HAPPY EASTER!

 WEEK TWENTY-FOUR

Happy Easter to my beautiful family! 

We spent the week beginning each lesson with the best news and message there has ever been, that our Savior lives.   What comfort this sweet sentence gives.  What an incredible message that we have, that there is no such thing as endings in this gospel but everlasting beginnings.  What hope that brings, what encouragement, what peace, and what love.

Well, I sent home my second companion.  I will miss my dear sweet Sister Are.  It was such a fun transfer.  She taught me the importance of building strong relationships with the ward members and having them help in our work.  I learned from her the importance of getting straight to the bottom of a matter, or in other words how to be bold.  I learned from her how fun it is to talk to everyone, and to introduce our message to everyone.  She made missionary work natural and fun.  

I've spent the last two days working with Sister Verdeflor and Sister Morrell, we were considering calling up Pres. and asking him if us three could just stay together this next transfer.  I felt like I was working with my two best friends all day- I get overwhelmed thinking about how blessed I've been to have these people in my life, having these Sisters have such a large influence on my life.  They are relationships I will cherish and appreciate for forever. 

I will find out who my companion will be tomorrow.  I feel inadequate and incapable to train, but I will look forward to this new challenge :) I hope I can give the same guidance, love, and encouragement that my trainer gave me.  I think the nice thing about being called to train at this point is that I still remember exactly what it feels like to be new- and I hope and pray I can help this Sister in the transition into missionary life :)  

Tatay's baptism was supposed to be this Saturday.  However, it will have to be postponed because he wants to wait for his wife (who is working abroad) to return to be present at the baptism.  Unfortunately his wife doesn't get home until next February......... So, we'll continue teaching and working with Tatay, and wait..  Its sweet to see how important his baptism is to him that he wants his whole family present.  

We had a beautiful young woman come to church with a friend this Sunday.  She sat next to me in Relief Society and intently listened as different Sisters in the ward bore their testimony about the true, restored, church.  At the end of our gospel principles class which was about prayer.  She turned and told us that she wanted to be baptized and that she already knows that the church is true. wow.

All the promises in the Book of Mormon are true, that the Lord is preparing His children to receive the gospel.  I'm so grateful this young woman's coworker invited her to attend church with her.  I am so excited to begin teaching Naomie and help this testimony she has already found be strengthened and built upon.

This week I have felt completely overwhelmed by how evident the Lords hand is in our lives.  I know I say this a lot.. but its something that needs to be talked about.. a lot.  He is SO aware of His children.  I just sit back in awe after I experience tender mercy after tender mercy.

Sometimes its the small things.. :)like walking for two hours trying to find the home of a referral, just to get there and find them leaving.  Being exhausted and so hot, a little discouraged, when a random Jeepney appears in the middle of no where and offers to drive us free of charge to our next appointment. (the kind of blessings that just bring a big smile to your face) :)

Or when you're outside exercising with Sister Morrell and a conversation gets brought up and you end up sitting in the middle of the road talking for forty five minutes as she tells of an experience she had..  not knowing that what she experienced is exactly what you're experiencing.  Not knowing that she answered my every question and concern through her words.  

Sometimes it’s being in a recent converts home, hearing the father give a kneeling closing prayer.  And you know that this pure strong incredible love that you feel in your heart isn't coming from you alone.  

It’s amazing being a part of the Lord's work and feel His love work through you.  It is a life changing realization as you come to know just how much your Father in Heaven loves His children, including you.  I know that what President Monson testified of is full of truth, that He cares about the details of our lives.

ha

He loved us enough to send His Only Begotten Son, to suffer and to die for us.  That we might be able to return home to Him again.  We can overcome spiritual death and physical death because of His merciful, incredible plan.  Because of the sacrifice of the Father and the sacrifice of the Son.  On our behalf.  Their love is real and eternal.  and I hope I can share it with just about every person I come into contact with in the Philippines :) I love this gospel family.  I love it with everything I am.

Look up the Bridgemaster on youtube.

Love you always and forever,

Sister Welling

 WEEK TWENTY THREE

It is so beautiful here!

Hello to my dear family,

I love hearing from you all, I love it so much.

The rumors are true, nothing beats conference as a missionary.  My only complaint is that it went by much too quickly.  I was hanging on every word, and so grateful for every word.

Its Sister Are's last p-day and so we are traveling to all of her old areas, I wanted to write about conference but I left my notes at home- so I'll share next week :)

But a thought that kept occurring to me during conference.  I noticed the guidance and council given over and over about strengthening the home.  Focusing on family prayer, scripture study, and family night.
And all I could think of was how good my sweet parents were at these things :)
Mom and Dad, thank you for raising us in a home where family night, family prayers, and family scripture study have always been a priority. 

