Defender of the Dakotas: 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!