5/16/16-5/24/16: Helena Hand Basket

"When we treat God’s commandments and our part in building His kingdom
like something to check off on a to-do list, we miss the heart of
discipleship. We miss the growth that comes from joyfully living the
commandments of our Father in Heaven.
Walking in the path of discipleship does not need to be a bitter
experience. It “is sweet above all that is sweet.” It is not a burden
that weighs us down. Discipleship lifts our spirits and lightens our
hearts. It inspires us with faith, hope, and charity. It fills our
spirits with light in times of darkness, and serenity during times of
sorrow.
It gives us divine power and lasting joy." (President Dieter F.
Uchtdorf, Living the Gospel Jouful, October 2014 General Conference)

Even though it is hard, we have the great opportunity to be HAPPY in
living the commandments. We get to chance to be able to feel that
which is sweet about all that is sweet! How great is the chance that
we have?! We GET to go through hard times, we GET to see the bad side
of life, all so that we might be able to KNOW what happiness feels
like, KNOW that God loves us, and KNOW that through him, all things we
do are possible!


My new address:

7052 Kansas Way
Helena, MT 59602

5/16
Had a pretty sick zone barbecue today. We all brought different items
to have fun with, and we had a good time being together as the zoo
zone for the last time. There's 6 of us leaving, which oddly is about
a third of the zone. It feels weird that there are that many people
leaving, but I know that we are going where the lord needs us! Of
course, I'm sad to leave. I've been in Missoula for almost 6 months!
But, it's okay.
We played a bunch of soccer, catch, and even some ultimate frisbee. I
really miss playing that game, but the day will come when I will buy a
frisbee and convince everyone to play with me!!! It will happen, trust
me!
After a long, tiring day with the zone we went and had an introduction
lesson with Brother Gowey, introducing him to the 4th ward Elders. It
makes me a little sad to know that I won't be teaching him anymore,
but I know that these Elders will be good for him! (One of them is
getting transferred out, and one of the assistants is coming in!!)
After that we had a dinner with the Yules. They grilled up some brots
and we ate them on garlic Italian buns. It sounded kind of weird, but
whatever, as long as it tastes good I won't complain!! Plus, Brother
Yule decided that he needed to play his accordion for us before we
left, so we sat down with him and he played a bunch of hymns on his
accordion for us for like 20 minutes. It was SUPER cool! The accordion
is a super cool instrument. The sound is so unique, so... So.....
COOL! Haha it was sweet!
5/17
We spent most of the day packing and doing some goodbye-type lessons.
We went and said bye to Sue and Sister Godbout, and we were able to
say goodbye to a few other people in that area. Besides that the day
was really just super full of packing like crazy. I had to pack and
unpack like three time just to be able to FINALLY fit everything I
have in the three bags. I came to the stark realization that I have
too much crap. I need to send some stuff home, but that will have to
wait until I have the monies to be able to send packages. It's okay
though, it all fit and it should make it onto the transfer bus!
The only other significant thing we did was go to the church in the
evening so that we could talk to the Bishop a little. All the youth
were there and so we were able to say goodbye to all of them and to
the leaders, but it took us like and hour to actually be able to meet
with bishop and talk with him about what's been happening in the ward.
Clinton is a good area, I think the next elders are really going to do
a good job in proselyting and inviting others to come unto Christ. I'm
sure going to miss it!!!
5/18
TRANSFERS! It felt weird being my first actual official transfer,
being that the only other time I was transferred was last December
into Clinton, and all the craziness that that entailed! But it was
super cool, driving from Missoula to Helena early in the morning. We
got to Helena and kind of wandered around the building there, looking
for the places we needed to go. It was kinda crazy with all the
missionaries running around, doing the same thing haha. I felt super
weird, not knowing what was really going on. I felt like a friggin new
missionary all over again haha.
ANYWAY I found my new companion, Elder Merrell, and we slowly lugged
my overpacked bags into a small Corrola, somehow fitting all that I had
into its tiny trunk and backseat.

Took a picture of Elder Merrell without him really realizing what I
was doing... I seem to be good at that

