Happy Almost May!

This week has been crazy and very interesting. We hiked the “M” last Monday with our zone instead of going to the museum. It turned out to be really fun and it was quite the hike. Sister Governale went up the switchbacks and I went with another group of sisters straight up the “M”. It was quite high up but the view was wonderful and the weather was perfect. It was really nice to finally get some sun. I was also the first sister to make it up the mountain, so I was pretty proud of myself.

We had a lesson with the S----- because they invited us over for dinner and then started asking a lot of questions. It turned out that our discussion lead perfectly into the next lesson we were planning to give them, so it worked out perfectly! We’re planning to go teach them tonight and hopefully we’ll be able to get Sister S----- in to the family history center to get some work done because she’s really excited about that.

We’re continuing to volunteer at the library. We usually start out with shelving the kid’s books because a lot of the library people are too old to bend down to those shelves without their knees giving them trouble. I must admit that sometimes even I feel old when I bend down half a dozen times. It’s quite the workout! But the library is awesome and the people here love the missionaries because of our great work ethic and our thoroughness in getting the work done well.

C---- came to mutual again and will be starting Personal Progress! We’re really excited and she seems to love mutual. Hopefully the other girls will really start taking her under their wing and inviting her to church. I think that if she gets involved it could end up getting the whole family involved.

We were excited this week because a friend of the K------, J---, said that we could teach him the lessons! I’m very excited and surprised because he was the last person I would have ever guessed that would be open to taking the lessons. But it just goes to show we never know who is or isn’t ready to hear the gospel, so we’ll see how it goes.  The Jones’ kids gave us the cutest rubber band bracelets when we stopped by to talk with them. They’re adorable. I’m sure you’ve seen them around, they’re all the craze here.

We had either a really good, or a really terrible lesson with Sis S----- this week. We really tried to get down to the root of the problem (gently) and we made her cry and we tried to get Brother S----- to commit to paying tithing, but we aren’t sure if he’ll really do it. It’s so tough when you love people so much but you can only help them to a certain point before they have to help themselves.

We were walking around the other day trying to see people and no one was home and we saw that there was a car in the driveway of the house that had had no one inside it all winter. We figured that they were snowbirds and so we were excited to go meet E----. So we walked up to the driveway and asked the woman unloading her groceries if E---- was home and she gave us the strangest look and said, “E---- is dead, we just moved into this house”. Talk about awkward! She thought we were very out of the loop I’m sure, either that or that we were crazy. But, now we know that E---- is dead, which is progress I guess. We’ll just have to hand him over to the other missionaries. ;)

So, the most exciting news of the week: we have a new investigator!!!! His name is R------ and his brother and father (who are both recent converts) referred him to us over mormon.org. We went up to Big Sky this week which was convient because he lives in Big Sky, so the timing was perfect! He had the first lesson that day and since then has been doing all of his reading assignments, taken the second lesson, and come to church! He was already talking about church next week and requested that we write down all of the scripture for the things we studied so that he could re-study them at home (because he has a little bit of trouble taking things in the first time). We’re so excited and things are going swimmingly! He also said “my dad is really excited for me to get baptized” and things like “so, when I’m baptized…” We really hope that he is taking in the lessons and really means it! But we don’t think he quite grasps all of the concepts, so we’re going to have to backtrack and re-teach what we’ve taught because if he does get baptized we want it to be because he knows it’s true, not just because his family wants him to get baptized.

We also ran into a less-active woman in Big Sky and she took us out to dinner and we had a wonderful conversation. She left because she has been offended. It’s so frustrating because she knows the church is true but she won’t come back because that person is there at the only branch nearby. Ahh!!!

We did service tracting in Big Sky this time, trying to see more success. Only one person let us wash her car and everyone else looked at us really strangely, even after we assured them that it was completely free and introduced ourselves. Oh well, we’ll see some progress eventually! I’m sure there are plenty of people ready to hear the gospel, we just have to find them!

We were able to do some other service in Big Sky though. We volunteered at their food bank and helped them paint their laundry room and number crockpots. Real exciting, I know! Haha. But we did really enjoy painting. We sang hymns while we did it and it turned out to be really nice.

We were driving back from Montana and sister Governale turns to me and says “I’m glad we’re remaining on the road” but what I heard was: “I’m glad there aren’t aliens in the road” and I was like, “yeah, me too… wait, what?!” and we had a pretty good laugh over it.

That’s about it for this week, except that it snowed 4 inches last night! It was crazy to wake up to snow! Doesn’t Montana know it’s almost May? It’s time for summer to be here! I’m really ready for it to be warm all the time, but I don’t know if I’ll get that until I go back to Arizona. Sister Governale thought it was weird that April and May are summer months in Arizona and that when I was little I had a pool party on my birthday in March. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

Anyway, I hope you had a great week!!!