Some of my dearest memories are waking up early before school to all sit on Mom and Dads bed and read the Book of Mormon together..

I love the way it didn't matter how much homework we had, what we were doing, what friends were over, what boys were over... :) family prayer always happened. 
There were times I  resented coming up stairs to pray and bringing my "guest" because I knew Andrew and Stephen would call on them to pray.. hahaha I was always convinced it would be the thing to scare them away and make it so they never came back :)

Family night that began every Monday night somehow had a way of carrying over to every single night :)

Our trike rides:)

I can't help it....I love the children

maybe on the other nights we weren't beginning with an opening prayer and hymn.  However, we were all enjoying one anothers company, being enlightened and uplifted by one another and teaching one another how to be a little bit better, a little more like our Savior through love and through example.

How grateful I am for my family.  And that we get to be an eternal family as we live the principles that we have learned from such a young age from loving parents.

In one of the letters between Laur and me she wrote about the beginning of her mission- she said she had a hard time feeling like she had a strong purpose because everyone else had gone through something life-changing or really tough and could relate to the struggling El Salvador people.. She said she just didn't feel like she had anything to give or to share.  She continued to say that she prayed for a purpose -- she opened up her scriptures to find "you have been blessed and brought up in truth and prepared your whole life for this" she said she all of a sudden knew that she needed to share her testimony about her family. 

I relate so much to Laur's experience, I felt the exact same way.  How blessed we have been to see the effects of a strong family.  A family that has been founded on gospel principles.  I took for granted being raised in a home where the spirit could be felt each and every day.  I'm so grateful our home has always been a place of love and of refuge.  I know its because you, my dear parents took the time to "raise us in righteousness" I hope you know I will forever be grateful and always look to you as my example.

I want more than anything for the people of the Philippines to experience this same blessing in their homes.

If we focus on our spiritual needs the temporal needs take care of themselves. 

I know that this gospel is what matters.  Teaching and living the gospel in our homes and as a family is what brings happiness.  I've realized that all the temporal things that took up so much of my time, and seemed so important to me before really don't mean a thing.  Its not what matters.....

Thanks mom and dad. stephen andrew maddie and josh for teaching me what matters, through your love and example.  I know that families can be together forever, through Heavenly Fathers plan.
I'm so grateful I get to be with mine.

I love you!!

I see so many babies on motorcycles, it freaks me out- but its normal and ain't no thang to have a newborn speeding down the road in between jeepney's and trike's in a mothers arms, or a toddler standing up holding onto his fathers shoulders. hmm.

I really am not sure where all the stray dogs and cats come from. Honestly, how are there so many?! there are about three cats that live in our shoes outside our front door.

I was debating whether or not to share this story.. but for grins and giggles I will.

Yesterday, I was studying when I decided I was starving and needed a little snack.  So happily I remembered the beef jerky my saint of a mother had sent me and I go to the cupbard.  With so much excitement and pleasure I pop a few pieces into my mouth- (anything from home tastes like heaven) then.. I feel something on my arm, I look down and just about a million little red ants are on my hand and arm.. so... then.. my tongue starts hurting.. I then look into the beef jerky bag to see it infested with red ants.. how many are living in my stomach right now, and how many bit my tongue- I'd rather not know.

But on the bright side our ward missionary told me that the secret to a better singing voice is to eat ants. so really this is a big blessing.

We got broken up with this week :( the family I was so excited about.  The ones that were progressing soo well told us that they will not be able to see us anymore.  There Father is abroad working- he wasn't pleased to hear that they were taking the discussions and attending church.  It caused a lot of contention.  The family was so heartbroken when they told us, we were so heartbroken when they told us.

They said they will continue to pray that he will soften his heart, and I know the Cruz family will be baptized, a little patience will simply have to be acquired first

I absolutely love going to the market.. just about every person tries to stop me.. they all shout out "Atte.. Atte.. eggs?" or meat.. or whatever they're selling.. it always takes us a looooong time to get through, but I love it :)

um.. will someone tell my little man Joshy to stop growing up?!?! sheesh.. I don't even recognize that studly teenager. 

I love you all. forever and always

I love the Bishop's wife!

Sister Welling

ps here's the thought for the week family :)

apply it to what you learned from conference

President Eyring teaches. “You show your trust in Him when you listen with the intent to learn and repent and then you go and do whatever He asks. If you trust God enough to listen for His message in every sermon, song, and prayer in this conference, you will find it.”