Can you believe July is almost over? It’s crazy to me! This week has just flown by; probably because it had a lot of unusual things going on. I’ll go in chronological order just to make it easier for me to remember what happened this week. Arguably all of the most interesting things happened at the end of this week.

R--- finally moved into the 1^st ward boundaries! We got to help him “move” on Monday. It was kind of funny because he hardly had anything. It took us less than 4 minutes to unload this totes and the storage container barely had a dent made in the space. So now R--- is living out of a tent in the KOA to save money. It’s sad though because his pet rat, Bob, died on his first day “camping”. R--- told us he threw him into the field so that something could eat him (after he was already dead). That’s Montana for you!

R--- also tried to give me a pair of skis, but sister Session persuaded him that he needed the money he could get from them more; besides, what would I do with a pair of skis? I have no idea where I would put them….

After we helped him move in we had a lesson in his storage unit. He loves to have lessons and he wanted one right then, so who are we to refuse? So we spread a blanket in the storage unit and watched the Restoration movie because he had never seen it. Oh the blessings of iPads!

Sister Session has been a bit under the weather lately, so on Tuesday she took a nap in the morning to try and get over her nausea and stomachache. Luckily it helped and we were only out the door an hour later, which is much better than having her half-dead struggling to do the work.  She also had acid reflux really bad for two days this week. It’s been a rough one for her.

The construction here has been quite an inconvenience because it takes us so long to get places. Luckily I know the back-roads and the way around well enough to get us places…most of the time. 

We saw D--- and C--- again this week and really worked on building our relationship with C--- so that we are able to answer his questions and really work with him towards coming back into activity. It will be interesting to work with his wife towards baptism when he already knows so much. However I’ve found that the lessons are good for everyone, active and less-active members alike. No one ever gets so knowledgeable that they couldn’t use a good refresher course in the basic Gospel principles. I’m grateful for the chance I get to listen to other missionaries teach the same discussions because I can earn new things and I always feel like I get new insights when I listen to them teach.

The 2^nd ward sisters are teaching this homeless man; his name is P--- and he is amazing! They went around to hand out sandwiches and drinks because they had some left over from a meeting and ended up finding P---! We got to help teach him when he was having a rough day and he is such a special spirit. He has had a really rough life. He’s been on the streets since he was 9 and it has been rough for him ever since. He is so receptive and so willing to learn but it’s tough because he has very little education, so it’s difficult for him to read the Book of Mormon. We saw him on Sunday and it was quite the shock because he chopped his long hair and has dramatically cleaned up his beard. He got a suit from the Salvation Army and looked so good! I’m so happy to know him and I’m excited that the other sisters are working with him.

We visited V--- again this week and her cute granddaughters K--- and M--- made us bracelets with our names on them! They are adorable and well made. They are such sweet girls and I wish they weren’t going back to Washington! They have such promise! Oh well, we will keep working with them while we’re here and hopefully we could give them as a referral to other missionaries there, or at least hopefully they will retain good memories of meeting with is and be more receptive to missionaries at a later point in life.

While we were visiting D--- this week he finally agreed to let us clean his house! We have been asking to help him ever since I got here. I don’t know how to adequately explain the condition of his house. Sister Session says that there’s 5 inches of dust on the vacuum, but that’s exaggerating. I’m pretty sure there is a vacuum under the dust… either that or it’s dust that is shaped like a vacuum; in which case we should call some collector promptly to come preserve it.

We are going to have to wear masks because it’s so bad in there. It’s rough when we’re just sitting, but now that we’re delving into the layers of greasy nicotine dust it will be wise to have some protection. His stove is covered in a half inch of greasy dust, as are the pans. There is a good layer of hair from his terrier over everything in the trailer. The walls of his trailer are yellow-stained from tar and fumes. The screens on his windows don’t let in any air because they’re so clogged with reside from his cigarettes. There is no space to set anything down because every available space, including the floor, is covered in papers and things he has collected over the years. The floor in the kitchen is covered in varying degrees of gray dust that’s been matted down when he walks through. I have no idea how we are going to get it off the floor.

We also finally met D--- son and his wife. They were happy someone was visiting their father, however they never go into his house because of the smell and the fumes. She told us that if we visited every week we probably have lung cancer by now. I will admit, by the time we leave every week our eyes and throat are burning and often our eyes start watering. But he is all alone with no one to talk to and no one to care about him, so how could we just abandon him?

