Work Progressing With Haste and Greatness...

Hey family,

I hope that everything is going well and that things are running smoothly!!  Africa is still awesome and the work is progressing with haste and greatness!!  We have some people that are going to be getting baptized hopefully in the upcoming weeks and that they will continue on in the church!!  Not too many things going on other than the baptisms and sports here!!  The Comp is great he is a greenie but still pretty good and yes I am training him for the time being he is waiting for a visa also for South Africa!!  So it will be different but I might only get him for a short time as well!!  He is good though and a little better than the last one because I am going from teaching English to having someone that understands me and can talk with me fluently!!  His family is good he comes from a family of 5 him and 2 sisters one older and one younger!!  I am definitely getting along with him and we are working well with him!!!  

Yes I have received the letters from the reunion this week and it was nice to be able to sit down and read them!!  Thank you to all who wrote letters they were all awesome to read!!  Yes I met Laura Sunday at church and she said she was from Utah and that she wanted to send a picture and a text to my family so I gave her your number!!  She is a really nice lady with two sons on mission!!  She was very sweet!!  The comp is good at soccer and is having fun being able to play a little bit here!!  I am sorry to hear about the passing it is always hard when that happens and definitely hard on the family let them know that they will be in my prayers!!  The rain sounds awesome too bad it won’t rain here and if i can make a suggestion to you all I would build an ark before I start trying to figure out how to grow gills haha plus you would look weird!! 

That is awesome to hear that Ben and Ben both received mission calls that will be exciting to see how it goes and how they will be doing!!! Could you get Wyatt’s email so I can be talking with him if that is ok!!  Tyler stout is going to Argentina on his mission and I am really excited for him to be going!!  I don’t think I will have photos this week but I will try and get some for next week!!  I hope that you all will enjoy General Conference and that it will be edifying and spiritual for you all!!  Have a great week to the family and friends!!  Love all of you!!

Elder Welling

Baptisms Lined Up and More Pics..

Hello Family,

The week has been good and the days are going by quickly!!  It is really weird it seems like I just emailed yesterday so it is good!!  Anyway I did get a new comp this week Elder Bakari went to Uganda with his pals!! The new comp is Elder Ford!!  He is from the UK and is a little shorter than me, no joke!!  He is my color so it is nice, plus I can speak my normal English and he gets it!!  Anyway I am excited because we have 4 baptisms lined up for October 5th and it will be awesome.  I hope they don’t transfer me before that day!!  The heat here is still pretty hot but the rainy season is approaching and it will be better!!!  We are working hard in the area and it is weird I have been a long time in this area so it is weird!!  All the elders that we are staying with are awesome and we are getting along!!!  Other than this all is well and going good!!!

I am glad that you all enjoyed the temple dedication; it is too bad that I missed it and that it happened before I got back. That would have been cool to go too!!  It is also crazy that Katie got called into homecoming royalty that is pretty awesome!!  Congrats to her!!  It is cool to hear about the sports going on there especially the little boys hahaha it is pretty funny!!  Congrats too Dad and the uncles for the first place prize, I figured you guys would get that, I haven’t ever tasted better cooked meat anywhere other than up hunting!!!  Too bad I wasn’t there to taste them I am sure they were excellent!!  Plus I have not had any beef in over 5 months and it is kind of sucking they have a lot of chicken here though!!

I will send the pics of the new comp today and then you will be able to see!!  Um I hope all will be going good there this week and that mom will be able to get all the nice decorations out!!  They were always fun to look at!!  Happy birthday to Grandpa Hatch and Kaden, hope they have some great birthdays and all will be fun!!  I am sorry that I don’t write a lot but this is the main thing that I have for this week!!  Oh and that the spiders I am finding in this new flatte are huge and I Have killed over 6 now they are everywhere and very fast!!  Anyway love you all and have a great Monday and week!!!

Elder Welling

Work Progressing....And Pictures

Hello Family!!

