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.