Sister Session got a little taste of the M-- Madness because their little boy came home from drawing lessons while we were still there. He’s a really cute kid but he’s so full of energy and I think Sister Session was a little surprised. I had been telling her that dinner wasn’t always as calm as it has been the past two times, but now she finally knows!

On Thursday we all drove to Helena for Zone Conference. It was a long drive and we had to be there at 8:30. Sister Templin wanted to do my hair so we had to be up at 5:15am to be able to finish on time.

Luckily it was an uneventful drive and we arrived safely and on time. I saw Sister Rider there; she chopped off all of her hair! She now has a pixie cut, but it’s super short, like a boy’s. I will admit, it looks pretty good on her, but I don’t know if I could ever cut my hair off that short! I bet it saves time on washing and styling though every day.  The conference was very uplifting. It was focused on Family History work and eternal families. It was kind of interesting to talk about eternal families because we are all missionaries and our minds aren’t really focused there. But they did a great job and we learned a lot of ways to incorporate family history into our tracting approach. Sister Session and I are eager to try it! But we will have to wait because we are having exchanges this week (which is very inconvenient). The Relief Society made us lunch and it was pretty good. I think they underestimated how much missionaries eat though because we completely cleaned them out of food. Poor President went last (on purpose) and ended up getting left over sandwiches from the meetings the day before. Luckily he didn’t seem to mind. We got back to Bozeman at about 6pm and it ended up being perfect. We were so glad that we had some time left to work that day.

We decided to head over to see M--- because she got a new boyfriend and we haven’t seen her for a really long time. Once again, she wasn’t home and we were more than a little frustrated. So, Sister Session got back in the car and I stayed outside to back her up (per the mission rules) and as I was backing her this man came out of his trailer and yelled across the road, “You from Salt Lake?” and I called back, “No, I’m from Arizona!”. I was a little worried that he might be hostile towards missionaries, but he just turned and started walking away. So I jumped in the truck and told sister Session, “He’s from Salt Lake! Maybe he’s a member!” so we drove after him and Sister Session rolls down her window and says “Hey, you’re from Salt Lake? Me too! I have family there.” So we started talking to him more and we came to find out that he s a less-active member and his dad and family are all active. His dad used to be a bishop. He thinks he can prove the LDS religion false, but the examples he gave weren’t correct at all. Like “the LDS say that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Well, I can prove that is false doctrine because it says in the Bible that Jesus us the only begotten Son of the Father. Well, if that were true then Satan and Jesus would both be the begotten of the Father.” And Sister Session and I just looked at each other like, “does he know what “begotten” means?”. Yeah, so that will be interesting. But we have an appointment with him this week. We will have to see how it goes.

On Friday we helped sister N--- in our ward clean her house this week. She has been stressed and when we asked her if she would like some help she actually said yes! We were thrilled! We had a great lesson with them after we worked for a few hours. She was able to get all of the stuff cleaned that needed to be cleaned most urgently. It was nice to be able to help her out; I like her a lot.

We got to check people out at the food bank this week and it ended up being a lot of fun. We were able to talk to many people and were actually able to find a less active woman from Columbia! It was so nice to be able to talk to her, but she ran off once we asked if we could come visit her at home. She literally drove away. Sigh, oh well, we did the best we could.

We had a wonderful breakfast for dinner with the F--- family. Poor D--- has an order for something like 300 brownie bites and a 3 tier wedding cake with 2 satellite cakes (one gluten free). She was a little stressed, to say the least, because her brownie bites kept sinking in the middle, no matter what she did. Luckily, she told us yesterday that she had figured it out. She is just going to bake them in a sheet and cut them out with cookie cutters.

Then on Friday night we finally caught M--- at home! It would have been wonderful, but on Thursday night I had a terrible nightmare about her. I dreamed that she was possessed and that her house was an evil place. When I was talking to her, I looked at her eyes and all the sudden her pupils dilated and they kept getting bigger until her entire eye was black and soulless. I had the dream twice, so I was pretty freaked out when we went over.  All seemed normal though but I was still a little freaked out. She couldn’t stay long because she had another date, but we set up another time to meet with her and sang her a hymn.