So to start the companion is good and he is getting better!!  His English is coming along great and he is able to understand most things now.  He is still having trouble reverting the words to come out of his mouth correctly and in a good order!!  We are getting a long and we are moving along in the work so it is fun!!  I think he could be with me for a little longer but we will see how it goes!!!  The investigators are pretty good like I said we are in a tough area and the teaching pool is getting changed almost every week!!  So we shall see how things will be going!!!  Um we thought we had another one progressing but then he stopped keeping commitments so he couldn’t be baptized!!!  Is that how much came off my account?   I am not sure that that should be the amount that was supposed to come off!!  Unless the transactions were 2 weeks apart then it is correct!!  I thought I calculated and took only $80 off this last week but that should have been it. Keep an eye on it.  I shouldn’t need any money for a while to come I have all the things I need!!  

Yes I think that I am going to try and re-size the photos so that they fit in the size to send, if not I will figure out how to better do it on Facebook!!  The general authority that came was Elder Malache from South Africa he is awesome and taught a lot about different subjects!!  It was a great learning experience for me and others!! Yes Christmas will be different without snow and yes I will let you know how it goes and how it will be!!!  hahaha Wow mom, without a coke for 6 months I am impressed extremely!!  I have a coke at least once a day here and the best part is it is only about 50 cents in American money they are so awesome!!! haha  They also started to sell Mt Dew down here which is awesome so now I can have that as well!!! hahahaha

I didn’t get a copy of that picture on my camera so save the Facebook one and all will be well!!!  It sounds like a lot is going on there and they all sound fun but I hope all of you will have fun with all the stuff that you will be doing there!!!  Yes the area is getting a little old that I am in but it is still good I just feel like I have been in the area forever!!  It has been good though we are trying to get at least one more baptism in this area before transfer news comes again!!  The Ogden temple dedication should be awesome wish I could be there to go to it!!  I have seen pics of the remodeling so I am sure it looks awesome!!  Also good luck to all those participating in the homecoming this year I am sure it will be fun!!  Oh and 30 people at hunting this year what is going on?  Did you guys decide to have a party up there because I am gone hahahahaha!!  Anyway I hope that you all have a good week and that everyone will have fun love you all!!!

Elder Welling

Question:  Are you learning to cook the local cuisine so you can cook it for us when you get home?

Answer:

Yep dried caterpillars and small fish you can eat all you want when I get home!!

Some Pictures for the week....

Things are going well...

Hello Family,

Africa is still awesome and things are going pretty well other than the heat!!  I am sorry to hear that mom is sick and that the football team lost!!  It is too bad we can’t get a win against Gillette It is ok though Evanston holds the most state titles out of the two schools for basketball in the last few years!!  The work is good and there are many that are making progress!!  Oh don’t worry if I get transferred just send stuff to the mission home and it will get to me!!!  No Facebook pics they take just as long to upload so it is hard to get all of them up but I am talking to some people to see how I can do it faster!!!  I am hoping they move me to a different area but we shall see what will happen!!!  Yes my companion is going to Uganda, but I will at least have another month with him so it will be ok!!!  Also I pulled some money off card so I could dry clean suit and do some other things with it!!  Tell Jordan I said Hi back and tell him congratulations for me!!!  I am now 6 months and it is crazy to think that it went by so quick; people here say the next year goes by even faster so it will be interesting to see if it is true!!!

The fall weather sounds nice and I wish there could be some of that down here for a change!!  I unfortunately am getting use to the heat so we will see how it goes when I get back!!  Um the phone thing that mom was talking about I don’t care what happens that phone is a lot of money and I don’t know if Kaden should use it for his first phone!!  As long as the music is preserved I don’t care but if the music is gone when I get back there might be a problem with me!!!  Uh I am glad though everyone is doing pretty well at school and that things are starting to get good!!  I missed the hunting meeting for the first time in I think 8 years but it is ok I hope it was fun!!!  Anyway I would appreciate it if the bullets that I bought the Barnes ones were not used for the ones that Kaden will be using!!!

