Holla!

Merry late Christmas! Thank you to everyone who wrote me or sent me a package, I’m pretty sure I’m the most loved missionary in the world! I was sent 22 letters and 5 packages! Who can get more loved than that? You all are amazing and I’m so blessed to have you in my life! This has been a wonderful week for me as I had the opportunity to reflect on the Savior’s birth and to feel of His love and to share it with others. But before I get to Christmas…

                So earlier this week they took back our car and made it into a car share again. So I was talking to President about it later that week and it turns out he hadn’t authorized the switch back, the other sisters had just gotten really upset with the zone leaders, so they changed it back. President was not too pleased and he got us a truck. So now we’re back on wheels again and we’re very blessed. We’re already seeing a lot of blessings because we can finally get around to see people! It also means we have control over our preparation day which is really nice!

                We dropped off two donated gifts at a ward members house this week. Only, when we went to walk up to her apartment and set them down and run, she opened the door to go do something outside and we had to run and hide (which is hard to do on the ice!) So we had to huddle and wait until she went back inside (we still think she probably saw us) and then sister Horrocks took the packages and ran back to our hiding place. We were happy with a mission well accomplished when we realized as we were heading back to the truck that the car keys were gone. So, we searched everywhere and we couldn’t find them. So we prayed and I go off to look back the way we had come and sister Nashio just bends down, brushes off a place of snow that was untouched and there the keys were! It was quite the miracle and I think it boosted her confidence a lot in her ability to receive personal revelation.

                We also broke the automated carwash this week when we went to go wash the truck. So I had to go in and tell them and get them to re-program it so we could wash the truck. Then sister Horrock’s window was rolled down when she drove in and I was like “roll it up! Roll it up!!” and she barely rolled it up in time. It was quite the adventure.

                We had Christmas eve dinner with the Bartons. They treated us really well and they gave us the softest, warm pajamas and giant MSU sweatshirts! They gave us everything in large (better safe than sorry) and I contemplated taking a picture in it and being like, “Look how much weight I lost!” I actually found out I have lost weight, which is a relief! (7 lbs!!) You’ve got to love the mission! The only sad thing is, there’s no one to impress out here if you look good! A lot of sisters gain a lot of weight because of it. And because food is so darn good!

                We were able to Christmas carol this week! It was so fun but we met a lot of interesting people. One man was drunk and just kind of chuckled creepily throughout the song. Then another guy had a wonderful, massive, bushy beard! It was delightful! Then we had some people that would just stare at us through the song and then close the door. At least we didn’t get any naked people like we did when we were tracting! A lot of the people were really nice though and invited us in. I love caroling and I wish we’d been doing it all season!

                Christmas day was excellent. We were woken up 10 minutes early (which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re a missionary you need all the sleep you can get!) by our upstairs neighbor, Yani, bringing us shrimp and blueberry biscuits! She feeds us all the time, more than we can eat. She’s not a member and she’s not interested in the lessons, but I swear she must be getting some serious brownie points! So far this week she’s brought us shrimp, blueberry muffins, Thai chicken, Chinese food (all homemade), 5 bags of chips, rice cookies, and this morning she brought us fried rice! She is really awesome!

                We opened gifts which was really fun. Sis Nashio wasn’t expecting her family to give her anything for Christmas so we got her as many gifts as our limited funds would allow so that she had some stuff to open on Christmas. It was a really great day and I really felt all of the love from all of my family and friends! I miss you all so much and thank you all for the pictures and Christmas cards! I hung them all up on my wall above my study space!

                We visited a lot of people on Christmas with our wonderful ward mission leader. It was a good day to visit people because everyone who is in town is usually home. It was pretty productive and it was a good chance to do visits with a member. As missionaries we’re always looking for members to come with us to visit people. It’s not as scary as it sounds, I promise. I would encourage you all to volunteer to go with the missionaries to lessons. Often a member’s testimony is just the sealing witness that an investigator needs.

                We had Christmas dinner with the Mortenson’s. They live way up on the mountain and Bro Mortenson drove up it so fast that we were worried that we would hit ice and die! But we didn’t dare tell him to slow down because he’s a jokester and probably would have sped up even more. But we’re alive and their home was beautiful. They even had a little yellow lab puppy which made me day! (I love people’s pets). They let me play with their helicopter and we had a lovely dinner.

                After dinner we did some more caroling and met many more interesting people and went home happy and exhausted!

                We’ve met some really awesome people this week and have started teaching a lot of less actives. They all have really unique stories. But a lot of them are sad and it makes me wonder how many people around us every day are struggling and we don’t know it. I know that when I come back I definitely plan to be more involved. People need the members to reach out to them in their times of trial, not just the missionaries. So many people struggle and feel alone. It’s so sad. It always brightens my heart when some of them have stories about how their home teachers and visiting teachers have helped them so much, but I wish those stories were the norm, not the anomaly.

                We went to visit a woman in our ward and none of us knew about snow-feathering where it fans out evenly instead of piling up, so we didn’t see that we had pulled on to snow in a ditch that was at least 3 feet deep. I sunk a little bit when I got out of the truck but didn’t think about it. But when we left the visit to go leave, the truck moved and suddenly we were completely sideways, so much so that I could barely open my door. We pushed the truck trying to get it out, but it was a lost cause. It eventually got so bad that the tires stopped turning and we were almost out of gas because revving it drained the gas tank. We ended up having to go and humble ourselves and ask for help.

                It ended up being a blessing because the non-member husband who hadn’t come down to meet us had to pull us out with his truck and we were able to get to know him throughout the shoveling, pushing, and pulling process. Then they gave us some gas so we could actually make it back to town! It was such a blessing. We were really embarrassed though.

