"in the middle of freaking Africa!"

My adventure is still going and crazy as ever.
I think I’m just getting used to being in Africa now.
I used to say to myself every few
days “I’m in the middle of freaking Africa!”
Nowadays I don’t say that as much.

Jinja is a pretty big city but it has lots of
parts to it. So Bugembe is just like a suburb kind of,
of Jinja. Bugembe used to be where all the rich
lived in Jinja but than people just starting
building mud huts everywhere so it has a lot of people,
mostly children, just everywhere. A lot more Muslims
here too than there are in Kampala for
some reason. I can’t even guess how many people are
in Bugembe because
it would be pretty hard to get a good count.

Speaking of Conference I listened to the Afternoon
session of the April 2010 conference and I nearly
cried like 5 times for reasons I
don’t even know! I think it’s because I realized
I’ve been taking all the blessings and things I had
in the United States for granted.
Honestly I even took for granted being able to go
to conference live with Clayton because I fell asleep
when we went! Even being with my
brother was truly a blessing I would never give up
and will never give up. Also the family stories
they told really touched me. I love
hearing President Eyring just announcing things
because you can tell in his voice, that he is just
so close to the spirit of God, he has
such emotion with each word he speaks.

Well enough of that. My week was short as usual.
I feel like I’m always here emailing now. Well last
Monday the highlight of my day was
buying new sunglasses since I lost both of the pairs
I had brought out here. They are fake RayBans.
They say “Roy & Bon” on the side. They’re
pretty legit though.

Tuesday was teaching as usual and we left a Book
of Mormon with these two girls as well as
read with them 2 Nephi 31. I’ll realize
that was a bad decision later on in the week.

Wednesday we had lessons and a Family Home Evening
with a member and her recent convert sister.
It was pretty good and we’re trying to help
them both stay active in the church

Thursday we had a District meeting and Elder D
set a goal for Bugembe to have 10 baptisms this month.
I thought it was reasonable but apparently the Zone
Leaders thought it was not an achievable goal.
With 5 per companionship we could do it. For us
we have those planned out for the next 3 weeks so
it will depend on Elder D and his comp
to get their 5. Maybe we’ll help them out and get 6 haha.
The Zone Leaders and everyone else in Jinja set
goals for 4 baptisms for the
month per district so we’ll have to show them
that if you aim high, even if you miss, you still
fall high. We had also gone back to those
two  girls and their mom came and answered and
said she didn’t want us deceiving their daughters
into another religion.
On Saturday we went to the hospital to see
Sister D’s brother who had hot water poured
on his leg and it hasn’t been healing. We gave
him a blessing and were there for Sister D.
We also saw a member who just had twins but
lost them both shortly after. It was really
sad. The woman has been inactive in the church
for 6 months and her husband is an active R.M.
who we’ve been trying to get him to bring
his wife back to church. We were just there
to show them support and
it was a really solemn and humbling experience.
I haven’t felt so bad for people in a long time.
We told them we were always there for them
though.

Sunday was a good Sabbath day.
We were going to have 2 baptisms for
our companionship but one of the guys couldn’t
get work off so we set his back for next Sunday.
O was baptized though and it’s good to
see him and his two friends all baptized. J
even was found worthy
to receive the Priesthood for next Sunday.

Today we are going to go to Bugagali Falls
after emailing. I hear they
are pretty sweet so I will make sure to send you
guys the pictures next week.