Love you!

Sister Draney

Me and Sis. Governale on our hike

 Our whole zone

 This morning's snow!

Hello Everybody!

I was wishing this week that I had some cool other language to send my letter greetings in, but alas, I am English speaking and cannot entertain anyone with my colorful greetings.

Anyway, this week was very fun and unique. We sword-fought with one of our part member families, the same ones that invited us to the reenactment; they brought out all their weapons and had us beat on them with swords and 4-foot maul weapons. Needless to say, it was very fun!!! I am also very, very sore. I also came to the decision that I wouldn’t have lasted long in combat with swords. If we carried out war like that now I think fewer people would die and our men would look a lot more buff. Not that that matters to me right now :P

We got to catch lambs and watch sheep be shorn at one of our member’s homes. It was the coolest process ever! And he’s going to let us try a bit next week and I’m SO excited! I can check that off my non-existent bucket list. It’s funny, I only put things on my imaginary bucket list after I’ve already completed them. That’s probably why I always feel so accomplished about my bucket list.

Two students at the Bible College invited us to go hike the “M” but it was too late in the evening and too cold, so we went bowling and played pool at MSU and had a lovely, long gospel discussion. Sister Governale didn’t like it much; she prefers people to openly attack. Me, I prefer the watered down version much more. I could picture myself being friends with them if they liked us more. It was really great! .

We gave service at the library this week for the first time. It was really fun and more difficult than you might think. We had to re-shelve books in the children’s section and everything in the children’s section is out of order because they pull out mass amounts of books and shove them all back in higgly-piggly and it makes it difficult to get any sort of order to it. I have a lot more sympathy for librarians. Not to mention, it’s a little torturous to be surrounded by so many good-looking books that I’m not allowed to read.

On Wednesday we went to Sister Sullivan’s house and picked up enough dirt to fill up the 18 gallon tub we bought to transplant our potatoes in. It’s funny, in Montana no one thinks you’re strange for requesting mass amounts of dirt out of the blue. Sister Governale thinks it’s the weirdest thing in the world and I love to watch her face anytime we do something she considers out of the ordinary for normal life, but something that is totally accepted in LDS culture. Until we became companions I never quite realized how different we are from everyone else in the little ways.

We had an awkward dinner this week. No one really talked and all our attempts at starting a conversation of any kind were not responded to. They weren’t unhappy to have us there, it was just really strange coming from the levels of noise in our house growing up to be in such complete silence.

One of our less-actives is finally reading the Book of Mormon! She still refuses to go to church but her daughter came to mutual this week!!! I was so excited and the girls just loved her! She was off running around with them and we had been worried that she would cling to us throughout the activity, but we had trouble keeping track of her because she was off showing them her back hand spring or in a completely different group from us. It was so great! I think the ward has a lot of opportunities to fellowship her. It was also a good example to me of how welcomed someone can be if they reach out in a new environment instead of waiting for people to reach out to them first.

We finally met a less active family that we’ve been looking for for months. They live in a really tricky spot with no address, so we had to get the other ward to show us where they live. I think that there is good potential there for getting them reactivated. 

Sister Templeton decided she wants to start coming to church more regularly which makes me so happy! Now if only we can get her husband to have any sort of desire to learn about the gospel and find out if it’s true, then we would be golden! He understands a lot already, but it just doesn’t matter to him. One of the most frustrating problems we run into out here is contentment. People are content with their lives and don’t want to rock the boat by inserting church into their lives. It’s awful and to make things worse there’s nothing we can do about it.

We had a nice dinner with the R---- family last night. They brought the non-member boy their daughter is dating over for dessert and we were able to talk to him and answer a lot of questions he had and give him the first discussion. He’s the first person I’ve ran into where the rules are the biggest problem for him. That, and lack of “evidence”. It’s interesting the variety of problems that people think are a big deal.

Anyway, that was our week. We’re excited to get bikes soon and I have to break out the sunscreen because of the elevation. I got the worst sunburn while we were out with the sheep. It’s quite painful and odd-shaped. I am very eager for it to go away.

I hope you all had a good Easter. If you haven’t had the chance, watch the “Because of Him” video on lds.org. It’s fabulous!!!!

I love you all!!

Xoxoxox

Sister Draney

 Our transplanted potato plant!

 A ride for little kids you only see in Montana!

Hello Everyone!

