65 - Miracles in Montana and Williston

An hour is not enough time!

We had an incredible week this week!!! 18 lessons! We were hoping to achieve the standard of excellence by getting 20 lessons, but we didn't quite make it. But still, awesome week! 

On Monday after emailing, I went to a members house and played the trombone! 

It was super awesome!

Though it was spooky weird because the case is the same as the one we have at home (from 1978!) and it's the same OLDS make!  
What!? Except it is silver. Crazy. It was so awesome to play for a bit.

So this is a family that we teach home primary to. 


We thought of this cool lesson that we wanted to teach, acting out Nephi and the broken bow.

Our bunk bed has bars that are not very pleasing on the feet. (This connects, I promise.) 

So I decided to be resourceful by buying a pool noodle.

Now we can climb up the ladder in our bare feet/stockings.  :-)

My Dad would be so proud. 

But funny thing, inside that pool noodle there was totally a weird blue bendy thing! 

Tender mercy!

A little dental floss goes a long way. 

Hooray!

Family home evening tonight!

We were going to have a super legit lesson at the park this week. A less active who is Cambodian (!) who we'd never met, who our Philapino recent convert found at work (why is she such an awesome missionary?!), but her daughter was sick. :( 

But Korwa still came, as well as a member. 

We read the second chapter of the Book of Mormon with her.

She so wants kids. 

But her husband is never home. 

She's so cute.

We found lots of new investigators this week, all of them are African. Two of them have crazy real intent and they are on date for baptism on the 15th then the 22nd of August! We also made contact with I think four or five less actives that we have never met before, and had lessons with three of them. And one of them came to church! We had three investigators at church as well! The two Africans who are on date for baptism, and Korwa. The one couple who we've been teaching because of that one dinner appointment didn't come. We are going to find out why. They need to come!

We are low on miles, so we've been conserving by walking more than usual and getting rides from members. It's been hot, well into the 90's (I know that you Arizona people are laughing, but it's really hot to me right now! Plus it's humid. lol). But! It's been super good.

Oh, and we had a very successful exchange with the Sidney sisters! I went with Sister Park to Sidney, Montana!

This is the house that they stay at. They have basically the whole basement hall that they stay in. They acutally live with a part member family. They live on a farm! 

It's crazy.

And what else is crazy is this is the room that used to be super scary and used to not have the spirit there at all. This is the room that caused the sisters to drive over to Williston and stay the night with us. But it's all better and dedicated and stuff. YAY!

The Sisters in Montana basically started from scratch. The elders before basically weren't teaching at all. (Big surprise, right?) But man, they seem to have taken off! They've been doing a lot of tracting, Sister Miles and Sister Park have, but when I was there we only knocked on like, ten doors, all in the morning! And in this funny little town.

Welcome to Fairview! 

haha.

We went to Sidney after lunch and we taught five lessons, a great amount of lessons! 

And a huge miracle has happened. 

A girl who has been active in the church and converted in her heart for two years has received permission to get baptized!!! And her parents are softening and taking the discussions now! This is two years before she would have been baptized (at 18). And I got to meet her! And I feel so privileged to be there to hear about this miracle from her! It's going to be the craziest attendance of a baptism ever! The elders that first taught her are flying up from different parts of the west coast and everything. This is a national event! 

So cool!

And I met a lot of other cool people, but that was the coolest.

Meanwhile, on the West side of Williston...

Sister Miles and Sister Barrett taught SIX lessons! So cool! And that's when a lot of the less active lessons happened with people who we had never met. And they had a sweet lesson where Sister Miles was really able to connect with one of our investigators and offer special words of guidance because of her our family's experience. Exchanges are SO inspired! They had great success!

Meanwhile, on the East side of Williston...

The Third Ward Elders had a sweet lesson with nine Africans at once! They were all full of questions, but they went over the baptismal interview questions to get them pumped and then talked about the temple and this one guy stood up and was like, "we are all going to go to church! I will pick you up! and you! and you!" and so on! Soooo cool. Only two of them came. But still, sweet lesson!

Friday was good, BLAH, then AWESOME! 
It was cool.

And then Saturday was just way up on the awesome level! 

We taught lots of lessons! We put our other African investigator on date that morning! And this one member gave us a ton of rides. AND we, as of that day, have officially knocked on every single door that we could find on the ward list that wasn't in a locked apartment building. (There are a lot of those.)

And we met this one family that has was a valuable family to contact. They were living in their one company house for this two weeks, so we got his number, so we always know who is living in the house, and they are members, and the people who are going to be having the house next is a part member family who has been so prepared, they need to be active in the church! YEAH!

We met then with this one member at the church and there was a miscommunication and she brought all her kids with her thinking we were meeting someone at the church and she could just let her kids play. Soooooo we just bought them all to Kossi and Valorie's, because they have crazy kids, so they wouldn't mind.