I have been noticing in
the scriptures a theme that shows God’s love for us.
It’s about mercy and justice and how God is both.
Because of Justice we need to repent
and make sure we are clean if we are to enter Heaven.
Mercy allows us to get there. A good analogy of this
I heard in a talk was about the
Civil War and a soldier who was on guard duty. He fell
asleep during the night and his battalion was attacked
and many men were killed. The soldier on guard duty was
held responsible for the men killed and
sentenced to death. A week before he was to be
sentenced to death. the mother of the soldier sent a
letter to President Lincoln. She said
“Before this war I had 4 sons, and one by one I’ve
lost them all. I’m left with one, and he is sentenced
to death. Please spare a devastated
mother of having to lose all 4 of her sons.”
President Lincoln wrote her back and said how the boy
deserved the punishment for his crime,
but that he would allow him to go, not for his sake,
but for his poor
mother’s sake. This shows the kind of love and
mercy the Savior has for us. When we get to be
judged, Jesus will be there pleading our
case, saying he took upon him our sins, so that
we could enter Heaven.
Heavenly Father will then say,
“I will let them in, not for their
sake, but for your sake, my only Begotten.”
Oh how much are we loved.


Elder Welch

Travel

Yes transfers were this week, and I’m still in
Bugembe. It’s not a bad thing since this has been
the highest baptizing area in the
mission for the last two transfers I think.
In the last three months our area has had 18 baptisms
(13 from my companionship). I talked to
my brothers (the missionaries I came out with) and
they have each had 5 and 6 baptisms each. This area
is good, but I would enjoy a break
from all the dust here.

A District President is like a Stake President, but
the Mission President still has to conduct a lot of
the business. To become a stake is hard and the people
need to pay tithing but we hope to see one here soon.
We got our new Branch President as well. It’s Brother
K. The guy is awesome.
He served in South Africa but is totally humble and
charitable. We’ve always had FHE’s at his house on
Sunday’s and love being with him and
his family.

Well this week was kind of different. I didn’t have
as much time to teach and meet with our investigators
as we would have liked to. On Tuesday I was told that
Elder M and myself were to go to Kampala
to have some new missionary and trainer, training.
So we went up there on Wednesday and went with the
missionaries in Mutungo. It’s a newer
area but their home is so nice. We were mainly
traveling that day as it takes a while to get to Kampala.
We took a “coaster” or a van up
there for the 2 hour drive. My seat was tilted in so
it was uncomfortable falling onto the man next to me
the whole time.
On Thursday we had the training. There were 10 new
missionaries, 6 from Zimbabwe, 2 Americans, a Kenyan,
and a Sister from Malawi. It’s a
powerful group of missionaries and we hope to break
the chain of laziness that has been plaguing this mission.
The two guys from the U.S. are pretty legit.
The training went well though and they got to see some
of the new ways we are trying to teach people in this
mission.
We stayed the night at the Assistants place on Thursday
night and Friday morning we worked on finishing up
transfers and getting ready
to drive down to Jinja. Oh and we almost found a
Dr. Pepper copycat called Dr. Stripes! Too bad the places
that had them were closed so I didn’t get to taste the
awesomeness of Dr. Pepper… The last one I had
was in London. I miss that experience haha. Friday we
didn’t get home until late so all we had time to do was
weekly planning and go to correlation.
Saturday we scrambled to see people since we hadn’t
had time to set up
appointments but it was still a good day.
On Sunday we had President J at our church again to
set apart Brother K as President K of the Bugembe Branch.
Well that was the week in my life. Hope all is well
with everyone back home. Just know that all the answers
for life have been given to us.
I’ve been reading the Old Testament and even there,
we have answers.
The Old Testament even has humor! I was reading in
2 Samuel about King David dancing with the Ark of the
Lord and it made me laugh thinking
of all the modern dances now that I could see King David
doing along the Ark and how his wife saw him doing them
and was pretty much like
“this guy looks ridiculous.”
I love the scriptures so make sure you
read them! Love and miss you all so much!
Love,
Elder Welch

Autumn in Uganda is great! The leaves fell a little
bit but they start growing back right away so I
didn’t notice much. Mission is good.

My companion is on a mini-mission right now.

He’s negative 4 months on mission but I’m sure

the time will fly for him. He’s doing great but he

hasn’t been trained on any teaching skills so he’s

extremely fresh. He’s picking things up though.

It helps with the language because when people try

and say “I don’t know Lzungu (English)” I just have

Elder Musitwa contact them. Speaking of which

Clay should see him when he’s in the MTC in

January if Clay is still working there.

