Dear Family and Friends,

One more week done and gone… I am at that point in my mission where that hurts to say that. I would be happy if time would just stop for a while. This last week was a great one though! Definitely the highlight was the fact that we had the mission Christmas Conference. I was on an exchange in Lake City the day before so I had to leave a lot earlier to get there but all was well. It was such a great time! I was amazed at how different it felt from last year. Even though it was in the same chapel as last year and the agenda was very similar, even the orientation of the building felt very different. Some big differences this time was, that I was helping run it rather than simply sitting back and enjoying it, also I know every missionary by name now too, rather than feeling like I only know a small portion. It was the same event, but my perspective changed the whole experience for me. Also I was part of our Zones skit. We did a missionary rendition of Elf, and when the missionary was trying to street contact in New York City, I was a street performer who got to bust out a few dance moves. I knew that my Folk Dance training would come in hand at some point my mission. It was a lot of fun, but now it is no secret that I like to dance.

This week we had two miracles! Sadly I was on an exchange out of town for part of it, but nevertheless they happened. The first was with a wonderful lady named Donna. We met her a week and a half ago and she said we could come by on sunday to teach her. That was last sunday. When we showed up to see if she was going to keep the appointment (because a lot of people don’t) we not only found that she was expecting us, but that she had dug up her old book of mormon that someone had given her a while back and she had read the first few chapters, marked it up, and had a few questions for us. I was dumb-founded as she told us all of this. Turns out this retired women with 11 birds is far more prepared than we ever would have thought. On Wednesday Elder Layton went back and taught her and she enthusiastically accepted a baptismal date for the 18th of January. She came yesterday to church and loved it! Also the relief society just adored her so it was phenomenal all around.

The other miracle was that on Wednesday, Elder Layton went and saw Jorge Simons. The father of one of our recent converts and has come to church for the past few months and has been reading the book of mormon almost daily. So of course we know that he is ready to make the step of baptism, but he has been so nervous to make the commitment. During the lesson on Wednesday Jorge has finally decided though that he is ready to make that step and he has picked The 24th of January as his time to enter into the waters of baptism. I am so excited for him! It is huge that he finally made that step!

I love all of you and I hope that you will take the time this Christmas season to reach out to those around you and help them feel the love of God we so frequently take for granted!

Love y’all
Elder Joshua Cordon