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