Jinja border Lake Victoria as well. That’s the

lake we see from our house. We did get new

furniture this week too. I had a picture of the

couches which are really nice as well but, like

I said, those unfortunately got deleted.

I don’t think the women here got the opportunity

to see the General Women’s thing but I didn’t

even hear about it either. We won’t even get to

watch conference for almost a month after it airs

anyways unless we go and watch it at a computer

place late at night.

So now to my week. Almost basic but it was a good

time. It flew by so it’s hard to remember everything.

On Monday it was Elder Flinders last P-day so Elder

Stevens and myself hung out with him and we went

out to eat at this place called Ossiez that is really good.

The people there really liked that guy.

Tuesday we had just a bunch of lessons but at the

District President’s house we watched The Testaments.

I’ve never watched that before! What a great movie.

Really helps you see the people in the Book of Mormon

and how they read the scriptures and how people

persecuted the truth, just like they always have

and always will.

Wednesday we had our District Development

Meeting and all shared how mission blessed our

lives. I stole Ammon’s words and how he asked

the exact same question to his brethren in Alma 26.

His answer is that he’s been blessed by bringing

nonbelievers to repentance, and giving them the light

of the gospel. Same for me, that’s the one blessing

that I see here on mission, is how the gospel

changes people.

Friday we were busy finding a few people and setting

up their baptismal interviews which is always stressful.

On Saturday they had the baptismal interviews and 4

of them passed, but one of the guys we had planned on

was MIA. The ones who passed though were J, S, B

, and J. They are all pretty legit and I wish I could show

you a picture of them….. J is from Rwanda and has lived

here for only a couple of years. S is a friend of hers and

lives down by a lot of people who are becoming members.

Same with B, she’s living down there and the three of them

are friends, and we taught them all at about the same time.

Now just from that area down there we have had at least

5 baptisms and hope to have more from more of their

friends we are teaching. J was S’s friend, who was baptized

last week, and was way excited to be baptized.

He too has a wife and kid in a village up north.

We’re teaching their friend named O who should be

baptized next week as well.

So on Sunday we had those 4 baptisms and E was rebaptized

since he missed too many weeks to be confirmed

but he was more than happy to do it again. He had

business to attend to in village but President M

still made him be baptized again anyways.

So on Sunday we had 6 baptisms in Bugembe

because the other guys even had a baptism,

even though it was the Jinja District President’s

adopted daughter. Kind of a freebee so over

all out of the entire Jinja zone, our area had

7 of the 17 baptisms for September, and my

companionship alone had 6 of the baptisms,

which is pretty good since there are 9

companionships in Jinja. Also President J, the

mission president, came to our church and

had some crazy news. They released the

District Presidency and called our Branch

President, President M, to be the new

District President. It was pretty new,

and they also told us of how the Bugembe chapel

has been approved and will be finished in

6-8 months.

So that was the week, it was pretty good.

I wish I could have shown you it in pictures,

but hopefully next week my camera will be

working so you can see.
Keep studying your scriptures. The church is

so true and when you read the Book of Mormon

slowly, you will see how it applies perfectly to

our lives in anticipation of the Savior coming the

second time. Just look around and see how the

members of the church are the same, yet different

in a good way from everyone else in the world.

The Book of Mormon is that second witness of

Jesus Christ. Matthew 18:16 gives the need for

this book perfectly. Everything points to its need,

especially with the world getting crazier by the day.

I love you all. God bless.

Elder Welch

New Companion

Yo yo. My week was great. Flew by again.

Ya water problems was annoying but we’ve
learned to be prepared in case it goes out,
which is does every few days so we keep a few
jerry cans full of water as well as some wash
bins full.

We have FHE’s almost every night here with
different families. Just last night we actually
had one at the new Second Counselor of the
Branch’s house. It was good. They fed us and we
watched the R.M.

