Name Change

This was a great week!

We were so busy this week! We had a hard time working in our area because so much happened... Goodness.

On Tuesday, the AP's called and said that we would be going on exchanges the next day. I ended up going to Bacolod and was with Elder Cicon while Elder Derecho went with Elder Rabila in Ma-ao. It was a fun exchanges! It's always fun being with Elder Cicon. Good missionary. It was great to see the area that they have been resurrecting since January. Great progress! We went to eat after work and we ate at this cool restaurant that you sit on the floor at. It was like korean style, but I ended up getting a burger... I don't regret it at all! Super good burger! I mostly just liked sitting on the floor around the small tables though.

We had a baptism this week! We baptized James R-------, someone we actually met while looking for a house our first week. Their house was the first one that we looked at, but when we realized that they would be kicking out the current residents for us to go there, we just decided to keep looking. We met his mother there when we looked for just a few short minutes and then we kept waving to her whenever we would go by their house. A few days later, we decided to go talk to them. Long story short, she listened to LDS missionaries over 20 years ago and was very willing to listen again. After we taught her family, James was the first to be prepared and baptized. There's actually a super funny story behind all of this though! The birthday on James' birth certificate has been wrong for years; 2012 instead of 2002. His mother went and talked to the registrar office in Bago and they told her that they could fix it, but they would need to create an entirely new record for him. In order to prevent issues, they told her she needed to add something to his name to make it unique. A few days later, while I was on exchanges in Bacolod, she found out that Elder Rabila

's first name was James and so she said, "we'll just put 'Welton' as his middle name so that he can remember you guys!" Hahaha! When I got back, we ended up telling her that she should just put "Tanner" so that it would be two first names. SO... His name is now James Tanner Bacornay R-------! What a good way to be remembered! I don't think many people can say they renamed someone and then baptized them with their own name haha. Successful week!

We had a great lesson with James about obedience after his confirmation. I always find it so frustrating that I have learned so much about obedience and yet lack so much in that area. I think we all feel that sometimes; we know that the commandments are there for us to be blessed and to be MORE free, and yet we still get distracted and think that we can do things our own way and be more free than God can give us. About a month ago, I was singing some hymns and started singing "Keep the Commandments". For such a simple song, I was impressed so much. The words, "In this there is safety, in this there is peace," really made me feel that that promise was 100% true. Often times, if not all of the time, there is nothing too exciting when we follow the commandments. The commandments and the teachings of the prophets and apostles are often rather conservative compared to our world's standards. But when we follow the commandments, we are promised two things that are SO rare in today's world: Safety and Peace. Those are things that can ONLY be had through the gospel and living principles therein. I hope that I can not only know these things and be able to teach these things, but to also be able to apply them in my own life and to be content with the safety and peace that is being offered to us all.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Welton

A picture of our azwesome baptism of Brother James (Tanner) R-------

This sign is super funny to me hahaha! There was an english version somewhere on the road but I missed it. It basically translates to "Segregation is needed for a clean living area" There was another that said, "Segregation starts in the family" I think that's probably the most correct word for talking about separating your garbage, but it sounds a little like we are teaching racism, right..?

Here are some pictures of us working out on the mountain.  We had the only Melchizedek Priesthood holder in our group working with us.  Great guy!

Mission Tour

Hello Everyone!

This week was a very inspiring week. We were able to have an awesome Mission Tour with President Haynie from the Area Presidency in the Philippines. The spirit was so strong and I learned a lot!

We had a special MLC the day before the Conference where Elder Haynie was able to teach us about becoming better leaders and the obligation we have to teach and inspire those around us. Elder Cicon and I were chosen to give a musical number and we sang and arrangement of "Be Still My Soul". I can't remember if I have told you this, but I have been assigned to be the musical number in MLC every MLC for the past 6 months hahaha. It started with Elder Fraire and I and has just kept going since then haha. I'm not sure why, but I just go with it! I'm getting less afraid of singing in front of people! It's still definitely not my favorite, but I don't die anymore doing it, so that's improvement!

We had another baptism this week! Sister Ana E--------- was baptized and she is just awesome. She is so golden. She is 19 years old and went to school for information technology. She was taught previously and she shared in her post-baptism testimony that she really just wants to serve the Lord and do his will. Probably one of the best baptismal testimonies I have heard. We did this baptism in Bago, which is SO far from their house out in the mountains. They got up early and made the long trip down the mountain and actually beat us there, even though we live about 20 minutes closer than they do. It's so great to see faith like that.

