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!