                We also had a problem this week because we hadn’t heard from a dinner appointment so we thought they had canceled on us. So we went ahead and ate a large dinner. We were so full we didn’t want to move. Then our dinner calls, informing us that she has just picked up dinner and she’s expecting us at her house in 10 minutes. We were in a panic. We were pretty sure none of us could eat more, so we all knelt down and prayed that Heavenly Father would make us hungry again so we wouldn’t offend our host who is less active. Then we stood up and began jumping up and down to try and compact the food in our stomachs because Sister Nashio said that’s what she had seen in food-eating contests. It is the strangest prayer I think I’ve ever offered, and luckily He answered it! We were all able to eat with minimal discomfort. Sister Horrocks said I should have thrown in the prayer the request that the calories wouldn’t count. It was pretty great. It just goes to show that Heavenly Father cares about the little things in our lives, like being able to eat dinner.

                So this week, Emily, the gps we borrow from the sisters for a day got us really lost. We ended up in Galatian national forest, by a dam before we realized we were lost. People sometimes live really far out there, so it wouldn’t have been unusual that she would be so far away. It was a beautiful drive and we got to see people ice fishing before we turned around. It was really neat. I love winter….from inside the truck.

                The last funny thing that I wanted to share: The roads are really icy because, well, it’s winter. So it makes it hard to walk so we drag our feet when it’s pure ice so that we don’t lose our balance. So last night when we were walking around Sister Nashio and I start humming songs from the Nutcracker and “ice skating” around the road. It was really fun and it warmed us up so quickly! I love the little silly moments J

                I hope you all are having a wonderful week and keep the letters coming! Whether to me or to other missionaries! It gives us a huge boost and it gives us something to look forward to at the end of the night.

                Happy new year and make sure and make a few spiritual new year’s resolutions!!

                I love you!

                Sister Draney

 

My Montana State sweatshirt given to me by a member.

Our silly Christmas picture in our pj's given to us by members.

Hello Everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!

This week has been absolutely crazy. So, remember how I said we were sharing a car between 6 sisters? Well we ended up walking for hours this week. The most we ever walked for was 6 hours and we barely made it into our area. With how deep the snow is and how heavy my boots are I’m going to have some awesome muscles by the time I’m done! We just got a car today, but we’ll still be doing a lot of walking.

                One night we got a ride to our dinner appointment and we decided to do some work out there because there were a lot of people on our list in that area. It was -9F outside, but there were so many people that we weren’t worried. But, we went from house to house and no one was home! The only person who answered didn’t let us in because they were putting their kids to bed. So we were outside, freezing for 40 minutes. I had forgotten my gloves and my hands hurt so bad that I couldn’t touch anything inside my pockets, so I had to give Sister Horrocks the phone and keys and she had to knock on all of the doors. We ended up going back to the place we had dinner at and begging for a ride home because we couldn’t walk and all of our other plans had fallen through and the lady wasn’t home that we had planned on asking a ride from. It was really fun though. Often the worst memories in the moment make for the best stories.

                We got another sister in our companionship this week: Sister Nashio. She’s from Arizona in the north and she had her 20^th birthday the day after we got her. So we celebrated of course! We’re very happy to have her. It’s interesting trying to fit us all into our apartment. We only have two beds so Sister Horrocks told us she wanted to sleep on the couch, like a champ, and no one could persuade her otherwise! It’s a bit cramped now, but as always, we can’t complain! At least I’m not taking bucket shower in a room with a dirt floor! J We also got to go out to lunch with President and Sister Mecham when we picked her up which was so fun! They took us out to Mexican food. I was so happy! It did stink to lose an entire day to driving though. We weren’t too happy about that, but Sister Nashio will be an excellent part of our companionship!

                A ward member also took us out to Applebees this week. I was so excited! I didn’t know that people did that but it was so good! It definitely was a change of pace and I really enjoyed it. Sister Horrocks says she’s all fast-fooded out. (yes, I know fooded isn’t a word)

                We spent 2 hours tracting this week because we ran out of people to see and it would take too long to walk anywhere else. Tracting is actually really exhausting. At one point I was on such autopilot because no one would let us in that I accidentally asked someone how he was twice in a row. It went like this: “Me: Hi, how are you? Him: Good, how are you? ME: Awesome, so, how are you?” Luckily he was a less active in hiding and really nice so we just laughed it off and he told us about his brother on a mission, but I was so embarrassed. Tracting can be tough because you never know what their reaction will be. One person said ok to hearing a message on his doorstep and I was so flabbergasted that I completely forgot the message! Sister Horrocks had to rescue me. Then he said he didn’t believe in God. Yeah, at that point I was so tired that I was about ready to just go to sleep in the snow.

                One night while we were walking through about a foot and a half of snow sister Horrocks realized she had lost her nametag. This was 3 miles away from the apartment. It might not seem like much, but in deep snow, that’s a long ways and it’s hard to find something like that. So luckily, since I’m always prepared (haha) I whipped out my flashlight and we backtracked the whole 3 miles, only to find her name tag in the apartment complex parking lot. We were glad, it was a tender mercy, but by that point we couldn’t walk back out to our area before curfew.

                Well, since I forgot my notes of what went on this week, that’s all I can remember, but I’ll keep you posted if I remember anything else.

                Have a very merry Christmas and remember the reason for the season. Christ gives us so much every day, especially the Atonement. I feel like if He were here all that He would want for Christmas is for us to serve someone else or better ourselves. Remember to give back this year and brighten someone else’s day. (Matthew 25:40) Also, remember to wish the missionaries serving in your area merry Christmas. It can be a hard time for a lot of them and I know that we all appreciate it when people go out of their way to do something nice for us when we’re away from home.

                Have an excellent rest of the year; stay safe, stay happy, stay prayerful.

                I love you!!!

                Sister Draney

               

Our trio of sisters

Three of us in our apartment with 2 beds and a couch

Hello Everyone!