And, guess what!? Kossi got a job! He has been looking for a new job since before he was baptized in April! He finally got one! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! And this one Sister is pretty much the most awesome fellowshipper ever. Her husband is actually African, an they are new in the ward, and they are one of the most awesome families ever, and they are totally going to develop the best friendship ever, which Kossi and Valorie so need!

Chapters Named

P.S. Can you tell I've been studying Alma!? 

Left: Every chapter has it's own "name".

Right: Alma, the Action pictograph.












P.P.S. Check out this cat spider!

Cricket Trapped...Cat spider in for the wapping...New snack pack!

Thanks for the Package, Mom and family!

And here are a couple of pictures of our zone from our recent zone conference.

64 - Tickled Pink

We really racked up the miles in the middle of this week! We drove at least 600 miles this week, what with our normal driving around Williston, then driving to Minot then to Bismarck for our meeting the new mission president meeting, driving back Minot then to Williston, then driving halfway to Minot again, and back to Williston. WOW! Lots of car time. But still a super productive week!

This is Minot

We saw some cool things on our drive. Things are looking really green. 



I got a good shot of the City of Minot!

Drove by a familiar looking factory on the way to Bismarck.

Saw a pretty rainbow that we saw fade out of existence.

And a pretty sunset! 


With the sun against the horizon.

It was so good to finally meet President and Sister Hess! 

President Hess is a lot like President Anderson which is good, and Sister Hess is just haha, cute. 

She's just adorable.

It was cool to have all the Sisters that Sister Barrett is over in one place! 

From left to right, you have: 

the Williston, ND, 

the Minot, ND, 

and the Sydney, MO Sisters. 

Woo!

Here are a couple of pictures of our zone

After zone conference in Bismarck, we went to Texas Roadhouse to eat before going back to Minot, the same Texas Roadhouse that we ate at for Sister Easter's birthday almost exactly a year prior, so that was kind of cool.








And then we went on exchanges. 

Sister Andrus has been out in the mission field for less then a month, and she got to drive, because by black dot has not quite faded yet from the incident in late January of the snow covered curb! 

haha. 

(I will be able to drive next transfer though!)

And that night. Holy cow. I don't think I've ever in my life driven in rain that came down this hard. It was INSANE! I would have tried to take a picture if I wasn't so preoccupied straining my eyes to try to help see the lines on the road! Seriously, it takes a lot of rain to do that. There were a lot of people pulled over on the side of the road. But the road was straight and wide and it was a divided highway, so we felt pretty safe. It was an adventure!

We got home late that night, needless to say.

In the morning, me and sister Andrus totally decided to match.

We almost died like five times in Williston driving. 



But that's nothing new at all. 


People are crazy drivers here, it keeps you on your toes. 


Again, it's an adventure!

We did some awesome work on trying to contact people on the ward list during our exchange! It was awesome. And we taught some great lessons, always focusing on the temple, because that's a lot of what zone conference was about. It was super great!

We exchanged back that night and it was back to being a regular week pretty much.

Some more about the missionary work that happened this week. We found some new investigators this week. We don't know how solid some really are. We had a solid lesson with one of them, though he is Muslim and when we explained very precisely the priesthood and the importance of being baptized by priesthood authority and that if the Book of Mormon is true it creates this chain effect of truth and so when he finds out it is true he should be baptized, he didn't seem to grasp that fully. And the other two that we found, or more the one found bishop and bishop found us, they met with us just looking for financial help, and we referred them to a person in the ward who deals with those issues, and so we need to establish expectations with them still.

BUT! There is a new investigator that we started teaching this week that is, as we say, golden! He his from Africa and his sister, who is in Philadelphia, is a member, and has been trying to get him to go to the Mormon church. And when he moved here on the 4th of July, he finally decided to check it out and he found that we worshiped the same God, same doctrine, just a few more extra good things and he bore his testimony in gospel principles explaining all this and said he wants to join this church, he wants to be baptized! We had our first lesson with him that night and now he is on date for being baptized on the 15th of August! It's never been so easy to put someone on date!

We had a busy day on Saturday too.

We made a game plan of seeing all the people in this area and traveling on foot to save on miles. 

We made so many good contacts, it was pretty cool. 

There was one lady that her husband is a member, and we met both of them, and she's totally not interested in coming to church, but she's totally so nice. 

It was cool.

Korwa is back from Utah! We brought a member with us to a lesson with her and we gave her the Book of Mormon in her language! It was soooo cool. We just took turns reading, and she read her verses in her own language and it was very evident that she understood it much better in her own language! We hope she reads it on her own.

We also strengthened the members this week. There is a member who is a single male, he is divorced, and he's a convert, so he's not endowed and we knocked on his door, found out he was actually active, and he just feels like a fly on the wall at church, but he just keeps on going. We told him he could feed us dinner, we would just have to bring an extra female. So we went that Saturday to dinner at his house with our ward mission leader and his wife.

