I can't believe February will be here by this time next week! Where has January gone?!

We have been very busy this week, despite everyone dropping us. We have been meeting with a lot of members and committing them to invite someone over for dinner (it doesn't have to be with us) to teach the ward to reach out and begin to develop those friendships that could turn into something more.

We have also been doing a lot of tracting which makes me very, very grateful for this warm spell! We have been enjoying 40-60 degree weather for the past couple days and I am soaking it in!!! It's making people here a little more cheerful, so we have been getting a few return appointments and a lot of at-the-door lessons.

We had one of our investigator families at church today; C--- and her kids! They stayed for all three hours and they loved it! she even sent her kids off to primary and nursery, with only a little anxiety haha. We have another appointment with them in a couple days. Keep them in your prayers please!

One of our dinners forgot us this week and we showed up at her house, but we didn't want her to know that she forgot dinner, so we pretended we were just stopping in, and then we went and got a little Caesar's pizza. She's so sweet but she doesn't have the money to feed us unexpectedly.

We had a ton of lessons this week with less active and part member families. We are trying to work out a service project for one of the part member families but we've had to ride the ward a lot to get people moving on it. They had already agreed to do it, it's just that everyone else was expecting someone else to do it. I don't mind arranging it if it means it's going to get done. But I feel bad constantly having to harass the ward to do something they already said they would do.

I wish I had a lot of exciting stories this week, but all I have are a lot of strange and uneventful tracting experiences. Someone got mad at us last night for being out too late. I'll have to say, that was a first. Sometimes I wish I could tell people exactly what's on my mind, for example, last night it would have been:, "Hi, it's cold and windy and I have a headache, but I care enough about you and the message I'm sharing to be out here when I really wish I could be inside by a fireplace with some popcorn. So will you please let us in so that we can help you find the gospel so that you can be eternally happy? Oh, you don't want to be eternally happy? My bad then. We'll just ask your neighbor." haha but that would be bad form. ;) I really do enjoy tracting though because it makes you feel so successful, even if all you get is rejection after rejection. It's the fact that you're working hard and giving the Lord your all that is satisfying.

I hope you are all having a great week! Write me! You only have a few weeks left, YOU CAN DO IT! :)

Lots of love and sorry this is so short,

Sister Draney

Hello Everyone!

I wish I had a lot of good to report this week, but this is probably the most depressing week of my mission, so not much good happening, sadly. Stay tuned and I’ll give you the rundown.

We had a great lesson with L---  about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She said she wanted to be baptized before the end of the year. At the end of the lesson we gave her a Word of Wisdom pamphlet to study for our next lesson. Later the next day we got over 18 text messages at once. She read it and didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t be baptized without giving up her substances and she began calling us deceitful liars and just about everything else you can imagine. Long story short, she dropped us like a rock, deleted our number, and doesn’t want to ever speak to us again. It was a drastic overreaction to the Word of Wisdom, in my opinion.

C--- and H--- d--- are very stuck on the fact that the LDS church doesn’t support gay marriage. C--- told us that he would rather be in hell with his gay friends than in heaven alone. We have brought bishop and one past bishop and studied like crazy, and at this point it’s up to the Lord. I’m very discouraged because it’s just this one thing.

M--- is hung up on baptism. She believes that her preachers were called of God and that he put his hands on them and gave them the authority to baptize. She is very adamant that she is correct and won’t move forward until this is resolved.

S--- forgot his appointments, again. And I am now the only person in the zone with faith in him. It’s very disheartening. I really do think it’s a weird mental thing that causes him to forget things. Sister O’Mealy doesn’t want to visit him anymore.

The one bright spot of our week was C---. She is golden! And we had a great lesson with her and she asked Sister Clark to come. She believes everything we shared and we have another appointment set up for next week. I’m feeling very hopeful!

