Week 26

Hey all!

Transfer news: I'm staying in Dillon and TRAINING a new missionary!!! Kindof excited and kindof scared. I don't know who she is. I will find out on Thursday in Helena...when I pick her up. Sister Schwendiman is going to my last area: Livingston!! Woo! So I get to tell her all about it and how the wind is awful. :)

So this week we were still trying to build up the teaching pool here. We did find 3 new potential investigators in a couple hours of tracting which was sweet. So hopefully they'll keep their appointments this upcoming week. Atleast one of them seemed super solid. 

Last Monday, we helped brand and tag cattle on a ranch that some members manage outside of town. It was way fun but smelly. I got cow poop on me within the first 10 minutes. And the burning of the hair and skin stuck on us for a while. We had to help keep them in line with cattle prods to go through a squeeze shoot that keeps them still while we shave them, brand them, untag and retag them, vaccinate them, and weigh them. It was fun working with the real life cowboys.

For valentines day yesterday, we had dinner at a members house and decorated some sugar cookies and delivered them afterwards to some people we teach. We also decorated cookies at the nursing home this week too! Lots of sugar.

We had a church open house this week and we had been advertising it all week and we set it up all nice with each auxiliary and quorum giving a little presentation in their rooms about what they do and we had pictures of Christ set up in the halls and the Restoration movie playing the chapel and refreshments in the gym. And we were prepared to give a tour to people who showed up but we had such a small turnout, it was sad. But atleast it was a good practice run.

We have been sharing what we call "the M&M lesson" with all of the members lately. We got the idea from the missionaries in Helena. We ask them if they've seen miracles come out of prayers and then we read Alma 16:16 and Alma 8:10 and discuss how praying with faith resulted in the Lord pouring out His spirit among the people in the cities to prepare the hearts and minds of the people for the gospel. And then we pull out a little pack of M&Ms and ask them what the think it stands for. Member missionary! Duh! And we invite them to pray and ask God to prepare the people in Dillon for the gospel in every prayer and then they can reward themselves with m&ms. And there is power in faith-filled prayers and praying for the same thing as a whole ward. I am so excited for the results. :D

Oh, here's a funny story. So we once were tracting and we saw this guy walk by as we were leaving a doorstep and we both felt guilty because we didn't say anything. So in my prayers that night I told Heavenly Father that if he was put in my path again, I would talk to him. And lo and behold, we saw him walking a few days later. So I turned to Sister Schwendiman and said, "I promised God that I would talk to him! So we need to talk to him now!" So we parked the car and started walking on the street parallel to the one he was walking on, and we walked fast, hoping we could turn right sometime and intercept him. So we kept track of where he was because we saw him crossing intersections the same time we were. But then when we did turn right to "run into" him, he was too fast and we crossed his path a little too late and he would know we were following him if we started walking directly behind him through the alley he was going through. And I was about to do it anyway or atleast yell at him because I had the fear of God in me but we both made a split second decision that we didn't want to be creepy and we tried our best. But maybe the third time is the charm. Hopefully God saw that we tried and it will be easier next time. 

Here is something I read and liked this week: "The only thing you need to worry about is striving to be the best you can be. And how do you do that? You keep your eye on the goals that matter most in life, and you move towards them step by step."- Joseph B. Wirthlin (One Step After Another). Amen to that. 

Love,

Sister Ney 

BRANDING COWS