December 2014

What a week! My companion, Sister Lasson, finished her mission and is now home in Tennessee which means I have spent the majority of this week on transfers with the sisters in 4^th ward. I’m sad Sister Lasson is gone! I’m going to miss her!

On the bright side, I’ll be staying in Helena for another transfer! That means I only have one more transfer where I could be moved! Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to finish out my mission and only have three areas. Wouldn’t that be weird?!

My new companion will be Sister O’Mealy. She will be my 11^th companion. I’m seeing if I can set a companion record! Ha, ha.  I don’t think I’ll quite make it to 18 companions though! 

This week was amazing as far as lessons go though. The C--- in our ward met a guy at Costco, and told him he looked like a Mormon bishop. He said he wasn’t and they asked if he would like to learn more about the church and he said yes! So we got to teach him the first lesson in their home this week. They invited us over for lunch and we taught him the Restoration afterwards and the C--- gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon that they had written a note in. Talk about member missionary work!! They rock! The lesson went well but he was a little intimidating because he is very intelligent and we, of course, teach simply. I had the feeling he was analyzing everything we said! It went well, but he said he wanted to study what we gave him before he set a return appointment. So I’ll let you know if we hear back from him again.

We also had our first lesson with L---! Our member that was supposed to go with us backed out at the last second, so we had to scramble to find someone else. Luckily, Sister R--- said she would come, even though she was about to jump in the shower. She is the best! The lesson went really well! He has already read all of 1 Nephi and plans to finish he Book of Mormon by tomorrow! My jaw practically hit the floor when he told us! The only downside is, he hasn’t received any feelings or witnesses that it’s true yet. Then again, I can’t imagine how someone could read the whole thing and not know that it’s true! So I’m praying that he will get that confirmation before we go back for our next lesson. He seems golden!!! I guess we will see how it turns out…

We had another lesson with T--- and once again it was like pulling teeth to get him to express an opinion, so we don’t know how much is getting through to him, if anything. It’s definitely slow going and hard to keep him on track. For example, we asked him where he thought he came from before he was born and he began to go off on a tangent about his pet pig named Bobo that he had had when he was a kid. So when he finished, I asked him again and he finally answered the question. That’s what all of our lessons are like. Very, very slow going. Not to mention he can’t really hear us talking, so we have to shout a lot of the lesson.

J--- forgot our appointment this week and didn’t come to church. He was sick earlier, but we need to get in with him. I’m a little frustrated with him. I hope he just forgot our meeting.

S--- is doing pretty well. He hasn’t come to church yet and we have a suspicion that he can’t read because every time we come over and ask if he has done the reading we left him he comes up with a really creative excuse. This week the excuse was “my friend borrowed my reading glasses”. How many friends borrow their friends glasses?! We would think he didn’t want to read, but then after he makes his excuse, he asks us eagerly if we will read it to him. So we have brainstormed some ways to figure out if he can read without offending him or coming right out and asking. I’ll keep you posted. He slept in yesterday and didn’t make it to church again. Bummer. We called him twice but didn’t have the miles to drive over.

The I--- are doing great! We came over and C--- started asking about what fasting was; so we taught them about fasting and she really wants to do it. So we’ll see if she actually made it. Fasting is hard if you’re only 13 and you’re doing it alone! And S--- has been keeping the Word of Wisdom! To make things even better, M--- asked if she could have a Word of Wisdom pamphlet, she wanted to study it! Oh, if only they would get married and the money thing would work out. They would be so ready for baptism!! Argh!!!!!!!!! So frustrating!

We met T---, the man who wants to be baptized but won’t go into the water because of a parasitic sore on the back of his leg. He was put in the VA hospital and they have drained a ton of fluid from his legs. They are still huge. He remarked on how skinny they were, but they’re still about as big around as my waist! I wonder how big they were before they drained them. Hopefully they will fix whatever is wrong with his legs so that he can be mobile so that he can get to church and be baptized!

One of the boys in our ward, Cyrus, is getting a bone marrow transplant this week from his 6 year old sister. He could use prayers.

I learned a cool new skill this week! Brother Monson taught me how to pick locks and I’ve been practicing on my lunch breaks so it doesn’t distract from the work at all. It’s so cool and I love it! I’ve only been able to pick about 9 locks so far, but I still feel successful. Maybe I can get good at it and be able to earn some extra money someday.

We have a return lesson with the D--- family this week. I’m really excited!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully we can get in with the B--- again before January.

I’m excited to be back solely in my own area so I don’t keep having to bounce back and forth.

That’s about it on the updates for this week! Hope you’re all having an awesome December!

Don’t forget to #SharetheGift!

Love,

Sister Draney