One thing that I learned from Mission Tour is about Prayer. Elder Haynie invited us all to study "prayer" in the bible dictionary. I have NEVER read something more enlightening about prayer than this entry in the Bible Dictionary. I learned that we can often prayer using the name of Christ at the end of our prayer, but only the way we can TRULY pray in the name of Christ is by aligning our desires to his. How often do we throw Christ's name on the end of our worldly prayers? I know I do it all the time. Once we can learn to seek the Father's will through prayer, rather than our one, we will be able to better understand how to pray in the name of Christ truly. Everyone read that entry in the Bible Dictionary, okay? I really liked it.

I hope everyone has a good week! Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write anymore or answer questions! I'll you when I get home!

Elder Welton

Bunyag sa Suba

Hello Everyone!

This was a GREAT week.

The biggest highlight of this week was our baptism! We have been teaching the Y------- Family since my first week here. They are awesome! Sister P------- has been raising her grandson Kyle since he was little. I guess it must have just been part of God's plan for them because Kyle was actually the first one to talk to the missionaries. He's only ten, but he started listening and eventually led his grandmother, Sister P---------, to the missionaries. She is SO funny and has such strong faith! She has had a lot of her family and friends say, "Why are you joining this church?? It's just like the Catholic Church!" She has gotten that so many times that she finally just started saying, "Eh! I just want to!" It's funnier in Ilonggo, but that's the idea. She wants to bring her whole family with her, so we are going to start teaching them too. Hopefully!

The baptism was AMAZING. This was my first time baptizing in a river, so it was super cool. The day before, we went and scouted out a good area to hold the service and we found to PERFECT spot. The water was deep enough and it was quiet and the large rocks off the riverside were arranged as if they were situated specifically for a sermon. Wonderful. The Sisters actually came up with the bishop to see the baptism for their first time as well. They got some AWESOME pictures that I will try to get from them.

This week was really tiring and it really tested our faith. I am always amazed at how DIFFICULT it is to actually make a baptism happen. SO many things go wrong right before the baptism that make it seem like it will be impossible. Satan really does try to keep God's children from following the commandments. We were blessed to be able to overcome the problems that arose, and we are so grateful for that. It's so crazy how hard things get these days. Evil is all around us. Sometimes I think, "How are we expected to make it through all of this evil when these temptations around us are becoming bigger and bigger for each generation??" I guess it really requires a lot of faith. We can't afford to lose focus! I look forward to the days of Zion being established on earth once again!

Sorry for not sending pictures in a while. I can't use the USB drive on this computer so I can't even send pictures! Hopefully I'll find a good computer sometime to send some good pictures!

Take Care!

Elder Welton

Moved

Hello Everyone!

This was a great week!

We have been having some MIRACLES this last week with our work. It's so great to see the Lord support our desire to help strengthen a barely beginning group and to find new people to teach. We were able to have an total attendance of 31 at church this week and it was great! Things are really progressing here in Ma-ao. We are really excited about the progress being made.

We had an AWESOME time at our Mission Leadership Council on Tuesday. We had some great trainings given by the APs and President. We have noticed a lot of issues with finding lately and want to try and improve it. It's always so cool to go to those MLC trainings because you get to sit in a room of some of the most powerful servants of the Lord in our mission. There really is so much wisdom and experience in such a young group of people. It's actually really sad to think that it's all coming to an end for me. Things right now are finally starting to "click", just as many RM's have described to me when they too started approaching that final stretch of their missions... It's going quick, so I hope that I can make the best of it!

Our Zone Training on Thursday was awesome. Elder Rabila and I have never given a Zone Training before, so both of us were kind of curious as to what exactly needed to be taught at the meeting. We had already given an impromptu training two weeks before about all the topics discussed at MLC, so we felt that we would only be repeating it! As we sat the night before, we were super tired and couldn't think too well. We got some good ideas down, but we couldn't really come up with anything concrete and hit a dead spot. I can't remember exactly what happened, but we were just sitting there and then Elder Rabila said something about the ironing board that was sitting right behind me... It struck me like a bolt of lightning! "YES!! That's it!" He obviously was pretty confused with this outburst of excitement towards his ironing comment. I explained to him that we could relate everything we had talked about to an IRON. We had all these great ideas that would help our areas improve and everything like that, but in the end, it really just comes down to our Zone having the Spirit with them in their work; that's the only effective way to do anything. We then broke the forming analogy down into one sentence: "Keep your iron plugged in"

So many times in our life, we unplug the iron. We see ourselves straightening out the wrinkles in our clothing, almost effortless sometimes. The question, though, is, "have you ever tried ironing without the iron plugged in?" I have. It's hard. Yesterday, actually, the power went out before my companion ironed his shirt. I said, "hey let's try to iron it! Maybe if you do it fast enough, it will get the wrinkles out using the friction." ... It totally didn't work... "I guess our training was true, Elder..." No matter how hard you work to get those wrinkles out, with only a cold iron you will never be able to get them out. This is what we shared with our Zone. We can work as HARD and as LONG as possible, but without our "iron" being "plugged in" to the Spirit, our efforts will be quite a waste. With the Spirit in our lives, we can get things done SO much quicker than without. So the only question that we have to ask ourselves every now and then is, "Is my iron plugged in?"