On Saturday we had just gotten back from an appointment with R--- and had stopped at home briefly to grab some stuff for the night’s appointments when our car broke down. It would go into Park, Neutral, and Reverse, but it wouldn’t go into drive! Sister Session was pulling up but she pulled too far into the space and was like, “oh, I’d better back up a bit”, but then she went too far back and tried to put it in drive and it wouldn’t go. So I got to push the car into the parking spot by myself. I felt pretty macho! We tried a whole bunch of things to fix it and looked in the owner’s manual and did the things it suggested but nothing worked. We called our vehicle coordinator and he didn’t know, so today it was towed. We just got word an hour ago that the gear shift is broken. The teeth aren’t lining up properly. So they ordered a new one and it should be in by tomorrow. Three days without a car doesn’t seem like much, but in an area the size of the one we have it’s a problem!

Anyway, we had to call our dinner appointment, the M---, and get a ride with them to Applebees. I was so full! They got everyone dinner, then by the time I was ¾ of the way done I was full. But then they ordered everyone this massive brownie and ice cream dessert and then on top of that Sister M--- got Sister Session and I virgin strawberry daiquiris. I felt like I was getting diabetes. It was so much food and sugar! It was really good though, I will admit. We had a nice time. After dinner with the M--- they dropped us off at our apartment and we started walking to the other sister’s house because they had agreed to let us borrow their car. But as we were walking I saw this grill that I thought we could use for R--- because he has no way to cook food at the present. It was quite dirty and someone was throwing it away, so we went to go look at it. As we were looking there was another pile of things that people were getting rid of so we went over and started looking through it along side this older lady who was also looking for things she wanted. We started talking to her and had a really nice conversation. We found a box containing shelves that we could use for our pantry, so we took them and the little lady was like “oh! You can’t carry that while you walk!” So she had us set it on her porch. We ended up talking for 40 more minutes and we found out that she was from Louisiana, she is 76 years old, and her name is A---. She has read the whole Book of Mormon already and agrees with it on many points of doctrine. She lives with her grandson and his two roommates. We set up at time to come back and teach her and then went to go get the car. As we stopped by to load the things into the car we started talking again and she ended up taking all 3 pamphlets and she gave us her number. I’m so excited to see her again! The only downside is that we have to give her to 2^nd ward because she’s not in our boundaries.

We took the car and some books we grabbed and drove to the S--- house to give them to K--- and D---. They were happy to see us and we were able to confirm our plans for Monday. K--- had a good time at Girl’s Camp which makes me really happy because she’s been having a rough time because she got into some trouble. She is such a good person though and I hope that her YW leaders don’t give up on her!

Sunday was a great day. We took the sisters to church in their car, then borrowed it to drive to K--- house. We caught her just as she was waking up and we talked about girl’s camp. She loved girl’s camp!! Her dad said so to, he said, “She would never admit it, but she had a great time. You know how I could tell? When we arrived at the church to pick her up she was sprawled on the grass out like a star fish, sound asleep.” He said that she was stinky, so they took her to get some food, made her take a shower, and then she slept for the rest of the day. We were thrilled and she looked a little more enthusiastic. We invited her to come to church and she accepted! So we arranged for her to get a ride with Sister F--- and ran home to grab some food before hurrying to get to the church in time for our missionary correlation meeting. As we were having our meeting R--- showed up looking terribly distraught. He had an appointment with the bishop in 30 minutes and his dad had just called him and was putting him down in a terrible way. R--- was very shaken up and was having a hard time. We talked to him with Brother M---- and were able to get him to feel better in time for his interview. We encouraged him to talk to the bishop about his problem, which he did. Our bishop is hopefully going to take care of it for us.

But, the great news is that R--- got the Priesthood! It was a complete surprise to us, we had no idea they had even decided he could! But bishop called him and Brother M---- back into his office and next thing we know he is coming to class looking so excited! He told us that he had got the Priesthood. To say he was happy would be an understatement.

K--- actually came to church for the first time!!!!! I think it was a little hard for her because it’s tough to go from no church to three hours worth of church. But she endured it well and it was a good Sunday because Sister Francis said the prayer, which was cool for K---, and I accompanied the S--- musical number and she thought that was cool. They were setting apart the class presidency in Young Woman’s class and K--- got a little bored sitting with her head bowed and arms folded for so long. I assured her that we didn’t do that every Sunday. We still have to find out what she thought of it. We haven’t been able to get over because we had no car.

