"Now is the time for each of us to work toward our personal
conversion, toward becoming what our Heavenly Father desires us to
become. As we do so, we should remember that our family
relationships--even more than our Church callings--are the setting in
which the most important part of that development can occur. The
conversion we must achieve requires us to be a good husband and father
or a good wife and mother. Being a successful Church leader is not
enough. Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our
mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it."
(Dallin H. Oaks, The Challenge to Become, Ensign Nov. 2000, 32-34)
Remember that being sealed members of a family means that we are going
to be together forever. FOREVER. If there is any time in which we
should learn to become unified members of his gospel it is right here,
in the setting of our own home. I definitely recommend that you all
read this talk of his, it is absolutely amazing!
1/11
Pretty normal preparation day- sore from zone games, shopping, the
whole nine yards. I got my haircut at the beauty school- and I don't
know what I was expecting, but it did not turn out like I wanted it
to. The instructor I guess has cut many missionaries hair before, so
she sent me off with a newer student who had one instruction- cut him
down to a 4 and come to me after, and I'll tell you where to go from
there. I didn't really know what that meant..... All I know is that
when I got done and looked in the mirror, I wasn't the happiest. Now
just let me say- if I was home, I would have loved it. Short, tight,
and perfect for swimming. But on my mission..... Not so much! Haha
well I guess I'll just have to give it a week or so and I'll be happy.
Se la vi.
Besides that preparation day was pretty dull. Taught another lesson to
Brother St, which with his pot and Tobacco is always
interesting!
1/12
The weather here is odd- one night it will be snowing like crazy, then
it will melt, but still be under 20 degrees, I don't understand. All
it means for us is ice and weird amounts of slush on the ground.
Few good lessons, a bash or two (maybe... Neither of us were sure. He
just kept asking us "and what does that mean to you?!" And then smiling
really big and dorky like.....) but not too much exciting- and then we
went to Brother G's. Lessons with him are always pretty sweet, but
this one was intense.
So we started the lesson like we usually do- greetings, small talk,
prayer, etc. We planned on teaching lesson about patriarchal
blessings, and how the priesthood works through the patriarch. Brother
G stopped us midway through the lesson and began to relay the
"vision" he had as he slept the night before. In said vision, he saw
Elder Mika, speaking before thousands in his "own church" (we think he
meant as Bishop... But we don't know), as well as his future eternal
companion. We don't know how he could tell, but he said that this
virtuous young lady could be found in Montana at some point during
Elder Mika's mission, whether in the past or the future- no one knows.
As well as that, he saw me, working hard to support missionaries-
financially, emotionally, and physically. He said I would bring
happiness to many around the world as I help bring God's word to them.
Now as me and Elder Mika were laughing, along with Brother G, at
these predictions he was making, a realization slowly came to us-
these predictions seemed familiar. An odd amount of familiar. And I
don't know who it hit first, my companion or me, but we realized then,
and very quickly, that the words that Brother G had said matched
up very closely with statements in our patriarchal blessings.... o.o
Apparently Elder Mika's blessings says some things about him becoming
a great communicator in his future.... Speaking before thousands?!
(The wife thing has no connection, but it was funny)
And my blessing says some things about how I will support many youth
in their valiant efforts to obey God's
commandments.................... Supporting missionaries?! Holy
goodness we were pretty freaked out, I'm not going to lie!
1/13
We had another lesson with Sister N (the cat lady) which went
pretty good. I don't know why we keep going... That cat stalks me
every time we go inside, and it freaks me out! We had dinner with a
pretty active family, the musical family of the ward, apparently.
Reminded me a bit of home, but they all were obsessed with snow
sports. Elder Mika really enjoyed that, and they went off for about 30
minutes talking about skiing and snowboarding, and for the entirety of
the whole conversation I was lost..... Dang AZ boy.
As we were driving to their home we found a friend on the road. I
attached picture... I think you should love it!
I had only ever heard of frozen rain before... And that it sucked. I
learned for myself that freezing rain does, in fact, suck. For those
of you who may not know (I dunno... Ethan maybe?) freezing rain is
when it rains, but it is so cold that all the rain that hits the
ground turns to ice very quickly-VERY quickly. And then it rains on
top of that ice- to make another layer of ice. So basically, when the
storm is over, there is layers upon layers of ice all over the roads,
the sidewalks, the roofs, the cars, and EVERYTHING that was holding
still during the storm. Ice...... Everywhere. I thought I hated
walking and driving in the snow, but I found out that it is actually
not even that bad! We got stuck once, and all the dang ice wasn't
helping at all!