I hope everyone has an awesome week! I am still growing and learning a lot, even in these last few months of my mission. I hope to be even further refined as I continue.

Elder Welton

Workin

Hello Friends and Family!

I apologize for this email, but it is going to be a short one. We have been working hard this week and that's really all I have to share! We work, work, work, and work. We are super excited this week because we will finally be able to move up to our area! That should allow us to teach for another 3 hours in the evening and not have to leave so early in the morning. We should hopefully be able to start teaching more families and focusing on finding people to build up the church!

I have been reading the Bible lately to try and refresh myself on all of the proselyting skills I've kinda lost lately. I really enjoy it because I realized that I have been taught so much doctrine over the years as I have gone to church, but never know where to find it. I keep coming across things in the Bible that ring a bell in my mind and connect that doctrine to the verses I am reading. It's so cool! It's actually really hard for me to study lately, most likely a mix of me just wanting to go out and talk to people and because of all the little tasks buzzing around in my head; but every time I can get my mind isolated enough to learn from the scriptures, I feel that the "eyes of my understanding were opened," and I can understand the things of God so clearly. I get a very similar feeling when I can write and explain my thoughts on paper and share those things that are in my mind, but it is slightly different when we are partaking of the words that someone else has written with that same Spirit. It's so wonderful that we have these things available to us.

I read a few verses in Mormon the other day that really interested me. In the last chapter of Mormon, chapter 9, Mormon finishes his record by explaining the way they wrote their records.

--

30 Behold, I speak unto you as though I spake from the dead; for I know that ye shall have my words.

 31 Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.

 32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

 33 And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.

 34 But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.

--

Having learned a second language, I can understand exactly what Mormon is concerned about. Seeing how things work here, many people write in English rather than write in lengthy Ilonggo or Tagalog. So as the language of Lehi and his family developed, they started using that shorter language, egyptian, to write easier. He probably wasn't confident in his Egyptian writing, seeing as they spoke mostly Hebrew. It's so wonderful to know that even these great men had their insecurities and difficulties, just like us. And I think it's more amazing that, just as Mormon said, "he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof." God know what he meant when he wrote and allowed that spirit to be preserved across translations. I am so grateful that they wrote for us even though he wasn't confident.

I invite you all to read that passage! I don't have any more time so I hope you all learn what I learned!

Take care!

Elder Welton

President Nelson

Hello sa akong mga kaibigan!

This week was so great! So much is being done in the Lord's Work here in Bacolod. We were able to finish up the house contract at the beginning of the week and will be moving up at the beginning of March! This should help us to be able to work better and to teach more families all together. It should also help us to be able to actually work on a normal missionary schedule, rather than the crazy one we have right now trying to make things work with the travel schedule. Despite the difficulties with travel, I really enjoy it a lot. We get to travel up there early every morning and then we get to catch the sunset on the way back most of the time. I have been increasingly grateful everyday for the awesome chance I have to be a missionary here. Great place.

The work here has been progressing well! We were blessed to have 8 investigators at church this Sunday! That's up from zero the week before I arrived, up to two the next week, and then eight this week. So we are really, really excited for the work to continue. We are praying for these investigators to continue to progress and to be baptized within the next few months. Please pray for us to keep finding more people these next few weeks. That's our focus!

We had the awesome experience of having President Nelson visit our mission this week! I was part of the choir and we were able to perform a lovely rendition of "I'll go where you want me to go"; one verse being the Ilonggo translation and the rest in Engish. It was so good! We got to sit on the front row and see him real close. I shook his hand!! I'll make sure to include a picture of the entire mission. It was also really awesome because I prepared the booklet with program, the Mission Vision that I sent to you, conversion stories, and other stuff which we gave to them. They ended up using parts of the vision I designed as points in their talks! I was so happy! So now the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has seen my design work. Awesome!