After church we caught a ride with our dinner appointment to their house. They stopped at the C--- to drop off some bread and we got out to do some work because it was an hour until dinner would be ready, when to our great surprise the M--- showed up! Brother and Sister M---- were visiting teaching together because Sister M--- companion is V--- and V--- can’t get out of the house and the M--- wouldn’t have been able to take her home because Brother M--- has to give a patriarchal blessing tonight. But we were able to go visit teach the C--- with them which is what our stake wants us to do. It was a very productive visit.

We had breakfast for dinner with the B--- and it was so good!! It was even better that they had tiny plates because I was able to control portion sizes without being noticed.

After dinner we set off walking since we didn’t have a car. We tried the Z--- but they weren’t home. So we walked up Fowler Rd, across 19^th (a highway of sorts) and took a very roundabout road to get to the Parson’s home. We took that side road because people come speeding in and out of Hylite Canyon and we didn’t want to get hit. We took some really fun pictures because the light was perfect and it was so beautiful out (minus the mosquitoes).

We arrived to the Parson’s home in good time and got to visit with them and share a lesson with them and their grandchildren. They gave us cake to take home. When we left we started walking again before we realized that at our current pace we would make it home sometime around midnight. So we called the 2^nd ward sisters to rescue us.

Then this morning we got up early and followed our truck to the shop (the elders drove us). Then they dropped us off at the library once we learned that they wouldn’t be able to look at it until the afternoon.

We went out to lunch with our High Priest group leader, Brother Evans. He took us to McKenzie River pizza and it was so good!! After lunch he took us to his barbershop and cut my hair while we waited for Sister Sulivan to pick us up.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping with K---. So it was a great day! I hope you all are having a fabulous week as well!

Tons of love,

Sister Draney

This has been a great week! We gained a new investigator and a new less active! They are married and they just moved into our ward boundaries. Thankfully they asked for help moving and the missionaries they asked referred us to them and they are golden! She is looking for a church to join and grew up Catholic and Baptist and didn’t feel that either of those were right. She’s attended other churches but once again, didn’t feel like they were right. She’s golden! Now, if we can only answer her husband’s many, many questions in a way that makes him comfortable with the church again. He has a lot of questions about Joseph Smith and the temple. Luckily our new institute director is literally an expert on Joseph Smith and we’re going to get him to come with us to a lesson since he’s in our ward. Woot! They are so amazing and we loved being over at their house. We have big hopes for them!

We’ve been having good lessons with R---. He has to work two jobs on Sunday which means he can only stay for an hour and a half, but we’ve been having a lot of lessons on the importance of the Sabbath day and he’s been working to get the day off. He has really been wanting to go to Priesthood though so this week he got up early and went to 3^rd ward (where he knows no one) just to be able to attend Priesthood meeting. We were so proud of him! Especially because he decided to do it all on his own.

K--- *sigh*, oh K---… Well, she asked for permission to get baptized finally and her mom said yes! But now she’s not sure if she wants to do it. It’s like the light has gone out of her eyes. We’re not sure if it was something her mom said or if it was because we hadn’t been able to have a real, quality lesson in a week and a half, but now we have to help her get it back! Luckily Girl’s Camp is this week and she’s going to go so we let the leaders know about the situation and hopefully she will get the spark back.

V--- two great granddaughters are staying at her house for a month because their dad lives there (4 generations in 1 house! Crazy!) They absolutely love us and when they heard we were there again they came running up the stairs and gave us the biggest hugs! They love it when we sing to them and one of them Calay (pronounced cah-lay; I think it’s so pretty!) decided she’s going to make us bracelets with our names on them. They are so sweet! Neither of them are members so they don’t recognize a lot of the hymns. I wish we could work with them but they live with their mom in Washington and she’s a devout member of another church.

I got to see Butte this week. I now know why they call it the butt of Montana! It was probably the ugliest place I’ve ever been. The houses were so old and really cool-looking but it was kind of ghetto-ish. I wouldn’t want to go walking around there and the huge mine is like a scar on the face of the land. The coolest thing I saw there was a massive statue of Jesus up on the mountain side. Oh, wait, I thought it was Jesus, apparently it’s actually Our Lady of the Rockies. Oops, my bad. I can still pretend it’s Jesus, right? ;)

We had a great dinner with the L---. They made us bacon and onion filled burgers. It was seriously the best thing I’ve had or dinner in such a long time! They even have air conditioning! But only in the living room, so we ate our dinner in front of it on the carpet. It was really fun and we had a good chance to talk to her about why she hasn’t been to church and how we can help them return. They are such an amazing family, they just need the blessings of the Gospel!

