A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief--Our Final Testimony!

Google Maps street view of Becca's apartment.
She lives in a barn that has been converted into an apartment at the end of this drive way.  If you look close you can see it!

Hey Y'all!

"Then in a moment to my view

the stranger started from disguise."

So this week has been a little crazy. But what day in missionary life isn't? :) It's been full of ups and downs and diagonals and sideways and every direction in between. :) But in the end, we made it through another awesome week. :)

The first thing we did was visit an eternigator, a woman who's husband is a member. Her name is "K". She is supper sweet, but at this stage in her progression she has asked us to find evidence both in the Bible and in other standard works to prove every principle we teach investigators. It was very long and hard work, but we completed the first lesson and gave it to her on Wednesday. She seemed very appreciative and touched that we would go to all that work to help her out, and she promised to look through it before our next meeting with her. We plan to do this with all the lessons, which is long and hard, but I feel will be totally worth it. I know that the Lord won't let those efforts go to waist. :) Already he lined someone else up who could use it. We knocked on the door of a less active member we had never met but had wanted to meet with us. We talked a while on her front porch and she expressed a lot of doubts about the Book of Mormon and other principles of the church that she never quite understood before her baptism 2 years ago. At that moment the thought of what we were doing for "K" came into our heads and we told her we would give her a copy of all the scriptures as well, so that she can understand better. It was really cool, and she started getting much more excited. :)

Later that day we also had a crazy miracle. We were tracting a street before dinner with a member. The first man who opened the door said he appreciated what we did but no thanks, and that went rather consistently with the rest of the street if they opened the door. In fact, that went rather consistently with the whole day. But we pushed forward and tracted as much as we could before we had to leave. As we left, the man we first met was walking out of his house. He waved at us at first, then stopped, then waved to pull us over. We stopped and had a really good conversation with him. :) He asked us why we decided to go on missions and what they consisted of. He asked a lot about what we believe as well. We soon found out that he is a Jehovah Witness Missionary with his wife. However, he was very interested in what the church taught. We answered his questions as best we could and offered to teach him the 5 lessons and give him a Book of Mormon. He declined both, saying that he would find the book online and read it there. He didn't take a card with our number either, but I hope he reads the Book of Mormon and prays about it. :) It was such a cool miracle!

The Savior stood before mine eyes.

he spake, and my poor name he named, . . ."

We also had great success with a less-active woman named "J". She is this spunky southerner who LOVES the missionaries and can sing like none other! She has been coming back into the church for a little while now, and has even given up drinking coffee again, hopefully for the final time. :) We visited her last week and she talked about how because she was now living the word of wisdom she could ask for a limited use temple recommend to baptize for the dead! :D She had never been in the temple except at an open house a long time ago, which she loved. She was so excited about this and even had us help call to set up an appointment with the bishop. On Sunday night, after a long day where we ended up dropping two of our investigators, including one who said she wanted to stop the lessons for now while she "researched". . . Anyway, after that long day, Miss "J" called us all excited. She had her recommend! :D She will be going to the temple on October 7th! We are so excited for her!

"Of me thou hast not been ashamed.

These deeds shall thy memorial be;

Fear not, thou didst them unto me."

I don't have a lot more time, but I just wanted to leave y'all with the reason why I put "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" in my letter today. Tomorrow we will be singing as a district a medley that Sister Williams and I put together for Zone Conference. It is to the tune of this song. :) As I was reading through it to practice the melody for our practices I noticed these verses and thought they went really well with a scripture that really touched me this week. It is from D&C 76:22 "And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!"

In this verse the person did not recognize the savior, but in the end he realized this was Jesus Christ. And that he lives! After all that he did for Him, the savior revealed himself to him and told him good job! This goes with our last testimony. The one revealed to that man in this song and to Joseph in this scripture. That he lives! Our savior lives and will soon reign over us all in peace and glory! It's amazing! And I'm so glad and feel so privileged to proclaim this!

Y'all's Southern Bell,

Sister Welch

Rebecca is living in Austell Georgia and serves in the Hiram LDS Ward which includes both towns. Here are pictures of both.

Downtown Hiram Georgia

Downtown Austell Georgia