Becoming a Southern Bell: Let Zion In Her Beauty Rise!

Hey y'all!

Her light begins to shine.

So happy to be back in the mission again! :D I returned to the field on Tuesday and on Wednesday I was called to serve in the Dunwoody/Sandy Springs Wards in Atlanta Georgia! :D WOOOH!!! ATLANTA!!!! It's not the heart of the city and neither is it the poorest part. In fact, it's probably the richest part of Atlanta. But we live in the city! :D I was put in a temporary trio with Sister Davies and Sister DuCharme. However, Sister DuCharme will be returning home tomorrow for medical reasons. :( We will miss her. I'm now in a 4 man apartment with the Spanish Sisters and I was made Sister Training Leader with Sister Davies. How crazy is that?! :D I"m excited for this transfer, there will be many fun times and miracles.

Ere long her King will rend the skies,

Majestic and divine,

When I got to the mission we did baptisms for the dead then I spent the night with my favorite companion EVER sister Williams! :D I was way excited and we had a blast with one more night together! :D

The gospel spreading thru the land,

A people to prepare

Sisters Davies, DuCharme and Becca with Abbie at her Baptism.
Jesus is the best photo bomber ever! :D

Perhaps the biggest miracle took place this Saturday. The sisters here had been teaching this amazing 15 year old girl named Abbie who was on date to be baptized January 6th. She is the most prepared person I have ever met! She found out about the church through - of all things - the Book of Mormon Play while on vacation. After watching the play she was intrigued and started talking to the missionaries online before eventually taking the lessons from the sisters here. :) I have never met someone more excited about their baptism. But of course Satan tried to stop us.

Sister DuCharme scraping ice off the car with her hand.
Ice scrapers are over rated

On Friday a huge storm rolled in. It sleeted all night and made basically the whole city stop in it's tracks. One thing you learn about Georgia is that literally EVERYTHING stops when there is even a possibility of snow on the forecast. Two days before the baptism people were texting us asking if we were still holding it. We said yes, because we are Utah missionaries who have driven in snow and ice before. Nothing would stop us! :D And Abbie had the same mentality. The day soon arrived and we were told to stay inside our apartments until at least 11 am because of black ice. We waited impatiently since there was lots we needed to do to get ready for the baptism at 2. At 11 we booked it out only to find our car frozen! Like literally, the doors were frozen shut. The trunk frozen shut. and the windows so frozen with thick layers of ice we couldn't see out! All I can say is thank goodness for back up cameras! We backed sister Davies out into the sun after getting the driver side open. Then we turned on the defrost and started chipping away at the ice with our gloved hands. Eventually we were free from our frozen tomb and the rest of the day went off without a hitch! In fact, there were more people at Abbie's baptism than at any other one in that ward! It was wonderful! :D

There were so many things that happened this week that were miraculous, but that one stuck out to me the most. It was amazing how the Lord made everything work our in our favor so that Abbie's baptism could be memorable. :)

To meet the Lord and Enoch's band

Triumphant in the air.

We are filling the font. It takes 1 1/2 hours to fill it.

This week has been amazing, and I hope to continue seeing amazing ones this whole transfer. On Saturday we were vacuuming the baptismal room when we found a penny heads side up, we thought it was funny and joked about how much good luck we would have. The next day I found another one. And today I found two more all heads side up! What are the odds of that?! Then I was going through my wallet when I found one penny that looked so beaten and battered and bent that you could hardly call it a penny. You couldn't see Lincolns face and could barely see the tales side if you caught it in the light right. I didn't understand how a penny, perhaps the most worthless piece of change could have survived this long in the condition it was in. When I found more ironic was that I had been seeing pennies everywhere. I thought about it for a minute as I was studying the battered penny and a thought came to my head. How often do we feel like a penny? Sometimes we feel worthless, like all we are good for is a sign of good luck on occasion. And sometimes we don't even feel like we are good luck. Sometimes we are like that penny I found in my wallet. Battered, bent, and scraped beyond recognition. How could someone like that be worth anything at all? And then I thought a little more. It's not how we look on the outside that makes us worth so much. It's the potential we have, what God sees in us. What Christ sees in us and saw in us when he suffered for our sins and died on the cross. They have that ability to look beyond the scraped and bent parts, the sins we make and the hard times we may have gone through. They look beyond that to what is on the inside. Someone worth more than you can imagine. We are no longer an ordinary or beat up penny, but instead a gold nugget, worth so much more than we can even realize. But God knows, Christ knows. We knew before we came to this Earth. I know that we are worth more that one small penny. That no matter the bumps, the stumbles, the scrapes we make and have, we are still worth the same. We have lost nothing in God's eyes as long as we try to do our best. It's a very sweet thing to think about. That we are worth so much in someones eyes, and not just anyone's God's. I bare my testimony that I know each of you are worth the weight of the world to God. And that no matter how beaten up and battered you may feel, you are still loved and worth so much in the eyes of God. So remember that when you feel down. :)

Y'all's Southern Bell,

Sister Welch

Here's a link to a Saturday Night Live skit about surviving the Atlanta snow storm. Pretty funny!

New and returning missionaries arriving at the Atlanta Airport, greeted by President and Sister Foote in the middle.
Becca and one of the Elders are both returning from medical leave.
From here they went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.