The only time I eat fish here is if I go and get the
fish fillet at Park Villa. I don’t buy things in bulk
for the week but I’ll just buy something and prepare
it for that night, or something I can just eat. I don’t
do much shopping still haha. Yes I still hate it.

The mosquitoes here don’t bite during the day, only
at night so I don’t have to wear mosquito repellent or
anything like that. We’re also getting our furniture
today possibly, I did get my bed this last week though
which was really nice.

So this week went by fast. Monday was just regular
P-Day but on Tuesday and Wednesday we had trainings
for the new way we are supposed to teach and prepare
as missionaries. I gave one of the trainings on Wednesday
which was for an hour and it was in front of the whole
Jinja and Mbali zones. It was about 45 minutes long and I
was scared the Mission President would say something
bad about it but he didn’t. He actually told me
“your training was good, I expect nothing less than that
from you though.” So I was glad that he thought that even
though I wrote down the wrong scripture to close with
and felt stupid. The scripture was ironically about how
the Holy Spirit will bring things back to your
remembrance and I could not remember it!
Tuesday I was also able to go on an exchange with
Elder D who is one of the four AP’s. He’s a cool guy
and has about 3 months left.

Thursday was the first day with my new companion!

His name is Elder M and he’s a local missionary from

Kampala. His mission call is to Detriot, Michigan and

his reporting date is January 4^th I believe so he’ll be a

local missionary until than. He’ll enjoy the cold.

It’s good to have him around though to translate for all

of the people who claim they don’t know English into

Luganda.

Saturday we had our baptismal interview for S.

I learned more about him from this occasion than I

ever had before. I didn’t even know he was married!

Really showed how I need to ask better questions!

Sunday we had the baptism for S. The water was

only about a foot and a half feet deep again so he had

to sit to be baptized by Farouq. I felt bad because he

wanted me to because he didn’t really know anyone

in the church that well but I told him how we wanted

a member to do it. I’ve been the one missionary who

was able to be with him throughout the whole time he

was taught. His friend, J, was also supposed to be

baptized but he didn’t feel prepared so he’s going to

be next week. Next week in Bugembe we have like

6 baptisms set up so hopefully all goes to plan.

It’s going to be a struggle to find baptismal clothes

for all the people though.

This morning we also had a zone activity so we

played volleyball at the Jinja chapel. It was fun

but I got a little sun burnt. It’s Elder Fs last P-day

too on mission so we’re going to grab some good

lunch and stuff for his last one here. That guy is

pretty cool so I’m going to have Clay chill with

the guy. They’ll get along because they both

like guitars and longboarding and all that other

boring crap. Well that’s the week for me.

Later!

Elder Welch

No water week :(

Ephesians 2:19-20 I think. Look what the foundation
of the church is. The scriptures both Old, New,
and Another all convince me of the
truthfullness of the church each, and every day!

So we’ve moved in well. We still don’t have the
new beds or the new furniture we were planning on
but all is well. It’s in the same neighborhood as
our house before, just about 200 yards up the road.
It is actually a really nice place so that’s why
everyone around here probably thinks that we are
just rich as can be or something but it
turns out the house costs about 250 dollars a month
to rent. That’s nothing if you were in the U.S. so
our money is going far here.

The fish and chips here are good. They have almost
everything there is back in the States too like
Pringles salt and vinegar chips and stuff.
Those are pretty expensive here, well probably about
what they are back in the U.S. but 3 dollars for a
can of chips is too expensive for me to buy them often.

The baptism was kind of funny and I should have at
least taken a picture of what it looked like but it
slipped my mind. I’m really glad
we were able to accomplish it though.

It actually is the rainy season right now.
It rains at least every other day lately but it is
just hard to put your finger on exactly
when the rainy season is. Since we’re on the equator
the rainy season changes on occasion. The temperature
is the same all the time though but a little bit
cooler when it rains which is really nice.

Sundays are always great. This last one we had a goal
to have 18 investigators come to church but we were sad
when only 9 came.

