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!