Monday, March 7, 2016

February 29, 2016: I have walked 500 miles.... And I'll probably walk 500 more

"In a hundred small ways, all of you wear the mantle of charity. Life
is perfect for none of us. Rather than being judgmental and critical
of each other, may we have the pure love of Christ for our fellow
travelers in this journey through life. May we recognize that each one
is doing [their] best to deal with the challenges which come [their]
way, and may we strive to do our best to help out." (President Thomas
S. Monson, Charity Never Faileth, October 2010 conference)

Do you see others around you in need of help? If not, you're not
looking. Every person around you is struggling through this journey of
life, just as bad if not worse than you are. Matthew 22 also
exemplifies this great principle- "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the
second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." So
the lord tells us to love God, and love our neighbors.... But how do
we show God that we love him?! Well, Mosiah 2:17 and Matthew 25:40
tell us that if we want to serve God (and we serve and follow those
love and serve others.
Find someone each day this week who needs your help. Pray for the
opportunities to help. As you put your faith in God he will provide a
way for you to help his other children. But remember- faith will move
mountains, but you better bring a wheelbarrow and shovel. Go out and
find. Find someone who needs your help. Look at your coworkers, your
peers, friends, family, random passers-by, the list goes on an on. If
you look for those people that may need your help, and have faith that
Heavenly Father will put you in their way, I can promise you that not
only will you be able to help others get through the trails that they
face, but the load that you are carrying will begin to be lifted by
the grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Slow Week.....
2/22
Boring preparation day. Hung out at the Stake center waiting for
people to come, but no one came..... Ever. Sat at the church for
like.... 2 hours. Nah. Had dinner at the Es, real good goat stew.
You can never know what we're going to have at their house ahaha. Then
we had a plan of salvation lesson with A and D, which went
well. At the end of the lesson though The zone leaders called us and
told us to meet them in Missoula ASAP to trade bikes (Elder Hansen
brought the wrong bike from Great Falls) so we rushed to Missoula....
Boy am I thankful for 80mph speed limits on the freeways!
2/23
We had literally no plans for today besides studies and dinner... So
we tracted out basically all of West Riverside, Bonner, Miltown,
Piltsville. We walked... And walked... And walked. At the end of the
day though we had the longest dinner appointment I've ever had and
then a great lesson out in Potomac (halfway between Bonner and Seeley
Lake) with the Hs (Sherrif and his wife). Taught about the
gospel of Jesus Christ and answered a lot of their questions!!!
2/24
The 500 mile day..... Okay so we only walked like 15. But still!!! We
walked like 15 miles to get to appointments and whatnot! haha we
walked all the way out to east Missoula and spent pretty much all
morning and all afternoon there. We tried to visit a bunch of people
and to find some more people to teach, but everything didn't quite go
as planned and we really didn't see much of anyone. It felt good to
walk and now I am absolutely exhausted, but I'm not quite sure how
much we did that day....
But after we had dinner we had an appointment with the Gs. We
planned on reading chapters 9 and 10 of 1 Nephi, but they had already
read those! So we read 13-15... Or Nephi's visions of the future. It
absolutely blew Brother G's mind to think that Nephi, in 600
b.c., saw Columbus, the revolution, and the formation of all the
churches in the US. He says- "If Nephi saw all that than heck, this
book must be true!" So now I can honestly say that Christopher
Columbus gave someone a testimony of the Book of Mormon haha.
After that we went to Sister O and read Mosiah 24, about the
people being under bondage and praying for guidance. We talked about
how even though they were going through a hard time, and even though
the lord didn't take their burdens away, they remained faithful and
worked hard to increase their faith everyday!!!
2/25
We were about to start weekly planning today, then the Zone leaders
called us and asked us, along with another Elder, to put together a
musical number for zone training tomorrow!!! Shoot.... So we drove
over to the stake center and met them there and started running
through some possible numbers we could do. I sat at the piano playing
some stuff for them, and while we were working to decide on a hymn to
sing, a realization hit me- I have done this dozens of times with my
dad..... HOLY SHOOT I'M TURING INTO MY FATHER. Dang.... I swore this
day would never come!! Haha it was good though, because I was able to
help them put together something that sound pretty good! They both are
singing and I'm trying to figure something to do on the piano....
We'll find out tomorrow if what I think I have is good!
We ran out of time after that and didn't get to weekly plan :(. So
disappointed! But we went out to West Riverside to help one of the
older folk in the ward move what we think was a ping-pong table. We
aren't sure, but that's what we think! And then we went and picked up
the mail for Brother G and found out that he isn't in trouble with
the law anymore! We are super excited to be able to take further steps
towards his baptism now!!!!
2/26
Zone training today. Good discussions and some good advice from my
fellow missionaries, but the zone leaders were a little fire and
brimstone with us. They kinda came down hard on some of the things
going on between elders and sisters, but I can see why. It is
important! Oh, and the musical number was okay, nothing spectacular on
my part on the piano. The two elders both sounded fantastic, so that
was good! Had some more appointments later during the day in East
Missoula, and tried to plan again with no avail. Again, so
disappointed! Haha
We got back to the apartment and spent probably a good 20-30 minutes
watching the most random, funny videos from Gospel library. Elder
Hansen has really had some time on his mission to explore the
different sections of Gospel Library!!
2/27
We started to realize that not having a planning session soon was
going to bite us in the butt, so we finally forced ourselves out to
Clinton and to sit and plan for the coming week! The session was good,
and we were able to get a lot of stuff planned. Next week looks pretty
good, I'm super excited! After planning we walked around Clinton. This
week I'm starting to feel like one of the Pinoneer children- I sing as
I walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, and walk. Hahah musical
abilities are starting to make me laugh at myself more, which is good!
Had a good dinner lesson with one of our investigators, T. She is
getting ready for her wedding and her baptism coming up in June!!!
Excited! Before we went home we visited Brother G again and talked
with him about the world of wisdom. He set some goals with us to be
done smoking by next week, and to stop drinking coffee. He agreed that
smoking would be hard, but he gave us his coffee and told us to get
rid of it!!!! Super excited for him!!
2/28
I learned very quickly that walking for a few hours on a fast Sunday
afternoon is not a good idea. After church we decided to start
tracting out all of Clinton.... ALL OF IT. Haha so we walked around
for probably a good 3 hours hitting every house along the way. Kind of
funny though- out in Clinton 3 hours of walking means about a dozen
houses. They are so far apart!!!!!!
But my companion was having some sort of inner struggle, and so he was
being kinda quiet. It made tracting a little weird, because I took
just about every door and went with it. It's good for me though,
because it's helping me start to get out of my nervous little shell
I've developed the past *6 months. (Hit my mark last week... WOOHOOO)
But besides that we had a pretty slow night.... Yeah the week in
general was pretty slow. But those need to happen every now and then,
right?
Elder Braden R Wallgren
Montana Billings Mission
2015-2017
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Alma 5:40
40 For I say unto you that whatsoever is good cometh from God, and
whatsoever is evil cometh from the devil.

BROTHER GOWEY GAVE US ALL HIS COFFEE!!!!
I found this in a New era.... I thought my family would get a kick outta it.
I still never get tired of this Montana sky.... Although I am taking A
LOT less pictures of it. I think I'm beginning to become used to it.

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