This week has been all over the place. 

Because Labor Day was preparation day we only had an hour to email. Our stake president is dean of a college and was able to open the computer lab for us for an hour so we could email. It was really great and such an unexpected surprise!

The whole zone got together at President Romney's house to wash our vehicles. We formed a giant assembly line and got all of the cars through quite fast. It was nice to be able to get to know the other missionaries in my new zone. 

We got to play games at the park with whatever sports equipment we could find in President Romney's house, so we ended up playing some form of baseball with a plastic bat, whiffle balls, and a tennis ball; using frisbees and pool noodles as bases. It was pretty fun even though we couldn't keep score (they don't want us getting too competitive). So you could swing as many times as you needed to to hit the balls, which ended up being good because the wind was so strong that the whiffle balls would go every which way once the wind caught them. 

Then we played ultimate frisbee but everyone was so tired that it wasn't much fun because we were all out of running energy. We probably should have played that one first in retrospect. 

Then we played some sort of game where you have to roll really heavy balls across the field and try to get it close to a little white ball. It was pretty fun and it was a challenge because the ground wasn't even at all.

On Tuesday I got to give a discussion in district meeting on Treasuring up the Words of Christ. It turned out really good considering I forgot that I was giving a discussion til Monday night when Sister Beckstrand asked me if I was ready for my discussion the next day. It ended up quite nicely and I wasn't even able to present all of my notes because everyone participated so much. It was a tender mercy because as I was putting it together my copy of Preach My Gospel kept falling open to the exact pages I needed. It even fell open to some pages that I hadn't read in a while that I hadn't thought to look at. I was so grateful for His help!

After district meeting Sister Beckstrand really wanted Dairy Queen, so we got royally lost trying to get there because of all of the one way streets and funky intersections. 

We barely got back in time to swap companions so we could go on exchanges! I went to Helena 4A for two days with Sister Strong. It was pretty fun! I love going on exchanges to different wards because I don't know as much background about the people so I can really focus on the teaching a lot better, for whatever reason. I think it's asker to teach pure and plain doctrine if you go in without any prior information to cloud your thinking. 

We got to go introduce sister Strong to S----. Sadly he was too busy at that moment to have a lesson, but we set up an appointment to go back to the next day. I'm sad I won't be able to teach him much because he's so prepared. Sister Beckstrand and I like to joke that we're supplying every area with investigators but our own! 

Every person we find seems to be in another area's boundaries which is super frustrating. It's nice though because we know we're doing something right because we ARE finding investigators, just not finding them in our own area. 

On Thursday we all got to go to the temple! President decided that the whole mission was going to attend the temple this transfer and our zone's day to go was this week. We spent a long time preparing for it and it was so exciting to finally have the day here!

Despite the excitement, when we all arrived at the church at 6am and climbed into the big vans that we're going to take us to Billings, we all promptly fell back asleep. Most of us slept all of the way there. We are always so tired that any down time usually results in sleep, despite our desires to do other things, like catch up in our journals. 

The temple was such a spiritual experience. When we arrived President and Sister Mecham were standing out front in their temple clothes to welcome us. I thought that must be a little bit like what heaven is like. Everyone is clothed all in white, waiting to greet you and take you somewhere special where you can feel closer to God. 

We took a picture with them and enjoyed a very uplifting temple experience with lots of personal revelation and peace from the Spirit.

We didn't get home that evening until almost 10pm. We were all exhausted but happy. The mission treated us to dinner at the Golden Corral after the temple and then we drove back. We ended up singing hymns for two hours on the way home! It was really great because almost everyone in the van could sing, so it sounded really good. I love to sing in a group!

The Lord works in mysterious ways, so when we arrived at home we realized the phone was missing and we came to the conclusion that it was still in the van. That was a problem because they were rentals and were on their way to be returned. W couldn't intercept them because we had hit curfew and weren't allowed to leave the house. We also couldn't call anyone because we had no phone and no numbers written down to be able to use the house phone with.

So we spent a long fretful night and a fidgety morning study as we waited until we could leave to go find it. Without the phone we are in terrible trouble because we need it for almost everything!

We were very blessed and after getting lost, getting directions from a police woman, and searching the airport, we were able to find the rental agency. The man there was so nice and let us take his phone to call ours and he let us take the keys to go search the vans. It wasn't too intelligent because he didn't ask for any collateral. So we could have taken off with the vans and his phone, however, since we're missionaries, we didn't. We found the phone and then I started talking to him about the church and he was so interested! We ended up teaching him a lesson at the counter, giving him two pamphlets and a Mormon.org card. We got his number and invited him to church. Hopefully we see something out of it. It was a tender mercy because if we hadn't lost the phone then we never would have met him.