This week has been crazy busy! I was transferred to Bozeman on Tuesday and my companion and I were doubled in to an Elder’s area. I was so sad to say goodbye to my old area but I’m excited for something new! We’ve been trying to get everything in order for days. Things are a little bit of a mess because of the ipads. Everyone has a different way of recording things. So hopefully we’ll get that worked out and everything will go more smoothly after that.

Our new apartment is tiny. There are no bedrooms and we have a bunk bed in the living room with our couch and one study table. Then we have a tiny kitchen with another study table and a little kitchen table. We have a tiny stove that looks like it may catch on fire at any moment. It looks better now that Sis Horrocks managed to get the layer of grime off of it that the elders left.

We don't have a dishwasher, but we don't mind because we don't generate a lot of dishes anyways. The water in the apartment is pretty gross and the water heater lasts about 15 minutes for us both to shower. And the walls are really thin so we can hear everything our neighbors are doing; especially Bob who lives above us. We know his entire schedule because we can hear what he's doing all the time.

When we arrived at the apartment it was really gross. The elders said they cleaned it, but if that's what clean looks like I shudder to think what it looked like before. The shower had a black and blue ring around it and it took me 40 minutes to scrub it off. I wonder what the elders were doing that made them so dirty?! Sis Horrocks and I just looked at each other and laughed about how neither of us felt any desire to ever get married at that moment. It was so gross. It took us 7 hours to clean the apartment. Yeah, no bueno.

But now that it's clean it really is very nice and homey. We love it. We have just enough space. The only thing we would change is how long the hot water heater stays on for.

My new companion is Sister Horrocks. She's 21 from Draper, Utah. She is so awesome! She's a redhead and has the best sense of humor. She also is the most patient person I've ever met. Nothing can ruffle her feathers and she's always positive. It's the greatest thing ever. I don't think she should ever leave me! She's been out 6 months and she wishes that they would extend girl missions to 2 years. Our very favorite thing to do is to take funny things that happen and phrase them like we’re going to write about it to President Mecham or to our parents. For example, “Dear mom and dad, I’m pretty sure that my companion is crazy. I woke up in the middle of the night to her sitting in the kitchen gnawing on our loaf of bread. I’m pretty concerned. Love, Sister Draney”. It’s the best!

We're in a car share, so we share a truck with 6 other sisters. It's slightly problematic because to get to our branch it's 45 minutes away in a car, so there's no way we could walk there. They're trying to get us our own car because walking wouldn't be safe for us because the only way to get out to our area is to walk along the highway and that's not safe and the snow is really deep. So we'll see what happens. Right now we get the car 2 days a week. There's a bus system here, but it doesn't cover our area, go figure haha. But it's okay, we don't mind much. It's a new adventure!

            I don’t have much to write about this week because we aren’t teaching anyone yet and we’ve just been doing a lot of basic things to try and get the area into workable shape. The people here are really nice. The ward is supposed to be about 440 people, but only about 75 showed up, maybe less. So we’ll have a lot of work to do with the less actives of the ward. I’m excited to get to know everyone and to help them come to Christ here.

            The work is going well and I am doing beyond awesome! I love you all and have a most fabulous week!

 

            Love,

 Sister Draney

P.S Scripture of the week Mosiah 5:21  J

Hello Everyone!

                This week has been crazy and I’ll tell you all about it, but first I have to say that I’ve been transferred! I’ll be in Bozeman for the next little bit. It should be exciting and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! So anyone that has been writing me at the Alkali Creek address needs to start sending my mail to the Rimrock address:

1848 Rimrock Rd

Billings, MT 59102

Thank you all so much! I don’t want anyone’s letters to get lost! Also, thank you to everyone who wrote me this transfer! It’s been so great to get all of your letters and to be able to read and reply to them. Keep them coming! You’re the best!!!

                Last Monday we treated ourselves and got Costa Vida. It lasted me for the next week. Seriously, I just finished it yesterday. It was so good though! We also had a chance to get some shopping done so I was able to get a beautiful green hat, some paints, and a pair of snowboots that look like they’re made of trashbags. They were on clearance and they’re not the warmest, but at least my feet are dry, even if they’re not too warm! Also one of the wonderful women in our ward lent me a waterproof, windproof jacket since m other one wasn’t windproof or waterproof and it was soaked. That jacket has been saving my life all week since the temperatures have plummeted. The lowest that I remember it hitting was -34F. Apparently, as the members have been telling us, you can get frostbite in 10 minutes out here. I completely believe it.

                Since we’re in a car share we only have the car about half the time. Our ward can’t give us too many ride because they’re all really busy and we ended up walking around Lockwood for about 40 minutes because no one would let us in. It was pretty funny actually, our nose hairs froze and the little hairs on our face froze and turned white so it looked like we had whiskers, our hair turned white and hard like a helmet and our faces were so red! It was quite the experience. We ended up having to go to our dinner appointment because no one would let us in and it wasn’t healthy to be out that long in such cold temperatures; especially without pants. Our skirts do keep us surprisingly warm though which is nice. I wish I had brought more warm, thick, long skirts.

                One of the women in our ward has this really cool embroidery machine and she used it to embroider the names of some of our investigators on to stockings that Sis Rider’s mom had sent us. We’re hoping to get the ward to fill them for our investigators with little goodies and stocking stuffers. She also embroidered our names on little strips of fabric. It was so neat!

                On Tuesday we had district meeting. It was tough to get out and drive to it because we woke up to 1.5 feet of snow outside. Our little car isn’t cut out for that, so we were worried we would get stuck. Everyone drives really slowly in the snow which means it takes twice as long to get anywhere, but I’m glad people are being safe! The snow was really pretty, until you had to go out and work in it. I discovered that day that it can snow horizontally when it’s windy. It went right into my ears! I decided to always wear my earmuffs from now on. The worst is when it’s cold and windy, or cold and windy and snowing! I’ve learned to wrap my big scarf around my mouth so that my breath warms my face. The only downside is, if you let it slip down for a minute to talk to someone, it freezes stiff as a board and then it’s no help.