Speaking of food, I didn’t know it was possible to be tired of eating, but I am. People keep asking us what we want for dinner and I want to be like, “I don’t care, if you know of a way to fill me up without me needing to eat, I’d like to take that option”. I love people’s food but nothing sounds exciting to eat anymore. It’s really weird.

Oh, and speaking of food again, we went to the ?---- house for dinner last week and me (thinking fast at a previous appointment) offered to bring pizza so that we didn’t get food poisoning again. I was so glad we did! And it was a nice break for them to have someone else bring dinner. It was funny because I warned Sister Session about the smell of their house before we got there but I don’t think she anticipated how bad it was going to be. We walked in the door and she had to put her hand over her mouth because it looked like she was going to toss our last meal. Me on the other hand, I’m tough. Stomach of steel. I told her quietly to just breathe through her mouth and it would pass. We both survived dinner which was a plus. J

One of our less active families, the J---, moved and actually told us where they went! This is a first for us because usually when people move they’re trying to hide, but when we pulled up to her house and saw that she was gone we emailed her and she actually told us where she moved to! I was so happy because I love that family! I’m going to start teaching her little girl the piano because our mission president has encouraged us to use our talents to foster friendly relationships and actually listed this as one of the suggestions. I’m way excited and Sister Session will be able to teach the mom while I teach piano! I’m very excited!

I had a horse get it’s snot all over one of my white shirts this week while we were out visiting a woman in the ward. Luckily it was time to go home after her appointment so I could get it washed out, but it makes me think a little more carefully about my clothing choices when I know I’ll be around people’s horses.

This week we’re going hymn caroling. It’s a lot like Christmas caroling…only with hymns. Yeah, pretty self-explanatory. We’re excited because we love singing together and we actually sound pretty good. We’ve had a lot of compliments on how well we sing together which is a plus. It always brightens people’s days when you sing to them.

We had a massive rainstorm this week in the middle of the night! The streets were full of water and it was moving so fast! I have no idea where it all went because in the morning it had all evaporated, but it was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an Arizona monsoon. It was so fun to watch that I actually sat on my bed and just looked at it for a while (which is big for me because I love my sleep!).

Well, that’s about it for this week. Please write!

Love,

Sister Draney

Happy 4^th of July!

This week we spent a lot of time finishing cleaning our apartment. We had all 6 sisters in Bozeman over to clean it and we worked on it for several hours but still were not able to finish. You could definitely tell that elders used to live there by the amount of hidden filth in the house that Sister Horrocks and I didn't find when we first cleaned the house in December. We found a lot of crazy things there, for example there were 22 BB-gun holes in the wall. I have no idea why the elders thought it would be okay to shoot a BB-gun in a rented apartment. That's the problem with so many tenants moving in and out, there's no personal accountability. Now we have to figure out who will pay the damages to the apartment. The manager can clearly see that it wasn't us (he's a member and knows sisters don't do stupid things like that). So it's quite the situation.

We were very glad to be done with it this week though. We had to clean it again ourselves because they are very, very through in the cleanliness checks.

We are loving the new apartment though and are eager to finish getting everything in order here.

 

Last Monday we went to DI to look for shelves to make a pantry out of a closet in the kitchen because we don't have many places to put food here. We weren't able to find one sadly and the ones at Walmart cost so much! I was wondering if could build one and asked to borrow a measuring at our dinner appointment and they wanted to know what for; when I mentioned what I intended to do the brother told me that they were building a home and had a lot of scrap wood that they were going to burn and said he wanted to build us one! I as so grateful, in part because I don't know if I even know how to go about building stable, even shelves. I know the general idea, but I haven't had many chances to try and build things.

We took a load of elders belongings that we found shoved in various corners of the old apartment to DI. It was nice to do some cleansing of the apartment. It's just so nice to have a fresh start.

One of our members teased me at dinner, saying that all missionaries said they would return and they teased me that I would forget all about them. I joked back that I would have to visit now! If for no other reason than to prove them wrong!

