Birthday and P-Day Together....

Hello Family,

Thank you all for the birthday wishes and even all the cards from that last package that I was able to receive!!  It is very weird to be 20 and even to be out of the teens I am still trying to get use to this idea!!  Also to mom you might want to make sure it is higher than 6'3 because I have gotten taller since I have been out haha!!  Mission is going good and things are well!!  The week has been good and we are preparing 2 people for this week to be baptized I will get photos for you and things when that comes!!  The conference this week was good though, we got to listen to some general authorities!!  Elder Bednar and Elder Uchtdorf, I think I spelled their names wrong but it is ok!!  Anyway Other than this there was not much going on!!  The mission is going to provide a dinner this week for the missionaries in celebration but that is it for thanksgiving!!  I am going to miss the dinner there this week and all the yummy food and things that will be going on!!  Also todays activities will be fun it involves food and a lot of sports so I am excited I will be sure to take lots of photos and things for next week!!  Also I won’t be able to email those people mom this week I am out of time but if you can get me the emails I will be sure to write them both first next week!!  Tell them hi for me though and the love I have for both of them!!  

The bathroom sounds nice and I am sure it will be good by the time that it is done!!  I will be looking forward to seeing it!!  I received some pics from Katie and it looks really weird but it is coming along!!  I am in contact with Tyler he seems to be doing well and is doing good in the MTC I am glad he was able to stop by before he left!!  I hope that maybe you guys could send me a pic of the snow or two so I can remember what it looks like instead of hot weather haha!!  Also the redneck bathroom on the front lawn acting as the nome haha  That will be a funny pic to look at in the future lol!!  The drop box I will add to next week no worries this week I left the cable at the flatte and will need to have that in order to get photos uploaded!!  Again to the family try not to kill each other in the project I would like to still have everyone in tact when I get home!!  By the way you are litterally watching money go down the crapper hahahahahahaha  that was a joke for dad lol!!  

I hope you all will enjoy your week and the project you have embarked on I am sure it will be good!!  Have fun to all those who will be starting sports this week I am excited to see how you all will be doing with that!!  Have a great Thanksgiving dinner and a great holiday wish I could be there!!  Make sure someone eats a whole pumpkin pie for me and then sends me a pic of it!!  Enjoy your Monday and also to dad enjoy tithing settlement!!  Love you all!!

Elder Welling

The Rain is Coming...

Hey Family,

Well the week here has been really good and things are going well!!  Africa specifically Zambia is really hot and very humid!!  If it rains you stay wet until evening!!  The rain here is cool and it comes down!!  I always use to hear about the rains of Africa well haha they were not kidding when they say it comes down it really comes down!!  Me and my awesome companion Elder Ford were walking down the street with a few ugly looking rain clouds and some blue sky!!  Well as we were walking I told my comp " No worries it won’t rain" Well about 2 min goes by and a huge drop hits my comp!!  He turns to me and says are you sure!!  Well then all of a sudden we both can hear the pattering of the rain behind us and realize that the rain is going to hit us, we took off running at top speed toward shelter!!  It was pretty funny considering we are in white shirts and ties and running down the street and the rain chasing us!!  Then right after we hit shelter the Hail started hitting and they were the size of a quarter they were huge it was way loud!! 

There were no baptisms this week but there are two coming on the 30th of this month so I am excited for those!!  Also It feels like it is still the middle of the year they do not celebrate Thanksgiving over here and there is definitely no snow on the ground!!  So for the hot weather people Zambia is the place to be but i wish that some of that white stuff could fall here!!  Mom mentioned that some parts of Wyoming are hitting 20 below, I would kill for that here but if it happened here everyone that is living would die!!  I also really give kudos to the kids that are in school here they wear long sleeve button up shirts and sweaters over them to school as their uniform and I look at them and think why?

Anyway as I was reading emails I came across some interesting things!!  Thank you for the recipe i am going to try it this week!!  Also just a note to mom and dad, you guys might want to pray that Santa brings Kaden an xbox he obviously really wants one hahaha  The comp is still good and we are still getting along real well in all that we are doing!!  Well District leader is pretty good and fun I will eventually get used to all the things that are going on and that pertain to the call!!  Oh and it is quite funny here there are a lot of people who always say that they are going to the mountain to pray, Well I figured out that the mountain that is being talked about is a tiny hill probably no taller than half way up the hill that we sit on over looking the little jenny ranch where we go hunting!!  It is a small hill and these people here call it a mountain!!  I just started laughing because these people have never seen what a mountain looks like!!