                We finally got the new member lessons for one of our recent converts and it was so good! It’s really important for members to be involved with new converts. The lessons from them can be really powerful because it’s from someone who isn’t the missionaries. I think it would be helpful for wards to have a training on how to teach effectively because it’s hard for members to know what needs to go in a lesson and what doesn’t. If I hadn’t been on a mission I can only imagine how off topic and non-concise I would have been! The mission really teaches missionaries great tools for being effective teachers. Inspired questions and short, clear statements are key!

                On Wednesday morning there was a spider on my shirt that was hanging in the closet. A big spider. I was not okay with that. Luckily sister Finnell came and saved it before I killed it. She let it go outside, but now I’m quite paranoid of all of my clothes in the closet. Big spiders like that should not be inside. Better in my clothes than in my bed though.

                We helped an elderly woman in our area bake cookies. She made some cookies that were really good but they turned out kind of flat. I’m not sure how to make them stay big, but here is the recipe. They were amazing!

                1 Pkg lemon cake mix

                1 tub cool whip

                1 egg

                Put them on a greased cookie sheet in heaping spoonfuls nad let them bake! I think we did it at whatever temperature the cake mix called for.

                We also got to play with her ash from Mt. St. Helen’s eruption. It was really neat to see the different kinds of ash based on the location it was gathered from.

                The Alkali Creek sisters made turkey soup with leftover turkey from a member and ended up getting food poisoning, so Sister Rider and I had to make a late-night run to the store for some sprite. I’m so glad I haven’t been sick yet. They looked so miserable! Luckily it cleared up by morning.

                I tried deer jerky this week! It was really good and very flavorful. I have yet to have any other kind of deer. I don’t think I’d like it as much if it tasted really gamey.

                Two of our investigators agreed to a baptismal date this week! We’re so excited for them and we hope that they will begin to see the blessings in their lives now that they have made this decision. Now we just have to teach them all the lessons, get them coming to church consistently, and make sure that they really know what they’re doing. We don’t want to bring anyone in who isn’t ready. It will be all the worse if they get baptized and fall away, so we really want them to be prepared to the point where they can remain active once they’re baptized.

                We got to visit the temple this week. It was an awesome opportunity. You can really see how the rest of your week goes more smoothly when you get to attend the temple and take that Spirit with you when you leave. The peace that you can find in the temple is unparalleled. I love it so much and I wish that I could go every day and see those blessings in my life and in the lives of others on a more consistent basis. But it’s nice to be able to go as often as I can and I would encourage everyone who reads this to try and get to the temple, whether it’s to do a session or even just walk around the temple grounds. There is nothing quite like the peace you get from the temple.

                This week I was so tired that during lunch I fell asleep on the living room floor in front of the heater. It was so nice and warm, but it’s unusual for me to fall asleep on the floor. That’s how you know you’ve been working hard.

                I wish I had more time to tell you everything else that happened this week, but I’ll have to wait until next week. I love you all, stay healthy and safe. Remember to pray. The Lord wants to hear from you and He is just waiting for you to reach out to Him! Remember to pause at the end of your prayers as well. He wants to talk back to you, so let Him!

                Keep the letters coming!

 

                Lots of Love,

 

                Sister Draney

Here is a picture of cold Montana!  Goodbye to Billings!

Hello everybody and happy Christmas season!

We had an amazing lesson with a new investigator this week. Her name is Carmen and she's so awesome! I've never bonded more with anyone that quickly before. The lesson was very spiritual and it was tough though because we had to tell her that her baptism wasn't done by proper authority. I felt so bad because she was heartbroken. She reacted exactly how I think I would have reacted in her situation. We encouraged her to pray about what we had discussed and we prayed as well that night. The next morning she called us with her answer! The Lord had told her that what we had taught was true and that she needed to be re-baptized. I don't think I've ever been so happy before! It was incredible. I danced around our house for a while. My companions thought it was pretty funny.

We had our first zone training this week. We did this really cool activity where they asked us questions that a lot of investigators might ask and then had us turn to the scriptures for the answers. We had to race to see who could answer the question best using only a scripture and a 30 second explanation. The sisters won, of course (haha), and it was really fun!

We helped a family in our ward make pies for Thanksgiving. I mostly ended up cleaning out their squash and talking to their daughter because it wasn’t really a 3 person job. They made squash pie, chocolate cashew pie, French silk pie, and cherry pie. It was really cool! They had us over again on Thanksgiving to try the pie. I think I still prefer pumpkin to squash pie and the chocolate cashew pie was really good!

I know I say this in every letter, but make sure and help out the missionaries where you live! We are never more grateful than when members try to be involved and let us take them to lessons or fill the empty spots on our dinner calendar or offer us rides. The littlest things mean so much to a missionary! We always appreciate member involvement and we always need fellowshippers. Don’t let us burden down the few that are willing to help! Many hands make light work. J Make sure and always say hi to new people in the ward. Always, always, always!!

We visited Nancie again. I love her and her family so much! We helped them set up for Christmas and we had a really awesome time. I got to stake Rudolph in the yard and she laughed pretty hard when I came back in and announced that I had staked Rudolph. I also got to put up her Christmas tree. I miss real Christmas trees! I’m smell-deprived. I did get some Martinelli’s sparkling cider so I could kind of celebrate on my own. Anyways, we got to have a nice lesson and chat with her for a bit. I also was reminded of how much little kids love to help and to be given jobs to do. They just glow when you praise them when they’ve done a little job. It was the greatest thing. I’m going to have to remember that when I’m a mom.