Everyone has been giving us watermelon for dinner this week. I absolutely love it! Our fridge is currently full of watermelon and it's a great snack to have on hot mornings. Speaking of hot, you know how I love Arizona summers? I'm am currently realizing how miserable it would be without AC. When it finally started warming up here I was so excited! However, it didn't occur to me that no one here feels the need to have AC because the summer is so short! So now we have to keep our big fan on all of the time and rotate what windows we have open so that it cools the house instead of heating it. It's a constant battle to keep our apartment semi-cool. It's tough because it's not safe to leave the windows open at night, so we try to cool off with our fan and only one window open (the kitchen window that drops two stories right into the parking lot). But I'm still happy it's finally warm. Sister Session thinks I'm crazy for my love of the heat. It really does make you seriously ponder what you will wear each day.

We had dinner with a family this week, the W---. They are a sweet family with really weird religious questions. The father, who is less active, was asking us the other day why there are elephants in the Book of Mormon. Thank goodness for the seminary study books I have downloaded on my iPad! They provide excellent answers to really obscure questions. Anyway, they went all-out for dinner and smoked pork themselves for pulled pork sandwiches and they had all sorts of other things (they even sent us home with 1/2 a case of 7up!). It was a great dinner but it became kind of awkward because their daughter had been playing with a friend and part way through the dinner the "mom" showed up. It wouldn't have been awkward normally, but you could clearly tell that he was a man that had decided to change to a woman. It was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had, and all we did was exchange names and who we were before he/she left. How confusing for the poor girl! The W--- told us that one day her dad had decided he was a woman, left the family, and now she has two "moms". Poor girl, how confusing!

There is a family in our ward who are normally totally active, then one day they decided they were going inactive for really stupid reasons. We are completely flabbergasted! Apparently they've done this before. Sister Session thinks they might just be looking for attention and I think she might be right. We visited them this week and nothing seemed abnormal. We are so confused by the situation because they still read scriptures and have their son say prayers...it's really odd. So now I'm super worried about them because I like them a lot.

Sister Session had her first experience with the W--- family this week. I think she must have thought I was joking when I said that both of them would talk at once and you couldn't get a word in edgewise and that there was always some sort of crisis going on. Needless to say, she learned why they're infamous in the ward and among all the missionaries who have served here. It was a pretty good visit even though we got eaten alive by all of the mosquitos living in the stagnant pong behind their trailer.

I got to eat buffalo last week! I couldn't remember if I had written about the in last weeks letter. We had buffalo stroganoff one night and elk sphagetti the next! They were quite the Montana meals! I definitely like buffalo better then elk, but maybe that's just because I love stroganoff. They were both pretty good though.

Our Fourth of July was great. We didn't have many lessons because everyone was busy. We did enjoy ourselves though and talked to lots of people. We got to stay out til 11 to see the fireworks which was great. At the beginning of the night we went to the fairgrounds to talk to people and had quite a bit of success, our best conversation was with a family who had just moved from China. Their little girl, A---, was so cute!

Before the fireworks started there was a symphony concert by the Bozeman Symphony. They were so good and all of the people loved them. They did all songs written by American composers (in honor of the 4th). My favorites were Hedwigs Theme from Harry Potter and another one from Star Wars. It was quite impressive!

We had to leave early to get to a party hosted by one of our ward members, the Mortensons. The fireworks were amazing and we even got to see one of our investigators,the S--, who we haven't been able to get ahold of for weeks! We were able to set up an appointment with them for this coming Friday. Turns out they had a hobo spider infestation and had been having quite the time trying to get things in order. Her poor husband was bitten multiple times in his sleep and is now on heavy antibiotics for the bites.

On Saturday we went to go visit the S--- and we got to hold their giant parrot! I was a little nervous because he was a young bird and his beak was HUGE! It was more than big enough to take a size able chunk out of me. But he was still fun to hold and very cute! We also got to see her employers house. It was crazy! The dogs have their own bedroom, completely decked out and so do the two cats.

As you can probably tell this week hasn't been the greatest for lessons. Everyone has been out of town or not home. This is the week with the fewest lessons for this whole transfer! M--- hasn't been home every time we've tried; the H--- went out of town, even D--- wasn't home! I'll be glad when life returns to normal this week.

