67 - Bootin' the Gluten

So, it's happened, Sister Barrett got transferred off to Dickinson, but not before a bunch of goodbyes and definitely not before she got a picture in front of the big Williston Boomtown sign.

And not before Elder Reynolds exposed the inside of this not real baseball.

And when we both finally did get to Dickinson, then we had to wait for the other transfer train to come rolling in for a good few hours. 

So we went and got something to eat at Wendy's.

It was cool to see Sister Gray again, and to see Sister Lewis and just talk with everyone.

While we waited we played hangman.

Sister Cavu is "it" in Super Frog
/ Do You Love Your Neighbor

Then a good hour plus of Super frog, which is like signs, but with ranks like four square. The object was not to mess up so you could work your way up to super frog. I was swagdraggon for soooo long, (2nd to Super Frog) must've been thirty minutes at least, and then I became super frog for awhile! Man, it was so fun!

And we finished off with 'do you love your neighbor, which is what the picture is of.

And finnally the transfer train got there! 

And my dying wish, being as I have two transfers left, is to be in Williston with Sister Lewis for one transfer, and then to finish training Sister Gray's new greenie in Montana, Sister Severe, because Sister Gray goes home after this transfer! 

I could do it. 

It could happen.

Sister Lewis is great! We get along very well! BLESSINGS! 

Aaaand why is there no time left. Darn it. 

Well she met a lot of people, and we taught a few lessons, and we went out to eat at this Chinese place just the two of us and the guys in the booth next to us started talking to us and they are both less active members, and we got their information for the ward list, since they weren't on there, and they totally paid for us! How nice of them!

And our African investigator is totally going to be baptized on Saturday! Yaaaaaaay! This is the first time I've found someone and taught them all the way to baptism! Too bad Sister Barrett can't be there. Sad face.

And had another sweet thing happen. Super effective member referral. This old guy who gives us tons of referrals that don't always go anywhere, just called this guy up when we were standing there and he is his neighbor turns out and he's this old Russian guy (with the same exact accent as Sister Stephens and I always imitated during the second half of our companionship lol) and we taught him the restoration and he understands it pretty good and he came to church! Ah! So many investigators! We can't keep up with them all! But what a good problem to have!

But the biggest change of this week is well, where the title comes from.

That's right, Sister Lewis is gluten intolerant. She JUST confirmed it not even a month ago. She was feeling stabbed and malnourished and awful for so long and she tried cutting gluten out of her diet and she felt lots lots better. SO! This will be an experience going gluten free. It's already been an adventure, what with being out of food practically on Sunday and not being able to go to the store and calling a member that we have an awesome relationship with as far as inviting ourselves over for dinner and her setting up to feed us. So yeah!

That's all I have time for! Till next week!

P.S. This is SIster Lewis, smashing a rock.

P.P.S.  The young women kidnapped George... lol

66 - Rockin' the Bakken

Holy cow this has been an awesome transfer. This transfer we taught 84 lessons total. That's the most lessons in a transfer I've ever taught ever! The Bakken is rockin'! In other words, this North Dakota area of the oilfield is awesome and has just gone up and up it seems!

I think we at least had one big event every day of the week this week.

Monday.

We watched 17 Miracles on P-Day at the church on our bean bags that we both bought. It was sweet.

And we made a sweet liahona for our lesson acting out 1 Nephi 16. 

Super awesome. 

And we met a new super awesome less active with that family night!

I also got my trunky papers...

Aka, papers that you need to fill out and mail back telling the mission which airport you will be flying into, etc.

Tuesday.

We actually had to take our car into the shop. 

And. It was oddly windy. 

Like, super, duper windy.

IT WAS CRAZY WIND!
It was blowin' hair straight up and everything! 

Went to our dinner appointment and three of their shingles blew off as we were walking to the door! 

IT was insane!

And we didn't have a car! 

It was stormy all day!

So we relied on awesome members who were willing to brave the 60 mile per hour storm and give us rides.

Wednesday.

Still no car. But we finally contacted this one referral, finally caught him home, and got two new investigators! And GASP! They are actually not African! haha.

Thursday.

"Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts  of the children of men," (Alma 48:17).

Here's how the Bakken really comes in.

That's right, we totally did service in the oil field. There's a member who works at Cache Trucking. Found out lots more about the oilfield doing service!

Before getting suited up, we gathered round and had a safety meeting conducted by this member. Seriously, this was like, the oilfield version of the Mormon Battalion I feel like.

"Alright everyone. We're going to start here. Sisters! What's that scripture about Moroni, the kinda man he was!?"

"Uh, that if everyone was like Moroni the powers of hell would shake?"

"That's the one! See, Moroni, he was a guy that would get the job done, even if it made his boss mad. There was no stoppin' him! If he was doin' work in the oilfield, it would always get done! We need to be like that. Today is an A+ day. Yesterday, lets not talk about yesterday, that was a D-. Go out and do your best today! Be safe!"

So we got suited up and headed out. The pad/site/location (the land that the pump jack is on) that we went out to was inbetween Williston and Watford. Thirty minutes away. And our assignment: Clean Mud Dog. Equipment: Tisee (Or something), a heated high pressure water sprayer that can sever toes. Also, we had a cleaning brush.

You know what's funny though? We totally got busted by the head honcho safety guy. He was like, "Do you have steel toed boots?" 

"...No."

"Who authorized you to do this. You're not supposed to be cleaning on this site. We need to be keeping water off the ground. This needs to be sucked up."

"Uhhhh.....:I)

Luckily the people who were with us, the members, took care of it. So we got half the vac truck done! We got it's good side.

When we got back to the shop, he was proud of us. And he said that the apostles have told us that the recipe for failure is trying to please everyone. He said we did good.

So that was our adventure in the oilfield! We were sore for two days after the fact, that thing is hard to continue spraying!

And we got our car back! Woo!

Friday.

Well, we had district meeting. That was pretty cool I guess.

Saturday.

The Black dot on me from hitting that snow covered curb has officially faded! Now that six months has passed, I can drive again!

Sunday.

We had good Sunday. Charity and her husband came to church! Finally, yay! And our African male investigator who is on date for the 15th!

And we had a super stressful time trying to work out rides to an awesome dinner.

Ok, this couple who are new ward missionaries... are AWESOME! 

They just invite everyone over, and everyone to church and fellowship amazingly, and this sister has really taken Valorie and the kids under her wing.

I mean, look at that pizza party that they had early in the week!

Our on date African investigator was able to make it to dinner on Sunday and we got a picture with their awesome African/White mixed family!

Monday.

Transfer calls happened. Sister Barrett will be going to Dickinson. And I'm going to be companions with Sister Lewis, who I actually came out with. Though, like Sister Edwards, she was not in my district, so I don't really know her. Again, it'll be good to get to know her.

I do have pictures of her though, from Sister Gray, who is serving now with her in Rapid City.

Sister Barrett and I are very sad... But it will be ok, because it's what's best. The Lord knows.

Good things await us! Until next week!

P.S. I made a new planner cover. :-)

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...