So I need someone to check on the international driver’s license for me the one they gave me at AAA I think only lasts for a year and could be getting close to expiring so if you could go see if it can be renewed and send it to me please!!  It is so if they call me to be Zone leader i will need a license!!  There is nothing that was really that good this week that is interesting but I am hoping to have some better ones for this upcoming week!!  Also for the Drop box thing I am using it and some of the pics I took at the beginning of the mission will be the ones that are coming in because it started from the beginning downloading so we will see how far it gets!!  District conference is coming up so that should be pretty fun and all!!  Anyway have a good week to and a great Monday Love you all!!

Elder Welling

New District Leader and Pictures...

New District Leader

Hello Family!!

Well things are good here and going well!!  The week has been good and very eventful actually!!  Me and my comp Elder Ford are doing awesome and are still getting along just like brothers plus he is very funny!!  The baptisms are starting to come and all things are going great!!  The candidates received the spirit and it was a great experience!!  Also the other thing which was surprising but good at the same time I was called to be the District Leader of the district in the same area with the same comp and I am still training Elder Ford!!!  So it has been a weird but cool week!!!  I don’t know how long I will be in the area but it is pretty good and just for grandma I have been out longer than seven months now, I am in the 9th month as of right now and soon going to be pushing 10!!  It is really weird to think about and all!!

It is good that things are well at home and that you were able to find pics on Elder Fords blog I don’t have a lot of pics as he does and he has a faster way of getting them to his family it is called drop box!!  If someone can figure it out and let me know that would be awesome I will send some pics home today but not too many!!  Um I am also asking for dads chili recipe I am going to try it here and see how it is!!  We were able to provide service for a member for about 4 hours and it was fun other than I completely destroyed my hands because they don’t have gloves!!  I was thinking if someone could put gloves in the next package that would be awesome plus it would save me from picking at blisters hahaha!!!

Not much else that has been going on other than my bday is coming up and it is weird because it doesn’t seem like it and it will be even weirder to be 20 haha Other than this it is going fast!!  The weeks are going like a day here!!  Zone conference is coming up Wednesday and it should be really good hopefully!!  A lot has been changing here and it is awesome to be here as it is happening!!  Also the money was for the recent convert Bogoni he was having some trouble because the soccer team he was playing for stopped paying him and he couldn’t get a job so he asked for a little so that he could get himself back on his feet and then he would be able to pay me back he said some time in the next week or two so that is about that situation!!!  Last week was hectic but there will be a post there this week for sure!!  Anyway I hope everybody is doing well there and that you will all have a great day!!  Love you all!!

Elder Welling

More Baptisms...

Hello Family,

The week here has been a good one and the work continues to progress!!  So this week was good because we had two baptisms on Sunday and they were awesome I will send pics of them!!  Anyway they are 20 and 24 their names are Chitoshi and Kennedy they are awesome boys and they will be good!!  The baptism for them went well they were baptized by their uncle and grandfather so it was pretty cool!!  It is gaining on a long time in this area and it is getting better as well!!  If all goes according to plan we could have some more baptisms at least 3 or 4 before the end of the year so it is awesome!!  We will be having a zone conference again coming up the next week on Wednesday I think, so it will be interesting to see!!  Also next week there will be some kind of a service for our zone!!  Other than this the weeks are the same but moving very fast and things like that!!  So I haven’t mention much about the 50th year of independence so I will talk briefly about that!!

On the 50th Independence Day all the elders had a party in which we were able to go play basketball!!  This is the awesome part because when we showed up to play we had an African crowd that was about 100 people or so it was pretty awesome to play ball again!!  It was also awesome because I am able to dunk, I dunked it several times during the game and it was pretty cool the reaction that I was getting from the crowd afterward!!  I wish I could go play every week but it costs a lot of money to go play there but it was still fun to play and I figured out That I could still play even after 8 months of not playing!!  After ball we went and had a cook out which lasted for a while we basically partied missionary style haha!!  We grilled all sorts of meats and one elder made pizza!!  it was a pretty fun day!!

Me and the companion Elder Ford are doing well!!  We are still getting along and we are working real well together, it is too bad that he is just waiting for a visa!!  The weather is still blazing hot down here but these people keep telling me that the rains are coming and I can’t ever tell if they are telling me that to make me feel better or they are telling me the truth!!  Winter is actually not till June and July next year!!  So i will be waiting for that but i think by that time I will have climatized!  I will get the photos of this week to you and some things!!  I heard about the fiasco with the jail it is pretty funny and interesting especially about the small guy hahaha!!  Also tell Nate his pumpkin looks awesome!!

Other than all of this, say hi to all that I have not written to or replied!!  I hope that everyone will have a good week and things will go well!!  I love you all and Have a great Monday!!!

Elder Welling