Exciting News

To start out, I feel a little bad for last weeks email so if I wrote home bad emails individually its because I was super frustrated and I really regret basically everything I wrote home last week including personal emails. So sorry about all that. 

I have exciting news and I had a couple pretty cool experiences happen to me this week. Based off the fact like I got like 4 emails 3 being from the Dean family, I now know who loves me most. But I bring up that fact because if I write home short emails individually its because I wanted to make this email really good and detailed and make up for last weeks mess. 

SOOOOO exciting news is the Elder Holland is coming to our mission and speaking to us along with one of the members of the presidency of the 70! How freaking neat is that!!!! The conference with Elder Holland is the 13th of next month. Also to top it off, WE GET TO SHAKE HIS HAND AND TAKE PICTURES WITH THEM!!!! This is just great! So lucky of us and I'm super excited for that day! Idk if the conference will be in English or Spanish or what since I heard Elder Holland cant speak Spanish, but I would love it to be in English so I can hear his real voice and stuff! Ill let you know when I know more details of this matter. 

Okay cool experiences of the week. To start the family Maldonado is getting married this week I believe! Or for sure like Monday next week! Because they needed to take out this paper, Idk what paper. I've asked and didn't understand and I don't think I would even in English, But anyways they are taking that paper out on friday! And then getting married like saturday or like i said monday then baptism i think next saturday! I begged them to get married this past saturday but the paper held them back. I wanted to have my own little wedding here since I was missing Tyler's. Anyways we had a family night with the family maldonado saturday night and that was the first time I've ever cried I think since I originally left home. So the family night we had with them was with another member family. We made the topic of the night marriage and families are eternal, my two favorite. So when it got time for me to talk I bore I think the best testimony of my life on no empty chairs, how I know families are eternal, my testimony on marriage and how I know they are making the right decision. I believe the reason i cried was for a couple of reasons. Number one I was pretty upset all day saturday knowing all our family and Ivy would be at this wedding and I'm out here a zillion miles away walking in the freezing cold rain contacting and teaching lessons. Number two, don't want to make Ivy feel uncomfortable, but the whole lesson and day just made me think of Ivy. I just wanted that day home with the family and spending time with Ivy and yeah just so hard. Number 3 and last thing, is that i believe my strongest part of my testimony is in eternal marriages and in that families are eternal. So yeah i cried while bearing my testimony of these subjects. It was a little awkward, but it wasn't like I was sobbing but it was enough to make me pause every now and then so i could speak. Anyways the lesson went super well. The family is so awesome and in one year from their baptism i cant wait to see them and their 3 kids get sealed in the temple and have that eternal family that I KNOW with all my heart is true! Families are forever! 

Cool experience and last experience. So Saturday also we had our regular 3 month interviews with Our mission president! Man was that interview I had with him tan poderoso! So started out with me setting goals for the new year. One of them was to be a good spanish speaker by the time i facetime home again. He laughed at that but something I liked is he helped me set a plan of how I can accomplish all the goals I set for the upcoming year. Then he told me the coolest story. So he goes "elder welch, turn around" so I did and saw a picture of the first presidency of the church and he goes "I know everyone of those men personal and very well. They are very good friends of mine" (he worked directly with the first presidency for his job before the mission how cool!) then he goes "President Eyring is the smartest person I have ever met! The man is absolutely brilliant! But that guy can not learn Spanish!" so I laughed and I was thinking where is he going with this? then he goes "He was called to work in Mexico and to dedicate the Mexico temple" (don't remember exactly what it was but something that was enough that he felt the need to learn Spanish) then goes "he asked me if i would help him learn Spanish and I of course said yes. Then one day he said to me "I'm going to pray before we leave, but in Spanish. If I mess up correct me right then please"" He said "I was freaking out. A member of the 12 is asking me in the middle of a prayer to correct him when he messes up" he said "we knelt down at his desk in his office and he started to pray. and about every couple words he would smack my arm and I would say you're good, keep going." Then he goes on to talk about when president Eyring was dedicating a temple in Mexico and had a talk completely written out for him in Spanish and he just had to read it. My president says "at the end of the talk, a lady in the back who didn't speak English yells in English "Thank you elder Eyring! But learn to speak Spanish!" President Christensen said it absolutely crushed him. So now the point of my story. He goes on to tell me "you have been called to serve in the Spanish language by the Lord. He will qualify you to work in this language. Just keep working hard, praying for the gift of tongues and it will come" He told me another story but i don't wanna write another one out so I told you guys the cooler story. I know I'm making it sound like I cant speak. I can. Just not as well as I would like to. I told my president some days I understand and can speak so well and the next I struggle so much! He goes my wife has the same problem. She says it all leaks out on her pillow when she goes to sleep at night. so he told me "don't throw away your pillow" haha anyways that interview was so awesome. 

