Oh say can you see

Hello family and friends hope you all had a great week and a great weekend enjoying celebrating the freedoms we are able to enjoy.

We had fun. There was an activity on the fourth in the Spanish branch. Just a little barbeque... it was supposed to be anyway. The planning got a little out of hand and they bought a lot of food, more than for a little barbeque. It worked out alright though because a lot of people showed up! Like a lot, more than are members in our branch. It was a little funny at the beginning with people talking about freedom and trying to relate some of the story of the revolution. Someone mentioned Christopher Columbus. Another talked about freedom from Spain, in which the Branch President reminded them we were celebrating the US's freedom, not everyone's respective country. In the end the branch president's wife suggested that they ask the questions to the 'gringo' aka your's truly. Luckily I have some knowledge of American history and related a small bit about the signing of the Declaration of Independence July 4th, 1776 (in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) declaring freedom from England... not Spain.

Later in the day we went to Wamego and were in a parade with the rest of our zone. It was a lot of fun! Wamego has a lot of Wizard of Oz stuff and so Dorothy and the gang were in the parade too (it reminded me a lot of like how they were in the parade in A Christmas Story). We sang patriotic songs riding in the back of a trailer being pulled by an old man driving an old tractor. Lots of people loved it. When we were walking back to our meeting spot after, two groups of people asked us for an encore (and then we ran away when they offered us money afterwards).

We had a really good experience with an investigator at church this week. We had taught her just about the restoration. Thank goodness we had an actually really good fast and testimony meeting (this branch has really good ones for the most part) in which some people bore their testimony about the Restoration and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She pieced it together really fast and she told us after about how she had put together what the people said and what we had taught earlier. She's really smart, especially for a 12 year old, and sensitive to the spirit (which is a really good combination). When we talked about feelings of the spirit she knew exactly what we were talking about and described to us what it felt like to feel the spirit (using words we didn't even use). She said she had read half of the Bible before and so she gladly accepted a Book of Mormon. It went really well.

Well can' think of anything else to say so I'll end it there! Love ya'll, thanks for everything.

Be Good. Live Well. Love a Lot.

Elder Waldron

God Bless America