The week has been good.  It really all
is just a blur haha. On Monday like you saw,
we visited the Anglican cathedral in Mengo.
Pretty cool.

On Wednesday we had a district leaders council.
The goals for our mission are the highest numbers
that any zone has gotten. The goals
are 24 contacts a day, 6 lessons a day, 1 baptism
a week, 3 new investigators, 8 investigators at
sacrament and a few others I can’t
remember.  Haha I thought it
was funny and so hopefully the new goals will be
more reachable for a well balanced day.

Saturday we had the baptism of D. She’s a cool girl and
I’m happy with the work we have done here in Nsambya so
far this year. The five baptisms we’ve had, are actually
all going to leave the area. Elder O, the zone leader,
said he thought it was a ‘slap in the face’. I
thought about it and said ‘maybe it would be for you,
but one of themis going to teach 31 people and prepare
them for baptism, one of them is going to Iraq where he
learned of the church and where he can
hopefully teach more people about the church, and three
of them are going with their whole family to a village
where the church isn’t right now to start a meeting group.’
I think those things are better for those people to go
out and spread the word even more instead of
sitting here idle in the Nsambya ward. I asked him if he
was doing more good here in Uganda, or if he did more
good back when he was in his home ward in Kenya.
I think he got the point.

Sunday D was confirmed and M (her younger brother) was
ordained a Deacon. Now when they start their meeting group,
they can have authorization to give the sacrament since
the father used to be a Branch President and now his son
can help pass it. M and A were also given the Aaronic
Priesthood in the office of Priest which
was cool. Now A can go back and teach the people in
Kanungu with authority. I’m excited for missionaries
to get there and baptize all the people he’s prepared.
We also worked with one of the AP’s on
Sunday night. It was alright, I guess some people
have different styles of contacting and teaching and
Elder D’s was just a little different
than Elder Cooley or myself were used to. Oh well
it was still a good experience to see how he teaches.

Now today I’m emailing. I had a really good
realization of how important agency is this week.
We contacted these 3 siblings who are between 20
and 15 years old. They were way interested
in the church and knew the Book of Mormon was true.
The only problem was they didn’t make it to church
on Sunday. When we went to see them
we found out that a family friend told them we
weren’t the right church, and that we were just
starting another false church and he
wouldn’t let them go. They really wanted to and
I saw how important our agency is. When agency is
blocked, it’s of the devil and limits
what life is all about. This life is a test and we
need to be able to follow God or not, according to
our own conscience. It’s great to be
apart of a church that knows how true that is and
it is even included in our main Articles of Faith.
Always remember, use your agency
wisely. We have two main choices, and there is no
fence sitting. Let us always think who we are
truly serving. (2 Nephi 2:26-27)


Elder Welch

The Mosque

This week has been good. We went to the Mosque last
week which was cool so hopefully you get those pictures.
The week was busy like usual though and
right now even it’s all a blur haha. Sorry today we had
interviews and a bunch of stuff so we didn’t have as much
time to email today as usual.

We taught M and A all week which was great and ended up
with the two being baptized on Saturday and confirmed on
Sunday as well as the other two boys baptized last week.
Thursday we had a Leadership Training at the Mission home
and it was good even though no one listened to the 5-10
minute time limit besides myself and another
guy in my district. The trainings were
uplifting and made us all want to work that much harder.
Actually they told us to take bold steps so I’ve been
going into churches this last week just wanting to teach
some of the preachers about the Book of
Mormon and teaching them the Doctrine of Christ from
2 Nephi 31 but I haven’t talked to any yet. Apparently
in other parts of the country, whole congregations are joining.
Like 7 churches that are Community of Christ out in Eastern
Uganda and another Church of about 70 people up
in Northern Uganda.
That would be cool to do that kind of a thing.

That’s about the highlights of the week. Hopefully for next
week we will be able to get 4 baptisms. The one is the sister
of those boys baptized (not the Catholic one, which it isn’t
expensive to go to Catholic school I don’t think pops) and the
other 3 are young women who were in village. The young womens
number is growing pretty fast in this Ward haha. So that’s
about it. Just know that with faith, mountains can be moved.
With faith, 7 churches, 350 people can be moved. I think that
is amazing once people actually Ask, Seek,
and Knock. When they do that, they are able to know that what
we are teaching is true. Most of the people who are against the
church have never tried to actually do those things, but just
assume it is not true. If people truly investigate,
it’s pretty clear.

Elder Welch

New Year

Happy 2011 Everyone from the middle of Africa!

We had hot dogs and hamburgers for the Christmas party.
They don’t have any traditional foods really. People
usually eat the same kind of foods every day. They eat
either chicken or beef, matoke or posho, rice or
noodles, and beans. That’s as much as people vary
their foods here.


Well the week was great. On Monday like I said last
week, we visited the Baha’i temple. Pretty awesome place!
It’s nice to get out and see
some of the unique things here in Kampala.

