Service (September 4, 2012)

Well, a random guy came up to Elder Scott and I and we started talking. We talked with him for 45 minutes right outside the library and he knows a lot from the Bible and is big in following the commandments. Anyway, we found out that he reads parts of the Book of Mormon and he said that he believes to be true as far as he knows because it goes along with the teaching of the bible. He also said that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Its a shame that he lives in Missoula outside my area, but we got his number so we can give it to the missionaries in Missoula and of course we gave him the numbers to the missionaries in Missoula too. It was a nice conversation and he is very open and he said he is studying the Bible. He should be a really good investigator.

Well, District meeting was good today, I just love having District Meeting every Tuesday. So transfers are next Tuesday and I've heard that there will be 18 new missionaries arriving from the MTC. Which will mean that a third of the missionaries in our mission will only be out less than 6 months and 3/4 of the missionaries been out a year or under a year. That's a lot of young missionaries in our mission. So we will get a call on Friday to see if we are transferred or not. Elder Scott has been in my area for 6 months, so we're not sure if he's going to stay or leave. I hope not since he's an amazing trainer and I want him to finish training me.

So as for investigators, we have a 13 year old girl who we are teaching and we weren't able to teach her this week which is a bummer because we are going to set a baptismal date with her. We can only teach her in the evening now since school started last tuesday. She actually would have been baptized before I came to the area, but they cancelled it because the missionaries were concerned about her being active. She would come to church every sunday its just that she doesn't have a ride and her parents are fine with her joining the church, its that they don't give her rides to activities. So were going to set a baptismal date with her this week, and her grandpa who is a member will start giving her rides which will help her be active. Another investigator that we have, Lerene, is pretty close to baptism I believe. Her husband, James is an active member, who is helping her and I think she will get baptized eventually. Lerene used to be a Jehovah Witness. We also have a less active, Clifford, and he's being reactivated. We are also teaching Clifford's wife, who's not a member, and I think she will eventually join too. We went tracting the other day and ran into a woman who invited us back on Friday night and offered us Hot Chocolate. She also basically asked us to teach the Restoration, so I'm super excited for this Friday. So things are going well.

Oh, thank you mom for the camera! I can finally take pictures. In fact I'll try and send some pictures next monday. I need to take some pictures of my area and the mountains. Which reminds me, all last week was super smokey. I guess there has been a lot of fires lately. We have a fire out near Drummond, which we're getting some smoke, but we're also getting smoke from Idaho, Washington, and Oregon from what I've heard. So we are getting ashes and a lot of smoke. The other night the moon was deep red. It looked pretty cool.

Let's see, I'll be going to Seely Lake for the first time Saturday and going to the Branch their on Sunday. So I will have visited every town in my area in one transfer. :) In fact we went tracting in Potomac and Potomac hasn't been tracted in 5 years! Which reminds me, we met a woman who gave us her number and invited us back! This has been a really good week. We are still working to get a baptismal date though. Love you guys!

Oops, I almost sent my email and I realized that I didn't mention about my service, which is the title of the email, haha, my bad. Well, on Saturday we went up in the Mountains to help the New's build their house. We helped from 7AM-6PM, so for 11 hours of hard work. But I really do enjoy serving because I lose myself in the work and I don't stress or think about other things. I've grown to love doing service, it gives me peace and a sense of comfort.