Transfers are coming up at the end of the month and I’m not sure what to hope for anymore. I guess that’s for the best, so hopefully I won’t be disappointed either way. It would be a bummer to have to pack up again though. Packing is not my favorite…to say the least.

In other exciting news, I learned how to extract a broken light bulb and repair a lamp. That was pretty fun. We also got to teach the YW class yesterday!

It’s warming up here and gas prices have dropped to 1.89, so all is good! Send me letters and emails! I miss you all!

Lots o’ love,

Sister Draney

This week wasn't very exciting so there's not much to report on. We were dropped by the B--- we went over for a lesson with them and we sat down and began to teach and she said that she and her husband need to talk a little bit about religion before they wanted to continue further. Her husband is the one that told us that she wasn't home when she was, and he's the one that won't join us when we talk. She asked eagerly for the church address and time that we meet and seem sad to see us go, we just hope that she will show up at church one day or that we have planted the seeds for future missionaries. They really are golden, or at least she is anyway.

C--- has moved out of our ward boundaries and so the fourth Ward sisters will be working with her for a while, because she's too far out for us to visit regularly now. We are hopeful that now that she's out of an environment of smokers that she will be able to quit her addiction more easily. She seems to be doing well, and we are very hopeful for her.

The d---- family are doing well even though they didn't come to church this Sunday, we aren't sure why yet. They are planning on getting married soon so they can get baptized. We are having a small problem with their views on homosexuality and the bishop a slightly concerned. They still seem very set on baptism and they loved church last week. C--- keeps referring to his baptism as his "shower date" which I think is pretty funny. They keep saying how everything they learn just "seems right". It's so exciting!

L--- came to church yesterday but left after sacrament meeting. He still doesn't have a testimony yet and were trying to figure out how to help them have spiritual experiences where he recognizes the Spirit so he can gain a testimony. Will keep you updated in the future.

M--- didn't come to church yesterday because of work, but everything is still going well with her.

We sang a musical number in church this Sunday and we didn't start preparing until Saturday. But it turned out pretty well, at least I think, I couldn't really hear myself. You never know with musical numbers... People will tell you you did great, even if you didn't.

We finally got to see S---, one of our former investigators who said she "needed a break". She seems to be doing really well and we were able to share a brief message. Hopefully we will be able to start teaching her again soon.

We didn't get to have a lesson with S--- or J--- this week.

Last night we were contacting a referral and we knocked on the door 3 times. They clearly were home but the TV was on so loud that we weren't sure if they could hear us. Turns out they could because their little girl came upstairs and her mom told her to go back downstairs and she said, "but mom, there's a GIRL at the door!" To which her mom replied, "if I wanted you to answer the door, I would have told you." It was pretty funny because the little girl was so baffled. Kids are so awesome and honest. Sister O'Mealy and I just walked away laughing.

There was another awesome moment when we were having a lesson at P--- house and I heard this loud buzzing noise coming towards me (like the sound a big bee, or a wasp might make).  Needless to say I was alarmed, and when I saw it fly past me I backed up and then tried to get off the couch as quick as I could so that it wouldn't land on me. It headed straight for sister O'Mealy and as I was standing up she took her iPad and whacked it straight at me! I was so terrified I screamed and made a beeline for the bathroom, P--- was just laughing from her chair the whole time. Sister O'Mealy was pretty freaked out and joined me in the bathroom a second later. I ended up stepping on it, it turned out just to be a large beetle. But it's legs hung down when it flew, just like a hornet or yellow jacket. P---thought it was pretty strange that it wasn't hibernating or dead. I do not like bugs. I joked with sister O'Mealy that she was trying to feed me to the bugs since she didn't succeed in feeding me to the dogs last week.

Well, that's about it for this week, hopefully the coming week will be more exciting! Hope everyone is staying safe and happy!

Sister Draney

 a frozen water fountain

 Christmas eve food drive

The snow has finally set in big time. As we were driving to the library to email, we ended up getting stuck and it took four people (myself included) to push us out. People are so nice! It makes me really happy to see that people are willing to go out of their way to help others.

