I have a feeling we aren't in Kansas anymore

Sorry for the unbearably corny subject, but it's true. I am not in Mexico and I am not in Kansas either. I am currently serving in Guymon, Oklahoma. It's a town with about 10,000 people and 9,999 different sects of religion. Seriously though... so many churches. In this area there is a set of sister missionaries and a senior couple too, so there is a lot of missionaries here.

My trainer is Elder Rojas. In the first interview with the mission president he showed me a picture of him and I was like, Oh crap he's a native. But he has lived in the U.S. for most of his life so he speaks English and Spanish. He's a pretty good companion so far. He uses a lot of mission slang, but I think that is something I will have to get used to even if I don't participate in it.

I guess I should tell you how I got here. I waited in Atlanta for a little while and all of a sudden I saw other missionaries. So I met up with like six other missionaries who came from the Provo MTC in Atlanta. They are all English speaking though so that's why I wasn't with them. The mission president, his wife, the APs, and a few senior sisters picked us up at the dinky little Wichita Airport. So that's how it all happened if you were wondering.

For Thanksgiving here we ate with a young family who were baptized just before I came here. (They are Hispanic, the work in Guymon is about 70% Hispanic 30% White). Really funny story: They live in a trailer park community like many do here. They keep the inside a lot nicer than most do, but they didn't have a kitchen table. So the night of the meal, we sit outside waiting for a little bit because they went to go buy a table. So they come back with a little card table set. It was very endearing I think. We visit them most nights and now they use the card table every night it seems.

We had other Thanksgiving plans but they all fell through. Though in the morning of Thanksgiving all the missionaries in Guymon volunteered at a Thanksgiving lunch put on by the Methodists. It was a great service to provide. A young man who had came to volunteer came and helped us at the dessert table. He had left his home, and his family business because he had read something in the Bible that sounded somewhat like his life and he didn't want the rest of the story to happen to him. So he was homeless and jobless in Guymon, and he was telling us about his desire to follow Jesus Christ. We sat down and ate with him and of course we invited him to be baptized, well I did. Yes I did that.

Also a couple nights ago we went out to visit less actives. We felt like we should go talk to this one sister. She didn't take us very well, just wanted to talk about her problems really, so we weren't there very long. So then we went and visited a name on a list that we didn't know anything about. So we knocked on the door and came into the trailer of a woman and her daughter. I shared a message, probably the best I have since I've been a missionary and we gave her a blessing because she was worried about her upcoming back surgery. Then she told us about her daughter (also less active) who is married to a nonmember and has a little baby. I'm really excited about these people and hope and pray that we will be able to reactivate the whole family.

Everything is pretty good here, but it is a little cold. Mostly the wind is what bothers me. The little Christmas tree looks beautiful so I'll have to send you a picture of it next week. Thanks for the packages, letters, love, and support

Sincerely,

Elder Waldron