Golden Moments

Familia y Amigos,

Elder Christoffel Golden Jr.

This past week, Elder Golden from the Quorum of the Seventy visited our mission and man was it powerful. All of us missionaries lined the hallway in the church as he came in and he shook all of our hands. He asked where I was from and he was like, "Oh nice!" haha Found out he is from South Africa. He has a sweet accent, but the coolest thing was the feelings that I had when I saw him. The whole church was just filled with the spirit. So powerful. And wow, it was a way good conference. He shared lots of sweet stuff, what we call the "Golden Moments." haha He really pushed the fact that we should focus on the simple things of the gospel, and that we don't need to know answers to crazy life questions to know this church is true. He shared how we can have the spirit more as we pray, study the scriptures, meditate during the Sacrament, and go to the temple. Also, several other things like faith will increase as personal righteousness increases. He told us that we ought to strive to baptize a family each month...that was pretty cool. Families make the best investigators for sure.

So, I'm here in Columbus, Nebraska, and it is like home. Seriously. The branch is super united. The Spanish and English are combined. It is a very Catholic area, but the members are strong and the potential here is sky high. It's starting to get cold. Woke up to it being 20 degrees outside the past two days. And this morning we went on a run with our branch president! haha It was so sweet. It felt SO good to run. We ran like 4 miles. Apparently the branch president has ran like 21 marathons. So, we will be running with him each Monday. Oh, it feels so good to run. My companion, Elder Keele, is from Boise, ID. He is a good kid. He has been on his mission for about a year and he is super smart.

The area is going very slow but has so much potential. This past week has probably been the hardest week for me thus far on my mission just because it is a change of everything. The people are different, and our teaching pool is very small. But, I know that big things are coming. I am sure things will really pick up this next week since I know the area a little bit and hopefully we can start working real hard.

But I had a great experience with Elder Keele this week that helped me realize I am where I need to be. We were eating with a member one afternoon and he suggested that we go see someone. And earlier that day we had talked about going to see this person. So, after we finished eating, we went over to this lady's house, and it was SO sweet. So, she is less-active...hasn't been to church in several years and is a big smoker. She invited us in and I could hardly breathe because she just smoked a fresh cigarette. Blah! But we sat down and she said: "I'M SCARED". We were just kinda startled and had her explain why. Then I looked at the foot stand right next to where she was sitting and there was an open Book of Mormon. She pointed to it and said, "Did someone send you here?" haha And we were like, um...no, we were thinking about you and wanted to stop by. Then she said, "I know God sent you." We were like Whoa! haha Then she said that her past week was way hard. She stopped going to drinking parties and wants to stop smoking and realized that she really wants to go back to church and start over. She said, "There is more to life than this." She read 2 Nephi 29 about "A bible! A bible!" and said that she knew that the Book of Mormon was true. It was a way cool visit and helped me to realize that I am where I need to be. She asked us if we would give her a blessing and it was so cool. I'll keep you posted on how things go with her.

But, Columbus is great. I love it here. And thanks everyone for your love and support. I love you all. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! We are going to a member's home for Thanksgiving and there will be a less-active and recent convert family there. I'm excited.

Love,

Elder Vawdrey