That game that is going around the high school is sad!!  It is too bad that some of them could be LDS!!  I mean it is nothing new though it was going around when I was there but they were not making a game out of it!!!  I hope that they are able to fix it and get on with their lives though!!  Anyway I hope mom gets feeling better and that everyone will have a good week!!!  I know I don’t write as much as I should but I am running out of things to say!!  The comp is good and he is learning English and getting better but Somebody knew that I needed to work on my patience hahaha  Training is going good and it will continue to be good till I finish!!

There is a general authority coming this Saturday so it should be pretty awesome to listen from him and see what he has to say!!  Hopefully he will tell us some things that will be helpful to us as missionaries!!!  Anyway it is pretty good and all is going well here!!  I hope all things will be good there and let me know how the week will go!!  Love you guys and have a great week!!!

Elder Welling

Birthday Requests...

Hello Family!!!

Yes mom to start out I have got the recipe and I will be using it thank you for that stuff!!!  Anyway the b-day package there is not much more that I need other than the food!!!  Anyway I want to say that I am sorry about the pics they are being very stupid and I am going to try and try today to get some up but for the last couple of weeks we have been going to a weird and slow emailing shop so I will see!!  Also thank you dad for going through and deleting those posts!!  I thought I had logged off and that it was completely gone I will make sure that it is completely gone this week!!!  Anyway Africa is good and the heat is terrible!!  I don’t think my body will ever get use to the heat it is bad!!  Actually mom I did think of something you could add to the package a giant pile of snow and some ice!!! hahahahaha!!  Also I am wondering if you could have Nathan ask Coach Barker how much athletic tape is and see if he can get me some!!  We play soccer and I have hurt my ankle quite a number of times so it would be nice to have some support for when we play!!  Um other than that I have been in the same area for 6 months now and it is getting a little tiring but the work continues and everything will be going ok!!  Driving down here is still crazy!!  I drove into town today on a mini bus which are those small buses that they cram everyone into!!  Well we got onto a main highway with 4 lanes, there are no lines on the road and people are everywhere!!!  I am not kidding it looked like I was in the middle of a demolition derby except we were trying to dodge the oncoming traffic and the near hits from cars going the same way!!!  I am a little scared to drive here hahhaha  If you can imagine this you would know what it feels like to drive here!!!!

Other than this everything is going good and it has been another good p-day here in Zambia!!  I miss going to Grandma Welling’s for breakfast but it is ok I hope that you guys will enjoy the parade and the lunch and things that you will be doing!!!  It sounds like the little boys are enjoying their sports and that they are doing pretty well!!!  I hope that school is ok for everyone and stress will be down!!!  Well I came across some scriptures that dad might think is funny so I thought I would share them!!!  Prov 21:9, 19!!  I don’t mean any harm just thought they were funny!!!  Um I am glad that people are enjoying the blog and hopefully they will continue to enjoy it!!  Like I said my companion is pretty cool and he is big!!  He likes to wrestle and to have fun!!  He is crazy and is always looking for opportunities to wrestle!!  The funny thing is he never has won so I feel pretty good considering he is bigger than me!!!  Oh that is pretty scary to think that Kaden will be carrying a gun this year he seems like he is smaller than both Nate and I were when we started!!  ha-ha  I hope that he will be ok and that he will enjoy this year!!!  I also laugh because now dad you can’t sit in camp you have to take Kaden out since I am not there hahaha!!!!  There will be no standing around the fire and talking till ten you will have to go up the trail hahaha!!!

I am glad to hear that the football team actually had a win I didn’t expect them to do better than last year’s team but we shall see how they do!!!!  Well there isn’t much more for me to say I don’t usually say a lot and this week isn’t any different!!!  I am learning a lot and i am happy to be out here serving!!  I hope that you all have had a great weekend and that you will have a great day!!!  When I figure out the pics thing I will try to send them and get them out to all of you!!  Hopefully I will have some more stories for you next week and that the stories I get next week will be good as well!!!  Love all of you talk to you next week!!!!!

Elder Welling

Letter From Mission President