Please let everyone know that transfers are this week and to NOT send anything to the Alkali Creek address until I know if I’m staying or going. Send it to the Rimrock one always!

We ate Thanksgiving dinner with the Hopkins. We ended up giving the lesson first while we waited for the turkey. Turkeys take so long to cook! Theirs was pretty much done, but it never ceases to surprise me how early people have to start cooking them! I also got to hold their pet rabbit and he chewed on my name tag. I hope stickers are okay for rabbits to ingest haha.

One day this week we had 7 hours-worth of training/study because we did our normal studying for 3 hours and then the sister training leaders came over to do four hours of training! It was quite something, but it was actually pretty enjoyable. They did a cool activity where they had us look in a mirror and we had to write a few “I am” statements about what we see in ourselves and they all had to be positive and preferably spiritual. It was a really cool activity and surprisingly insightful.

We finally went to Taco Bell this week! I’ve been wanting to go for about 3 weeks now and it just never happens. So I was really excited about that! It’s strange how the little things really can make your day!

I also got the package from the Cameron Ranch Relief Society! I was so excited! It’s been exciting to have that to look forward to every day. It was a super cute idea! Please tell them how grateful I am! It’s nice to know that other people are thinking about you. J

The Domes finally came to church!!! We’ve been visiting them for a while and every time we’ve invited them to come to church they’ve turned us down, so it was super monumental that they accepted! They all came to church which meant that Sister Rider spent a lot of time explaining what was going on and I spent a lot of time trying to occupy their cute little girl so that her parents could pay attention and feel the Spirit. Luckily, I thought to bring some of the candy that the Relief Society sent me and I was able to bribe her into silence. But then I ended up attending primary with them because Tatiana didn’t want to go alone and Winter didn’t want to go to nursery. So we went to the class with Tatiana and I stole some nursery toys to keep Winter occupied. It wasn’t too bad, I’d forgotten what primary was like and how much patience it takes to be a teacher! I really hope they enjoyed it though. We’ll find out when we visit them next since they had to leave in a hurry to feed their baby since they didn’t bring anything.

Let’s see, what else. When I visited the Dome’s home, Winter (about 2 yrs old) took me by the hand and pulled me down to her eye level and told me four or five time to “be careful” and to “watch out for rocks the in the road”. It was the most adorable thing because she was so serious! I love her to death, she’s the cutest kid.

And last, but not least, we didn’t have the car yesterday, so we ended up walking everywhere. It turned out okay because I brought my flashlight (not a lot of street lamps). We ended up running into one of our potential investigators who was taking her dog for a walk and we were able to walk with her for about half an hour. We saw a TON of deer while we were out. They always startle me when I see them at night time.

I also got to see Ephriam’s Rescue last night. Boy do I want that movie! It’s one of the few approved movies and oh goodness, it makes me so happy!! I would highly recommend it to everyone!!

Annnnd that’s it for this week! I love you and make sure and read your scriptures ever day!

Lots of Love,

Sister Draney

P.S Mormon Message of the Week: “The Civility Experiment” and “What Shall We Give”

 

Hello Everyone!

This week has been pretty uneventful. However, I must say that I got a new hat, so I’m pretty excited about that! It’s so warm and it makes my head sweat (which is a good thing, even if it sounds gross). It’s pretty cold here (yes, that’s an understatement) and when we walk around our area on the days when we don’t have a car I have to take a big scarf and wrap it around my face so only my eyes are showing on the really windy days. Your face gets so frozen that at times you aren’t even sure if you’re still smiling. Tracting can be awful because you can’t feel you face move when you speak. But the people that live here say it’s not even that bad yet, so I’m pretty excited for it to get worse…

We had some good lessons this week, but a lot of people canceled on us or were sick which was tough. It’s even worse when you walk all the way over to the farthest part of your area and everyone over there cancels. Sometimes people are nice though and will give you rides. Last night this couple (the wife is a member, the husband is investigating) picked us up and gave us a ride to dinner on their little bucket seats in the back of their car! We were so grateful and it was kind of a cool car, even though it was cramped. They’re super awesome, too bad they’ve been fellowshipped into another ward, even though they’re in our area.

We did a lot of service this week cleaning out a less-active woman in our ward’s house. She used to own an LDS bookstore but it went out of business so all of the merchandise ended up in her front room and she’s had a tough time selling it, so we helped her get it into order and it was really fun. She’s super nice. However, I’m pretty sure that when I get a home of my own that anything that I don’t need is all getting tossed or given away to DI. You can literally feel the difference in a clean an organized home. The Lord glories in orderliness and cleanliness. I’m happy to be able to help people tidy up their homes so the Spirit can be there.

We’ve been having a lot of fun giving away cookies and treats lately. There’s this lady in our ward that we go over to every week and we help her bake cookies to give away to people. This week we had a ton of cookies to give out to our investigators. It’s really nice because then they feel that we care about them beyond just giving them lessons. It’s really nice. J One sister in our ward had an extra turkey that she wanted to give to someone that needed it more than she did, so we were able to give it to one of the really sweet investigator families we’ve been teaching. They appreciated it a lot.

Something cool that happened to me this week was that I got fed a cabbage pancake! It was served to us for dinner by the Hoopers, Brother Hooper had gone on his mission to Japan, which was pretty cool. It’s called Okonomiyaki (which I think means “whatever you like fried in oil” or something along those lines. He explained it to us.) and it was so good! It doesn’t sound like it would be, but I would definitely recommend it! Here is the recipe that they let me take a picture of:

Okonomiyaki

16 oz bacon

4 c water

12 eggs

9 cups flour

3 tsp salt

3 heads cabbage

6 tbs ginger

¾ c tonkatsu sauce, or BBQ sauce (we used Mandarin sauce and it was really good)

Large bowl, stir water and eggs together. Gradually add flour and salt until smooth. Add cabbage and ginger. Stir until evenly distributed.

