June 17, 2013

Hola Everyone

This week was pretty good! Well actually yesterday pretty much. We finally had a coordination meeting with the branch mission leader, after 14 weeks of trying. He has completely changed his attitude lately and has a lot of drive to fulfill his calling and help us. Also we will be helping show the brethren in the branch how to do their home teaching this week so that is good too. But the best thing that happened was that an inactive family, that Elder Salmon and I had been teaching since last change, finally came back to church!! ¡¡Por fin!! (finally) I was so excited to see them walk in to the church! They had told us the night before that they couldn't come because they had to go to Santiago, but they came!!! You have no idea how pumped I was! I was smiling from ear to ear! We taught Felipe a small lesson on the 10 commandments on Tuesday. Things are starting to look a little bit brighter here in San Francisco de Mostazal. I hope all is well and that you all have a great week! Love and miss you all!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

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Remember who you are and who you represent

June 10, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well I completed 6 months in the mission on Wednesday! I really can't believe that I have been out for that long. At times it feels like the time is going so slow, but overall it has passed by so quickly. 1/4 of the way done...absolutely blows my mind! Elder Reed and I are doing well. We are really close to getting one of our inactive families to come back to church. We thought that they were coming for sure yesterday but they didn't unfortunately. Felipe continues coming to church but we still haven't been able to teach him much yet. I really hope we can soon. We found a guy named Christopher on Friday (Elder Salmon and I had played soccer with him once) and we helped him with his english homework. He also told us that he would come to church on Sunday but he didn't. But he seemed pretty intrigued by our way of life so hopefully that is a start to us helping him. We have helped the branch start doing their home teaching and visiting teaching and we are supposed to be going out on splits this week with a few members to show them how to do it. So there has been a little progress here in San Francisco! "...by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." That's about it for this week. I love and miss you all! Have a great week and remember all that the Lord has done for you!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

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Remember who you are and who you represent

June 3, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well we had changes this week. I thought that we were going to get white washed from what President had told me in our interviews 2 weeks ago but we didn't. Elder Salmon went up north to Santiago (so he'll be in the Santiago South Mission) and I'm staying in San Francisco so I'll still be in the Rancagua Mission. My new companion is Elder Reed and he is from Arizona. We really didn't have much going on this last week. We were still working with the less actives and trying to get them to come back, nothing to show yet, but hopefully soon. Felipe still hasn't decided to listen to us yet, I hope that my purpose for staying here is to help him. We went around to some of the members yesterday so Elder Salmon could say goodbye. It took a long time and everyone made us food. I felt like I was going to throw up because we had to eat like everything that they gave us. Our ciber has been closed for over a week now and I'm not sure why so no pictures again this week, sorry. Hopefully next week. Not much else really happened this week. I love and miss you all! Have a great week!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

Return with Honor

Remember who you are and who you represent

May 28, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well this week went by pretty quickly. We didn't have very much success with finding people. We had some good lessons with some of the members that are inactive in the area so that was a positive. We are working hard with 2 inactive families to try and get them to come back to church, but right now it's been a little bit of a struggle. But we're going to continue working hard with them. We had a movie night in the church on Saturday with the branch and we had 30 people or so show up which is almost as many as come to church. We watched The Testaments and the members absolutely loved it. One of the Hermanas in the branch made popcorn for everyone and made sopapillas too. They were really good. Elizabeth's son Felipe came to church again but he is still hesitant about us teaching him. Hopefully he comes around soon. I'm about 99% sure that this is my last week with Elder Salmon. We have changes next week and wherever you are this next change will determine what mission you will be in starting in July. So we will see where I end up. Today is President MacArthur's birthday so a bunch of missionaries went to the office and surprised him. And on the way there a car drove right through a huge puddle of water and splashed us. So I'm currently soaking wet ha. But that's just about everything that happened this week. I love and miss you all. Have a good week!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

Return with Honor

Remember who you are and who you represent

sorry everyone that this is late, the internet wasn't working well yesterday so that's why it is today

May 28, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well this week went by pretty quickly. We didn't have very much success with finding people. We had some good lessons with some of the members that are inactive in the area so that was a positive. We are working hard with 2 inactive families to try and get them to come back to church, but right now it's been a little bit of a struggle. But we're going to continue working hard with them. We had a movie night in the church on Saturday with the branch and we had 30 people or so show up which is almost as many as come to church. We watched The Testaments and the members absolutely loved it. One of the Hermanas in the branch made popcorn for everyone and made sopapillas too. They were really good. Elizabeth's son Felipe came to church again but he is still hesitant about us teaching him. Hopefully he comes around soon. I'm about 99% sure that this is my last week with Elder Salmon. We have changes next week and wherever you are this next change will determine what mission you will be in starting in July. So we will see where I end up. Today is President MacArthur's birthday so a bunch of missionaries went to the office and surprised him. And on the way there a car drove right through a huge puddle of water and splashed us. So I'm currently soaking wet ha. But that's just about everything that happened this week. I love and miss you all. Have a good week!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

Return with Honor

Remember who you are and who you represent

sorry everyone that this is late, the internet wasn't working well yesterday so that's why it is today

May 20, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well this week went by really fast. We had to go to Santiago to take out my carnet (visa thing) on Thursday. So we went up Wednesday night and stayed with some other Elders. But Wed. night we went to the Bishop's house of Elder Salmon's last sector to visit them. They are pretty cool. We had a good time. We taught them how to play Spoons and we made brownies with them. They absolutely loved them. On Friday night we were at Elizabeth's house and a thunderstorm started. It absolutely poured for about 45 minutes. Some of the streets had standing water. Some of Elizabeth's family wants to come to church to see what it is like so that's a good sign. For PDay today all the missionaries made food from their countries. We made chili cheese fries (for some reason). It was a lot of fun and the food was pretty good for the most part. Not much else really happened this week. We are continuing to work and strengthen the branch so hopefully we see some results from that soon. I love and miss you all and hope that you have a great week.

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

Return with Honor

Remember who you are and who you represent

May 13, 2013

Hola Everyone

Well this week we had interviews with President MacArthur on Friday. We also did some practices with Sister MacArthur while we were waiting. Elder Salmon and I went second to last for interviews because he is a District Leader so we were at the church until almost 4:00. Felipe came to church again yesterday. He is Elizabeth's son and he is 18. He is interested in the church because he has seen how much it has changed his mom's life but he isn't 100% ready to commit to listening to the lessons but he continues to come to church so hopefully soon he decides he is ready (for my own personal satisfaction). This week went by slow for me, but fast at the same time. Each individual day was slow but the week overall went by quickly. We had a noche de hogar on Saturday night with some members, Laura and Mauricio. They are both super awesome and they understand what the church is about. There was a ton of food. Everyone here loves the brownies that we make so we continue to make them. For Mother's Day we made no-bake cookies and took them around to some of the Hermanas in the branch. People here find American desserts incredible. The brownies we make for example are okay, but nothing compared to the ones in the states. Well that is about it for this week. I love and miss you all. I hope you all have a great week!

With love,

Elder Jayson Welker

Remember who you are and the family name you bear

Return with Honor

Remember who you are and who you represent