Is it spring? I'm not really sure... Montana has a lovely way of getting your hopes up that the weather will be good and sending them plummeting to the earth. I can only hope! All of the farmers want more rain/snow though. I would totally be down for some rain. Bring it on!

This week has been all over the place. We had mission leadership training, a ton of appointments, moving into a new apartment, and then I got sick. All sorts of great stuff.

Mission Leadership Conference was back in Helena which was pretty exciting. It would have been even more exciting if I'd been gone for longer. But I got to see a ton of my good missionary friends. Sister Thackeray and I also gave a discussion (yikes!), I played the piano for the whole meeting which I enjoyed, and I had to give my "departing testimony". The discussion went really well. I love speaking in front of groups, so that was one of the best parts of the day. As for the "departing testimony" it didn't really seem real because I'd seen so many missionaries give them, but it always seemed like my time would never come, but now it's here and gone. 

Moving into the new apartment went really well. The ward totally hooked us up and I felt so guilty because we're both going to be leaving in a few weeks! They're so excited to have sister missionaries and we haven't told them that we're both leaving yet. I hope they aren't upset... :/ A few of the ward have figured out that we're going home and are getting trunky for us! We're like, "no! We don't want to talk about it!" but they insist, so we have to find creative ways of diverting the conversation. Usually by asking them a question about what's going on in their lives. That always works. 

So many people showed up to move us into our new apartment that we really didn't have anything to do! There were five men from the elder's quorum setting up two twin beds in our room. There wasn't even room for us! But now we're all settled. The apartment is huge, which is nice, but it smells of smoke and dog. We found out that the people below us smoke, so the smell is wafting up through the vents into our apartment. It's really gross. We leave the windows open all day and that really helps. 

When we moved in at first we didn't have a shower curtain, so we had to be really careful when we showered not to get the floor wet. We weren't always successful. Luckily, one of the members had one they had forgotten to give us, so we didn't have to wait until p-day to go get one. 

We've had some great lessons this week. Just today after district meeting our district leader, Elder Izatt, complimented us on how many lessons we have been having! Apparently we have skyrocketed the last elder's numbers. That made me feel pretty good because we've been working hard. We both really want to go out with a bang and leave the mission completely exhausted. 

We had a great lesson with Sister W--- and her roommate this week. Her roommate isn't a member and Sister W--- is returning to church for the first time. Her roommate had all sorts of questions about the word of wisdom that we were able to answer and we had a great discussion about God's hand in our lives. 

Her roommate's name is S--- and she's is one of "Gertie's Babies". You should look it up on google. Basically, this woman, Gertie, did secret abortions in the top of her chiropractic clinic and would sometimes tell mothers who were coming in to have their children that their babies had died and then would sell them to couples who wanted to adopt. Apparently S--- was sold to her parents for $500. It's a crazy story. Apparently there was a furnace in the back of Gertie's shop and no one knows what happened to the other kids. I'm eager to read about it when I get home. It sounds like a crazy story. Apparently People magazine interviewed her and the other kids that were also sold by Gertie. So cool...

We taught Sister W--- another lesson later in the week. We were hoping S--- would be there, but even though she wasn't it was still a really good lesson. We taught her the Restoration mixed with the baptismal interview questions to get an idea of where her testimony stands and what we can help her with. It ended up being one of the most unified lessons we have ever taught as a companionship and the Spirit was there very strongly. She is really doing so well and is even reading the Book of Mormon all of the way through which is really strengthening her testimony. 

We had dinner with the cutest old man. His wife recently passed away and he doesn't seem to have many people to talk to because he talked our ears off! We didn't mind at all because he is so awesome. :) He has some of the most interesting antiques in his house. He also does yard work for a ton of his neighbors, just to be nice. He has a whole gang of kids that follow him around and help him out. 

We met the S--- this week and had a great lesson with N--- (the mom). We had come over anticipating to teach the kids. She was really closed off at first, but eventually the kids kind of disappeared and we taught her. She expressed a lot of wonderful spiritual experiences to us and told us of one question that she had always had and she had always asked the ministers of every faith that she had attended, but they had never been able to answer it to her satisfaction. I asked her if the missionaries had been able to answer it, and she paused and told us she had never asked the missionaries. So I asked her if she would share her question with us. She did and it was a question that is answered in the first paragraph of the first lesson that we teach! She basically asked why all religions preach that God only likes the people in their religion and that the rest of everyone is out of luck. It is totally a question that the gospel answers! We have another appointment with her this week and she is very excited for it. 

K--- was baptized this week. It was an awesome baptism though I'm still worried that she wasn't baptized for the right reasons. Unfortunately, that's not my call to make. She didn't show up for church this Sunday. :/

We taught S---, a youth minister for another church, and the lesson went really well, even though we couldn't go in because it was only him there. He had a lot of questions that could be easily answered. It was a little confrontational because he kind of threw his questions at us like an accusation, but by the time we left he wanted his fiancee to come talk with us as well and hear the lessons. He is going to read the Book of Mormon and really pray about it. We made sure to emphasize that he wouldn't get an answer unless he really wanted to know, if he was open to the answer, and if he really meant to do something about it. 

Our lesson with J--- went really well this week. She is praying about a March 7th date. She has been investigating the church for 20 years! But she finally quit smoking two weeks ago and is excited that she can finally be baptized! Just last night on the phone she was telling us that when her husband walks by (he still smokes) that it makes her feel sick and that she really wished he would stop. We are so thrilled!!! She also really wants her kids to get involved in the church. She wants them to be influenced to make good decisions and to be around people with good morals. I agree with her 100%! (of course) It was a crazy lesson though, and it went waaaay too long. We're hopefully going to have future lessons in member's homes so that the Spirit can be there and there aren't so many distractions. 

Then, for the last 3 days I've been sick. Nothing too big, just really irritating. I didn't do anything interesting on p-day at all because I just had to lay there. 

I love you all! Thank you for all of your letters and support! 

xoxox

Sister Draney