Heat skillet over medium heat and coat with cooking spray. Pour pancake sized servings into the skillet and add bacon on top. Cook about 4 minutes or until edges are dry. Flip and cook other side until cooked through. Drizzle the sauce over the top of each cake, kind of like syrup.

 

I’d highly recommend it! Enjoy! :D

I was also able to play in Sacrament meeting this Sunday while Sis Rider sang! It was really fun and I loved the chance to play!

 

Oh, a funny story from dinner, Sister Rider and I went to sit down at the table with our Okonomiyaki and when we sat down the little kid stood up and took his plate with him and walked back into the kitchen and said very loudly to his parents “I don’t want to sit over by those people!” We all laughed pretty hard. He’s only 3, so it’s understandable. J

At dinner last night over at the bishop’s house they invited their grandchildren and their parents over. The little girl walked in and said “what are you doing here? Who are you?” The way she said it was so funny! There was no shyness at all. She was quite blunt and I almost laughed, but I told her who I was and boy did she have a lot to say to us. She even told us a story about the wolves and the dogs eating people up. It was pretty interesting!

Our bishop is really cool. He and his wife have the neatest hobbies/talents. He spins and dyes wool and his wife is a weaver/ knitter/ crocheter. They have a ton of looms and spinning wheels in their house. It’s so cool! They’re very talented and it’s so neat to see such a useful talent.

Anyways, sorry this is such a short letter, this week hasn’t been as productive as normal for missionary work. Hopefully next week will be better!

I love you all!!!

Sister Draney

Pictures:  me and my companion, Sis. Rider.  Our bedroom and our lovely bathroom that is in the garage.  Our spectacular Christmas tree! 

My Dearest Family!!

This week has been so awesome! We’ve been so busy getting our area organized and trying to get some sense of structure to our area because it was a bit of a mess when we found it. Our project today was all the referrals. We cleaned them out and got them into a notebook so that we don’t have people all over the place and still on the board from several months ago. We also finished lists of everyone in our area by street name and put the streets in alphabetically based on what area of the map they’re in. It’s been pretty fun! We’ve been trying to iron out who all is active or inactive and the other missionaries hadn’t been marking down when people were no longer interested, so we’ve had quite a few upset people.

                We don’t do a lot of tracting because we’re so busy with other things at the moment that we never even finish what we had planned for the day anyways. We only tract when we bike into an area and our appointments all fall through or we’re prompted to knock on someone’s door. But, I do have two cool tracting stories for you this week!

                First, we went to visit a potential investigator but they weren’t home, so I told Sister Rider that we should knock on the next door over. So we did and this man came out with quite a few tattoos, holding his little 5 month old daughter and ended up inviting us back! It turns out that he was the same guy I saw smoking on his porch the second night I was here and that I had felt prompted to go talk to but I didn’t end up talking to him because Sister Rider thought it was a sketchy place at night and because I didn’t push it enough because I was new and uncertain. It’s nice to know the Lord gives us second chances!

                Second, we went to visit Sister Demree and when we left I stopped to talk to the guy that was raking her leaves and we ended up giving a Book of Mormon away to him! He seems super prepared by the Lord and he’s so enthusiastic! It’s interesting because he took us to meet his parents (he’s living with his parents for a few weeks because he only moved here a few weeks ago and he’s trying to find a place) and it turns out his parent’s house is the one Sister Rider had felt prompted to knock on a week ago but they told us to go away because they were Methodist, but it turns out he lives there! So it was so perfect that he happened to be coming around to offer raking services at the exact moment we were in Sister Demree’s house. We had debated whether or not to see her because of something that had happened earlier that week that I’ll tell you later, but it’s a good thing we did!

This week we got our first baptismal date! One of our investigators agreed! She wants to bring her whole family into the church. Her boyfriend that she lives with is inactive but wants to come back to church and they have a young son who they want to bring as well. Her mom is even interested and wants to come to our weekly Book of Mormon study class. We’re super excited! I danced a little happy-dance when we left :D. We will have to get them married first though, or get one to move out, so we’ll see how that goes…

                I handed out my first two Books of Mormon this week and that was super exciting! I feel like such the missionary ;) haha and we handed out a big stack of Mormon.org cards. We have to get more from the mission office today. It’s been great!

                We played district volleyball this week which was really fun. It’s not competitive so everyone just enjoys themselves and it gives us a chance to be silly, which is great. We need that break every so often even though it means we have to wake up at 5:30 am to go do it. It makes the rest of the day just that much better. Speaking of exercise, Sister Rider is a runner, so in the mornings I speed walk with sister Asay while she and sister Finell run circles around us. I’m sure people must think we’re pretty strange.

                There are deer all over the place here! I love it! Just the other week on the way to church a whole herd of antelope crossed the street right in front of us! It was so cool!

                The weather here is crazy and bipolar. I told you last week that it snowed, right?! Well, this week it’s warmed back up to the 40’s-50’s, so pretty warm, but the other day when we were riding home from a lunch appointment it started to rain and the rain was freezing! Then just as we got home it turned into hail, then it because snow which melted 30 minutes later when the sun came out! We could barely see while we were riding and it was pretty miserable. However, I can’t complain that all the snow is gone. I love the fall. I’m so excited that people are starting to put up Christmas lights! I love it! Plus, it makes it feel safer to walk around after dark. The sun sets at around 4pm here, so there’s a lot of time spent walking around in the dark.

                I had a dog jump on me this week with poop all over its paws! It was quite gross but luckily we were visiting her owner for a lesson so I got to clean it off. I don’t think I smelled very good for the rest of the day though…

                Last night we had a member make a really interesting cabbage stew. I thought I wasn’t going to like it but it actually turned out to be really good! Not to mention I was so hungry at church yesterday that I could have eaten a bear!