So this week we’ve had some new goals from mission
president we were trying to accomplish. 30 other lessons
a week, 12 new investigators every Sunday, 20 contacts
a day, and 33 baptisms for the Jinja zone by
the end of September. Some of them are a bit hard,
especially the 12 new investigators every Sunday but
we will do our best to accomplish
them. We’ve been busy trying to do all of that this week.

So Tuesday we ate breakfast at the Shipley’s which
was delicious. They made us omelets and it was legit.
The only bad thing was that morning
we had absolutely no water and we wouldn’t get it
back until Friday night. That was hard. One of the
pictures is of the water I had to use
to bathe in a few times in a row. Gross I know but,
at least I was bathing right?

The rest of the week was pretty basic with just
lessons and contacting.
I show the pictures of you guys and the rest of
the family often to investigators and members of
the church so they can see that we are
normal and have families too.


Elder Welch

Where the Nile Begins...

It's pretty good here in Uganda.
This week was very much
more interesting in a lot of ways so I hope
I can remember all the crazy things that happened.
We did move into our new place on Tuesday.
It is much nicer than our old place. We spent the
whole day cleaning and moving things up the hill to
the new place with the help of the couple
companionship.

Last Tuesday we spent the entire day moving into
our new place. It was a lot of things even though it
seemed like we had nothing. Maybe it's just because we
had to move everything ourselves. We also
had a celebratory burning of one of our old wicker
shelves that was completely ruined, so don't worry,
that's what the pictures with the
fire in them are.

Wednesday we finished things up and had Elder U be
with Elder B and myself in Bugembe. The other zone
leader and him spent the night at our place Tuesday
and we went on exchanges for the next day.
It was good switching things up a little and seeing
how others contact and teach.

On Thursday we all went to Jinja for a Zone Development
meeting which was good and went out to eat with some
of the other missionaries at a
place called Park Villa. It's the place in Jinja I like
to eat the most and isn't too expensive. I got fish and
chips there like I always do. Everytime I get it though
I ask for vinegar and the people think
I'm mad. They think it's weird I put it on the chips and
fish. One of these times I'm just going to ask for the
Vinegar and then just sniff it and give it back to them
or something. I feel like that's what they
expect me to do anyways.

Friday we just had weekly planning and correlation meeting
but still ended up with about 7 lessons which is good.
We even made it to Jinja for Elder M birthday at Two Friends.
That restaraunt was expensive! It was like 6000 shillings
for a milkshake and 1500 just for a soda. The food was pretty
good anyways. That seemed like the Mazungu hotspot. Over
half the people at that place were white.

Saturday we had to make sure and hunt down David for his
baptismal interview. That seems to have to happen everytime
we are planning on baptizing someone as the devil tries
his hardest to stop it from happening. This time seemed
like he worked the hardest though. It started to rain right
before we were supposed to have the interview,
David started getting sick with Malaria, and even on Sunday
we realized the water wasn't filling the tank from the night
before so the water was just a little over a foot deep.
What we had to do was I had to kneel in the tank and David
had to sit as I baptized him. So things went off regardless
no matter how hard satan tried. Good always
triumphs over evil. I actually wasn't originally supposed
to baptize David but Saturday night I was laying in bed and
David calls and says he's changed his mind and wants me
to baptize him. It would have been too hard to say no,
that we wanted a member to do it over the phone so
I just said ok. It was good to have that baptism especially
after I forgot to teach David the W.O.W. last week.
I think my companions were more happy about it because
they haven't had too many baptisms on
their side so they were happy to count David as one of
theirs even though I don't think they've taught the guy
more than once or twice
haha.

We also had 13 investigators come to church on Sunday
and the fast and testimony meeting was awesome!
My favorite part was when 2 children
bore their testimonies and it really shows how the church
is growing here. It was the best part of my week to
tell you the truth. There were also a lot of other great
testimonies and thankfully none of them
seemed to weird as to scare off any of the 13 investigators
we had.

