Great Bend: Week 1

Wow! I can't believe that I've only been here one week! So much has happened. I really love Great Bend, and I'm super grateful to be here. Let me try to sum up a couple of the major things that happened this week:

Christmas Zone Conference- So we had a special zone conference Wednesday and had a Christmas party afterwards. Here in Great Bend there are English Elders too. One of the English Elders, Elder McGee, had a surgery on Tuesday. He wasn't able to go to the zone conference so he had to stay with a member on Wednesday. Elder Anderson and I took Elder Campbell (Elder McGee's companion) with us to the Zone Conference. It was a lot of fun, though we did miss Elder McGee. We learned about Christ centering our invitations to church and read the Book of Mormon. I was able to talk to Sister Eyre too. She was in my first district in Guymon. She is actually going home today. It was kind of fun talking about a year ago when we were both in Guymon. We practiced teaching together too, like it was the olden days. At the end I felt like I needed to bear my testimony, so I said something like this: A few years ago, it was a cold winter night and I was outside with my sheep. I looked up at the starry sky and thought about what would it be like if I was with my sheep 2,000 years ago and angels appeared to me and told me about the birth of the Savior. What would I do after that? I would want to take my family with me to see the baby. This is what we are doing as missionaries. We are all sons and daughters of God, and we are taking our brothers and sisters to see the Christ. This Christmas year I've thought a lot about the words from 'O Holy Night', "...fall on your knees.." I hope and pray to fall on my knees one day physically and every day spiritually in front of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Shae- This week we met a less active named Shae. She is really nice, she's a real sweet girl. She has a very mild form of autism. It's funny, a couple times this week she had something that she really wanted to tell us, and she had to have us come over to tell us. Sometimes the things she had to tell us weren't that dire, but she REALLY had to tell us. It's nice that she's super honest with us. She wants to start coming back to church every Sunday, and she came this Sunday to church with her boyfriend (who is also a recent-convert, less active and slightly autistic). Shae has recognized that the spirit was telling her to come back to church, and the gospel principle lesson (it was about the gift of the Holy Ghost) helped her realize that a lot. This week we're going to go meet her twin sister Rae (who is also a recent convert/less active) so that should be fun.

Thanks for all you do and I love you all, hope you have a great Christmas! Feliz Navidad LOVE 🌟🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄🌟 Élder Connor Waldrón