We had an interesting/terrible experience at church yesterday, R--- father came to visit him and I have never been more frustrated in a church member! He was constantly getting on R--- about how he wasn't living the gospel perfectly and oh I could go on and on but I won't! I was just so frustrated that he was so inflexible and domineering. He's the kind of person that always believes he is right. *sigh* it could be worse I guess.

Well, we got transfer news last night and guess what! I’m staying here for another transfer! By the time we finish this transfer I will have been here for 9 months! It’s so awesome! I’m thrilled! I get to keep sister Session and enjoy the new apartment for a few more weeks. ;)

Please write! I love you hear from you!

Love,

Sister Draney

 

This week has been very, very busy. For starters, we moved apartments. It doesn’t sound like it would be hard because missionaries only have 3 suitcases, right? Well, let me tell you, we had at least 8 truckloads of stuff to bring over to our new apartment! Luckily the elders moved all of the heavy stuff up to our new apartment for us, like our beds and our couches. I took the bunk beds apart to make them easier to move. We finally have de-bunked bunk beds. (So regular beds) It’s such a relief to not have to worry about hitting my head or Sister Session falling through the top bunk and squishing me. It’s nice to have so much more room and to not feel so cramped all of the time.

The other sisters in our area were so kind. They came and spent a few hours with us deep-cleaning our apartment so we wouldn’t have to take up all of our proselyting time to clean. It was so nice! And that saying is true: many hands makes light work! We’re almost done with the apartment. Sister Session and I just have to finish cleaning out the fridge, clean the floors, and touch up the base boards. It’s pretty crazy that we fit in that apartment now that everything is moved out of it.

Cleaning was a real pain. Apparently Sister Horrocks and I didn’t get all of it out when we first got there in December. There was quite a lot of hidden nastiness, like a petrified spider that was stuck to the wall.

It was really fun to get settled into a new place. It feels very homey and it’s nice to have a place that we know is clean. I really hope I don’t get transferred next week so that I can enjoy it for one more transfer. I’m extremely nervous for transfers. I’ve been here for 7 ½ months, which is a really long time. I’m hoping I can spend at least ½ for my mission here. I love the people here so much and we have such a great relationship with them. For example, last Sunday we went to Big Sky for Sacrament meeting, so we missed 1^st ward’s Sacrament meeting. We arrived just before it finished and were waiting out in the hall to greet people when our Relief Society president comes up to me and said, “My husband was wondering where you were in church. He told me that it’s so nice to have missionaries that you really miss if they’re gone!” It was nice to know we were missed and I was really surprised how many people noticed we weren’t in Sacrament meeting! It was nice to feel loved. J I sure will miss them whenever I’m transferred! It’s a good thing BYU-I is so close so I can come back and visit!

Anyway, this week was really productive! We had 20 lessons (one less than last week L but we had over 43 attempted lessons!). We talked to a lot of people and were able to get 3 new less-active families to work with. Well, one is technically a part-member family.

We had a good lesson with K--- this week and got to talk to several non-member friends that were at her house. But, even though the lesson was really great we were very sad because they were going out of town that weekend. So we prayed for rain on the day they were supposed to leave and boy did it pour! We were so happy and thankful! But then her mom wouldn’t let us come over and we were super bummed!! We have to push her baptism date back. I feel so sad for her because she wants to be baptized but so far hasn’t talked to her mom yet. In order for her to be baptized her mom’s rule is that she has to approach her and talk about it, which I understand. She wants to be sure she’s getting baptized for the right reasons.

M--- cancelled on us twice this week. She got a new boyfriend and is spending all of her time with him. We are so frustrated! She doesn’t seem to think much of cancelling on us repeatedly. Maybe we’re too nice about it. She has so much potential but she’s not putting any effort into knowing if the gospel is true on her own. It’s endlessly irritating. Not to mention that we can’t seem to make the first lesson about Joseph Smith stick. We’re taking over the Restoration video for her to watch. We’re hoping her retention rate for movies is better.

So, we went to visit the L--- because they haven’t been getting back to us about anything! So we pulled up in the driveway and sister Session and I were talking for a minute while she finished her mango juice (because it looked like no one was home) and as we were sitting there Brother L--- pulls up in his truck! It was so awkward because it looked like we were sitting out front waiting for him. Oh well though. So I salvaged the situation and introduced him to Sister Session.  But now that I have a new companion he invited us over for dinner next week! I’m very excited and glad to know that they are still interested in moving forward. I really like their family.

