Caroling

Salut Mere et Pere! Commet va tu?

This week was good.
I had two exchanges where
I worked outside of my area
which is always interesting
because I don't have total control.
But its good for me though to learn
how to follow as well as lead.
I worked in Gereland, which is
the southern part of the city of Lyon,
and in St. Etienne, which is about an
hour south by train and is a ville
consisting of about 60% Muslims,
which isn't bad, but when talking to
Muslims about the gospel you just
get the same responses like,
"of course God always called
prophets to deliver a message!"
me-"Exactly! So what wouldn't you
think it would be important to know that
there is a living prophet today?"
"No, no, no! Not possible!
Mohammed was the last prophet!"
You get that one every time.
There are many other cliché
responses such as "there can't
be a prophet. Look at all the wars!"
Me- "Mr., you know there were wars
during the time of Moses with their
captivity in Egypt, with Abraham
and the Assyrians, and even Mohamed
with all the conflicts in the
middle east during that time?"
"Umm... yeah.. still not possible!
Mohammed was the last prophet!"
But they are way nice though, honestly,
and are more open to talk then most
"Christians" so it is all good.
We did caroling in downtown Lyon
which was really fun and surprisingly
effective.

We had 10 missionaries carol the
last night of the Fete de Lumiere
where there were tons of people passing
by and then Friday night in Downtown
Lyon we had 10 missionaries and
2 members singing and then
myself and my trainer, who is
in Lyon but in a different Zone,
stopped people in front of the singing.
I couldn't believe how many people
stopped and listened to us!
Almost everyone!
It was so good!
Speaking of the "Fete de Lumiere,"
it was so amazing and we
need to come back and visit one of
these days! Lyon is so beautiful.

This week should be really good.
I have an exchange with the assistants
to the president here in Lyon on
Wednesday, they do that with the
zone leaders once a transfer,
and then we have a half mission
conference on Thursday here in Lyon
where it will be Christmas music
based along with the implementation of
this next years plan, "Member Lessons,"
where the members receive lessons
we have made.
I am very excited about it.
I hope you have a wonderful week

Elder Clayton Henderson Welch

Lyon Festival of Lights "Le fete de Lumiere"

My week was great, thanks for asking.  And by the way,
I make a smoothie, with only fruit and juices, for
breakfast and dinner, so I am eating a lot healthier. 
Thank you so much for that.
But this week was great.  The work is a little different
as a zone leader, but it is still great. 
There are a lot more opportunities to serve which
I am very grateful for.  This last Tuesday I went to
Zone Leader Council in Geneva which was great.
I love hearing teachings from our mission president
and the assistants.  We drove down with the 1st
counselor in the Mission Presidency, Frere Mocelin,
who was just released as Lyon's Stake President
for 9 years and who was the First Counselor in the
Stake Presidency for 9 years before that.  He
is only 46 so he has spent half his life in the
stake presidency!  He is a spiritual giant! 
We spent the 3 hour trip there and back hearing
his stories about meeting different prophets and
apostles.  We had a zone conference and
interviews on Thursday where I taught on
Prayer which went really well actually. 
And then I had an exchange here with a
missionary who is Swiss.  It was a really
great week.  But actually, the best part of
the week is that it is "Le fete deLumiere,"
the festival of lights here in Lyon; the biggest
celebration of the year.  It went fro, last
Thursday until tonight and there are millions
of people here visiting for it.  All night there
is just music and light shows and we have
taken our dinner hours just going and
walking through it.  It is so amazing.
I WILL send you some pictures of it, haha.

Questions:
how many zones are there are in the mission? 9 

How far do you have to travel and how many
elders in your zone? 
8 Elders and 4 sisters.

That is interesting that the ward doesn’t meet in
a chapel. 
How many members are there in the 2 ward? 
about 90 people each week. 
There is a chapel in the suburbs of Lyon but
this is just the church for the city.

But all is well.  thank you so much for all you
do and for all the love and support. 
We set another baptismal date this week for
the 28th, so we will hopefully have two
baptisms on the 28th. 
They both look possible right now.
But thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers. 


Elder Clayton H. Welch

(photos were not Elder Bubba's but some Patricia showed me on the internet as examples of the festival of Lights in Lyon.)

