying to get work done and they would be blasting music straight from Babylon. They straight up closed one of the two main streets going in and out of Bacolod and so the traffic was horrible. It was quite an adventure... There was one day that we had to go to the hospital to take a sister that dislocated her knee and it took us like an hour to get there when it normally takes about 10-15 minutes. This is pretty much what happened to us all week and we drove a LOT. There was actually one time, and I think I even got a picture, where the traffic got so bad and so packed that I had to fold in my mirrors to fit through. It really made me feel like a man. I imagine it is the same connection a captain gets to his sea-vessel.

This week was quite a testimony-builder for me-- probably one of the most influential for me up to this point. I am now beginning to better understand grace and mercy and exactly how powerful the love of Christ is... I grew closer to my Savior and am beginning to recognize His voice and the way the Spirit communicates with me. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that He can comfort us because he understands. And His understanding of what we're passing through in mortality is what allows him to take those burdens; those big-- sometimes even small-- burdens that we all have. The insights, knowledge, and pondering I have had this week with the Spirit as my teacher have shown me so much that I didn't quite understand up until now. I thought about his life here on earth; his humility, love, and desire for all to see the big picture that was being blatantly ignored. He was rejected, spat upon, blamed, falsely accused, and condemned for doing the will of His Father. He took upon himself our sins and he died, to save us the pains that we would inevitably have faced had he not pressed forward to the end of his life mission. Christ did all of these things for us, suffered all of these pains for us, and doesn't even ask for us to repay him. He knows we can't and he doesn't want us to; He simply wants us to follow him.

Interesting week for sure... As I had all of these amazing experiences, it was so interesting to watch people as we drove through the festival. I felt as though I saw the world from God's eyes for just a few moments and thought about how trivial the pursuits of our daily lives truly are. All of these people thought they were having the time of their lives(and they sure looked like it), but I knew that they were not feeling the same peace that I had. It was all still tempting (all the food and souvenirs looked so awesome), but I knew that what I already have in my life is so much more permanent than the happiness they were experiencing in that moment.

That's all I have to report on this week. Have a nice day :)

Elder Welton

We went up to Sagay(again) to look at some new apartment option. We got to go up to Alimatoc(Elder Cicon's first area) which is SO far up in the mountains. It was so pretty up there. Here are some poorly taken pictures for you to enjoy.

Jungle Movers and Conference

Hello!

Good week. Good stuff. Good. Good. Good.

We had a baptism this week! Yes!! It was Brother J------. He's so awesome. Such a nice, humble man that has been so patient with us. With our crazy schedule, there have been a lot of apologies from us due to our double-scheduling his appointment with something else, and just poor follow through on his commitments. He is SO strong though, and probably didn't even need us to teach him! We had an interesting schedule with his baptism. We were so stressed about it because the time set for the baptism ended up conflicting with Priesthood Session. So we coordinated with the bishop to move it. The issue was that J------ works a weird shift that means he has to go to work at 12 noon and finishes 12 midnight. Poor guy. So the solution that we came up with was to put the baptism during the 1 hour break in between Priesthood Session and the Saturday Morning Session. It was wonderful. We bolted out of the Stake Center, traveled to the chapel in Alijis and then hurried to set it up. The water was running up until I turned it off right as we were entering the font. We then finished the baptism, he gave a great testimony, and we let him scurry off to work with probably only minutes to spare. We were a little late getting back to the conference, but all was well! That's kind of just how things go in the Philippines! He will be confirmed this coming Sunday, seeing as yesterday was conference for us.

During the second gap of conference on Saturday, we went to this pizza place I've heard of. We got this pizza during my follow-up training a year ago, and haven't eaten it since! In the office, by the way, we have a little saying called, "Sleep less, eat more" however, for the Supply Elders (Elder Cicon and I), that saying is actually "Sleep less, eat LESS." So, seeing as we hadn't eaten in 24 hours at this point, we decided to go big. We ordered two of the second-to-last biggest size pizzas they sold.  I think it came out to only around 5 bucks a person, but it was just awesome because it was so big. They actually had to bring it out the back door and go around through the front door just to serve it to us. I guess it was too big for their service window! It wasn't the BEST pizza, but I think it's pretty hard to make BAD pizza in any circumstance. We actually ate a ton of it! Like, it was almost entirely gone. Missionaries like to eat, I guess.