The Helena 5th ward (where I am) is the designated ward for all of the deaf members in Helena!! I'm so excited! It just shows that The Lord does take your talents and put them to good use! I'm planning to search out some deaf events and try to go proselyte there

We finally got to meet the R--- in our ward this week. They have some interesting kids and animals. It was a very distracted lesson because both of them kept jumping up to do things. However, they expressed a sincere desire to come back to church and we are going to start working with them. It will be a great thing for their two kids and for their family in general. It's great to see how the gospel brings families together. I love getting to watch the change take place!

We also met D---, a less active who is looking for something more in his life. So now we're working with him to help him find the things he's looking for. It's a hard situation because we can't push him at all. The moment we push him he starts backing away. So it's a bit of a delicate situation, but I'm sure he will come around with consistent effort on his part to do his assignments.

MIRACLE OF THE WEEK! 

So our miracle of the week is C---. She is amazing! We have been teaching her sister, C--- and the first time we met her she was super brisk with us and didn't want anything to do with us. The two sisters live together and they are probably in their late 60s. Anyway, while I was on exchanges C--- came up to sister Beckstrand and told her she wanted to quit smoking, take the lessons and become active again! 

So we have been working with her a lot this week and it's amazing the change that we've seen in her! There's a light in her eyes and around her face, and she physically looks different! I can't really explain how drastic the change is, but she is reading her scriptures and studying on her own. The light is coming back into her life and she is working so hard!

We arranged for her to get a ride to church and it's turns out she knew the person we arranged to give her a ride. They've been good friends for years. Anyway, we were supposed to call her on Sunday to see if she still needed the ride but we had left the phone at home (yes, this week as been full of phone mishaps). We were running late to PEC but we felt that we should turn around and go to her house and ask her in person.

That ended up being a miracle too because she was on the phone with her sister and told us later what had happened. 

We hadn't called and she was starting to wonder if she really should go to church and she was talking to her sister about her doubts when I walked into her house! She said it was a complete miracle and an instant answer to her prayer. It was so amazing. She said that she took it as a sign from God that she should go to church and that she was on the right path. It was so amazing to be someone's answer to prayer.

She got her ride to church, stayed all three hours and loved it! She even had a great talk with the bishop for almost an hour and when she came out she was so pleased. I was grateful because our bishop can be a little intimidating. She loved church and her whole face was lit up. Now she is starting the stop smoking program and will attend addiction recovery class this week with us. It was the most amazing experience to watch! God is so great!

We had a ton of less actives at church this Sunday! 4!

C--- was one of them.

S---- an older lady who classifies herself as less active. We are giving her the lessons as if she were an investigator and we committed her to following the prophet and watching conference. She's also going to read all of last conference in preparation for the upcoming one!

P---- an older lady we're trying to establish a pattern of daily personal scripture study with. We're also going to start helping her get back in shape enough that she can attend the temple. Woo!!

R---- she is recently baptized and her two daughters want to be baptized as soon as their dad gives his permission. Her baby has a lot of health issues, so she has only been twice since she was baptized. It was so great to see her there and she looked so comfortable. It was a blessing for us because we have been trying to get ahold of her to schedule a lesson but she hasn't gotten back to us, so we were able to schedule a lesson with her at church.

We also had the most awesome lesson with the W---! They have Word of Wisdom issues and their friend J--- who we are also working with was over. So we had the lesson and it turns out J--- has some Word of Wisdom issues too! So the lesson ended up being divinely inspired because we had no idea that she had issue with that. They all committed to live the Word of Wisdom and we are very excited for them.

We had another miracle with J--- this week. She had us over for dinner and we had planned to practice one of our lessons on her because we didn't know if she struggled with anything, so we planned to teach tithing to her, but instead of that we found ourselves talking about fasting. Then she started talking about how she hasn't fasted in decades! So it ended up being just what she needed! She was supposed to fast yesterday, but yesterday was so busy I never got to talk to her about how it went.

We had a stake missionary meeting last night. It is great how involved the stake is with missionary work! Every six weeks they hold a stake missionary meeting where everyone gets together and discusses the work going on. It is so great! I wish every stake could be like this. I also wish all of auxiliaries were as on board. But we have time to work with them.

Well, I think that's about it! This has been a fabulous week! I hope your week was as equally amazing!

I love you all! Don't forget to write!

Love,

Sister Draney

I (Fawn--Sister Draney's Mom) asked her in my letter what it is like to live with the Bishop’s family.  This is her reply.

Sometimes they fix us breakfast on Sundays, but they hardly ever feed us. However we do have free reign on the food, but we don't take too much, because that would be rude. But it's nice to have some spices and flour, sugar, etc without having to buy it because we don't usually need much and it's so overkill for us to buy a big thing when we don't need it all. 

It's nice living with a family because it's more homey. You feel like you have a real home to come back to, rather than a little apartment that's pretty bare. It's nice to see real life go on around you. It gives me more of a sense of being apart because sometimes I forget how different our life style is until I see other people going about theirs and I'm like, wow, it is different