Happy Monday!

It’s almost June! Sort of.. I’m just really excited for it to be summer. Before I know it summer will be over though and I’ll have to dig out my big jacket again.

So, the most exciting thing that happened this week is that R--- passed his baptism interview!!! We’re SO excited for him!! He will be my first baptism and it’s scheduled for next Saturday, so I hope everything goes okay and that he doesn’t get cold feet. J

On to less-interesting stuff: We visited D---- this week and he was surprisingly excited to see us. We talked for a bit and then he looked at us very seriously and said, “It’s been a long time since you’ve been to see me.” And I was thinking, “well, yeah, you don’t take any commitments or read from the Book of Mormon, so we don’t have much reason to come over regularly…” but instead I said, “How do you know that?” and he pulls out his calendar and says, “Well, the last time you visited me was on (insert date here…I can’t remember what day that was…).” So it turns out he’s been keeping track of when we come and has been missing us! I was pretty touched. He’s such a sweet old man. He even accepted our small commitment to do something nice for someone that week. (We’re trying to work up to bigger commitments because he won’t take any of the bigger commitments yet).

 We stopped by and had a lesson with M---- about the Plan of Salvation. She really liked the lesson and had a lot of questions about what God thinks of people with handicaps and what happens to children that die without being baptized and what happens to the people that don’t get the chance to hear about the gospel.  So we recapped a few points of the lesson and bore our testimonies. It was really great. She still won’t do anything about it though! She told us that she believes everything we have said is true and that she’s worried she won’t have time to repent, but then she won’t do anything about it! It’s maddening.

K---- and her two friends G--- and A--- have continued to come to mutual and we’re working on Personal Progress with them. I got my third sunburn of the summer while working on Personal Progress outside on their trampoline. We couldn’t have the lesson inside because the TV is never off and it’s really hard to concentrate and learn anything from the Spirit. So now I have a ridiculous-looking farmers tan that really needs to even itself out. Anyway, our discussions are going great and K--- keeps asking us if we can come back the next day. We always have her ask her parents, but as of right now we go over to help them about 3 times a week and we spend about an hour in the scriptures and talking about who Jesus is and all about the Gospel. It’s so great!!!

This week we’ve been given the assignment by our bishopric to chase down all of the less active families that have kids of seminary age and try to get them to sign up for seminary. It has been largely unsuccessful, but the coolest thing happened because of it!

One of the people on the list was the D--- family. We had tried to find them the other night without success. So we borrowed Brother Francis’ GPS and set out to find them again. It turned out to be a blessing that we couldn’t find them when we had last tried because the whole family was deaf!! They never would have heard us knock when we first came, but when we came back again they were outside working on something. It was the coolest thing because I could use my somewhat rusty sign language skills to talk to them about why they haven’t been to church and to ask them if their daughter wanted to go to seminary! Even though they had no interest in returning, it was so awesome! It was hard because I didn’t know enough sign to communicate to them why it was important that they come back to church and I couldn’t adequately convey how important the gospel is to me. I did, however, understand most of what they said to me. They were so kind and patient. They seemed so excited that I knew how to sign. I left feeling really giddy and happy that I had been able to use sign language because at our lunch appointment I had just been talking to the guy that was feeding us about how cool it would be to teach a deaf family! Sister Governale turned to me as we were walking down the driveway back to our truck and said, “How is it that things that you talk about wanting to happen always just seem to fall out of the sky?!” Yeah, it happens to us a lot.

This week at the food bank a huge truckload of flowers that the store couldn’t sell came in and the people told us we should take some to brighten up our houses/apartments that we live in. So Sister Governale and I took one and decided to take it to V---, our little almost 91 year old grandma. She was so excited to get them! She kept kissing them and looking so excited. We love to do nice things for her because no one ever pays attention to her. We were happy we were able to brighten her day. I hope all the missionaries after us take good care of her so that she always feels loved and respected. No person ever deserves to be forgotten.

On Wednesday all of our appointments cancelled on us. All of them. Our dinner appointment cancelled on us too. So we were left with a terribly empty day and I was feeling frustrated when one of our investigators, D----, calls us up and asks if we want to go on a little hike with her. Boy did I ever! So we changed really quick and went on a hike with her. I had such a great time and we had a great talk. Well, I had a good talk with her. Sister Governale was having a hard time simply breathing. (Hiking is hard for her). Then she invited us over for dinner and I got to cook the wonderfully yummy birthday curry!! It was so great. So the day didn’t turn out that bad at all.

That night we went to mutual with K--- and her two friends. They were all going on a huge bike ride for mutual so Sister Governale and I had to borrow some bikes. It was the first time sister Governale had been on a bike in 6 years and she did remarkably well with the dirt trails. She only fell off once and that was because she tried to stop and her foot didn’t reach the ground, so she fell over. She didn’t even scrape anything up. It was a great time and K-- and her friends really love mutual. The girls even invited them to church this Sunday! They really wanted to go but had other plans this week. We’re hopeful for the future!

The cutest thing happened on Saturday. We went to a lesson and showed a video that President Uchdorf was narrating. Part way through the little girl turns to me and whispers “Is that God talking?”. I thought it was so cute! We explained to her who President Uchdorf was, though I was slightly tempted to tell her yes, it was God. But I never would have. ;)

We helped someone clean and oil all of their kitchen cupboard this week. She simply couldn’t believe that missionaries actually enjoyed doing things like that. We tried to assure her that we really did. We had a great lesson about how there is only one true church while we worked. She didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we hoped, but I take comfort in the fact that people know why we’re there. I mean, we have a nametag, it’s not hard to figure out. So it’s not like she wasn’t expecting some sort of gospel conversation while we worked. She was happy that the task that would have taken her all morning only ended up taking us an hour and 45 minutes. So that was a bonus.

Well, that’s about it for this week! Thank you to everyone who sent me letters! I’m working on replies! Please keep them coming, nothing brightens my morning more than seeing a letter for me in the mail. It’s the most amazing way to start out a day. You who have been on missions know exactly what I’m talking about.

I love you all!!

Xoxoxo

Sister Draney