                I also met a really famous artist, Bill Rains! You should look him up online! It was so cool! We cut us out a buffalo out of paper and signed it. Some of his paintings and sculptures can go for up to $150,000! It was so cool and he was really nice. It certainly made my day! I’ll probably send the buffalo home at some point, so if I do, save it and the postcard in my photo album!!!!!!

                So far I’m 55 pages into my journal! They think I’m strange for writing so much for each day. I really hope I’ll appreciate it a lot later since I’m putting so much time into it!

                I’ve also started keeping a revelation journal and it is the greatest thing. I would highly suggest doing the same. It’s great to look back on past revelation and the Lord is always willing to give you more if you write it down/act on it. It’s been a big blessing so far.

                My Mormon message pick of the week this week is “Courage”. I would encourage you to watch it and share it with people you think exemplify courage in your life.

                Please give everyone my love and know that I’m think about you often and that I pray for you! Also, I’ve been trying to say prayers of just gratitude lately and I’m finding it’s making my prayers a lot more meaningful. I would encourage you to try it for a week. Read 3 Nephi 13:31-33 and remember, the Lord knows what you need, so don’t just pray like you’re calling out for groceries. Make it a conversation!

                I love you all forever!

                Sister Draney

Photos:  1) My companion, Sister Rider 2) our house 3) one of the horses at our house 4) snow at our house! 5) Me :)

Hello All!

So, sadly I left my journal at home, so I will do my best to remember everything that happened this week.

So I met some Tingey's in my ward! And we're totally related! I think he's grandpa's cousin's son or something like that. It was way cool!!! I'm so glad they're active or I would have gone after them with a vengeance! All of our relatives WILL be active! haha

So it started snowing here and it's 19 degrees outside. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the cold? I'll have to buy some more warm things, so don't be shocked if you see that on the card because the mission money barely covers getting settled in this first month. It will be better next month but I can't wait until then to get a good jacket. Because it's snowing we can't ride bikes anymore. now that I'm finally getting some muscles I'm sad to stop. I also have arm muscles, but only on my right arm, which is weird... I'm going to have to even that out at some point... ;)

I've been eating much healthier, but it stinks because healthy food is so expensive! You would be proud though, I haven't bought any soda, chips, cookies, etc. I've been very good. Sister Finell has a blender so we make a lot of smoothies for breakfast with yogurt, milk, fruit, and spinach. They add oatmeal and seeds, but I'm not too fond of those. The smoothies look really gross, but they actually taste pretty good! And they're super good for me. Also, I'm hungry all the time. I work off all my food every day so by the time I make it to the dinner appointments I'm about ready to eat their table as well as the dinner! :)

We've been focusing a lot this week on meeting everyone on our lists (about 5 pages long). Our ward list is 16 pages long and boy are we meeting a ton of people! It's quite crazy but the bishopric is a real help. We're starting to get a real foothold in the area. We met a wonderful old lady who has lived in this little old metal trailer with no heat for 16 years. She says she's very happy and content. I'm happy that she's happy, but every day I meet more people that make me more firm in the belief that I will not ever be in that kind of circumstance.

Lots of people here have dogs, so I come home a lot simply covered in hair. It's a good thing I'm not allergic and that we have a lint roller!

The bishop has asked us to visit all of the widows in the ward each week. It takes up a lot of time because a lot of them don't have many people to talk to and they're quite lonely. I'm not sure what his reasoning is behind having the missionaries do it, instead of visiting teachers, but I'm sure it's inspired and I just don't understand but I feel like it doesn't contribute to the missionary work in the area at all because they never have referrals for us. But they're super nice and we love visiting. I actually felt bad though because we visited this one old lady and she talked at us for like 45 minutes and both Sister Rider and I were dozing off, we are usually always tired but this was a new one entirely. I felt bad but she didn't seem to notice. We were just so exhausted and she had one of those voices that just sends you right off!

We have this one family that we try to visit but they're never home, even for the set appointments, so that's really frustrating. Their little girl loves the Gospel and is really pushing her family.

There are a lot of people with mental problems here that make it difficult for them to attend church. Either they're afraid of people, or they have some other kind of disorder. There are so many of our investigators that want to come (or say they do) but have problems being in the classes. Usually Sacrament meeting is okay. But no one really came this week.

Oh, this week was fun because one of the people that was supposed to be feeding us called us to tell us that her kids were sick and that she was going to have to send us pizza. We figured someone would be at the church and it would take too long to bike home so we had her send it there. Only, it turns out no one was at the church! So we ate our pizza on the church lawn, in the dark, in the freezing wind. It was pretty fun! We were so cold that our dinner only lasted for about 30 minutes instead of an hour because we wanted to get back into people's homes so we started up early. It was great :P

My bike tire popped, again. I have a talent for destroying bikes. Sister Rider rode it home because she's stronger than me and she's a trooper. We ended up walking though once it got really flat. So we're bikeless but it doesn't really matter because we're not allowed to ride in the snow because there are too many accidents.

You guys should watch some Mormon Messages this week, they're my absolute favorite!! :D That's our version of TV since we can download them all onto our iPads. We watch them on Sunday mornings and sometimes while we exercise.

For our district workout on Friday we had a boot camp day and I thought I was going to die, I was so tired! And I was really sore the next day.

I also discovered that I love raking leaves! We did this sister's backyard and I jumped in the pile and it was so fun!!!