We walk in, there is already a salad set out for each of us. We just felt bad because we actually just told him we had one extra person instead of two, so he didn't prepare for all who were present, so he just didn't eat, which we felt super bad about. But he was 'tickled pink' to have us, and also, turns out he's a chief! So that was a surprise. Our eyes grew wider and wider with the steak, then the mashed potatoes, then the sauce! And the dinner message, which was a re-commitment to read, pray, and attend church, was more what they all needed than we thought. It brought him to tears. He needed this company, and to make best friends with this couple. It was truly amazing.

P.S. I cooked and consumed the triforce for lunch...

63 - Grenora the Great

A recent convert in Dickenson

Darn no time! Well. You have a bunch of pictures. haha.

At the beginning of the week there was MLC. 

That's the meeting that all the leadership in the mission goes to, aka Sister Barrett goes and I'm stuck with someone else for a day and have a blast doing missionary work with them.

Sister Capson (Left) and Sister Shaver

Sister Shaver and Sister Capson serve in Dickenson. Sister Capson is STL.

Sister Shaver and Sister Sanderson

So I was companions with Sister Shaver! 

And I don't have time to talk in detail about this awesome lesson that we had with this guy who was African. But we got in because we were with a member and we shared the restoration film with him and we committed him to come to our church and he comitted us (them) to come to his church. 

It's Sister Shaver's dream to get invited to the black church! 

She's so excited!

Our Grenora trip on Thursday was awesome. Grenora is kind of like Ray, except for it's in 1st ward.

Our Relief Society President and her councilor took us up there on Thursday. 





First time I've been.

The trip up there was fun!

And then we arrived

We went there to see all the people listed on the ward list. 




We met one of the ladies outside her house and that was a good visit. 


No body else on the list answered. But!

We knocked on the door of this one trailer. No one answered the door we knocked on, but there was a boy next door who heard and poked his head out of the door and said:

"Whatcha doin'?"

"We're seeing if this person's home."

"Oh, ok." and he went back inside.

Well, no one was answering and so we decided to knock on that door that the boy poped out of and see if they knew anything about their neighbor (and perhaps teach them about the gospel)!

"Hi, is your mom home?"

"Yeah. Are you selling cookies!?"

He noticed the plate in our Relief Society President's hands.

"Moooom! Mom! I love cookies! Mom!"

When short little less than five foot mom came to the door on the phone she stopped.

"Oh..! The missionaries are here! ..I'll have to call you back. The missionaries just showed up at my house."

So, we didn't meet the member that lived in that listed house, we found another lost sheep, Chelsea. And her step son, Melvin Adam Johnson the Third! haha. He's a cute one. As well as her younger step son and her youngest, her toddler of a daughter.

"I was wondering with the oil boom how long it would take for you to find me."

It's been hard for her to stay active because she has moved a lot and she has had bad experiences with members attending church in the past.

We shared with them the Because of Him Video. Melvin was just asking all sorts of questions, so excited at this video about Christ, and he wanted to watch it again. We went around and told what we liked about the video. Chelsea said she liked it because it helped her remember the lessons she was taught as a kid. And the video of Because He Lives started playing automatically. As Melvin watched, he was so intent, tears were in his eyes. He leaned to the 1st Councilor Sister.

"Why am I crying? I feel so happy."

"You are feeling the Holy Ghost."

I looked over and gestured to Sister Barrett to look too. Melvin had his eyes closed, his hands pressed together.

The first councilor asked him why he did that. He said, "I don't know. I just do it sometimes at night when I need help or something."

Sooooo close to the spirit.

We gave the two boys book of Mormons and they wrote their names in them.

Chelsea knows it was not a coincidence that we came. She was actually thinking beforehand that she needed to come back to church.

She didn't come to church because her husband made surprise family plans. We will be in contact with her. It was such a blessing to meet her, and that she knows the relief society president too now! How AWESOME!

Passing through Zahl...Don't Blink!

P.S. Lots of pictures with captions.

Young man reading his mission call...UGINE OREGON!

Williston Pride!

The Cambodian Book of Mormon and Church Literature

Magaizine written by the man who's moving to Montana

Dandillion? Be FREE! Go grom More Milkweeds!

Funny License Plate

Accoding to our calculations, this IS the right address!

62 - Fireworks in Williston

So, there have been explosions all over in Williston! It has been an insanely packed week, and I'm afraid I won't be able to talk about all of it...

This is like, my favorite. 

So, on Monday I bought a bean bag. You know why? 

To make a cozzy woman cave!

Why do I have a woman cave? 

And why is it in the little tiny bathroom you ask? 

Because Sister Barrett as Sister Training Leader has a lot of calls that she makes that I'm not to listen in on because I'm not part of leadership. 

