I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world!

WEEK TWENTY-SIX

Journal entry May 3

Today.. medyo mahirap.  Thoughts of home and wanting to be there.  I felt discouraged and exhausted.  I prayed and prayed for a change of heart.  My merciful Heavenly Father heard my prayer.. Just about every appointment we set.. it fell through.  And so I took that as a sign that the Lord wanted us somewhere else.  So I tried my best to be as sensitive as possible to any prompting.  I felt the Lord put us exactly where we needed to be.  We sat on the side of the road texting investigators trying to make appointments when a tricycle driver and I got talking.  He wanted some of the pamphlets that I was holding.  I learned that he was a husband and a father.  Whose life had been very difficult.. sobrang mahirap he kept repeating.  He works all day everyday just to try to get enough money to take home to his wife and daughter.  As I explained the contents found in our pamphlets- I bore my testimony to him.  That our message has the power to change his life.  Sure, it won't take each mahirap thing away.  However, it will absolutely strengthen him and he can receive the help and strength he needs through our message.  I poured out my heart to him in just about all the tagalog words I could muster up.  I wanted him to feel and know the message I was sharing was true.  and was especially for him.  

We then made our way to an investigators home- Brother Rodellio, to find him gone working.  His wife's mother let us in to their small home, that barely fit the three of us.  We sat on the floor next to this sweet frail woman as she told us with shaky hands about her life.  She was fourteen years old during WWII when the Japanese invaded the Philippines.  She watched as the soldiers would beat her mother.. relentlessly.  At the age of seventeen she moved to Manila alone to find any kind of work.  She worked in a home and the man who lived there would beat her whenever he returned home and felt that her work had not been done well enough.  She married, had eight children, and then lost her husband.  She would stay up all through the night ironing clothes to provide for them.  One by one each child left her, and to this day she only has contact with the youngest- whom she lives with.

This woman attended church with us Sunday, with the only money she had.

Tonight was a night that I fell to my knees and spent a long time down there.  I prayed with a humbled heartbroken and grateful heart.  I am so grateful to be in the Philippines serving these people. These people who teach me through their kindness love and circumstances everyday.  I have every reason to be happy and grateful in every moment.  I am being taught lessons every moment of every day that will change my life forever.  and I pray it will bless others lives forever.  The plan of Salvation is more than just some chart of where we came from - where we're going- different kingdoms.  It is a plan of happiness from a loving Heavenly Father of how each of His children can find strength and purpose in this life.  How they can know exactly who they are and who they can become.  Its a plan made possible because of His son, our Brother, and loving Redeemer.  

“And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
“And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:11–12).

Thus, the Savior has suffered not just for our sins and iniquities—but also for our physical pains and anguish, our weaknesses and shortcomings, our fears and frustrations, our disappointments and discouragement, our regrets and remorse, our despair and desperation, the injustices and inequities we experience, and the emotional distresses that beset us.

There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, “No one knows what it is like. No one understands.” But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He has felt and borne our individual burdens. And because of His infinite and eternal sacrifice (seeAlma 34:14), He has perfect empathy and can extend to us His arm of mercy. He can reach out, touch, succor, heal, and strengthen us to be more than we could ever be and help us to do that which we could never do relying only upon our own power. Indeed, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

The unique burdens in each of our lives help us to rely upon the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah (see 2 Nephi 2:8). I testify and promise the Savior will help us to bear up our burdens with ease (seeMosiah 24:15). As we are yoked with Him through sacred covenants and receive the enabling power of His Atonement in our lives, we increasingly will seek to understand and live according to His will. We also will pray for the strength to learn from, change, or accept our circumstances rather than praying relentlessly for God to change our circumstances according to our will. We will become agents who act rather than objects that are acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:14). We will be blessed with spiritual traction.

-Elder Bednar.

I truly love this work. I truly love this people. and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world.  I wish there were words to articulate how full my heart feels. with this gospel, with gratitude, with humility, with amazement, with love.  

this gospel is TRUE and i love all of you 

Love Always,

Sister Welling

ps. Naomie accepted the invitation to be baptized yesterday.. she knows with all of her heart that Joseph Smith was a prophet.. she knows the Book of Mormon is true.. Her spirit is so strong.. she has received answers to each prayer and you should hear some of the dreams she has had.. wow wow.. continue to keep her in your prayers :)

Jenna is training:)

WEEK TWENTY-FIVE

Good Morning Philippines!

