So the week has been good. I finally figured out something that when
the kids have been calling me “swazzinigga” which I was very confused
about, they have been meaning Schwarzenegger. I was like ok that
makes a lot more sense, I was very confused why they had called me
that for the longest time until I saw his name written on someone’s
wall and they pronounced it that way.

So the week was good. We’ve just been teaching the good investigators
we’ve had to weed out throughout the weeks and we’re preparing about 4
of them for baptism this upcoming week. They are P , Al , D ,
and U . P is a pretty smart lady and she’s not bad on the eyes
if I do say so myself. She’s a referral from a woman who just became a
local missionary and I think it sparked P’s interest in the
gospel. She’s about 21 and we’ve been seeing her often the last two
weeks to prepare her for his baptism.

A is still a work in progress and we are hoping he can forsake all
the wicked things he’s been accustomed to with his friends.
We are hoping he will be ready by Friday when we will have to have the
baptisms because of Stake Conference.

D and U are two young men from the orphanage. I don’t know if
mentioned but the orphanage owners are recent converts as well and I
even interviewed the man who owns the place for baptism. This will be
the 6th young men baptized from that orphanage. They are good kids but
they have lived part of their life on the street so they are
accustomed to a few shocking things we’ve told them they must forsake.

On Thursday we had a Zone Development Meeting and it went well until
we got a call that their were mass protests all over Uganda.
Apparently the opposition leaders staged a “walk to work day” and the
government of course was pissed at any sign of resistance so they were
tear gassing, shooting, and arresting people who were involved in
walking to work. The opposition leader, Besigye, was shot in the hand
and is in jail right now. People are pretty mad but things are
remaining somehow peaceful as of now. Needless to say that day we were
ordered to stay inside so since the meeting was in Mengo, all the
Elders came to our flat. It was pretty fun actually because we had
monopoly at the house so all of us Americans played that. I of course
won but apparently I cheated everyone. We played again, and again I
won. I was again accused of cheating everyone though. That’s business
right?

Saturday we started watching General Conference and it was awesome! I
loved this conference. We also had the baptisms of Joy and Lillian on
Saturday after the sessions.

On Sunday we finished up watching the sessions of conference and
L and Jwere confirmed. I loved Richard G. Scott’s talk and it
honestly makes me just want to get married. That is the kind
of marriage I want to have and even though his talk was all about his
wife, I absolutely loved it. I also liked Elder Holland’s of course
like usual, even though it was mainly him talking about President
Monson haha. Overall I just loved watching it and it makes me realize
I was so stupid about watching it for the first 19 years of my life. I
will definitely not sleep through it again (right Clayton!).

Overall the week was good and things are winding up for this transfer
so that we can start a new one afresh starting next week. I love you
all and hope you all know how much I care about all of you. I think
about you all constantly and you’re always in my prayers. Keep the
faith and seek after that which is good. Wickedness never was
happiness
Elder Welch

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

Elder M is my new companion and he’s
been out about 6 and a half months? He’s been
a member for a while, his brother is an RM and
kind of set the example for him. I think only
his father isn’t a member but his mom and
younger brother are also. We’re getting along
great, he’s a hard working guy. All Africans
that serve here go to the
South Africa or Ghana MTCs.

The week has been good. A lot of teaching and
stuff but nothing too exciting. We had a DDM on
Wednesday and the AP’s came (Elder R and Elder
D) as well as four branch missionaries
so it was a good DDM of 10 people. Back in
Nsambya I was used to their just being 4 of
us there for those.

Saturday I interviewed a guy from the sister’s
side and had to use an interpreter to interview
him but he passed and was pretty well
converted. A very emotional guy though because
when I asked him about his mother’s information
he said he didn’t know who she was and
started crying for a few minutes. Honestly though,
it was pretty sad and even now I can’t help but
tear up thinking about that kind of a
situation. Like I said to Stephanie, I don’t know
what all of us kids did in the Pre-existence to be
so blessed with having you both as our
parents.

A guy from our side was baptized.
He’s a great guy and will be a
great missionary someday.

On Sunday we had a pretty good service and I was
the impromptu teacher of the Elder’s quorum. I
was handed the Ensign or Liahona with
the talk by Elder Robert D. Hales on Agency and
told to teach it since the Elder’s quarom president
wasn’t there. That was about 30 seconds
before the lesson started… It went pretty well
nonetheless. It reminds me of that scene in The RM
movie where they compare Elder’s quorum and
Relief Society. The Relief Society always has a
display, handouts, music, and all that stuff and
they cut back to the Elder’s quorum and
they are all sitting there, no one has the manuals,
and the one guy teaching is just like we’ll be
reading the first 6 pages of the lesson
haha. Women really are what hold us men together.

We had the baptisms after and they were great,
again the guy from the sister’s side was scared
of water and pretty emotional for the
baptism. The S ’s were there for church as you
could see and were able to attend this baptismal
service.

