Great Bend Week #3

Hello Loved Ones!
Another Marvelous Week! At times it was kind of a slower week to be
honest, but it definitely had some sick highlights! We had a zone
conference on Tuesday which was very spiritually uplifting and
edifying. Prez Bell is a spiritual giant who I look up to a lot and
want to be like. And then obviously General Conference was this
weekend which was hecka good! I wish more investigators would have
came. We literally did everything we possibly could have to get people
there but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Freakin agency...
At the priesthood session one member brought a nonmember friend and we
jumped on that opportunity. We gave him a Book of Mormon and got his
contact information and address. He was a cool guy and we have an
appointment this week to see him. We also met this awesome couple
named, Michael and Amanda this week who we set on date for October
24th. They are really cool and we are meeting up with them today. Good
things are happening here in Great Bend.
General Conference was a huge eye opener for a lot of things for me. I
received some mad personal revelation. I loved the talk that
referenced one of my favorite scriptures. It's found in Isaiah 64 and
talks about how we're the clay and God is the Potter.
The main message I got from Conference was this: Trust God. Really
trust him. That's something I need to do more of. As I've become a
more seasoned missionary I've started trusting in my own abilities and
capabilities more and more. But there is no way I could ever be
successful doing this work on my own, I need God. It's his work.
Doing the Lord's work makes me happy. And I love to be happy. And if
you think about it, God has to be the happiest being in the whole
universe. Wow. God is the happiest being in the universe and his WHOLE
WORK and his WHOLE GLORY is to bring to pass the immortality and
eternal life of man. I testify that happiness is another word for
selflessness. And you and I will find the most happiness from aligning
our will with the Fathers.
Well, that's my deep thought of the day...haha
Have a great week, and be happy!
Love, Elder McGeezy

9/28/2015

Hello Everyone!Life is good being a servant of the Lord here in Kansas. This week wemade a lot of progress with building a teaching pool in this area. Istill would like to improve the member involvement in missionary workhere as far as team-ups and referrals. It's hard cause the wardmembers are so spread apart here. But they are so close knit at thesame time though which is cool. We had a really great Fast andTestimony meeting yesterday! I am super excited for General Conferencethis week, to have the opportunity to here a Prophet and TwelveApostles speak to us is such a huge blessing! I know their callingsare true and real. What an amazing missionary opportunity it is, aswell as personal opportunity, for some MAD personal revelation!A man named Charles, who we began teaching last Monday is hecka solidand on date for October 17th. He was definitely a miracle find, and heis progressing quite nicely. He is planning on watching one session onSaturday and one on Sunday. I'm really excited about teaching him, wejust need to get his girlfriend in on it too. Thankfully they don'tlive together though.But yeah, things are going good and will only get better! :)I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and am so grateful for him pavingthe way for us all to receive Eternal Life! How great is our EternalPerspective!? We know what we are shooting for! The Celestial Kingdomof Glory with God and our family and friends. I love you all, and hopeyou all have a marvelous week.Looooove, Elda McGeezy

Great Bend!!

Hello Loved Ones,Good Week, I have been in Great Bend since Wednesday. Great Bendbrings back memories from my first area, Colby. Colby was a small townand so is Great Bend. It's way cool being here, and kind of refreshingtoo, because I've been in city for so long (like Topeka and Wichita).There is A LOT of work to be done here. But the people are hecka nicehere so I'm excited to just go way hard!The members here are very down to earth, which I like. It is a ward,but a pretty small one. The ward boundaries are huge. We cover notonly Great Bend, but multiple surrounding small towns. Which is howthe Colby Branch boundaries were.It is us, and one other set of elders in the ward. We are with theother set a good amount of time. I guess it's a joke here that thisarea is a quadpanionship. My comp, Elder Melville, doesn't know tomuch about the area still, so this should be fun. He cracks me up. Heis very shy and timid, but very optimistic! He's a good kid, he lovesStar Wars and Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. I have thefunniest video that I'll send with this. HahaBut ya, that's about all I got. I'm excited to do some good work here!Love,Elda McGeezy

9/14/15

Hey Everyone! Went hecka hard this week! Had some amazingly spirituallessons! And I am so glad we did because today we found out somebittersweet news. I am going to be transferred on Wednesday to GreatBend, Kansas to finish up the second half of some other missionariestraining program. So crazy. After 6 months here in the Auburn HillsWard, I am leaving. It has been quite the roller coaster of an areabut has been a time of such tremendous growth!When I found out I was getting transferred here, I asked lots ofmissionaries what the Auburn Hills Ward was like. Every singleresponse was similar. It's an affluent area. It's super hard to findthere. The members don't like doing missionary work. And so on and soon. So that's the attitude I came to this area with. When I first camehere with Elder Potter we really, really struggled and were heckadiscouraged at times. But we worked hard and prayed hard. And one daywe found a man named Bill. We started working with and teaching hiswhole family. Pretty soon after that we started working with a memberlady who hadn't been to church in a while and had grandchildren livingwith her who weren't members. Then Elder Potter left. But me and mynext comp baptized the grandchildren of the lady and helped reactivateher. And me and my next comp after that baptized Bill's wife, Claudia.Now after hard hard work we have a good size teaching pool, consistingof two people (Barb and Donovan) who were member referrals and aregetting baptized this week. And Bill is getting baptized the secondweek of October, he is committed to it and he picked the date out forhimself. I did this recap of my time here as well as tell you all theexciting things that are to come in this area not to gratify my prideor brag but to make a point or two. I had an epiphany and I'verealized that missionaries probably don't get to see the fruits of atleast 70-75% of their labors. But that's OK! Because people are stillcoming into the waters of baptism! It really doesn't matter who getsto be in the baptism picture or whatever. HahaThere's no doubt in my mind I was supposed to be here. Me and thecompanions I've had while here have changed the whole Spirit of thisonce unsuccessful area. I know there is more people waiting for me,even in the middle of nowhere Great Bend. HahaI love you guys, I love my companions, I love all those I've taught, Ilove all those who have taught me, I love Kansas, I love God, I loveeverything! Well, not everything... I love lots of things. Have agreat week, and I'll email my new address next week.- Elder McGee