But we only have one big room... and the only place that I can't hear what's going on it, you guessed it, in the bathroom with the fan on. 

So I get a lot of quality time with the toilet, at least three hours each week. lol. 

Yay time to study more and write letters and do whatever! I've definitely made the most of this.

Hello President Hess! 

So excited to meet you next week!

On Monday we had a regular P-day! FINALLY! So we went to Sister Awesome's house. And she has an awesome dog.

This is George, the punk dog. lol

He's super chill. He let me use him as a table.

And the other Sister awesome across the street has puppies!

And one of them fell asleep in my hand! so cute!

President and Sister Anderson left the first of July. SAD! They finished their three-year mission! And President and Sister Hess took their place. Sister Barrett is going to meet them today. We get to meet them next week. Crazy!

We just put someone on date for baptism on August 1st who is so ready to receive the gospel! She's the one we started teaching her because a member signed up on our dinner calendar and when we called to confirm she told us that her less active son and his nonmember wife would be there! So we taught the restoration after dinner, and we just put her on date the week on her second lesson, and we had another dinner and a lesson on her birthday this week with more family over (who were members) and we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but at the end the subject switched to temples, and it was all of the family and kids just testifying of eternal families and experiences they've had and everyone was crying because the spirit was so strong and it was amazing! The only thing that could have been better was if she kept her commitment to come to church. She will have to come next week.

We almost had someone else on date this week, but the date is just set tentatively for the last week of August, what with family coming in during the middle of august she wants to be baptized after that. We will set it more solidly with a for sure date next lesson.

We found out some concerns of people. One of our investigators who has stopped progressing because she hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon and hasn't come to church even once, her family has told us it's not a good idea to meet with us. When she asks why though they can't give an answer. We are working on getting her friends so she doesn't feel alone.

About Korwa, we had an awesome lesson with her about Jesus Christ! 

And the day after we got this in the mail!

We were so excited! 

It must be the Cambodian Book of Mormon!

We went over to take it to her and lol she said that it wasn't her language. It was Indian. Darn, haha. 

But it turns out she had something to tell us. From what we understand, the monks in a dream told her she can't be "baptized or blessed in the head" is how she explains it (or receive the holy Ghost). but she can still continue to learn and go to church, just not to change so much. She is gaining friends in the ward though! And still eager to learn! We are still so excited for her. After all, our Philippino investigator took a year to be baptized!

These two boys are recent converts and we taught them the word of Wisdom and they are awesome.

This is the guy who was baptized in March just before I got here and who sent us that text and who also is moving to Montana for work and who teaches himself basically and is fully on board for attending church in Montana. Yay! We will miss him.

We had some awesome dinners, this family was awesome.

Man... why no time.

Well, we taught a lot of lessons this week and I don't have time to talk about all of them!

I will talk about the 4th of July.

Cool Shirts, Ladies!

We decided to stay in one area and find all the less actives on the ward list that were supposedly living there.

It was super hot at first! 

It was muggy and in the 90s and just hot.

Yes, That's the address alright...just nothing there!

That awkward moment when the address that your looking for doesn't exist in the trailer park because the trailer is uprooted! hahaha.

Then a storm was looking to happen. Super random BUT super an answer to prayer, because it has been so dry here in Williston and with all the fireworks about to happen (and happening because people even shoot fireworks off during midday and as soon as it hits July) Williston was probably going to catch fire and burn! We already had a fire in Canada that blew the smoke all the way here, let's not have more!

So it rained! A lot! And super fast! It was like monsoon season in Arizona!

But that awkward moment when you get caught in it and get soaked.

And it's even more awkward when the list that we were using got wet because it was in my skirt pocket... but it was still readable! Yay!

And after that rain, yes, we were soaked, but we it was an awesome adventure, and it was the perfect temperature after that!

We didn't find any of the less actives on the list, but instead we found out that a lot of people moved and two of the addresses didn't have the people in them that were less active, but they were other people, and we had lessons with them and gave both addresses a Book of Mormon. They are both very busy, so I don't know the likelyhood of us getting back in with them, but hey, they have the Book of Mormon in their hands, they have our number, we have theirs and they know where the church is and when we meet. Yay!

We ate dinner at the Gentry's house, the Bishop of third ward. I miss being in that ward. Bishop in his wife are so awesome.

We had an awesome title of liberty lesson with them.

They had so much fun shooting off their own fireworks, some of them going rouge! haha

So many cool fireworks!

They had such a cool view! 

You could see all of Williston and all the fireworks going off around town. 

EVERYONE shoots off fireworks

They were still going when we were driving home at 11:30. 

When we got in bed at midnight it still sounded like somebody was trying to blow up our apartment, somebody was shooting off fireworks so close! 

But man, I was out like a light. I was tired.