Lyon, France

I am doing great!
My birthday and Thanksgiving were good. 
Thanksgiving we actually ate at a recent converts house
 and we had a huge wok full of vegetables! I
t was way good.  He is like a hippie teacher here so
it was a blast.  That's whats great about 
here, the people are sweet city folk. 
My birthday was good.  I went to church 
as usual, but my companion got really sick in
the middle so I left church early for the first time in my
mission and he slept while I cleaned the apartment 
because it was pretty gross when I got there. 
He got sick from the pizza we had from pizza hut for my
birthday the night before, haha.  It was stuffed crust but 
spicy stuffed crust.  He is better now so its all good. 
I opened your presents last night when he got up and
they were so good!  Thank you so much.  I am 
already using the pen, i am wearing the tie, and we
went shopping this morning and bought tons of fruit to
use in the blended!  I am stoked for it!  Thank you 
so much!
I will try to answer some of your questions though. Lyon?
I love it.  It is huge and I love big cities/ 
Where is he from:
Alpine Utah.
How long has he been out:
a year and 8 months.  He has had three french
companions and speaks way well!
Was he a football player: 
no, but he did ski tons which is cool.  He is a 
really nice guy. 
Do you think it will be a good companionship
and will be able to work well together? 
Yeah, he is a good leader and I am going to learn
tons from him.
What is your apartment like?  old, haha. 
Your address is Villeurbanne - is this a suburb?
Nope.  It is us two, and two sisters who have pretty much 
ALL of downtown Lyon. 
How far are you from the church? 
really close.  The church is actually not a chapel. 
It is a like in the city so its just in a 
building with businesses.
Will you take the subway most of the time?
Yup.  Everyday.  It was raining the other day so
we contacted people on the subway for 
like 3 hours/  It is really scary but fun. 
The weather: its cold.  I wear a coat, scarf,
and gloves all the time.
But the work is going well.  It will be a good transfer. 
I am going to learn a lot.  I am excited.
But thank you for all your prayers and thoughts. 
I do feel them and they do help.

Elder Clayton Henderson Welch

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY ELDER BUBBA! <3

WE LOVE YOU!

Zone Leader

This week was pretty good.  In regards to your questions:
Do most Swiss travel via public transportation
or have their own cars?

Most people take trains everywhere.
But there are quite a few carsin the cities.
The bus system is very clean and very efficient.
Is it a social status to have a car there?  Yes.  
You know if someone is rich if they have a car.
And you know someone is really rich if they own
their own house.

So how is it going trying to find French 
speakers instead of German?   
It is going well.  After talking to my mission 
president about it we havedecided that any
time that both of us are trying to find people,
i.e. knocking doors or talking to people in
the road, we will do an exchange.
It has worked out really well and I have learned
a little German while doing it.
Nothing beyond a contact
about the gospel though.

Any success yet or is it too early to tell? 
There is a little success.  We had an ami come to
church, his name is Nimaga, and he will be asked
to be baptism this Wednesday.
I am almost positive he will be baptized by
the end of the year.

So now, the moment I know you have been waiting for:
Is Elder Welch staying or going?
Well, this morning we received calls and what
President Peterson said I was not expecting at all.
I am being transferred.  I am going to Lyon!
The biggest city in the mission to be in the highest
baptizingward in our mission.  Not only that
but I am going to be a zone leader. 
That is what was so shocking.  
I am only on my sixth transfer.  I am not going to lie.
I feel really inadequate for this calling.  As far as I know,
the next youngest missionary who is a zone leader in our
mission is on his 11th transfer.   I will be serving with
Elder Black though, who is a really good missionary
who speaks very well (he has had three
French companions). I think we will probably
speak French all the time.
But I really am nervous for this calling.  I know
"whom the Lord calls, he qualifies,"
but I still can't help but think that I am not ready.
But, all will be well.  Maybe just pray to give me
strength and patience during these next couple of weeks.
I really am not that worried, but it is just shocking for me.
I know I will be OK.
I am stoked to be in Lyon for Christmas.  
It is a way big city with a subway and everything.
I am stoked! My new address is:

  Elder Clayton H. Welch
  Les Missionnaires
  138, rue Dedieu
  F-69100 Villeurbanne
  FRANCE

But I will be going to Lyon on Wednesday.
Being a zone leader I will be going to Geneva 2 times
a transfer for "zone leader council" which will be a cool 
experience.This week I hit 9 months!
It crazy how fast time flies.
But I can't tell you how much fun I am having.  I have grown
so much and I know that I will grow 
enormously in the upcoming weeks.
But thanks for all of the birthday wishes.  I appreciate them.
I don't know what I have planned for thanksgiving, but I am sure
we will get a Turkey Sub or something.
As for a Christmas list, maybe just a new suit.
Mine are both still a little 
lose so I wouldn't mind a smaller french one.
But that wont be for a month or so.
What do YOU want for Christmas from France?
Thank you for all you do.  I am truly grateful for all that you do.

Your thankful son,
Elder Clayton H. Welch

Family

I actually had one of the most low key weeks of my 
mission surprisingly so not to much to report on.
But I am still doing as great as ever.

