Hey family and friends! Another great week here in
Montana, but definitely some struggles as well! Elder Bonaro and I cover
the singles ward...which means nearly no dinners, no tracting, and
teaching the sisters becomes extremely difficult. I believe we are the
first missionaries to to cover ONLY a singles ward in this mission. The
ward is so legit and the members are powerhouses about missionary work
but they are all on a college budget and schedule as well and we cant
meet with the less actives sisters by ourselves. BUT we are working
things out!
Tuesday
was actually pretty sweet. We got a text from Tyler Nelson, the first
counselor in the Elders Quorum. He had set up some appointments for us
that he said he could be present! That never happens where a member
actually sets up appointments haha. He told us that he had been going
over the less active list of members in the quorum and a kid named
Jeremy came to his mind. Jeremy used to be really active and then for
one reason or another has been inactive for months. Tyler was able to
get Jeremy to come to the church and we all sat down with him and just
talked. Jeremy works at McDonalds, and moved in with some friends from
work. After a spirit felt discussion on obedience and the Atonement,
Jeremy accepted a blessing given by Tyler. It was so awesome! Jeremy
still has a testimony, he may just have run in with the wrong people. He
said he would try more often to come to church :)
Later that night we were getting ready for bed and
we got a call from a random number asking if we could come to the
hospital and give a mother there a blessing. Apparently this lady who
called us (the mother's daughter) Googled our number. So we went and
gave blessing of healing. The doctor came in after the blessing and
said, "Hey I have another LDS patient that would like a blessing!" So we
went to her as well and didn't get home till midnight but it was neat experience!
On Wednesday
we had our first District meeting since the transfer. We have a big
district of 18 people I think and 6 of them are sisters. One was
straight from Tonga and the other from Fiji which is pretty legit!
Afterwards we did some online work for the AP's and for the President.
The internet and network has been really spotty, so the network would
crash every 10 minutes. We spent hours trying to figure out how to fix
it. Then we got a call from Zach Smith, a guy in the Elders Quorum. He
said he had a free two hours and wanted to know if we had time for
splits. We quickly agreed and tried a few houses and areas. We had no
luck unfortunately. What stinks is we will find several people but they
are out of the age range for YSA so we refer them to the other
missionaries! Turns out the ward does splits every Wednesday
night and all of them are RM's! That night we got permission fom
President Mecham to work on the network...so we were in the mission home
till 1AM with little progress.
The next morning we picked up some more bikes that
go to our area and we watched the funeral for Sister Monson. So sad :(
President Monson looked so upset. But we know that marriage in the
temple goes beyond the grave and that is such a blessing to know we will
see lost loved ones again! Jeremy (the LA mentioned earlier) texted us
and asked if we could open up the church for him to practice playing
piano! He is very talented and we're hoping he will come to church so
that he can get a calling to be the pianist haha. Thursday
was our first legit dinner with someone other than Bishop. We ate at
the Stockdales, who are an older couple assigned to the singles ward
incharge of finding less actives. So we went over the Roster with them
and they made us sour dough pancakes :)
I am learning why missionaries ask for rides all the
time. We have limited miles. To the mission home and back, it is about 6
miles. Not far, but it eats miles nonetheless. So we biked to the
mission home...UPHILL and I was thought I was going to die haha. We
spent all day in the mission home in service clothes re-wiring the
network. We were in the atic for a lot of it, the way the network is set
up here is way out of date. It took forever but we now have a brand new
network with upgraded hardware! Hallelujah! Later we visited a Less
Active referral that we received from the sister missionaries. Her name
is Chelsea.
COOL STORY!: So Elder Bonaro and I were getting frustrated because
her house was blocked by a lot of construction. We took probably 3
different routes and finally found a back road to her house. We went up
to the door and a grandmother answered (we're thinking "Great"), and she
said that Chelsea was out shopping with her mom. As we walk off the
porch, a car drives up with Chelsea and her mother. SO there on the
driveway, we talked for 45 minutes about faith, her beliefs, and if she
would come to church. She at first was definately not happy to see us
but them opened up and it went extremely well! We got her information,
and she said we could come back :) It was such a cool thing to see how
the Lord's timing works. If it weren't for the wrong turns, the detours,
the GPS miscalculating, we would never have seen Chelsea that day!
Tender Mercies.
Saturday
we spent downtown. Ghetto Billings. We came across two homeless people
who asked if we were the Mormons. The sai that in their childhood, the
missionaries took care of them and gave them food. The man (max) asked
if we had a Book of Mormon he could have. Of course, we did, and he said
that he has read it before through Moroni. He thanked us and we moved
on. We also met a Lamanite! She asked us to pray for her and her name
was something like, "Sandra American Horse." Pretty awesome, gave out
quite a few Mormon.org cards.
Yesterday was my favorite. Sundays are fantastic.
Like mentioned earlier, we have been frustrated trying to find people
because we have a limited teaching pool. We went to college apartments,
tried a few less actives, and could find not one person. It was about 5PM
and we had dinner at 6. We got in the truck and said a prayer asking
for inspiration on what to do. Almost immediately after the prayer,
Elder Bonaro felt inspired to tract. After he said that I felt inspired
to go back to the previous apartments we were just at. We walked past
several doors and almost without hesitation, we walked up to only one
door. A guy named Doug (probably in his late 20's) answered the door. He
was trying to think of an excuse to not let us in, and just came up
with,"...I got nothin." He couldnt think of one! And he knew it! HE told
us he would be interested in the History of the church and the Book of
Mormon evidence of the ancient American people. AWESOME. We came back
about 7 and we gave a modified lesson on the Restoration, talked about
the Jaredite and Lehi families travelling, JSH, the first vision, and
the ancient artifacts mentioned in the BOM. He said he was very
interested. Turns out Doug is a artist and computer 3D artist. He said
he wanted to draw things like King Labans sword, the gold plates, the
liahona and so forth. SO SICK! We are hoping to actually get to the
spiritual side of things too, but this opened the door.
Hope you all had a great week! Congrats Dowlin and
Taylynn, sorry I couldnt come to the wedding! Love you all and have a
great week!
Oh and one last thing! I am now in a tri-panionship. Elder Suggs from my last district, who happened to move to my new one is now with Elder Bonaro and I. He is finishing up his mini mission and I am finishing both his and Elder Bonaro's training. Elder Suggs found out he will be able to serve a service mission which allows him to be a missionary at the temple and church from 9-5 every day but lives a normal life otherwise. I was thinking of Jesse and how something like that would be perfect for him. He was so excited just to know that he could serve a mission even though it is in his home state. Something to think about :) Love ya!
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| Elders Inman and Villejo, Sheridan MT 2013 |
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| Sheridan, MT from the Clark's Kitchen, Beautiful |