Sunday night we also met an awesome family who lives a
few houses down from us. A guy named Godfrey and his 4
sisters sat as we taught them about the Book of Mormon.
This Godfrey guy had 2 friends from Bugembe
who were serving in Kenya and South Africa and told us he
believed us and knew what we were teaching him was correct.
Their family was super nice and it was cool because they
actually had a pretty nice home,
which we aren't used to teaching in.

And finally today was the best day of the week.
This morning we went to the source of the Nile River with
the  missionaries from Njero. Itwas awesome!
It cost 5000 to get just into the place but it was so
sweet to see where the worlds largest river made its start.
I got a lot of good pics from that, I hope I am able to
send all of them today. We also after getting some cool
pics started to 'contact' some
monkeys. We also got to feed them and chase them around.
It was pretty funny.

So that was my week.

I wish you could be here and see everything that I get
the opportunity to see as I'm doing the work of the Lord.
Also you guys should read the book of Revelations again.
I read that book in depth this last
week and wow! As Mormons we know so much more about that
book than anyone else in the world. Going to the temple
helps me understand half
that book so much more,

God Bless! The Church is true.

I’ll just say that this has been a weird week here
for the missionaries in Bugembe. My companion Elder M
actually had to be retransferred up to a threesome
in Kampala so we’ve been in a threesome between all
of us Mazungu missionaries here since Monday
night. The work has been a little harder to do since
the three of us have to be together to cover the two
areas. The work has slowed a little bit but we’re still
working hard and I should be getting a new
companion soon. The one I should be getting is from
Mango which is a suburb of Kampala so he is a native
Ugandan. It will be nice to have someone who knows Luganda
but the only problem is he won’t know
anything about Preach My Gospel.
So I’m pretty much training now. He has only been
a member for probably a little over a year. It will be
nice though. If you’re training they say you are a father
of that person, but since he is a local they say I will be
his step-father instead? Haha.

Still haven’t moved into the new place but we are hoping
very soon. We walked past the new place and it looks
amazing now though. They’ve repainted the whole building,
walls, and the gate. It looks very nice
and will be nice living in a home that is safe from animals.
We will also be getting new beds, mattresses, nets, and
even furniture. I’m excited to move in. The old place was
only infested with a few bugs and a few other things haha.

So on Monday of this week we just had a family home evening
at the church like we always do which was fun. It’s nice to
get the teenage members there so they can all make friends
and to be able to see some new investigators. We played
volleyball in the church “parking lot.” I
also found out that this branch has 11 missionaries out
from it so it’s nice to see the work is progressing well
enough to progress it in other areas.


On Thursday we met a guy named F who wanted to become
Christian and be baptized. We taught him and we met with
him two days in a row but the third day he sadly wasn’t
there. He’s pretty legit though and
is definitely one person who has been prepared to hear
about this. We almost didn’t even contact him but we got
delayed looking for something and we just started talking
to him.

This whole week we also tried contacting at least
20 times a day and often got up to around 40. We
contacted probably about 150 people throughout the week
and we were hoping to see a few at church because
of all of our labor. It is kind of hard and depressing
a little bit to see that at church not a single one of
those people showed up. Even a
lot of our investigators didn’t show but it seemed
like all the kidsnwe “contacted” came. There were like
30 children there at church.
It was pretty insane in the membrane.


Sunday was good again. We had about 94 people attend
sacrament. It’s a good thing all those kids came!

So the pictures I sent are many. I hope you get them all.
Some are of cats, dogs, and those are monkeys in those
trees just look very closely. We worked hard as you can
see trying to preach to every“creature” on the earth.
We took a lot of pictures from the big hill that our
house is on. The pictures are of
Bugembe as well as Jinja in the distance. I took some
pictures of our house and the new house as best as I
could as well from the top.  There are also a
few pictures I had Elder Benson take of Elder
Doney and myself contacting someone.

Everything is going awesome. I love hearing about how
things are going there in the States.

Keep the faith. The answers are there
just look for them.

Love,

Elder Welch