9/8/15

Hey Everyone! This was a good week! 

Bill isn't on date for the 12th anymore because he's still doing this E-Cig thing, that he's not even putting nicotine in anymore it's just water vapor but Prez says he would have to be off it for 2 weeks before baptism. He just needs time. There's no doubt he'll eventually be baptized. This week we had dinner with a member family who had some nonmember referrals for us over for dinner as well. It's a seventeen year old boy named Donovan and his grandma named Barbara, who he lives with. After dinner we taught lesson one. It made so much sense to them, they loved it, and they committed to work towards a baptismal date of the 19th of September. They were so prepared to receive the restored gospel, it was awesome. Donovan is friends with the boy his age in the member family and has even gone to early morning seminary a couple times with him! So cool! I'm so happy the Lord trusted us to be able to have received this referral and teach these wonderful people. We were biking around one day this week around 7:30pm or so and as we rode by the park we saw a bunch of high school kids hanging out there and I thought it'd be funny to go talk to them. So we do, and surprisingly they all like gather around us and are like asking us questions and listening to what we say. It was kinda neat. We probably handed out like 4 or 5 Book of Mormons and like 10 pamphlets. But yeah, the rest of the week was normal missionary stuff. Pretty Sweet, pretty sweet. Well, have a fabulous week you guys! Love ya!- Elder McGeezy

Hello Loved Ones!

This week was good it definitely had it's ups and definitely had its downs. The downs were that a couple of our investigators dropped us this week and a few people didn't keep appointments which we were pretty bummed out about. The ups is that a few more investigators came out of the wood works this week. We were able to put another person on date for the 19th of September. And we had a lesson in a members home with Bill and his family. So definitely some awesome things still happening in spite of the let downs. We had some interesting experiences this week. We helped an investigator of ours named Alex do some dry wall work in his house. We knocked on his door one day unannounced just to set up our next appointment and he told us he was pretty busy this week cause he took time off work to do dry wall downstairs in his basement. So not knowing anything about dry wall or what kind of work that entails I immediately volunteered our assistance and he accepted and told us to come by in the morning and help him. And as we were walking away Elder Coles says, "Do you have any idea what you just got us into?" And I responded, "Uh, no..." Haha. It wasn't too bad though, good experience. But things are good here in Kansas! I want to testify of the Holy Ghost today and his role in our conversion. We can understand a gospel principle intellectually pretty easily with study to be honest. But we won't know it in our hearts and truly believe it until we receive a witness from the Holy Spirit.  If it were not for the Holy Ghost it would be hard to see the Savior as anything other than an imaginary friend or see the scriptures as more than mythological tales. Even Peter needed to come to know that Jesus is the Christ by the Holy Ghost. Read Matthew 16.Love You Guys! Have a Fabuloso week!

Good Things Happening!!

Hello Loved Ones!This was a good week. We were able to meet and find some awesome newpeople. Some good things are definitely happening in our area. Thiscoming week we have 2 different appointments at members houses withnonmembers THEY referred us to. And we'll be teaching them adiscussion. How sick is that!?! The member work is slowly starting totake effect and it's awesome! Of course we still find through our ownefforts QUITE A BIT. Which is good, cause nothing gets members moreexcited about missionary work than seeing baptisms happen in THEIRward, because THEIR missionaries are out working hard. It causes themto trust in you!Elder Coles is doing good and is learning and progressing. I'm wayproud of him! On the 20th (which was my official year mark) We didn'thave a dinner appointment so I convinced him to take me out to TexasRoadhouse in honor of the special occasion. HahahaBill's baptism is getting postponed to the 12th of September. I knowhe will get baptized on that date. Claudia is doing super well by theway! They both come to church every week and are active and involvedand it's so great to see. I can't express with enough conviction howmuch I love my Savior and my mission. I have changed so much, but forthe better. I think the most important or at least the firstChrist-Like attribute to develop is humility. Humility is so key. Wecan't develop any other Christlike attribute or change for the betterif we aren't humble. As we become more humble we become as "clay" asthe prophet Isaiah says. In Isaiah chapter 64 verse 8 he says, "OLord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; andwe all are the work of thy hand." I want to always be clay in HeavenlyFathers hands. I want to be who the Lord wants me to be and I want toreach my fullest potential and not hold anything back, not on mymission, not in my life. Keep being awesome missionaries by firstliving the gospel and then by sharing it. Remember, Christ's Churchhas always been a missionary church! Preach da Word!Love you guys! Have a great week. :)-Elder McGeezy