Bottled Water on a Silver Platter
Hello Family,
I hope you all had a great week and are really enjoying the Christmas season. Though I have changed my ways a little I know believe that Christmas is a special time, The most wonderful time of the year. We should sing like Angela Lansbury, Haul out the holly, put up the tree before my spirit falls again... cause we need a little Christmas now! I hope you truly feel Christmas and that you are #Sharethegift
So funny experience, this week I had a very embarrassing but typical me moment. We were biking down the street of a trailer park and we pulled out of someone's driveway and I totally bam! smacked into a parked car. Fortunately no damage to the car and nobody saw it except my companion... Yeah it was bad I don't even know how it happened. \
A couple nights ago it was super foggy! Like so foggy we had to go get the car from the sisters because it wasn't safe to bike home. I called it the murder fog, and told Elder Rojas we better hurry and get in because somebody was going to get murdered (and it was almost 9:00 and he had a conference call at 9:00). Oh man I felt like watching Murder, She Wrote and reading Agatha Christie, instead I wrote in my journal. It was all good my mind is a mystery in itself.
I think I told you about how we volunteer at Loaves and Fishes. Well good things always happen there. This week we met this women named Sylvia. She was also volunteering there and she told us about how she came to the US when she was 16 to get married and stuff, and the sisters talked with her and such. So then later she was really curious about what we did as missionaries so she asked us, "So do you guys like go around and visit with families?" Oh goodness it was super exciting. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to proselyte at Loaves and Fishes so we said yes, and I was positive she was going to ask us to come visit her family, but she didn't. But later she asked us for a ride (which it was really cool that she trusted us so much already) we can't give rides but fortunately there was a member volunteering there, Sister Rassmussen. Sister R is a great member! They both worked together there for about and hour longer and then she gave Sylvia a ride and then she invited her to our Christmas party (to come with her) and to go out to lunch the next week. It was so great I love members that are so consecrated. Pray that Sylvia will come to the Christmas Party!
We set up a family history class also and invited a lot of people. Pray for me that I will be able to do a good job and someone will be touched!
So the whole mission is trying to baptize someone on Christmas Eve. We had an investigator who was so solid he wanted to be baptized on Christmas Eve so badly. His name is William and he's a 14 yr old from South Carolina. He believes everything and has a great testimony, but he has never came to church yet. I don't know why it's so hard to get him there. He didn't come this week either so now he can't be baptized on the 24th and we don't have anyone else that will be ready by then. I don't know what is trying to be taught to me, that Salvation isn't easy probably, but pray for William that he will still be baptized.
Yesterday we visited a woman with a very similar experience to William. Her name is H'waida and she is from Africa (lots of refugees live in midwest towns). Her testimony is so amazing. We stopped by and she let us in and brought us these two bottles of water on a silver platter. She has really great faith, she believes God loves us and gives us trials because he loves us. We visited for a little while and at the end she was like, "I want to be baptized so badly, but every week something comes up. I don't know what it is. Sometimes I try to get up but I can't because I'm so tired (she has really bad hours and works 6 days a week). I don't know what is stopping me. Sometimes I feel like it's myself or sometimes it's like a bad spirit that doesn't want me to be baptized." I gave a blessing to her at the end of our visit and felt God's love for her so strongly. Please pray for her too that one day she will be able to be baptized.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, enjoy the season why it's here.
Sincerely,
Elder Connor Waldron
Elder Cole (from Preston), Elder Rojas and me. Elder Rojas trained Elder Cole earlier.