War Memorial Cemetary

My beautiful anak:)

A real restaurant!! I wanted to cry:)

Hello Momma and Pappa.

How are you doing half a world away? I love seeing your pictures and hearing about what is going on in your lives, in a strange way I feel that we are even closer than ever.

Well, I arrived at the mission home last Wednesday and I felt like I was right back to my first day.  It was the strangest feeling sitting on the opposite side of the room with all the trainers, not the trainees.  One of the couple missionaries asked if I was a new missionary to which I responded yes.  Oops. (but really, didn’t I just arrive in the Philippines yesterday??)

President brought all of the trainers into the room and expressed to us how much he trusted us.  He told us that he picks the trainers before any other position in the mission and that we had a very important calling and responsibility.  He was so sweet and encouraging and he made me feel absolutely unqualified but absolutely motivated and inspired to fulfill this calling.

Manila Temple

This might sound like a bit of a love story.. but I walked in the room and I immediately knew I would be training Sister Dimacuta.

Sister Dimacuta is pretty much a much better version of Sister Welling in Filipina form.  We find ourselves saying “me too”! to one another a lot. We have so many things in common and we agree on so many things.

She is the most selfless, kind, genuine, loving thing I have ever met.

She kind of reminds me of a Disney princess or something.. she is always singing to herself.. I don’t think she knows how to say a single negative thing.. she cries a lot.. she talks to the cat on our front porch.. she hugs just about everyone, ha she really is just so cute.

She has the biggest heart

And the purest spirit

She is a powerful teacher and turns out

She is definitely the one training me.

I love it because we seem to always be on the same page, we have the same ideas for how we want to teach, what we want to teach, how we want to help the people progress.

Naomie. I love Naomie.  She is 21 and working here in Taytay.  Everyone talks about that “golden investigator” and I feel that she is ours.  It is so apparent that she has been prepared by the Lord.  A member in our ward (Mika), a returned missionary, is her coworker and invited her to church.  Naomie felt the spirit so strongly through her church attendance.  In our first lesson she opened right up to us about trials she has been experiencing.  We told her that our message would help her find peace and happiness amidst the trial.

By the time we returned for our next appointment she had read the pamphlet three times and part of the Book of Mormon. 

She asked such good questions and has such a sincere desire to learn more. 

I just wish you could have felt the spirit that was there.  When we invited her to pray about Joseph Smith she responded, of course.  In these two weeks she has already expressed the changes she has seen and felt in her life from our message. 

I think just about everyday how much I love my job.

I have been so busy trying to get everywhere on time, trying to keep track of everything, making sure I’m doing everything right, making sure I’m teaching Sister Dimacuta everything she needs to know, so on and so forth.

I have kind of felt like a chicken running with its head cut off (is that the expression?)

Well, I read a talk from President Uchtdorf and it really hit home for me--

“I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and his short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem.  I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished, I can’t see it.

Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day.  When He interacted with those around Him, they felt important and loved.  He knew the infinite value of the people He met.  He blessed them, ministered to them.  He lifted them up, healed them.  He gave them the precious gift of His time.”

“Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day” I know that our time truly is precious.  It is a gift from our loving Heavenly Father and while we were sent here to learn and to grow—it is important that we know where our priorities lie.  I think it would do us all some good to pause for a little while; and turn our attention to those around us.  As I applied this principle into my missionary work this week I have felt so much more kapayapaan at kalygayahan. “He knew the infinite value of the people He met—He gave them the precious gift of His time” Its more than just sitting there with them in a lesson, or speaking with another person- but letting them know and feel how much they truly matter to you- how much you care and understand and appreciate their worth.

I am so grateful for the perpektong halimbawa..  perfect example.. of our Savior Jesus Christ.

After a hard days work

Alam ko po na Diyos ang ating Ama sa Langit.  Kilala-kilalang Niya po tayo at mahal na mahal Niya po tayo.  Alam ko po na Si Jesucristo ang ating Tagapaglitas. Alam ko po na buhay Siya.  Sobrang nagpapasalamat po ako para sa ebanghelyo na ito.  Alam ko po na totoo siya.  With all of my heart. 

I love you family- remember to give those you love your time this week- and I’ll be doing the same J

Love Always,

Sister Welling

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.”