Happy September!

This week I got to know a lot more of the area. We had so many lessons a day that we barely squeaked home for food and curfew at night. Some of the people I met:

S--- and M--- they are so prepared for the gospel. They keep commitments and are enthusiastic about church and baptism. They just need their dad's support.

 M---- we are helping her build her testimony and strengthen herself to help her become active and to strengthen her family.

W---- the most awesome family ever. They are all recent converts and they love learning and growing. We are working on helping the get to the temple.

S---- met him at Walmart and shared the Restoration with him right away. He wants to be baptized and we have a return appointment soon. He is so excited about the Book of Mormon and is especially excited because he has Native American ancestors and he is excited about the people it describes in the Book of Mormon.

D--- met him while he was mowing his lawn. As we were biking down his dirt road his dogs started running at us and barking like they were going to attack. Poor sister Beckstrand was a little nervous, but like a lot of dogs here, they were all show and we made it to his house without getting bit by anything more than the swarms of the mosquitos that were dive-bombing us. He turned out to be a less active member for decades and his family aren't members. We have a return appointment this week and he is excited to take the lessons again. It was great because he said, "now I don't normally do this, but I'm going to give you guys my phone number and email and we will set up lessons." It was so great to see someone's heart softened. It just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover because he doesn't look like someone you would think would be LDS just by looking at him.

We are also hoping to teach his daughter and her son. She is really interesting; her name is D--- and she has dreadlocks and a tattoo that goes all the way up one leg. She likes to run Spartan races. She was really kind to us though, she let us use some of her mosquito repellant because we were being eaten alive. Somehow I made it out without any bites since I was extra-vigilant about killing anything that landed on me. Sister Beckstrand however, was completely covered in bites, which is extra unfortunate because she has a habit of picking off any scabs that form and scratching her mosquito bites until they scab over. So her legs are covered in newly formed scabs and scars. She says it really doesn't bother her to have all of those scars, so I guess it's not a problem for her. We also met his daughter’s friend while we were there and she also wants the lessons! But sadly she lives out of our area, so we had to pass her on to the other missionaries, but I'm sure they will do a great job teaching her and her son. They seem so prepared and they really want to know how to have eternal families.

W--- we spent two hours trying to find him because we were told he was in the hospital, then when we arrived we were told that no one by that name there, so we got to call his family and they told us he was at a rehab center, but they told us the wrong one. So we found the center, but he wasn't there either. So they found him for us at another care center and so then we set off to find this new care center. We were lost for almost an hour trying to find this referral. We ended up having to call our ward mission leader to give us directions. It's tough in Helena because a lot of the streets don't go in a straight line. There will be a break and you'll have to turn left and go for a ways to continue down the same road you were on.  It ended up being totally worth it because when we finally found the right place and as we walked in we met another man who was not a member and ended up teaching him a lesson and now he wants the missionaries back! It's great. W--- was doing well and we had a nice visit with him and were able to learn about his family and teach about the plan of Salvation. It was so great!

A--- and P-- They are so interesting; they have very obvious Word of Wisdom issues because there were hookahs everywhere, and she can't get to church because of work, so we are starting small and helping her do the things she can to work towards full activity and a temple sealing. Her kid is so cute and they know they need to be at church, so I hope they will be able to have the faith and motivation to start making the small changes that will lead to a large lasting change.

We did a lot of service this week. We helped the W--- move out of their old house and into their new house. It was especially challenging because the second floor of the house can only be reached by a little metal spiral staircase, like the one you would find in a tiny lighthouse; only, it's not constructed safely. The railing looks metal, but it's actually a plastic pipe that it curved around to look like a proper railing and they measured poorly for the staircase, so it has a lot of wooden spacers, which make it dangerous to climb up. Not to mention that it's really narrow, so it's hard to get much of anything up and Sister W--- wouldn't let the movers take the staircase partially apart to be able to get the mattresses up it. It was quite interesting.

To make matters worse, she kept leaving to get stuff that we "needed" and would be gone for 3 hours at a time. It was frustrating to not have her there to direct us. She gets stressed out with things like that though. She had a panic attack and ended up in the hospital because of stress over the move, so I can sort of understand.

We met the M--- this week. They are inactive but the son is preparing to go on a mission. However the problem is, he is only going to about two Sundays a month of church and I worry that he's not ready to go through the temple. I don't want him to turn out to be another C---, like back in Bozeman. I hope they don't send him if he's not fully prepared. I think they're looking at this as an opportunity to help him become fully active, but unless his heart is in it and he is fully prepared, it might not change him at all. However I can't really say anything because I don't have the same inspiration and authority as the bishop does over he ward, so if he feels that the Spirit is telling him this is what to do, I can't really argue. I can mostly just worry.

We also helped Sister S--- move a ton of stuff from her house and out of her crawl space into her horse trailer. She has so much stuff and she's moving it all to a storage shed, and then is going to have a garage sale in town. It was two full trailers worth of stuff and she isn't even finished getting it all out. I am happy she is getting rid of so much because a lot of people here can't let go of things. She just has way too much stuff.  She took us out to Subway after we finished and we were so hungry! I ate a whole foot-long.

                We spent forever looking for B--- yesterday. Our map was no good and we ended up going down a ton of incorrect little roads, hoping they were her driveway. Sister Beckstrand got pretty freaked out at a few of the houses that had multiple "don't trespass, I will shoot" or "warning: firearms in use" or "trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again". I got a little nervous at a few homes, but not as badly as sister Beckstrand. At one house she was trying to turn around and get out of there really fast and I had to reach over and grab her arm and go "Oh my gosh!" Really loud, so she thought someone was coming after us. She screamed and then she punched me when she realized I was kidding. It was totally worth it :)

It's quite cold here at night now. They days are usually fine, but you can definitely feel fall approaching. I'm in denial. I don't want it to ever be cold again. However, that won't happen because Montana is freezing for most of the year. I'm not excited to give up my summer clothes when the snow comes. Hopefully it won't come until at least October or November.

                We started reading the Book of Mormon with P--- this week and it went really well.

                There are so many people that have a desire to read the Book of Mormon but just don’t have that motivation without follow up. So we are trying to help a lot of people in the ward establish a pattern of scripture study.

                We started reading scriptures with A--- once a week and when we came this week she was playing Scrabble with the nurse. We joined in and started talking to the nurse about her life and her plans. She had to leave for a while to distribute medications, so we were able to talk with A---. When the nurse, 

J---, came back we asked if we could share a message and ended up teaching her about the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, and the power of prayer in our lives. She was really interested and quite excited to learn more. She took a copy of the Book of Mormon, a Restoration pamphlet, a pass along card, and seemed really excited to read them. I can't wait to follow up with her and see if she read either. She doesn't have a steady religion and is looking for one in her life and is super open to the gospel. She said a lot of other religions don't make sense to her.

 It's hard not to get way too over-enthusiastic about teaching when people seem so prepared, because you don't want to freak them out or overload them with information.

There are tons of spiders in our basement that we live in. I was doing laundry this morning and a spider crawled right out of my clothes in my dirty clothes basket! I don't know if I'll ever get used to it.

Well, we don’t have much time left and that’s about it for this week. Happy Labor Day and Happy September!

Also, sorry for any spelling mistakes, I typed most of the letter on my iPad because we don’t have much time to email here in Helena like we used to, so please forgive all present and future spelling mistakes.

Love you all!

Don’t forget to write!

Sister Draney