We went to the place that we stay (we are with members) so that I
could unpack and introduce myself to them. I unpacked in about 2
hours, which apparently is faster than anyone that Elder Merrell has
seen lol. Who knows?! Anyway, after I did that we went up to go visit
some people, but as we were leaving we saw the members that we stayed
with and so we went and I introduced myself to them. We are staying
with the he Bishop and his wife, which is super cool. Should make
correlation super easy haha!
After that we tracted.... And tracted... And tracted. Haha the Area
book here is a little..... Weaker than I am used to, with only 6
investigators to work with and only like 1 less active that we work
with. It doesn't help that Helena 6th Ward was just created, so a lot
of our less actives and others that we were working with were in the
area that now belongs to the H6 sisters. Oh well, it just means work
for us!!!
We went to the ward mission leader's house towards the end of the day
so I could introduce myself to him. Brother Strang sounds like a super
sweet guy, a really knowledgable guy, and from what I've heard he is
one of the best ward mission leaders in the mission!! I'm super
excited to be able to work with him!
Oh yeah... And he is rebuilding a piano that was beat up. 7 foot baby
grand, Steinway design, and a COMPLETE set of ivory keys. That only
makes him like 40,000 times cooler. Ya know
5/19
Weekly planning actually wasn't a drag!!! We were able to do it in
about 3.5 hours, with an hour lunch break part way through. I think it
helped that we had almost no one to plan for, but it was nice to be
able to just fly through the steps and see a ton of green events
across the board. I can't wait to GO FINDING!
We tracted a bunch more, as well as starting to visit all the less
actives we have on list. We pretty much did that all day, except for
when we went to the Bishops house (our house? I dunno) for dinner.
Sister Wardell (his wife... They're the Wardells btw) is a super good
cook! She doesn't use canned or boxed anything in anything that she
makes. We had grilled chicken onion, pepper, pineapple kabobs with
some 7 layer salad. It was SUPER GOOD. Normally I don't really like
pineapple or dressing on my salad, but for some reason I couldn't get
enough of what she had made! It was friggin sweet!
5/20
It rained most of the day today.... Not super bad but it was coming down!
Which really sucked because it was yet another day of walking
around... Knockin doors. We were knocking on less active's doors for
like 5 hours in the morning, trying to find people to talk to. Only
two people answered, one of which was super awkward:
Okay, so they were active members. I didn't know, I'd only been in the
area for like a day and a half! So I started talking to them like I
would at a door of a nonmember. Awkward in and of itself "have you
ever met with missionaries like us before?"
"Yeah I was one like 15 years ago, and I just went on splits with you
guys like 2 weeks ago!"
I glared at Elder Merrell.... He was laughing. Thanks, companion. Haha
no I love him. He didn't realize they were active members until I was
already asking questions. Being a missionary is awkward... It's
freaking great!
We spent the whole evening Tracting out the neighborhoods around ours.
The lord blesses us for our efforts, let me tell you. Two new
potential investigators, and a new part member family in that one
night. I'm lovin it. We also ran into one guy who "politely" invited
us off of his porch. Long story short, I saw the hollow end of a
shotgun barrel, and decided it was in my best interest to just
kinda...... Leave like he wanted me to. It was a fun experience, to
say the least!
5/21
The rain was coming DOWN today! It was raining like crazy! Elder
Merrell and I decided for some reason that it would be a good idea to
walk around in the rain, who knows! Hahah.
We spent a good part of the morning organizing our maps and stuff so
that being in the area might actually be somewhat successful. I think
it'll be sweet. I'm oddly excited that I now have an area that needs
some finding work. I had a hard time finding motivation to go finding,
but now that's all we have to do! Haha I'm SO READY TO DO THIS!
As we were headed home for lunch, we got a call that someone in the
6th ward needed some help moving a piano and stuff, so the sisters
gave them our number. We were able to go help, but we weren't
expecting what was coming. We had to move a super heavy couch and an
upright piano.... Up some stairs. Not fun. Especially when it's
reading in, so the piano and couch are all wet and slippery. Only
injury that happened was a piano smashing me into a wall down the
stairs. No gonna lie... It hurt, BUT, it was nice to help. I felt fine
a while afterwards, but jeez did it hurt! Weird life in Helena 2nd
ward!

Took a TON of sick Sky pictures while Tracting this week. Picked my
favorites to put up. I love the Montana Sky after/during rain storms

After service it started raining.... Even more. IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE
BEEN RAININ MEN! It was coming down! Thunder even started, and we got
an alert to our iPads for a severe storm warning (thanks, Apple. The
rain drops showering me and the thunder and lightning definitely did
not give it away!)
After that we went and ate some lunch, and then we had interviews with
the zone leaders. It was cool to just kind of sit down and get to know
them, get to know what they're all about. One of my zone leaders is
from Kingman, so we talked a lot about the dumb stuff that Arizonians
do. Who knows. I don't even remember what we talked about, all I know
is that it cracked both of us up!
We tracted most of the rest of the day, but it was SUPER sweet because
during one of the streets we were Tracting there was some house
somewhere in the distance that was BLARING 80s/early 90s rock music.
We could hear perfectly the Guns n roses, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Journey,
etc.
it
Was
FANTASTIC
I know it was kind of bad to say, but I honestly think that may have
been some divine intervention. I was starting to feel a little down
right when we heard the stuff happening. It was sick.
5/22
It like didn't rain at all.... The weather in Montana! As they say, if
you don't like the weather in Montana, you wait 5 minutes! Hahah
Church was cool. First bigger ward I've been to on my mission. We are
at the stake center, where 3 wards meet throughout the day. So
services are back to 9 am! Heck yeah! The ward has probably a good
120-140 active members, and it is sweet to be back to a place where
there are at least a sort of good amount of active members. ( I mean,
yeah there is almost 550 on list, but who needs to know that?! Haha)
We had to run all over the place today- to the apartment and back for
a baptismal record, around the church to talk to different
missionaries. It was weird, everyone wanting to talk to the district
leader. I am slowly figuring out what Elder Hansen means when he says
that I am becoming a district leader.
We almost had three lunches! We got home from church and then ate,
then when the bishop got home he insisted on feeding us, and then when
we went over to one of the investigators house he again insisted on
feeding us. Right when I get to a new area and have almost no money to
get more food, there are a TON of people who decide that they want to
feed us! Hahah irony....
That night we had a dinner with a super cool family, where the husband
and his friend he invited were both 4 year return missionaries. We
blew their minds with the technology side of missionary work that
comes with the iPad, and they told us about their missions. The
husband served in the Mesa, AZ mission, and so I talked with him a lot
about the things that come with living in or serving in the metro
Phoenix area. It was great to kind of reminisce about home for a
while, but then we hit the pavement and started goin at it again!
At the end of the day we had a correlation meeting with brother Strang
(our ward mission leader). We talked a lot about what's happening his
transfer, and then a lot about music oddly. We kind of lost Elder
Merrell for a little bit, but not enough to hurt his head. Brother
Strang says he needs me to play his piano as soon as he is done
stringing it, as to get it out of tune so that he can tune it again.
That literally made my day. I CANT WAIT!!!!

Went to Ross. Couldn't decide which ones I liked the most, so I didn't
get any. I blame my dad.