The work is going great!

The work is going great. This last week was good. In our mission the zone leaders will be doing exchanges with other zone leaders. Elder Southwick came over from Helena to do an exchange with Elder Johnson and I. It was TONS of fun. You may not remember but Elder Southwick and I came out together. He came to be with us and the whole time he's like, "I have no idea why I'm on this exchange, you 2 are perfectly fine." It was funny. If anything it was just a good time honestly. Talked about some deep doctrine (kolob theory, retroactive prayer, etc.), went and got fro-yo (Frozen Yogurt), and did lots of walking. It was a good week.

Elder Johnson and I are doing good as always. We are basically brothers by now. We know each others' lives, families, friends, hobbies, everything, etc. This may be our last week together and that's wild to think about. I just hit my 18 month mark this last week and Elder Johnson hits his 14 month mark tomorrow. We will be cattin' the ice cream for sure. 

We had zone training this last week and that went well. It was a good meeting. Not too much to say about it. We had 2 break outs (Role Plays) on lesson 5, a discussion on weekly planning, I gave a discussion on Family History and Elder Johnson gave a discussion on Finding. 

~~~~he eluded to some challenges here but I elected to leave those out! He is a great missionary and he is completely on track when he talks about how important obedience is. I love him and miss him tons! I can't believe he is at 18 months- crazy. Oh he promised some pictures next week!

18 month mark this week? Say WHaaaaaaat?

I am doing well.

Interviews went great :) 

Transfers are coming up on the 19th I believe. We hope that we stay together for one more. I'm not sure what will happen. We have been together for 6 months, in 2 weeks at the end of the transfer. We would love to go 7.5 but we'll see. 

Zach is doing good. We will probably just let the ward missionaries teach him from here on out. When we are out of the lessons he's so chill but when we get in a lesson he immediately wants to argue or disagree with what we have to say. If it comes from one of the ward members he accepts all of it. We think he just wants to get a reaction out of us. He told us he didn't want to meet until Sunday. We were just like, "okay sounds good." and he was taken back by that-it was great. We asked him about FHE and institute and he said, "I don't know we'll see." and we were just like, "sounds good maybe we'll see ya maybe we wont." and he was taken back by that too. He's so great though! His countenance has changed a ton. We role played in mission prep and he got to teach me and another member the 1st lesson. It was so awesome to see him commit me to read the book of mormon, pray, and come to church. I know I felt the spirit and he spoke to me and he's not even a member.

I asked president and he said that I could Skype or FaceTime all of you before Mike goes into the mission field for about 10 minutes or so. 

18 month mark this week? Say WHaaaaaaat? 

It's All About Tact

This last week was great! Mission Leadership Council was good as always. Wednesday night after MLC we stayed the night in Helena and just worked with some of the missionaries there. It was a lots of fun. We stayed the night at the home of this amazing couple. Brother and Sister Stanger. They LOVE running and they are actually going to The Drake Relays this coming year. We talked about running for a good amount of time. Wednesday night my throat got super sore and it hurt so I was up for a good portion of the night. Thursday was zone conference and not only was my throat hurting but I also somehow picked up a stuffy nose. Elder Buntrock and I had a little prayer sesh before the meeting started. During lunch I received a blessing from President Mecham and that was really nice. My discussion went great! Everyone said that they loved it and got more out of our discussion than all of the others. As we leave zone conferences and big meetings President and Sister Mecham stand at the door and we hug and shake their hands as we leave. President said that it was great and ugh. I just love that man. He's the greatest. As I shook Sister Mechams hand she began to cry and told me 'thank you', she said that there was a great power in our testimonies and she wishes she could take us around the mission. I love them. 

With the utmost amount of kindness that I can muster and from the bottom of my heart with the most sincerity, I thank you for all of the packages that you have sent.(This is where he basically told me stop sending packages because it has a negative impact on his companionship because he gets alot of them. I have vowed to do a better job) I thank you for sending packages though, they are nice to get.

I thought a lot about Grandma Hilda this week especially as our focus has been using Family History. I would be confident in saying that Grandma Hilda is a burning library. It's only a matter of time before her sweet spirit leaves us from this life to the spirit world. Would you be willing to contact Grandma Karen for me and have her record as much of Grandma Hilda's stories as she can? Down to the details: Who were her parents, who were her siblings, Stories, Sorrows, Joys, vacations, her life story, have her describe her family members and what she likes about them, describe locations etc. 

On the note of family history here comes the follow up: were you able to check out that thing I told you about called Pandoras Hope Chest?

If you are upset with the missionaries you gotta tell em. It says in Preach My Gospel that very few people will change without being invited to do so. Say, That's an awesome experience that you can have over in Ames! I bet the spirit will be there and it will be uplifting and edifying. We are just a little bummed that you went to that instead of having dinner with us to discuss our non member friends that we WERE going to let you teach. It's all about tact. I learned about tact in MLC, President and Sister Mecham told us we needed to write what we learned for when we become parents and we have unruly children.

Drier than a popcorn fart and wilder than an eskimo on a zebra~July email

The subject line suits our week perfectly.

This last week was crazy! Words don't even put it into perspective. 

Elder Johnson will be going to Butte and Helena this week with one of the assistants and while the assistant does exchanges with the zone leaders elder johnson will be with some of the missionaries out there. I will be staying here holding the fort down. It's going to be crazy. Pray for my sanity. ;)

This last week after our exchange and Elder Johnson got back I was so relieved. It was so good to just laugh and not worry but holy cow. We'll see how this week goes. 

It will be an interesting week as there is a lot of things that need to get done for our mission president, and the assistants, we have a zone leadership meeting and we have a spread sheet to make and complete before we meet and correlate with the stake presidency this next Sunday. I have a lot to do while Elder Johnson is gone. It will be a great reunion when he comes back (: 

Sunday was nuts. After church we had to drop one of our  investigators. Then we had another lesson that was nuts. We seriously went through the gauntlet. Hardest lesson of my mission by far. We taught obedience and asked him to be obedient to the commandments and that took forever. Then we taught prayer and committed him to kneel and pray (straight from pmg you can read it in Lesson 4 chapter 3) and he wouldn't. SERIOUSLY- WHY WILL YOU NOT JUST TRY IT?!?! Sometimes being a missionary takes so much patience. He finally committed to kneel and pray once a day. Then we discussed scripture study and committed him to study daily and that took a long time as well. Last lesson we taught he asked if we had prayed about another date by which he could receive his answer. We asked him to pray come up with a date and we would come up with a date as well. He wouldn't do it because he said he didn't want to tempt God, which I told him he did the same thing we are doing when he even said, "I'm going to give God an ultimatum and I'm going to fast from all solid foods until I get my answer." He's like yeah I guess I did do the same thing you are asking... but I won't do it again. Haha whatever. On that note, he did that fast for 2 weeks and lost 20 lbs, he said he was watching netflix one morning at 2am and god told him to eat so he went and bought a steak at walmart and ate it at 2am (: anyways. he finally committed to read the scriptures daily. and we extended the date of August 3rd at 7:30 he could receive his answer. We gave him a list of everything he needed to do to receive his answer including fasting on sunday from 2 meals. Crazy. Went home and ate some popcorn after that one. We would have gone and got ice cream-we needed it :/ but it was still the sabbath so the popcorn did the job.