On Friday, we had an awesome little adventure of moving one of the companionships out of a shared apartment into their own apartment in their own area out in Kabankalan. We drove down there, got to the house and said, "Let's one trip this bad boy." So that's what we did. We one tripped it. Like real men. None of this going back and forth stuff. One. It was quite a feat! We were quite tired after doing so, but it was so satisfying making it happen. So much cheaper than hiring someone to do it too!

As I told Hayden, Mom, I played piano for the arrival devotional. It was bad. I tried to explain I didn't know how to play piano, but nobody believed me. Moral of the story: should have taken piano lessons longer. You were right, mom. And dad. You can celebrate that if you so desire.

CONFERENCE! Conference was awesome. Unfortunately, we were quite tired, so we actually fell asleep. Many times. So we definitely have some reviewing to do... We should have some traveling this week, so we should be able to catch up on that! But I really liked the idea of Ponderizing during the Sunday Session. I imagine that is already a hashtag on the internet. Good idea. (Yes, I've already heard about the whole "monetization scheme" behind that all, I still like the idea!) I really liked how he gave a straight, direct invitation to the entire church, because sometimes we get these amazing, inspiring talks that leave you thinking, "Ah, yes! Let's be better! So... What do I do now?!" and you are just kind of left with a broad road of options to apply it. It's nice to be given a specific, memorable way to become better.

I also really liked the talk by Elder Keetch about the shark barrier. I have been pondering it (ponderizing) for quite a while now and it's so true. It's so frustrating that our human nature is to be disobedient to God's commandments. But there is so much power in learning to overcome the natural man, no matter how enticing or entertaining the disobedience may seem. The one thing that I thought was interesting about this story is that these surfers were so fortunate to have someone loving enough to show them the danger. We, being in our mortal probation, do not have the convenience of looking through the "binoculars" that will show us the dangers of certain choices. We simply have to rely on the person with the binoculars, "the old native local". It's hard! What if that old man had just come over and told them that there were sharks behind the barrier? I don't know if they would have believed him! But they were lucky enough to see through the binoculars when he allowed them to. I think, to a point, we all have access to these binoculars ONLY when were are close to the Spirit. So, naturally, we need to do those things that will get us close to the Spirit. Great talk. Two thumbs up.

Hope everyone is doing great! Keep up the good work!

Elder Welton

Jungle Movers.  This picture will be one of my favorites forever.  These are my two MTC group mates.  We all look worn out.  Weight loss galore. 

Our giant pizzas. Yes.

J's Baptism! We told him he looks like James Franco and he ended up looking it up on the internet and laughed

Vertical Monitor

This was a busy, busy week and I am tired and it's wonderful!

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

Lima Ni Haw?

Dear Everyone,

This was yet another great week. I can't really say I have had a bad one!

Mom and Dad, I watched that Mormon Channel video you all watched! Haha I am glad you finally got to hear what we kinda sound like and how mixed everything is hahaha. It's actually more mixed than you heard, Dad. Believe it or not, he was actually speaking Waray-Waray, which I have never even heard before. Everyone in the office came over when I pulled it up because almost all of us could kind of understand it! We were all confused because it sounded so similar, but didn't match the languages we knew! It sounded like a weird mix of Cebuano, Tagalog, and Ilonggo, which none of us had ever heard before. Super interesting. And the backgrounds and scenes in the video are pretty accurate for what I've walked around in before. Such a neat place.