My week, as previously alluded to, was pretty
uneventful aside from the usual missionary routine. 
I spent almost the whole week here in Bienne. 
I have changed the focus here from the missionaries
here in the past to working primarily in the city. 
Missionaries in the past worked in the smaller French 
only cities in Switzerland which I did my first transfer
here, but it is next to impossible to get members to
help that far away, and even harder to get these 
investigators to travel so far for church. 
So, we are toughing it out and sifting through the
German speakers here in Bienne.  It is a lot harder
but I feel that it is much more productive and we
will have more success in getting people to come
to church.  We are still teaching the Iraqi family and
they are great despite the HUGE language barrier. 
We have to teach so simply, but they love having us
over.  We got them to pray with us last night, and
will be giving the mother, who is pregnant, a
blessing due to an illness on Wed. night and then 
we will be eating with them.  They are great. 
They faced so many hardships in Iraq and had so
many crazy experiences!  They once had a bomb go off
by there house, leaving their oldest son unable to
walk for 6 months!  They are struggling here in
Switzerland, but they are so grateful and humble to
 have their family here together in safety. 
It makes you really realize what is 
important; Family.

We have interviews tomorrow with the mission president
which I am excited for.  He is a very wise and inspired man.
Next Monday is the start of the new transfer and I will know
if I am staying or going.  I am pretty sure I will be 
staying here with Elder Nelson though.

Elder Clayton Henderson Welch

Bu

Testimony of Obedience

I am as well!  Everything here is going great and I love 
being a missionary so much!  This week was good.
A lot less traveling, but a nice relaxing week of focusing
on missionary work.  It was great.

That's great that you had daylight savings. 
I was surprised to find out that they 
do have it here, but it was a couple of weeks ago. 
Good old Benjamin Franklin 
and America influencing the rest of the world.


Oh man, it was so great to hear
that Obama won the election.
I was so stoked!  Everyone in Europe was so stoked and
that is all you see in papers and magazine 
covers.  I wish you could see how happy everyone
in the world is to see the progression we our finally
making in the world of acceptance.  I was actually at 
a less active members house the night of the
elections for her birthday.  She is African, as well as her
2 sisters and her brother in law who were there. They 
were so stoked to see that I was for Obama and
laughed for like 10 minutes when I pulled out the
Obama pin.  People just love him here.
I just hope he can help us out!

But as I alluded to, this week was pretty chill. 
We added a family from Iraq actually to our
teaching pool, so its great to finally be teaching
a full family.  The language barrier is hard though
because the parents speak Arab and 
little to no English and French, but the children,
there are 5, speak French.  It is fun none the less.
Last night we actually had a really great experience;
a real testimony builder for my companion and
I know it is helping him better understand the need for 
exact obedience.
We were knocking on peoples' doors at about 7,
and were in the area of a family of which are members,
though, the father is a less active.  We passed by and 
shared with them this great film, "Finding Happiness,"
its my favorite church film, its only 6 minutes and is
made just for Europe and is brand new.  We 
watched it and I bore testimony of the great "light"
God gives to us through prayer, scripture study, and
families and then invited them to share this video 
with a friend.  They said they would and when I asked
what we could do for their family, the wife said that
her husband, who was sitting right next to her was 
struggling.  I asked if he was sick and how we could help. 
She said, no, not sick, but struggling with the church. 
I offered to give him a blessing and then 
began to teach about my testimony in the church. 
As we talked I realized he had a problem with leaders
in the church and we began to talk about that.  As we the 
man struggled to express how he didn't feel the branch
president was called of God because of his disagreement
on certain topics, my companion did something I 
couldn't believe:  He began to talk about how when
he entered the mission field he thought that the rule
on music was ridiculous and that he could listen to 
whatever he wanted.  And on top of that, he said
that our Mission President had imposed further restrictions,
as to say that we can only listen to The Mormon 
Tabernacle Choir, and songs written over 100 years ago. 
He talked about how he didn't agree with that and for the
first 5 months of his mission he didn't follow 
this rule.  But then he said, "the last month, I have lived
this commandment, this commandment given to us by
a man inspired and called of by God, holding the 
keys to our mission and us as missionaries, and
I have felt the Spirit stronger more than I have ever felt
in my life.  I know that this man of called of God, 
just as I know that our branch president is called of God." 
It was so powerful.  He is gaining a testimony of obedience. 
It is so great to see.  I love being able to help him realize this.
This church is true.  I know it with all of heart, might,
mind, and strength.  Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God;
 the man on the earth, holding ALL the keys 
of the Kingdom of God.  I know this, and this knowledge is
something I am here to teach to all the world. 
This church is true.  The Book of Mormon is the word 
of God.  I love being a missionary and
I learn and grow so much everyday. 

Elder Clayton W.