This week there isn’t much that’s too exciting to report. I was holed up for many days with the flu which was really rough. There’s nothing worse than a missionary who can’t do missionary work and is too sick to study or do anything productive. However, now I’m feeling better and am happy to be back at work again full swing! It does completely destroy my goal of making it through my whole mission without a sick day, sadly. Oh well, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Yesterday was really great though! We had 4 investigators at church!!! That’s more than I’ve ever had my entire mission! I was absolutely thrilled! The d--- family came to church and stayed for all three hours. They liked it and then said that they are going to come back regularly. Apparently they asked C--- to introduce himself in Priesthood meeting, which he did, for 6 minutes! Then he proceeded to bear his testimony! Crazy! I had members coming up to me afterwards and asking why he wasn’t baptized yet! Their son, J---, also went to Primary without any fuss and stayed the whole time! I am beside myself with happiness!

Then we accompanied M--- to the 1 pm Sacrament meeting because she couldn’t get off of work to make any other meeting and we told her of COURSE we would come with her to any meeting she could make it to! So it was a long day for us church-wise, but it was so great because M--- now plans on coming back every week! Such a miracle!!! She cried through parts of church and seemed to really like it, even though she was struggling to stay awake (she’d been at work since 1am)

We were disappointed because L--- hadn’t come to church like he promised he would, however at a stake meeting later than night we learned that he had forgotten about the time change and had gone to all 3 hours of 3^rd ward’s meetings by himself! Talk about dedication! Now we just need to help that boy get a testimony! J

Seriously, can anything be greater than yesterday? AND we also followed up on a referral and now have a new less active! Oh the Lord is so good!!!

We still have a few bumps to get over for the three of them, but they are all putting in a ton of effort. M--- and L--- study the pamphlets and the questions in the back so thoroughly that the pamphlets fall apart and they are covered in notes and questions! H--- has been looking all over the LDS websites and reading. She has even been listening to the Mormon Tabernacle choir! Ahhhh! I’m seriously the luckiest, most blessed missionary on the face of the earth!!!

As for everyone else: R--- is doing great, she was able to go home (fingers crossed that it lasts) and hopefully she will being to start getting well so we can work towards her baptism date on March 7. We put the date a little far out so that she has time to really get well and attend church.

S---- we had an interesting appointment with him because he had more friends there, which means we didn’t get to teach him much, but we have 3 potential investigators out of his friends! His house is like a hot spot for potential investigators. Now if only a few of them would come for the lessons…

J--- was out of town for our appointment. Again. I’m quite miffed with him. I don’t think he realizes that we actually schedule out time for him. He just cancels on us like it’s nothing.

Funny story of the week! We went back to C--- house to try and set up another appointment. Her husband, Russ, came to the door and we asked if she was home and he said that she wasn’t, then his daughter runs up and calls out, “she is home!” and in case once wasn’t enough, she stuck her head under her dad’s arm and said, “she is!”. Her dad gave her a look and popped her on the chin (I felt bad for her, she had no idea her dad was lying on purpose) and closed the door partway and went to go get C---.

We asked her if she still wants to meet with us and she says she really does and set up an appointment for next week. Ah, you have to love kids! I hope she didn’t get in trouble. How embarrassing for the dad…

L--- didn’t come to church this Sunday. We aren’t sure why yet. We haven’t been able to pass her off to the elders yet. Apparently something is going on in her life and she wants us to call her again in a few days. I’ll keep you informed.

That’s about it for this week, since I spent 90% of it in bed haha

I love you all so much! And please keep writing me! You have no idea how much of a boost it is to get your letters in the mail! And for those of you who sent me Christmas cards, I give you a large, mass thank you!!!! You made me smile! I love you all!

Xoxoxoxox

Love,

Sister Draney