On Wednesday we worked the whole day with a member named C
who is working on her mission papers right now. She does so
much for the church here in Nsambya and pretty much devotes
half her week to doing things there. She’s like a missionary
already.
The best part of the week was on Friday. We got a referral
from one of the APs about a guy in Nsambya who had learned
about the church while in Iraq and was going to church there
with a lot of the members there in his camp. He learned so
much about the church and even now, after
those almost 2 years of going to church there, is still not
baptized so we get the opportunity to teach him and his
whole family and help them get baptized. This was seriously
a miracle to start off the new year. This guy actually had
been emailing his brother about the church
in a village in the far West of Uganda on the border of the
DRC, about a 9 hour bus ride from Kampala. The guy was
then out there and organized a church group that has been
meeting over the last year and a half. He gave us a list
of about 30 people who this one guy has been
meeting with, and none of them have been baptized.
It is pretty awesome to see how members can be the best
missionaries sometimes.
These two guys are not laid back at all and have been
making big strides with their own personal mission.
I emailed the Mission President today with all the details
about it and I’m hoping he sends missionaries there as soon
as possible to organize an actual building
for the members to meet together in, instead of meeting in
someone’s small home. Man I can’t even describe the work
those two guys have been doing out there. My companion and
I are truly so blessed to be able to be apart of the
marvelous work these two guys have started
off.
For New Years we had to be in by 6:00 P.M. just to be safe
so we were a little bored that night. We stayed up till
12 and got on the platform of our roof where the water
tank is and watched the fireworks
all over Kampala. It was pretty awesome! Event the nuns
in the building next to us were out on their balcony loving it.
I think it was the most excitement they have had since
someone switched the holy water with acid.
Saturday was just as good. That guy came with his wife and
three kids to the New Years party we had at the church.
It was pretty cool but … They had a
stage in the back of the church with all the chairs facing
it so that people could go up and dance or just go up and
pretend to sing or something but some of the people’s way
of dancing wouldn’t be appropriate in a club, nevertheless
a church party! Haha. Oh well,
different culture I suppose. The party went well and a ton
of people came (for the free food mainly of course).
Sunday was a great day. Church attendance is always down
after a party which would be the opposite of what you would
think but it happens because people come on Saturday to the
church and think that is good for the week. The day was great
though as we helped a part member family, come a little
closer to being a full member family. We taught
four of the children of a less active member and his two boys,
who are really smart, were baptized by him on Sunday.
We are hoping his other two daughters will be soon baptized
as well, but one of them is a little slow at learning and
our Zone Leader wanted her to wait a few
weeks to be retaught everything and baptized.
The other daughter has been in Catholic school for the
last 13 years of her life, separated from her family
so we will have to work on her quite a bit more as well
in order for her to receive the answer
from God that she needs to be re-baptized into his church.
So the weeks been busy.
Even today we are planning on going to the big Mosque
in downtown Kampala which should be pretty cool.
So that’s the week.
The pictures I’m sending are of the Christmas party,
a waterfall we always pass in our area, a lot of the Baha’i
temple, some cute kids, the New Years party, and of the
baptisms.
Just know the work is marvelous and that the
church is true. I’ve just started reading Our Search
for Happiness and it is an awesome book to give to
non-members. It puts forward why we
believe what we do and it’s an easy read.
A lot easier than Jesus the Christ which I just finished.
If you guys ever have an opportunity
this week to share with people something plain and
precious about the gospel, do it! Don’t be forward or
offend anyone about it, just make
them understand how happy the restored Gospel of
Jesus Christ makes you. That’s what missionary work
is all about and why so many members
of the church try and tell anyone they can about
the church. keep the faith like Paul would say.
Stay healthy and know
I love you all!

Elder Welch

Christmas 2010

The week was good but a bit slow. There weren’t too
many highlights besides all the lessons and stuff.
I did like how on Wednesday we were
talking to brother W about baptism and he wasn’t sure
about if he should be baptized again. Like I told you
guys when we came back the next day, after asking him
to pray for an answer the day before,
we asked him if he got that answer. He told us yes and
how he heard a voice tell him it was ok to be baptized
again. Awesome.

Friday was the Christmas party like I said and it was
a nice break and way nice to see all the other missionaries,
couples, and mission President. There were even a couple
people visiting family from the United States.
Saturday for Christmas we just went and saw some recent
converts like P and her family and they cooked a nice
Christmas lunch for us.
We also saw brother W again. We were also fed by sister J
and it was nice hanging out with their family.

Sunday wasn’t the best because people were not showing
up for church on time. Brother W wasn’t baptized
unfortunately because like most Ugandans, he hasn’t been
legally married, but has just been
living with his wife for 8 years. I think they are
working on that and they are moving out to Mbali where we
have a branch as well and they can help them get married
out there. We talked to sister K and she
is no longer going to be living in our area but she is
moving to Bugembe, my last area, and she is going to go
to church there and get baptized. Pretty awesome because
that’s where I knew her family from anyways.

This morning we cleaned our apartment a bit and went
to the Ba’hai temple. It’s the only Ba’hai temple for
Africa and there are only 8 in the entire world.
It was a pretty cool site and the philosophy and
teachings of the church are great! The only problem
is it has a lot of holes in it haha. I guess I won’t be
converting to Ba’hai after all.

The weeks been good and the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Still trying to figure out why people do the things they
do here but I know with the Lord and the help of a good
church teaching what God wishes, the people’s lives can
and will be changed for the better. It is very
evident in every day life it is just a slow process of
getting people to actually come to the church. Well that
is all for this week and it
was so great to talk to you guys!
I love you all and I wouldn’t be
here without you. You are always in my prayers and
I hope your families are all well. Love and hugs!

Elder Welch