Hello Everyone!

I liked the women’s broadcast, but sadly I don’t remember too much but the beginning, so I’ll have to read it again. I have a much better retention rate for things I read, rather than things I see. I think the music in this session touched me the most, especially when one of the sisters started humming that song and all the kids started singing along! I will admit, I cried. I cry all the time, it’s terrible. I cried yesterday when I bore my testimony in church and I cry when I teach and I’m just thinking that I’m going to get a job as a human water fountain that talks about the gospel.

So this week has gone by so fast, I have no idea where the time has gone!

We had exchanges with the sister training leaders that lasted for 5 days! It was crazy fun. We are so busy here it's not even funny. However, people are not progressing like I would like them too. Sis Searle comes to church every week now, but says it's just for me. So, I talked to her quietly and said she should be coming to church for the right reasons and that if I found out she hadn't been going to church if I got transferred that I would hunt her down. She smiled and laughed and said "No, really. I will hunt you down, and not in the good way." It was kind of funny and light hearted, but I could tell that she knew I was serious. So we're really working on coming to church for the right reasons and helping her to understand that she does have a testimony, even if it's not a big one.

 

We got our new bishopric! : Bishop Barton, 1st is Bro Fletcher, 2nd is Bro Hicks. I'm really pleased with it and Bishop Barton invited us to attend ward council!!! Yay!!!!!! We are so excited and he gave a huge 5th Sunday lesson all on missionary work and we're going to do a 40 day fast with our ward and he had us talk in the meeting. I'm so excited!

 

I wish we had a key indicator for effort sometimes. We are staying so busy and it makes me so happy. The work has really blossomed and it's moving forward very slowly, but it's still moving forward. I'm so excited to be able to help it along. So many of our people are progressing and I don't think they even fully realize how far they've come until we point it out. Good things are happening here and we have the ward's full support which is so awesome. I can't say enough about 1st ward. Things are really looking up!

I'm happy with the nice weather we've had and I've been very happy this past week; except for yesterday when fasting made me so sick that I thought I had the flu, it was really strange. It never happens that badly. I almost wasn’t able to go to our dinner appointment because I could barely stand up straight and I thought I was going to throw up at any moment. But other than that this has been a great week.

Funny story, so I taught the Konzens for hours last night in my sleep. I kept waking myself up when I was like, "well, can we say a prayer with you before we go?" And Sis Governale kept making affirming noises, so we were pretty much teaching together, even though I did all the talking. I kept waking up and thinking, "this is silly, they're not here, it's a waste of time and I need to be sleeping" but then I'd fall asleep and start teaching again. It was pretty...interesting, to say the least.

We had a really neat Relief Society activity called “these are a few of my favorite things” and everyone brought in one of their favorite things and talked about why it was their favorite and then everyone brought in something inexpensive that was one of their favorite things to share with everyone else, so we all went home with someone else’s favorite thing (like a candy bar, chapstick, etc.). We also got to eat schnitzel with noodles (I can’t believe I spelled schnitzel right the first time! How is that for talent? Haha now if only I could spell “exercise” without using spellcheck…)And Sister Searle came to the activity (after we showed up at her house and told her I was expecting her to be there, she wasn’t planning on coming on her own) but it still made me really happy. Even though she’s not going for the right reasons, it’s still better than not going at all and we’re that much closer to re-sparking her testimony and really helping her.

We went to Big Sky this week and stayed with the Anderson’s. It was so fun to stay in someone’s home. It was nice to come to a place that really felt like a home, rather than just our apartment where everything is bare or missionary-related, which isn’t bad, it’s just not too homey-feeling because we move around so much.

We spent all day tracting and gave away 1 Book of Mormon and found 1 less active. It doesn’t sound like much success, but I thought it was pretty good. We talked to a lot of people. We also tried to find a referral and ended up getting so lost that by the time we saw a sign we were only 25 miles away from West Yellowstone (yikes!) but our map made it look like the house was all the way out there. We ended up finding him and he wasn’t interested unless we could tell him who the referral came from. Oh well, it was good anyways.

I met someone this week who told us he was part of a cult that worshipped death and the Virgin Mary. It ended up being a really long, interesting conversation. Apparently you move up in the organization if you kill someone (only in military service). It kind of freaked me out, but everyone needs the gospel and he has potential. Hopefully we see him again and he’s a little more open.

We have started taking copies of the Book if Mormon to elderly members who are stuck in their homes or care facilities and having them write their testimonies in the cover and we give those out to people. Older people often have such strong testimonies and it’s a good way for them to feel involved and needed, not to mention that people really enjoy reading other people’s testimonies.

So we went to dinner with a family and they had a pet cockatoo and it really liked me. It sat on my shoulder all through dinner and tried to eat my dessert, then climbed back on my shoulder for the rest of the lesson. It kept “snuggling” my cheek and tried to eat all the mascara off of my eyelashes. When we were done with the lesson I put him back on his perch and he threw a fit as I was walking away to use their bathroom before I left and flew after me! Anyway, it ended up coming with me to the bathroom (I told him if he fell in the toilet it wasn't my fault) and they had to coax him away from me when I left. I was pretty pleased.

It was the strangest thing!

Yep, that was my week, in all of its exciting glory! I hope you all are having a great week! Remember to smile at everyone you meet and brighten the world.

I love you all!

Sister Draney