Well that’s the week for me.
Keep the faith! The church is very true, we can
try and find reasons not to believe but in the end,
nothing justifies ‘a little
sin’.
Elder Welch

God did create a great world didn’t he?
Of course there has to be weeds though, otherwise
you wouldn’t appreciate as much the rest of the
yard, or how great the yard looks without them.
(2 Nephi 2:11) By the way, I’m starting to love
the scriptures. They are awesome. Mine are full
of side notes from studying now with all the
great words of God highlighted. I’ve also been
writing all the hymns next to their accompanying
verses in all the scriptures. I found in the back
of the hymnbook how it has all the scriptures in
chronological order with all hymns that have to do
with that particular scripture. I thought it was
kind of neat.

My new area is pretty close to my old area, they
are in the same zone of missionaries like I said.
I can see my old area from here, and I could see
this area pretty well from my old area. I’m still
adjusting but I’m starting to get settled. The only
problem is it’s been raining every day here for the
last week so I’ve mostly seen the ground of this
area as I made sure to not step in too many puddles.

Mengo is a branch still, and the Palace is somehow
on the other side of the area of Mengo we are in so
I haven’t seen it up close.

That bird at the beach is called a Goondy bird
(or so the missionaries say). Goondy in Luganda
means thing, which I think pretty accurately describes
that bird. I hear the spit on them is acidic!

So the week was good. A lot of figuring things out
as to the area and people but there are a lot of
faithful members of the church here. It seems like
a lot of people come and go as they are baptized
but there are a few people who remain faithful
throughout the years. We’ve even been having a few
family home evenings around here and they seem great.
The families we have them with are so close and much
better off than those who aren’t members of the
church, who don’t really have good relationships
with one another.

We had a good DDM on Wednesday and set goals for the
transfer. We agreed on 6 baptisms each from each side
to make 12 baptisms for the district. That would be
great to get that.
We’ve been teaching a lot of people at the church and
giving people baptismal dates right away, the first
time we meet them. It has been good.

Again like I said it’s rained pretty much every day
here for a few hours each day so that kind of delayed
us on some things.


On Sunday there were 5 confirmations and we had 61
people there for sacrament meeting. There is room
for improvement on that one so we hope to see more
people come each week. We also got a less active
recent convert to come this Sunday which was great.
It reminded me of the prodigal son story. Also I was
reminded of the parable of the man who built his
house on a rock and the one who built his house on
the sandy foundation. I related it too on Sunday how
it was drizzling a tiny bit, and yet so many people
didn’t come to church because of that. It really
shows what foundation they are built on if a tiny
bit of drizzle washes their house away. People
need to be truly converted, and not just joining
the church for personal gain. Like Jesus taught, and
the quote mom left, “he who saves his life shall lose
it, and he that loses his life for my sake shall find
it”. I love you all. Let’s lose our lives in the
service of our fellowman because when we are in the
service of others, we are truly in the service of
our God. (Mosiah 2:17).


Elder Welch

So this week I am getting transferred to Mengo.
I told Patty of how it got its name by being
the place where the “men go” to get drunk. That
was a while ago. I’ll be the District
leader there with Elder M, again another Elder
from Zimbabwe.
Mengo is in the same zone I am in now, and it
is very near where I am right now. I should be
picked up later today to head there. Another
crazy transfer.
The mission opened two
new areas in pretty far out places this transfer
as well with 4 missionaries in each area. We got
18 new missionaries this transfer
and only lose about 4. Rwanda was supposed to
open this transfer but they couldn’t get the
final paperwork done so I think that country
might open up next transfer for proselyting
missionary work.

I definitely feel the love from your emails
and packages. I made those pink pancakes this
morning by the way (a little late for
valentines day pancakes I know) and they were
pretty delicious. Thank you so much!

The rest of the week was good. We’ve been
seeing a lot of the recent converts this last
week and still trying to prepare a few people
for baptism in the next two weeks.

Sorry I just found out that they are coming to
pick me up. The week was good though. We were
able to have a zone activity on Saturday so
we all went to the beach and had some fun there
as well as found out the transfer news.
Sunday we said some final goodbyes and I bore
my testimony in sacrament meeting. Today we have
just been cleaning and packing things
to go. Mengo will be nice and that is now going
to be my new focus eh?
I will make sure to take pictures of the new house
there and everything. I hear the apartment is
very nice but the ward has been
struggling for a while with activity and
attendance.


Elder Welch

So the week was good. Mainly lessons all week.
On Thursday I went with Elder M to see a
family from a nearby area he had served in and
we had dinner with Elders Mo and B.

On Sunday we had church and we had 78 people
there. Church went pretty well but it is always
frantic for us missionaries. I always just want
church to be a great experience for our
investigators.

On Saturday we were able to work with the AP’s
in our area and Elder N from Zimbabwe worked
with Elder M and myself for the day.
It was pretty fun and we learned from the
veteran AP.

Keep up the faith and keep
being awesome!

Elder Welch