I’m very well.

Missionaries here all stay in really nice
places. The missionaries in outlying areas
sometimes have nicer homes.
The meals I eat are this. In the morning I
have toast, a couple small bananas, and a cup
of water. Lunch is usually either chipatees and
beans or rice and matoke. For dinner it’s almost
always a couple of rolexs unless someone cooks
for us, than it resembles my lunch again.

Back in Nsambya there were places to get good
things to eat, but usually only on special
occasions. Here in Mengo there is no where to
get anything like those.

So the weeks been good. We had the leadership
training on Thursday and I gave a training on
the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. I
talked of how first we missionaries need to
acquire the Spirit in
order to give it. Now it makes me think of a
training I heard my first
transfer. There was an Elder from Utah who talked
about the Spirit and how growing up he never felt
it. He used to have a big ol beard and
smelled always like smoke (he said it wasn’t from
a campfire either).
He told us of an incident he had with his mother
in which she was asking him to come back to church.
He told her he never wanted to and
she bore her testimony. She than asked him if she
could feel that, if she could feel the Spirit.
He responded angrily “I feel nothing!” and
stormed out… I can still remember him telling us of
that and even seeing pictures of him back then. He
used to be a gothic and wore
makeup, smoked, drank, had long hair, pierced ears.
He honestly would have been someone I would never
think would be a member. But he said one day
his brother was simply getting ready for church as
he was sitting in the kitchen eating a bowl of
cereal (without a shirt of course). He
said his brother walked out the door and than
leaned back in and simply said “hey, want to come
to church today?” For the first time in
years he just said… sure. And he threw on just a
regular shirt and went with him to church. His
brother had invited him many times over
the years but he said he for some reason finally
felt prompted to go.
Well needless to say he cleaned up his life and
finally came back, and of course his old friends
thought he was crazy and stuff so he lost a
few of them, but he said he never regrets it.
The Spiritual death he was suffering from before
scares me honestly. He honestly couldn’t
feel anything and he knew it. The commandments
are there so that we can feel the Spirit more,
not to hold us down or tell us what to do.
All commandments are given because God loves us.

Sorry but I just all of sudden thought of that
and thought I could share it because it made a
big impact on me. We did a lot more
teaching during the week as well and sadly the
guy named Jy who was supposed to be baptized
on Sunday wasn’t because his mother told
him “you’re Catholic, you can’t be baptized
again.” He didn’t even come to church on
Sunday either. Oh how Satan controls the
testimony of so many people in this world and
uses his power to try and steal
people’s agency. I don’t think I’ve ever had
such a realization as to
how Satan wanted to take people’s agency
in the pre-existence. I guess
if that guy would have been truly converted he
would have been baptized anyways. It reminds
me of Brother Suzuki in Marshall and how
he joined the church at the cost of his entire
family, how his father
to the day of his death denied he had a son.

Well that’s been my week, I hope you all
stay faithful always, and know that the church
true. Don’t look for
excuses not to believe like many people do,
but look for the fruits
and reasons to believe. There are 100 reasons
this is the true church
in comparison to every 1 thing that people
use as an excuse to leave
the church and break the commandments.
I love you all.

Elder Welch