This week has been a bit crazy because we were on exchanges for part of the week and it’s always weird to be away from you companion.

On Monday we had family home evening with the E---. Her kids are kind of hard to calm down and keep focused, so we played “the prophet says”. It’s kind of like “Simon says” and then we taught them about prophets and invited them to watch General Conference. It was pretty fun! And it’s probably the only time they’ve ever seen missionaries trying to hop on one foot while touching their noses, for example. ;)

We went to R--- house. She’s the investigator who had stomach surgery. Well, she wasn’t any better this time than the last time we saw her. She had been throwing up for days and was not doing well at all. Her son ended up taking her to the hospital and they found out her stomach is infected. So they ended up having to send her to Great Falls to get the help she needed. We’re worried about her and it kind of puts a damper on her plans to try and attend church soon.

We had dinner at Applebee’s with the B---. It was really good! But the best part was that our waitress had had the missionaries come to her house before and she mistook Sister Glenn for one of those missionaries.  Well, we got to talking with her and we asked if she would like to have missionaries come back to her house and she said yes! So we got her name, phone number, address and sent it off to the other missionaries. It goes to show that you never know who could be prepared to hear the gospel; like the waitress at your restaurant!

After dinner we stopped by E--- house and actually caught her at home! She had her older neighbor over. We ended up teaching him the Plan of Salvation and sending a pamphlet home with him. We were also able to set up a time to meet with her the next day.

The appointment we had with her on Wednesday was really interesting because she loves to talk and it’s hard to get a word in edgewise. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation with an emphasis on family history work (which she loves) and we invited her to come to the family history lab at Helena College on Saturday. She seemed really excited about it at the time, but when the morning came she forgot about it and didn’t end up coming.

We hope she comes next time!

C--- is still making great progress! Even though she didn’t come to ARP this week, she is still making leaps and strides forward! She came to church on Sunday and participated. She just looks so happy! She is glowing every time we see her. She did the additional study in the back of the pamphlets (which I would highly recommend for anyone, active or not), read the Book of Mormon, and has even read some talks! We pray a lot for her to overcome her addiction to smoking because it is such a struggle for her. She wants so badly to quit but the addiction has a firm hold on her. She’s pressing forward and is winning an inch at a time though. Prayers for her would be appreciated.

Her sister, C---, is doing well, but not as good as she is.Her sister is reading her scriptures and saying her prayers which is great! But she still smokes and won’t come to church. She always gives us the same excuse, that her back hurts. I know it does hurt, but there’s more to it than that. She even admits that there is but won’t tell us what the problem is which is frustrating. It’s like a terrible guessing game. Luckily we have the Spirit on our side!

We got in trouble because someone thought we were soliciting this week. We are teaching a ton of workers at the rest home where A--- lives and they got all upset with us for letting them join in. However, we aren’t trying to sell anything and we don’t make them join us. We invited and they eagerly accepted! So now we have two progressing investigators there and a whole handful of potential investigators! It’s so great! And yes, we still go back because they can’t stop us from visiting Alice and she can have her lessons in the front room if she wants ;)

We got taken out to dinner again this week (and people wonder why missionaries gain weight!) with a bunch of members and the other missionaries in our ward. It was so much fun to have such good food and so many people to talk to.

We got a new investigator this week! S---. She moved into our ward from 1^st ward. I’m happy about it because two of our investigators are moving into 1^st ward this week: S--- and M---. So it’s a fair trade. Good news on S--- and M--- is we finally got to have a lesson with them! Thank you for praying for them (Shout out to Allison and anyone else who did J) because it was a total miracle that we got to teach them because their mom has been so busy that she wouldn’t let us come over to share a message. So it was a tender mercy that she let us come over to help her pack and then let us stay to give a lesson.

Don’t forget to follow me on facebook!! We get counted for the number of likes and comments our facebook posts get. Not to mention you get the added benefit of lovely spiritual messages throughout the week by yours truly ;)

We helped at the family history event at Helena College and only 3 people showed up, so we all got to work on our family history. I traced one line back through the fan charts all the way back to Adam and Eve! I’m not sure how correct it all is, but it was so cool!

I also learned about this cool thing called descendancies this week. You follow your family line back and follow the other descendants of your ancestors to get  names for the temple! I’ve been working on it during my lunch break and this past week I found 401 temple names! It’s the greatest thing ever! I would definitely encourage you to try it. Especially those of you who are as intimidated by family history work as I am, but want to take family names to the temple, it’s great!

The R--- didn’t come to church this week because they all got sick. Everyone here is sick! P--- has a sinus infection, the R--- and fifty other people have terrible colds, the W--- got some weird strain of the flu… I’m just so blessed that I haven’t been sick yet. I pray that it will hold off til after the mission!

We had another lesson with D--- and I could tell right when we walked through the door that he had done his scripture reading that we had assigned him. Sure enough! He had done it! He looked visibly different in just a small way. Sister Beckstrand and I commented on it after we left the lesson. It’s so cool to be able to see the Spirit begin to work on someone. We had a great member who came to the lesson with us. We are hoping she and her husband will be his fellowshippers. Her husband couldn’t come because he had the flu (surprise!) but she was a great asset to the lesson and she had some wonderful moments to share and she has a beautiful, simple testimony that is so perfect for going with the missionaries!

We have been doing a lot of tracting in an effort to find more investigators. We might have had some luck this week! We had two return appointments. We aren’t sure how interested they are yet. C--- accepted a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and we were able to pray with her on her doorstep for her grandson (his name is Billy and he could use some prayers, he’s very, very sick). We also were able to talk to this other man who is active in another religion but doesn’t’ really know what he believes. All he knows is that he likes the people. So he’s going to let us come back. J It was a pretty successful week overall! We’ve stayed really busy and the ward has been really involved with the missionary efforts which is such a blessing!

Thank you to those who have written me letters, they really make my day!

I love you so much and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Sister Draney

P.S Funny moments of the week:

This week I was trying to tell Sister Beckstrand that “wickedness never brings happiness” but instead it came out: “sadness never brings happiness” and she was like…well duh Sister Draney! It was pretty great! J

She also found a spider in her garments and I was very impressed that she didn’t scream. They’re all over and you kind of get used to them. We killed a big black one in my bed the other day. It’s a fun sport: who can kill the biggest spider? When Sister Glenn was over for exchanges we were doing our personal study in silence when all the sudden she goes, “oh my gosh! What is that?!” turns out it was a spider; it wasn’t even a very big one either. Maybe someday I’ll get to the point where I’ll pick them up. Or maybe not.

PG-13 humor moment:

We had some funny moments this week! We were reading the scriptures with two of our investigators and while they were reading instead of Gentiles they said genitals. She was mortified! I thought it was just about the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!