Saturday was a super hard day for me and I believe that is why I had so many spiritual experiences that day. I miss everyone back home especially my family, the Dean family, and Ivy. My time will come to see you all again soon until then pray for me PLEASE! I'm so happy for you Tyler and Karli! I know marriages are forever! I know your guys future family is not only for the short time on this Earth but for eternity because you got married in the temple! I can not wait for my turn to be married and to go to the temple. Until then i will keep working hard and helping others know these freaking amazing truths! The church is true! I love you all thanks to those who wrote me! Cant wait to talk to you all next week!

Otavaleño ties! The Otavaleños are straight decedents of the Lamanites! THESE TIES ARE MADE BY THEM! Almost every one of this group you teach will be baptized! So much that when my mission president served here they would promise them that they would receive a dream that night if they prayed! These are for dad tyler and dustin! If anyone wants one ask me and I'll buy you one! 

This girl I call my sister! There is a place in Monobi Ecuador its name is chone and its where I tell people I'm from! Shes from there and thats what they look like! 

Week 1 in the New Sector

Man has this been a LONG week yet fast one too. Let me explain why its been long so I can get all the negativity out of the way. To start off, I changed my mind. Me and this companionship is not working out let me tell you what. Never in my life have I ever met anyone more prideful then he is. Its like dude what do you have to be prideful for? This is your native language and its not you doing all the teaching. Its not us. He acts like the only person who needs to learn something out of this companionship is me. Let me tell you the quote of the week "you need to respect me I'm your district leader" Its like first of all don't tell me to respect you, you earn it. That made me so mad! I would rather listen to Jack Robinson and Jake Fisher argue for 5 weeks straight then be in this companionship. So difficult. He does so many things that just drive me up a wall. I wont list them but never in my life have I prayed to learn to love someone until this change. I pray so hard every single time I pray to help me learn to love him. However with all the struggles, he is helping me a ton with the Spanish and I guess that's really the only reason I wanted a Latino. 

Okay enough negatives cause I could go on and on. This week went by pretty fast because there is sooooo much more to do here in this sector than in my last. We teach about 5 lessons a day which is how many we would get in my old sector in about 5 days. My sector is HUGE!!!! Its honestly about the size of Powell and Dublin put together. They just combined our sector with the other one this change. So since our sector is so big there is a lot to do, and thankfully he wants to do divisions about every week because we have a new rule that the elders in your district both come to the DL sector and work there bc its supposed to be an example. So since our sector is so big he wants to do more divisions so that way we can cover all of our sector more at once. So I'm excited for those. As far as the work goes I don't really remember anyones names only the family Maldonado. They are a couple that we are hopefully marrying this week and baptizing the next. Right now we are helping them raise money to pay for there wedding. Other than that, that's really the only "progressing" even tho technically they are progressing, investigators we have. We have another tho his name is Wilson. He was an old investigator of the missionaries who just got taken out. They dropped him because he is pretty crazy. He believes in energies not so much in God so yeah. But with some miracle he came to church yesterday for the first time ever. We will see how well he progresses. Funny story, contacted a family the other day. Unfortunately, but kinda relieved they didn't want anything right now because their last name is Toapanta and I don't want to deal with that again. Some other missionaries can haha. (complete joke dad and Tyler) 

anyways, that was my week. Pray for me. This companionship is so hard he is mad at me like every other minute. I love you guys thanks for writing me! Talk to you next week!