They talked a lot about exact obedience and how it will truly form us in our lives. It was so great to listen to Sister Nelson.  She had such a strong presence and spoke so plainly that you could really see how she has supported her husband in his sacred calling. It was just as interesting to observe President Nelson and see how reverent and closely he seemed to observe us and listen to the Spirit. It was so powerful to hear from someone who has obviously been seeking truth for his entire life. As he spoke, you could feel that the spiritual, intangible things that he spoke of had become clear and simple facts to him in his search for the truth. He gave his entire sermon based on a single question that caused an outpouring of life experience and spiritual confirmation that this Gospel is true. It was so interesting to listen to him speak. He said a lot of things, taught a lot of amazing principles, but what I really remember most was just the power that came from him as he spoke. One thought that specifically came to my mind was, "God's glory is knowledge." The knowledge that backed President Nelson's words seemed glorious. His carefully picked words and sentences, his transition from principle to principle -- all of it seemed rehearsed! But you can see that he really has just spent a lifetime of study and pondering. The Spirit has continued to refine the knowledge that has been given him to the point where he is simply sharing what comes natural to him. Although I felt all of these things, it was so comforting of a feeling to feel that "he is an ordinary man, just like me." It made me realize that this type of power and humility is NOT out of reach. Although he spoke greatly, I could feel that he once came from something as unrefined as all of us are. It's frustrating to know that we can't achieve perfection in this life, but it's more comforting to know that there are people leading us that have gotten closer and closer to it than most others have as their lives go on. Amazing experience.

Things are just gonna keep going forward here in Bacolod! Hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Welton

President Nelson's visit!  I am two rows behind him - right behind the sister in white who is behind President Nelson.

                                      A picture of our pretty area.  This is what we call the "bukid"

This is a picture of our little meetinghouse. It's a work in progress, that's for sure... We area actually gonna look for another one. Attendance has gone up, though! we had 29 yesterday! Slowly, but surely!

Here's a wonderful picture of a guy with a cigarette in his ear. I was hoping to get the mountain, but that's a nice addition!

Infinite Noodles

Hello!

This was such a good week! I feel so happy being out in the field again! I got pretty sunburned this week, I guess because I spent a while in that office haha. But it's great to be out here trompin' around in the mountains. Ma-ao is so pretty! Wow. I love this area. Part of our area is RIGHT on Canlaon Volcano. So cool. I got some good pictures, but I couldn't find my SD card reader earlier. I'll try to make sure and find it next week so I can send some.

We looked for a house all week while we were working, and we actually found one! We needed to find one by the end of the week, but we had no success the whole week. We ended up looking at a house on Friday, but it was not a good house at all. As we were leaving, a man who we had talked to the week before when Elder Wade and I came to look for a house came up and said, "Hey, any luck finding a house?" So far it had been pretty poor findings. We told him no and he said, "hey, well I asked around like I told you I would and I know some people that have a house here that they might be willing to rent to you. You can go talk to them if you want!" He didn't have a contact number, so he just wrote down the general area she lived in and her first name and then waved a tricycle down and told him where to take us. We asked if it was close because we needed to catch the last bus going home, and he said, "Ah, of course! It's just right down the road a few minutes! It's still early, you have plenty of time!" So we got on and went up the mountain... About 30 minutes later, we got to the place! We found her house! We talked to her and set up an appointment to meet with her the next morning. We looked at the house and it was perfect. Quite an answer to our prayers. We really need the house because right now, we have to take a 1 hour bus right every time we go up and then every time we go back to our house because we don't even live in our area. We're hoping that by having a house up there, we can focus on teach more and actually being up there when every one gets home at night. So exciting!

We had a miracle this week! Elder Rabila and I had absolutely NO money this week because of transfers and then having to pay double bills. I had 1000 pesos left and we were able to buy a small amount of food at the store at the beginning of the week, but we had to save most of the money to use for traveling around our area. We got a few packs of Pancit Canton, the Philippines version of Top Ramen, and then a few cans of pork sisig with a carton of eggs and hoped for the best. We tried to withdraw personal money, but literally every ATM in the city was BROKEN. So, around the middle of the week, we were down to a can of sisig and four packs of Pancit Canton. We had been working SO hard the entire week, and we were just so hungry. We said, "okay, we can only eat two packs of those noodles tonight because we won't last the rest of the week if we eat more than that. Normally, two packs each will get you decently satisfied, but one pack was a little bit lacking. We decided to just eat a lot of bread with it to make it go further. Elder Rabila went outside and did laundry while I put the noodles in the pot and then took a shower. After I got out, I pulled the pan of the burned and then set it down and started dishing it out. As I started dishing it out, I realized that the amount of noodles left in the pot as I scooped, seemed like it had no end! There was SO much in that pot! I was confused, because by the time I had finished dishing it out, we had two bowls with a mountain of noodles in each one. I thought for sure that Elder Rabila must have thrown the other two packs in while I was in the shower, but was surprised to see the two packs still sitting on the shelf. As I looked at it, as simple as it was, I began to feel so much gratitude for a Heavenly Father that watches over his servants. He knows how hard we had worked that week and how tired and hungry we had been. I brought the bowl outside and showed Elder Rabila how much it was and he two was just as surprised as I was. We happily ate it, feeling grateful for the small miracle that had been given to us.

I hope everyone has enough to eat this week! Don't eat food like I eat, it's not healthy. Take care!

Elder Welton