As for transfers, I get to stay!!! Woooooo!!!!!! I’ll be going on my 6^th month here! I’m seriously the luckiest person ever! Things are going so great here, except for a few things. Like one of our less actives found drugs in her daughter’s room this week.  Ahhh this computer is frustrating. It won’t keep up with the things I’m typing to I keep having to wait for it to catch up. Irritating…

We’re meeting with our Bible College “friends” again tonight. We’re going to go hiking and having a discussion, so I’m super excited about the hiking part.  I’m extremely nervous about the discussion because of how being around them makes me feel.

So I had an “only in Montana” moment this week. We were over at the Olson’s for dinner and after dinner we were watching the gophers play outside when Brother Olson goes and gets his bow, quietly opens the window, and starts shooting at them from inside the house! He didn’t get any, but it was one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen. It was pretty great!

I’m like ¾ done with crocheting my first baby blanket. I’m pretty pleased with myself. It’s an excellent way to bring out my inner old lady ;P I work on it after I get ready in the morning before studies start and after we get home as my wind-down time. I’m usually really tired, so I’m not getting through it too fast, but that’s okay.

This week has been really warm and I am overjoyed! It only snowed once, but there are some hints of green poking through the grass. I was so pleased that we went to Little Caesar’s, bought ourselves a pizza, and had a picnic outside our apartment complex by a little stream (right next to the casino ha, ha). It was really nice and I loved every minute of it!

We had an excellent moment this week. We had stopped by Margaret’s to read the Book of Mormon with her and as we were just about to start a guy comes over and it turns out to be one of our less actives that we had planned to meet with! So he stayed for our reading and it turned out to be really great. It turns out he had been thinking of referring her to the missionaries. Surprise! :D We were so happy and I am constantly amazed at how things turn out like you don’t expect them to.

We went to go visit a referral this week and we got royally lost. We finally found their home by asking for directions and we knocked but no one answered. All the lights were on so we figured that they were just ignoring us, so we left and started to drive back down the road.  But as we were driving back to the main road, our referral pulled up coming the opposite direction (I had met him before, so I knew what he looked like) and we had a nice chat from our cars on the road. It was certainly strange, but it just goes to show that sometimes our timing wasn’t right. Had we not gotten lost, we never would have seen him.

I saw the dentist this week and my teeth feel all happy. J I was over my 6 month mark by quite a bit and it was nice to get them all clean again. Cavity free! Woo! Sister Governale thinks I’m weird for liking to visit the dentist and voluntarily going.

We celebrated Sister Governale’s 22^nd birthday this week. I thought it was really fun. Our bishop’s sister in law (who is about our age) made Sister Governale the cutest hat and they made her a birthday cake and sang to her. I will admit, I’m totally guilty of spilling the beans about her birthday. I couldn’t just let her not celebrate it!

We have been seeing some major miracles as a result of our ward 40 day fast. Just this week we had 3 nonmembers attend church! Margaret was supposed to come, but she didn’t show up. But one of our members who fasted this week called us up to tell us that one of her acquaintances who was the mother of her daughter’s friend from volleyball came up to her at practice and started talking about religion and asking about the Church. She ended up asking Sister Rice is she and her daughter could come to our church this Sunday. They actually showed up and attended our gospel principles class! I was overjoyed! There was also another woman, Jennifer, who was found by the elders, handed over to the 2^nd ward sisters, and is now ours because 1pm is the only time she can come to church. She’s been experimenting with different churches and disturbed by the lack of truth she finds in the other churches. She just got a Book of Mormon Saturday night but already on Sunday she was saying she couldn’t find anything in it that she disagreed with so far and that she feels like the LDS church is true! We were SO SO excited! Not to mention, Sister Searle practically adopted her and was helping her out and showing her around. This might be good for everyone! :D We’re so excited!!!!!

Well, that’s about it for this week1 I hope you’re all doing well and that you’re enjoying the beautiful April weather.

I love you all lots!!!!

Xoxoxoxoxoxox

Sister Draney

Hello! Happy April!                                                                 April 7, 2014

So  a member of the ward was going to miss her Massage Therapy appointment and offered it to me  because of all the back pain I’ve been having. So, with the Mission President’s permission, I went and I found out the source of all of my problems. She said that all of the bones in my neck were completely out of alignment (except one) and that it had thrown my lower back out of whack too and had made my legs uneven which is why I had trouble standing for so long. So, now I get to go see a chiropractor in 2^nd ward (for free) to see if she can put me back into place. We’ll see. She said that I should have been seeing a chiropractor, buuut I was fine before, so I imagine I’ll be fine after? Psh, I can deal with it. J

We meet with the Konzen’s often. She wants to teach us to belly dance. It should be…interesting ha, ha.