My farewell in Vista Hermosa 

 Always nice to have a good view of the virgin Mary while I study 

Changes

So yesterday was my last day in my beloved sector of Vista Hermosa. Although it was tough to leave I was sooooo ready. The sector is kinda dead and to be honest, I love the members a TON, but they help diddly. It was pretty slow, but since it was my first sector and the members were way awesome, I'm bummed to leave. However I'm not far away at all from my last sector. My sector was on this huge hill and no joke you just go over that hill and there's my sector. So I literally just went over a hill to my new area. Right now I'm in Turubamba in the ward Argelia. I got my first Latino companion, besides my mtc one, he doesn't speak any English so this is great. Its a little hard right now, but it's necessary and I was really ready for one. With me coming up on 6 months I don't want to be the missionary that can't speak haha so I'm glad this happened. However, as soon as I found out who my companion was everyone who knows him just started giving me all these bad stories about him how he's fake and just wants to "sub" or go up as in like a zone leader or something. So idk if those stories are true, but I'm trying not to judge by any means right now and just get to know him better. Anyways yeah that's the big news for this week. 

As far as work goes we worked a lot with the familia coloma this week. We made a lot of progress and Furner and I thought she was really ready for baptism so we went ahead and did her interview yesterday. She didn't pass one of the questions so she is going to have to wait and we need to teach her more and stuff and then get a couple more interviews and she will be good to go. Her husband on the other hand didn't have his interview because this past week we asked him to pray and he didn't know how. SO that's obviously a huge red flag. Every time we ask him to pray his wife just starts praying then says it in the quietest voice that I can't even hear it and so there is no way a man who is basically deaf can hear that. So Furner is going to work on that since he stayed in that sector. We also found out about him that everything we teach him he doesn't understand because he's pretty slow, not retarded, just not the smartest haha. So yeah so what we decided we would do is give him every folleto he needs and we will underline what he needs to get out of each lesson. We found if he reads it, he understands. So that's what we were starting to do and what Elder Furner will continue to do. 

Anyways pray for me to have success in this new area. Pray for me to get along with my new companion and be able to speak better with him. I love you guys very much and I appreciate all the letters! Talk to you all next week!

New Years

Well with this New Years marks the fact that I'll be seeing you guys next year exactly in 1 1/2 years! haha sounds kinda trunky of me, but this week has been pretty trunky. Actually these past 2 weeks have with all the holidays going on and not being able to leave my house on these holidays so all you have to do is basically think about back home while stuck in an apartment all day thinking about what you would be doing if you were back home. And not to mention my homie Elder Heyrend my ZL officially is home so its always hard to see someone complete their mission and not think about that time of yours. Anyways I'm sure you guys are probably wondering why we had to stay in the house. So on New Years Eve it gets real crazy and dangerous down here (however not in my sector unfortunately) so by crazy I mean everyone just gets blasted out drunk and all the guys dress up like women and dance all over cars and other guys in the street and the only way you get them to stop is if you pay them. If you dont they start making out with you. Probably the dumbest tradition ive ever heard of haha but thats what they do here. 

Well this week was even rougher than last weeks. My goodness was it a long, slow, boring week. We had about 3 lessons in total not just to investigators. Slow, slow week. Anyways we were able to squeeze in a lesson with the Coloma family this week before all the craziness took over. The lesson went well and i was feeling way good about their baptism for this Saturday. Then, disaster started to strike. Just when I thought the week couldn't get worse every lesson we had with them just kept falling. I slowly but surely started doubting about the baptism for this Saturday. Then disaster struck. NO SHOW yesterday. Gosh dang it I was so frustrated. Because she wants to get baptized with her husband and he only needed one more assistance. So we are thinking now we are going to tell her that she needs to be the example to her husband and get baptized on Saturday and her husband will follow her the following week. However, i need to kinda sort my mind right now. I am having kinda mixed feelings because i dont know if the reason i want her to get baptized this Saturday is only because its the last week of the change and im most likely leaving after this change. I haven't quite yet decided. Idk yet but you guys will know the end decision based off of next weeks email. Sorry this letter is kinda short, like I said it was a slow week. I hope you guys had a great new years. Definitely missed it a lot! I love you all! Thanks for writing me! Talk to you all next week!