Week 2

My weeks been good. It's gone by pretty fast. Oh I saw David Fitt in here which was good so i got a picture of us that I have on my camera I gave to clayton to put the pics up somewhere. We have not been going to the temple here because the provo one is closed and they aren't bussing us up to the Timp one. So it will be over two years before I go to the temple again. Sad. It was weird when I saw Clay on the phone with you guys. To Elder Rennie I was just like "that's my parents right there, in that little box, and I can't talk to them". It's all good though. We could go to the field but we usually go to the gym. We did go to the field a couple times but we played Softball and Horseshoes, and yes, horseshoes isn't exactly a work out but it was fun. I love the book sooooo much thank you! It is seriously amazing. I'm excited to get out of here. I can't wait to see the people of Uganda. I've been praying for them. I hope they've been praying for me, and for answers. I have seen Skyler Humphreys and a few people from Pleasant View as well as some people from my old ward, and people from BYU, but only Fitt from other than Utah. I seriously love you guys so much and can not wait to hear from you. I'm so thankful for everything you're doing and for allowing me to be out here in the mission field without having to worry about not having anything, or not being able to afford anything. I love you sooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep up writing to me, I love it! And no worries I'm not homesick anymore. It was just that first day when I was being a wuss. I'll be great for the next two years.. Can't wait to see you than.... Love Elder Welch

This week we've just been learning about how to meet people's needs and really understand what the spirit directs us, as to what they need to hear, not always necessarily lesson 1. But we've also been working on getting lesson 2 down, the plan of salvation, and have taught it several times this week and I feel like I have it down pretty well. We even taught it to this British and Finnish kid in Clay's class that wanted to see how we taught it. It's kind of cool to see those kind of saints travel around the world to be here and do the Lord's work. I've also been reading the Bible for personal time like I said and have learned so much. Exodus 28 describes what happens in the temple, kind of, well at least what we wear in there so I was going to write K a letter with some Bible verses to help her understand what exactly, and why we do certain things in the temple. We learn almost entirely from Preach My Gospel but also use some videos on like Mormon.org to study from. There are only 2 other guys going to Uganda from my district, everyone else is going to Tucson, AZ so we don't learn anything about Uganda. We did get to meet out mission president when they had the seminar and he's a way cool guy. His wife and him are funny and converted to the church in their early 30's. They say they've started about 70 small businesses which is pretty sweet. They've been to Africa a lot so know what they're doing. We also had the Malaryia pill talk from a doctor here about taking them every single night. My companion and I are getting along great. The other two guys in our apartment are a little loud but I like them a lot too. Hopefully a mission is a humbling experience for one of them haha. Don't worry I do love my compaion. I will call you from the Salt Lake and L.A. airports because I hope you got my travel plans I wrote out. I bought a 5 dollar, 3 hour calling card that works in the U.S. but I'll try and call from London too when we fly through there. We start taking those Malaria tablets on Saturday btw, cause you need to start 2 days before you leave. I haven't gotten my passport or visa but I'm sure we grab that right as we're leaving. I do have about 120 dollars cash and I hope that my bags will weigh less than 50 each. You weigh them here at the MTC before to make sure. No worries but thanks so much for the Dearelders! Like I said I think you can do that still when I'm in Uganda for free but I'm not 100 percent sure. Thanks so much for the book and thermus container too! They will be so useful.. I might even use that book to show to investigators.. Tell P and S so much for writing me too and I appreciated K's letter.. I hope M and B are having/had a good time in Bermuda.. I hope J and M are well too. Clay is supposed to give me my camera back today so we'll see how that is. Tell everyone they can email me too if they want. For working out we've been playing basketball at the gym and when we get back we'll do push ups, pull ups, sit ups, and I filled up one of the water weight things and do some curls with that so I'm staying in pretty good shape. I weighed 184 at the gym the other day.. Just in case you didn't get that I got the water weight package. Thank you so much! They will honestly be soooo useful. I've been more obedient because I found out that even at the MTC you are only supposed to write letters on P-days and not every day so I will write a few to you guys today and send them over the next few days so you keep hearing from me even when I'm on the way there. I love you so much. Other than that it's pretty boring and basic. How are things? I like hearing about that stuff. Btw what's going on in the world? I feel so sheltered I have no idea. WWIII could have started and I wouldn't know. Keep up the dearelders. Love you, Elder Welch