This is from President Mecham’s letter, in case anyone is interested in what is going on in the Montana Billings Mission in March J :

“In the March the Montana Billings Mission assisted 54 souls in accepting the Savior’s invitation to be baptized while 74 souls were rescued and have renewed their baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.  Your faithful works, planning and covenant keeping has been at the heart of returning 128 people and their families to Christ.”

This week has been very busy for us. We met at least 60% of the Grace Bible college this week when we stopped by to meet a referral from Mormon.org and they invited us to a lunch gathering, which we accepted. They wanted to invite us to many things after that (like hiking, other lunches, and they want me to play in their “jam sessions”) and we exchanged phone numbers. We've also been invited to all of their lunch gatherings in the future for this semester which I am excited about. And we had the world's most exhausting lesson with some of their religion students who met with us for a paper they were doing on Mormonism and came with an attack plan! They even admitted later that they had. One of the boys apologized because he said we were so calm and polite and kind when they were attacking us verbally and he said that he was really impressed and he said he felt bad for what they had done. We graciously accepted their apology, bore testimony of the things we had said and then he asked if he could have our copy of the Book of Mormon (we had brought it for them, hoping they'd want one)and they both promised (of their own free will) to read the Book of Mormon. It was a great experience because most of the people going to that school are in training to become future pastors and leaders of different churches and they came away with a lot of respect for us and they were really impressed with how we handled everything. I hope that this will later translate into a good opinion of the church when they're addressing their congregations, even if they don't believe what we said. Or better yet, they'll read the Book of Mormon, get an answer, and convert! But we came home from that lessons absolutely exhausted and spent (it lasted 2 1/2 hours!). It was great and guess what! We get to do it again tonight with other students from the same Bible college! Ahh!

We watched two sessions of conference with Sister Searle, which I absolutely loved! The sessions were so good and if you haven’t seen them yet, you need to! They were amazing! I hope she got a lot out of it. We had a good discussion afterwards. We’ve been having a lot of good, deep discussions lately about things that are on her mind which makes me happy. I love her so much and I just want to see her come back and find the joy that comes from being fully active.

In support of one of the part member/less active families we’ve been working with, we went to a medieval reenactment and watched people beat each pother with huge wooden swords in full armor.  It was a great opportunity to talk to a lot of people and I must admit that I was intrigued by it. We had a lot of fun and it was certainly an experience I thought I would never have on the mission! While we were at the activity I helped a guy put together his weird Chinese flute thing because he couldn't figure it out since the directions are in Chinese. Good thing I read Chinese. Ha, ha just kidding!  But he wanted to sell it but he couldn't make it make music, so I messed around with it and fixed it for him.

I also got to hold the world's cutest baby rat, Kayla, saved from becoming snake food. It was so cute and tiny! Sister Governale even held it, but gave it back to me once it started moving. It was funny, I thought she was going to drop it. I’ve never seen anyone be so quick to hand an animal back!

We participated in a huge dodge ball tournament in Three Forks. The whole town puts it on and one of the members sponsored a sister’s team and an elder’s team. They also took us out to dinner beforehand.  It was the most brutal game of dodge ball I’ve ever seen! I forget that not everyone is as sportsman-like as the missionaries. It was actually a little intimidating. However we remained very professional and had a good time talking to people. Our Sister's team took 2nd place! We got mugs and candy. Oh yeah, living the high life!  

We’ve had a lot of strange weather this week: hail, rain, a huge snowstorm, 40-50 degree weather, you name it, we’ve had it this week! It’s been hard to predict what the weather will be like here. I do enjoy the rain though, since we have a car, and I love to watch the snow fall. It’s so pretty!

We had another lesson with Mark this week where we read Alma 32 with him because he’s had a real struggle with not feeling like he has any faith. And, or course, the Book of Mormon holds all the answers, so we wanted to show him! We had two brothers from the ward come with us (one was Bro Mathson, our ward mission leader) and we all took turns reading and interpreting it. It was a good experience because he had read the introduction of the Book of Mormon and the first 2 chapters but he hadn’t come away with much. It quickly became apparent that he doesn’t know how to look for deeper meaning in the scriptures, so it was a good meeting and he said he wanted to read that chapter again. He also said that he would try and watch some of conference, so I’m eager to see if he did.

Yep, that’s about it for this week. I hope everyone is doing well and I love getting your letters, they make me so happy! Remember to find something you learned from conference that you can apply in your life starting now!

I love you all sooooo much!

Sister Draney

P.S Do you feel that? That’s me hugging you, all the way from Montana!

 Our zone conference