1/14
Weekly planning- yeah. We took too long this week. We started at 10
and went until almost 3... With only an hour break for lunch. On the
upside... We have 25 lessons scheduled for next week! We had 4 lessons
scheduled, and three of them cancelled. Every one tells me this is
normal for missionaries.... But man it still stinks!
Because of the freezing rain, the whole ground everywhere was like an
ice rink. Driving, walking, or biking. It's all just a big ice rink!
We had to go up this huge hill to get to dinner, and we didn't dare
drive. We tried to walk normal... But that didn't work. We tried to
support each other.... But that didn't work. We eventually had to have
the members come pick us up in their truck. They chained their truck
up, which I had never seen before, and they came down and picked us
up, then worked back up to their home.
1/15
We had a zone training- talked a lot about concentration, a bunch
about driving conditions (apparently instead of trying to avoid
animals on the freeway you just drive through them... Huh. Not the
best for your car, but it makes us 90% more likely to be okay after
the accident!) and we talked about using our iPads as tools for the
work instead of weapons of distraction!
We got to go to Seeley Lake- always a really cool place to be, but
everything is so spread out that teaching and finding are super hard!
We taught a few very VERY short and condensed versions of the
restoration, and we got some pretty cool return appointments.
We had a lesson with our one investigator (or family of I suppose) in
Seeley in the branch president's home. We studied Lehi's vision, and I
feel like we definitely were able to teach very well. The branch
president lives on the edge of the world though, and it takes almost
45 minutes to get to his house from the Main Street in town!
1/16
A full day in Seeley- SNOW SCULPTURES!!!! Haha the annual Seeley Snos
festival was apparently this weekend, and so we spent a lot of time
walking up and down "main" street checking out the attractions and
talking to people. They had some pretty sweet snow sculptures- bears,
elk, deer, people, cars, etc. I would have taken pictures but my iPad
couldn't get in the right light so all my pictures just looked like
big bright white masses on the screen. Ah well, it was a great sight
to see! Then we had a lesson with a less active member in the branch,
who apparently has a daughter serving a mission in my AZ home mission!
I guess she has served right in Avondale since she got out! Haha small
world I guess!
We had a lesson with the D family (our few investigators in
Seeley) again, but this time it was a little more awkward. We had to
teach the law of Chastity to three younger girls- 12, 12, and 15. The
worst part was is that one of the 12 year olds was visiting! Not even
a member of the family! Ack it was weird... But in the end we were
able to teach it to their definite understanding............ We hope.
After the lesson it started to snow. And Snow. And snow. We had some
extra time so we went to the church and tried to shovel, but by the
time we were "done" there was almost more snow on the sidewalks than
when we began! Haha we decided we needed to get going home before the
storm got any worse, so we slowly, SLOWLY drove home.
1/17
Good Sunday. Some pretty cool lessons and some pretty sweet stories.
We had to try to prove to a group of 12-14 year olds that God existed,
which was a lot harder than I thought. I hope I wasn't as void of
logic and reason when I was that age as I saw that day. Then again....
I probably was haha.
We had a lesson with an investigator right after church, but we ended
up having to leave soon after- she didn't believe that we had prophets
now and that because we believed that we were going to hell. Yeah...
Montana is interesting, to say the least!
Taught a few good doorstep lessons after that, but not much more
that's too interesting to say.
Pictures this week-
Don't you just love the Mountain view? Excuse the rib cage in the foreground.
Lovely view..... Then you look down..... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA hahah
what actually happened is I needed to stop and urinate, but we were in
the middle of a forest. So I went to pee, and as I rounded the tree,
to my surprise I found this lovely thing lying on the side of the
road...... Only in Montana. I thought is was a bear at first.... But
then we noticed the hooves. Super disappointed that the antlers are
gone though... my companion and I want something to send home, without
the effort of going shed hunting!
Lovely view of Seeley Lake after a few hour "light" snow storm....
Relatively speaking still a great view!
When we shoveled at the church. The good three inches that was there
when we started, and it was higher than that after we were "done"
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