Sister Price in Three Forks bought us lunch at A&W which was really nice. It was fun to talk to her because she’s preparing to send a daughter off on a mission and we were able to give her some pointers of things we wished be had known or things we wish we had brought.

So, it turns out one of the young couples in are ward are millionaires. It’s crazy! We were just over to their house for dinner the other day and they never mentioned anything, you would never have guessed (other than that their house was very large for such a young couple). We didn’t find out until we were contacting one of our less actives that was trying to get a job for his company. She told us that it’s a multi-million dollar company and we were like, “woah, no way!”. It was pretty neat. It’s crazy how many people here are secretly rich! (And how many are not-so-secretly poor).

We went to the H--- and their little girls really wanted to paint our toes, so we were like, “uh, okay?” Luckily, the older one painted mine and they look good, but the younger one got fingernail polish all over sister Session’s feet! It was pretty hilarious. She was such a good sport though. I must admit it was kind of weird to have people touching my feet while we were trying to teach.

We finally planted my tomatoes out in the garden today! I’m so excited! I got tomato cages and they have the whole set-up. It’s a poor-woman’s garden though. I scrounged some rocks and boards to make a fence and we have to carry in water from a little stream to water it. I feel like it’s something out of Little House on the Prairie or Jungle Book or something. It’s actually so fun and Sister Session is quite the trooper, humoring my strange gardening desires and helping me pick big rocks out of the soil.

We visited D--- this week. He’s the really old man living in the disgusting trailer. He’s so sweet though and might have gone to a different ward yesterday! We’ll have to see. He fell though recently when he went back to Salt Lake to get some scans for cancer. He’s not doing so hot on walking right now. But I was relieved to find out that the thing he’s always drinking when we come over is grapefruit juice, not alcohol with something in it.

R-- is doing great, still preparing to go to the temple. We had a lesson with him last week and it turns out that we had never covered the subject of tattoos. He told us he was planning on getting one and we had a very long talk on why our bodies are sacred. He said he had changed his mind about the tattoo when he left, but I guess we’ll have to see.

We went to go see J-- this week and we could tell when we pulled up that it was a bad time to be there. She was in a terrible mood and had been crying. When she’s in a bad mood she is kind of scary, but I put my big-girl pants on (figuratively speaking) and went over and sat down on the steps by her and put my arm around her. I wasn’t entirely sure that she wasn’t going to freak out, but it turned out to be the right thing to do. She told us all about the terrible time she was having and really was able to vent to us for a while and we were able to talk and she showed us some cool pictures of her daughter’s trip and we tried to help her feel better. I don’t want to give too many details, because it was a private conflict they were having, but needless to say that by the time we left she was much improved.

It was funny because when I was giving her a goodbye hug she whispered something to Sister Session but I didn’t catch it. So I asked Sister Session what J--- had said once we got to the car. Sister Session told me she said, “I really do like her.” It made me feel really good because J--- can come off as a very verbally harsh person, but inside she’s secretly a marshmellow. ;) She’s one of my favorite people.

Last night at dinner one of the little girls, Brea, gave Sister Session and I each one of the carnations from the boquet her mother had gotten her. We were so touched! We put them in a place of honor in our apartment and they really do bring some life to it! It makes it seem homey.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things, like how Sister Session caught a mosquito hawk in a pitcher and was going “ew, ew, ew” all the way to the door to let it out (I told her she couldn’t kill it because it eats all of the mosquitoes); and about all the rain we received this week…

Oh yes! Cool story about the rain! So the day that we had to move it was supposed to be very rainy. So the night before we prayed that we would be able to move everything without it getting soaked and it was the coolest answer to prayer that I have ever seen! We would pack up a bunch of stuff in the house while it was raining and as soon as we would start to carry it out the rain stopped. We were able to drive over and unload it without it getting wet, and usually as we were going up the stairs to take the last box in it would start pouring again! We got really wet, but all of our stuff stayed dry! This happened all day long. I can’t believe I almost forgot to write about it! What a cool miracle! :D The Lord really does care about things that are important to us.

I have to get going because we have a lot to do and a very small amount of time to do it. I would love to hear from you all and I hope you are having a safe and wonderful summer!!

Xoxoxoxox

Love,

Sister Draney