This week we visited a less active woman's house and she was so nice, she fed us a ton of lemonade and pretzels. When Sister Rider and I got out of the lesson we looked at each other and realized we both had to go to the bathroom so bad! So we started booking it to the nearest members house (a block away) but she misread the map and we went the wrong way. We were sure we weren't going to make is when a member of the Alkali Creek ward pulled up alongside us and offered us a ride! She took us to her house and let us use her restroom. It was the sweetest thing. It made me feel like the Lord was watching out for us because she wasn't even in our ward and she didn't know us at all, yet she took the time to stop and ask and take us to her home. The Lord truly cares about us and about the small things that matter to us (like finding a bathroom) we are so blessed!

Don't forget as Thanksgiving is coming up to look for the ways the Lord blesses you and remember to be extra grateful! I've been trying to do that as I fall asleep, but I'm usually so tired that I only get through one or two things before I'm out like a light!

Well, I'm sorry this letter is so short, but I don't have my journal and I have fifty billion letters to respond to (well, more like 20) but still! I'm running out of time! I love you lots! And this time write me back!!!!!

xoxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxx

Sister Draney

p.s Don't forget to help the missionaries out in your area all you can. I know they'll appreciate it! To members offered us rides this week and they were my angels! Be some other missionary's angel! :)

You can write to me at my new address:  618 Alkali Creek Rd.  Billings, MT 59105

I'm in Montana!

Hi everyone!

I'm going to try and get as much down as I can because I only have a limited amount of time before my minutes on the computer run out!

So here's what's happened since I left the MTC:

On the plane one of the flight attendants noticed our name tags and said that she wanted a new name like us and so it was a wonderful missionary opportunity and we were able to tell her a bit about who we were and give her a Mormon.org car. I hope she follows up on it, she was so excited when we told her she could be Sister Tempest, she thought it was so neat! (she gave me two cookies, she must like me! haha)

The ground was covered in snow when we arrived. Sister Runolfson was like "nope! I changed my mind! Take me home!" (jokingly of course) but we were all so nervous about the cold. Luckily it melted the next day and it hasn't really snowed since. It snowed a bit this morning, but it didn't stick.

Well, as you either already know, or will find out, I'm serving in Billings in a place called Hilltop. I'm living in this awesome house with another companionship on a ranch with horses. No one else lives there and there is a cave that we want to hike up to one morning for our exercise. It's funny, I had thought that the one place I didn't want to go was Billings, and where did the Lord send me? Straight to Billings. And I'm sure that He'll send me somewhere new as soon as I become fond of Billings. It's kind of cool that I'm here though because Sister Asay from my MTC district is staying in the same house as me, and Elder Maughn and Elder Graham are also here! So I'll probably get to see them today for preparation day (our mission president doesn't let us call it p-day.)

My new companion is sister Rider. She's pretty cool, I sent a picture of her. She doesn't get excited like I do, which is tough, and she never waits for me on the bikes (she's so fast!). But she's really nice and never gets discouraged. She's helping me a lot with my memorization. I have to memorize "My Purpose", "The Standard of Truth", D&C 4 (the whole section), and 3 Nephi something... it's so tough to memorize all of them! I'm still working on it. May I just repeat, scripture masteries are saving my life! It's so much easier to memorize out here because I had practice in seminary.

The house we live in is pretty barren. The shower is out in the garage with the washing machine, but it's in its own room and it's in the same room as the furnace, so it's always toasty warm which is SO nice. I actually killed a black widow in there this week. All the other sisters freaked out and I didn't want it in there so we used a ton of bug killer on it and it shriveled up and died. I'm so glad it's gone because it was probably the biggest one I've ever seen and I don't want to find it in the clothes or in the shower, or anywhere! Now I'm kind of spider-paranoid.

I didn't have any food my first few days because we couldn't go to the store so I had to get it from the other sisters and I'm so glad to finally have food of my own!

There's not much exciting happening in this area yet because both sister Rider and I are new to the area and we're trying to get our feet under us because we know no one in the ward or any of the less actives or investigators. So we haven't made much progress because we're mostly going around trying to get to know people. It's frustrating because the other companionship we live with has a lot of success because that sister has been here for a while.

One cool thing did happen this week though! One of our investigators (we think, we aren't entirely sure what his status is as far as the church but he doesn't know much about it. His wife, a member, explains a lot to him. He's in his 70's probably and is missing a ton of teeth but has the most awesome smile!) Anyways, he showed up to church this week with his nonmember son's family in tow! He was grinning and looking as natural as can be, smelling of cigarettes but looking for all the world like the happiest man on earth! I'm still not sure why he came because he's so deaf that we didn't think he had heard any of the lesson that we had given his wife, but apparently he had because he showed up in a 40 year old suit (he told us how old it was). It was amazing! I hope he starts taking the discussions and coming to church.

The first day we were using the bikes, my tire popped and we had to leave it at a members house and get a ride home because it was Halloween and the missionaries aren't allowed to be out.

I play the piano pretty frequently here. You should send me some more music, especially Christmas music/ CD's (approved ones). And I need you to send me the recipe for Orange Julius because I really want to make some and I don't have it!!!

We serve in a lot of trailer parks which seemed kind of sketchy to me, but apparently there are a ton of them here. I can't get over how many people are comfortable living in the filth I see inside of some of them. Don't get me wrong, a lot of them are really nice, but there are also a lot of dirty ones.

I had my first rejection and it wasn't that bad at all. I think it would be worse if I knew them, but since I didn't, it didn't really phase me.

I've now had a dinner cooked in a pumpkin. Pumpkin is actually pretty good! I enjoyed it.

Ah there's so much I want to tell you but not enough time!

When I do get facebook, you're not allowed to comment or like anything I say. Mission rules.

Oh here's a quote for the quote board: "Obedience brings blessings. Exact obedience brings miracles."

 

I love you all! Have a good week!!

Love,

Sister Draney      

 

Sorry the pictures aren't in chronological order. One of the horses at the home where we are staying and our car.  Me with President and Sister Mecham my first day in Montana at the Billings temple. Back at the MTC with my district and my companion.