Just a funny little experience I would like to share. So the other day, there was this super funny little kid. We basically just explored the area a bit today, trying to get familiar with it all. So we end up taking this one road far out in some fields just to see what was out there and got to a dead end. There were some houses around and we saw some kids so we went up to them to ask them if there was a way out. They were so cute! There was a girl and she was 10 years old with a cute name like Marilou or something. Then we had a little guy who, when I asked his name, spouted off one of those Spanish names that has like three middle names. I asked him how old he was and he did the whole, "put four fingers up, double check to see if counted right, and then turn it around to show me" sort-of-thing. I said, "Wow, when's your birthday??" He excitedly shouted, "JUNE!" I thought for a second and realized that he was talking QUITE a bit for a four year old earlier, and that maybe he had just turned five and it hadn't registered in his mind yet..? I said, "Oh, so then you're five, right? Because you just had a birthday!" He looked at me, stared back at his hand with four fingers up, and then looked back at me like I didn't know how to count and said, "Lima ni haw? Wala pa guro ai!" basically meaning, "Does this look like five to you?? I don't think so!" I didn't know what to say because he kinda had a valid point! He, in reality, was only holding up four fingers, so I guess I'm the one who looked foolish in this situation. We exited the way we entered, my ego having been somewhat damaged by the little guy. I guess I should have counted more carefully...

After our little adventure with Toto, we went to visit Bro. R--------, who is one of the greatest guys ever. Such a nice guy. We have been teaching him for the past three to four weeks and he is SO prepared. He was so excited for us to come over so he could talk about what he learned over the past week. He brought out all of these church books and manuals and started going through them. Eventually he started to go through them one by one, saying, "I've read this one, I've finished these Teachings of the Prophets books here, I've started reading the Book of Mormon in Ilonggo, English, and Tagalog, and began reading the Old Testament Seminary Student Manual." Relating what he learned to us, we realized that this man had read SO much in that little time. His excitement for what he learned and the information and knowledge he retained both amazed and humbled me... And this is in addition to his background. Brother R------- is currently living with one of the sisters in the ward and they want to get married, but can't afford the price of the wedding papers because he just lost his job a few weeks ago. This isn't even the first time Radney has planned to get married, either. Not less than a year ago, his first wife passed away, leaving him with three or four children to take care of, one of which isn't able to walk very well due to a disability. He has had many other difficulties in his life that have put him in some hard situations, but he has made it through all of those challenges. His attentiveness every lesson always amazes me, and his questions are always so deep and full of a desire to understand. This meeting with him on Saturday, though, was one of the most special for me because he asked a question that I haven't ever heard on my mission. After he had shown us all the things he had learned, we asked if we could start the lesson with a prayer. When we had finished, we started out following up on his reading and to see if he learned anything in Sunday School the previous week. We then asked him, "Brother R-------, do you have any questions about anything we have taught or anything that you would like to know before we share some more with you tonight?" He began to reply, but was having a hard time figuring out what to say and how he wanted to say it. What he eventually said was probably one of my most favorite moments in my mission. He said, "So, Elders... like... I feel like... You know, after reading this stuff and thinking about it and going to church, I believe it's true... So... I guess my question is like........ What do I do now to follow the Lord? What does he want me to do?" He had so much sincerity and desire to find direction in his voice that I was actually caught off guard! I was so touched to see the man's humility and desire to follow the Savior. We explained to him, as we had discussed previously quite briefly, about baptism and how the only thing left between him getting baptized is getting married to the sister he is currently living with. We were amazed to see that he had actually started the process after we had brought it up on our last visit. As I said earlier, he had lost his job just a week or two before, so he started putting his cooking skills to use by selling doing "inasal" or barbeque in the neighborhood and selling it in order to make money to get married. He mentioned how he's been going back and forth trying to get things worked out for the marriage. His family lives there and whenever he stays with them, he tries to share about the Book of Mormon with them. He said, "Elders, I just want my brothers and my sisters and my family to see the truth that I have found in this church. I know it's true and I want them to know as well. Every time I talk about the Book of Mormon with them, they say, 'Ah you're a Mormon now?? What are you doing??' and things like that. But I hope that they will eventually open up to this church and be baptized."

Basically, this man is amazing and I am lucky enough to be the messenger for him. We are shooting to get him married and baptized the last week of October, depending on the speed of his wedding papers and everything, but I am so excited for him! There is no greater nor more fulfilling work here on earth than this. How wonderful!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. And week.

Elder Welton

Elder Fraire and I got wet

I think I found someone advertising with the same teeth model, Dad.  Funny!

A picture of Elder Cicon and I.  We got haircuts shortly after this picture.

The wonderful exploding car