Valentines Day

Happy V-Day !
They actually do celebrate Valentines day here.
I’ve noticed signs for parties for it and people
selling flowers and chocolates. If there
was a holiday which had to do with a man and a
woman being together, they will celebrate it.
They are very for that kind of stuff it seems.

The weeks been good. A lot of teaching and such like
usual. There were some highlights though. We’ve
continued to work with A’s family lately but the only
thing is she wants to be baptized so
much but can’t, because her and her ‘husband’ have been
living together for over 22 years not legally married.
At the very least we will get her 4 children baptized.
She even came to the church on Saturday to help clean
and she’s not even a member!

We have another guy named B who is really smart and just
the right age to go on mission in a year. He’s 18 and
really loves the Book of Mormon. He has two siblings who
are actually members who moved away.
We took a little trip this last week to see his 86 year
old, former Anglican Preacher, father to see if it would
be ok for him to be baptized. His father was soooo happy
to see us and gave his blessing for B to join the church.
We gave them a few copies of the Book of Mormon and he
said he would read it. I don’t think missionaries have
ever been to where we were on Saturday haha. The town B
was from was really nice though and they should get
missionaries there asap!
The town had all nicely paved roads, no garbage anywhere,
and it was quiet. Much different than anywhere missionaries
are now in Uganda.

Sunday wasn’t too bad. Church attendance wasn’t like last
week and we didn’t have quite as many investigators there
because of some personal incidents I guess. We did have 7
there though and it was good to see
them. The literacy class we started last week is going
great and the women that we have in there are powerful.
These mothers of these families are very legit women and
gives some nice age to this previously YSA ward. We even
saw J and D later that night
and they fed us which was an answer to my prayer because
I didn’t have any food at the apartment and I prayed that
we would get fed that night. Thank goodness! Haha.
We also gave J and D a Book
of Mormon stories book and they love it. They are almost
done with it and understand the Book of Mormon so much
better because of it. What a genius thing. It’s only 1000
shillings here too which is a little less
than 50 cents.

Today we’re going to the American Recreation Area and it
should be a good time. I think we’re going to play basketball
and other stuff there possibly? I don’t really know what to
expect. Well that’s been the week. This next week isn’t going
to be much work but we will at
least be safe. I hope things don’t get too crazy here but the
‘President’ here has been ruling for 30 years just like the
Egyptian President. The roads and stuff were actually cleaner
and nicer back when
Idi Amin was around. Kind of sad….

I know the work is so true. This last
week our Mission President trained us on the story of the
sowers in the New Testament. The parable of the seed being
sown by the sower onto 4 different types of ground. We’ve
been trying to read it with our investigators lately and
it’s a great story to help motivate them
into being the last good seed, which is the one that endures
to the end. I encourage you all to read it and ask yourselves
which seed you are really being, and which kind of fruit you
are bringing forth, whether 30, 60, or 100. It’s in Mark 4
and in the other gospels in other places. Read it and apply it.
It will motivate you to be a
better member of the church.
Love,

Elder Welch

The work is good and the transition is great.
The transfer has started great and I’ve seen the
greatest miracles since I’ve been on my
mission this week.

I think you’re right about me staying here is a
blessing. There are so many great families we’ve
found just this last week!

So another blurry week. Monday I received Elder M
and we were able to see each other again. I had
seen him a bit when we were both
in Jinja together and he’s a cool guy.

Tuesday I basically showed him a little around
the area which was nice.

The real blessings came on Wednesday when A
our recent convert, came to Kampala from Kanungu
(9 hours away). He was meeting
with President but we were blessed having him for
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. He showed us many
of his friends and family members and it
was awesome. He showed us many people who seemed
just ready to be baptized and trusted him so much.
He told me how he just is surprised
at how he has this power to persuade people and
help them believe what he was saying. I told him
that was the Priesthood he has been given,
and how he needs to always be worthy to have that
power with him. He
uses it well! The fruits of it happened on Sunday.

On Sunday we had 91 people at church. That’s about
20 more than usual and it was all because of the
Priesthood God has given, especially to
Abusolom and how he has used it to it’s full potential.
For our side we had 16 investigators there, not
including all of their kids. It was
about 4 families A has showed us. Even J and D
came from his influence. We have about 10 baptismal
dates set right now, 5 of them coming from a referral
J and D gave us. A woman named A who lives near
them was very interested in the
Gospel and was converted immediately it seems. She
has 4 kids who we plan on baptizing probably on
the 27th. They were supposed to be for
the 20th but I don’t think that will happen now
since we are supposed to stay indoors for the
17th to the 20th because of elections and just
to be safe.

Also, F was baptized. The water was low so they
had to do it a couple times but it was still great.
A ton of people were there for
the baptism too so that made me happy, I just hope
they weren’t scared when they saw they were baptized
a few times and were scared when they
came out haha.

Later last night, Brother C, the 1st counselor
who works at the Embassy, invited us over for dinner.
It was great and it was good seeing him. He’s the man
and made us this awesome lasagna dish. It
was like being in the U.S. for a few hours. We even
watched some planet earth on his blueray player which
was awesome!

Even today we went to this place called wonder
world. It’s an amusement park in our area and it
was cool. It was closed though but
we still walked around it and we even were able
to use the go karts they had there. I kind of messed
the wheel up on the one but that only
got us more time on the go karts! It was fun and a
nice break for our P-day. Now we’re emailing.

So I hope you are all doing great and know that I
love you all so much. The church is so true and the
blessings are very great for those
that wish for Heaven here on Earth. I’m starting
to realize that it is easy to receive the blessings,
all we have to do is follow the
councils of our Heavenly Father as the prophets
and scriptures speak for him. I love the scriptures
so much and I’m thankful for the hope
and knowledge they provide.

Elder Welch

So the boy that we baptized this Sunday is awesome.
During the baptismal service the Bishop talked
about him and how impressed with him he was and how
smart he is. He said he was going to be a future
leader not only in the church but in
other areas of life. Even the Relief Society
President said he knows too much, but in a good way.
It’s just sad and unfortunate that he’s
lost his parents and hasn’t been able to go to
school for a year. His sister has been taking care of
him and her two kids as well. He’s been a real asset
in translating the lessons into a
language that his sister could understand.

So this weeks been another great blurry week.
Mainly lessons and preparation for baptisms.
On Friday Elder Tuttle came and interviewed
F, J, and D for baptism. They all passed which was
great.

Saturday we had a Zone Activity/Party for a few
wards in Makindye. It was a pretty good party and a
lot of people came. It was fun and we
even got transfer news there. The pictures we took
are pictures of the Nsambya zone.

We found out that I will be staying here in Nsambya
for another transfer or two maybe. I will
be getting Elder M who is from Zimbabwe and finishes
his mission after this transfer. I’m killing him so
that’s probably why I will be
in Nsambya for another transfer after this.

Sunday was great. J and D were baptized and were
excited.
F was there but he was thinking his baptism was for
next Sunday so we will have it than. It’s good
because we still had the District
goal of 10 for the month. Again, all those were
from Elder C and me. We also had a lot of great
investigators come to church on Sunday
so we’re hoping to have those people baptized over the
next few weeks.

Well that’s the week. Another blurry not so exciting
one but we are getting the work done.  I’m so happy that
you have raised me in the church to be the man I am.
Stay classy.

Elder Welch

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