The Montana Messenger

Good afternoon!

This week was absolutely Fantastic! Not only was skyping home amazing, but we also got a new Investigator!

So first, skyping home! I am so thankful for the opportunity that I had to talk to and to see my family! It truly was amazing!  I loved seeing you all! 

I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas! Dinner was actually pretty amazing, we got to eat at two houses, one a less active, part member family. Sister Luckinbill's and then we ate at a active families house, the Roths. Sister Roth is actually really funny, she looks just like Shelly, and even has a lot of the same personality. Just completely Mormon. Totally hilarious. 

Next we got a new investigator! Her name is Andrea and she is the most awesome person ever! We met her, funny enough, knocking on the wrong door! She answered, Invited us in, then let us show her the Christmas video and talked to her about Jesus Christ. The coolest part however was that she asked us to come back and set a date/time with us! It truly was an answer to our prayers!

Another miracle that happened this week was that at church we had a les active couple show up who told us that they wanted to get back In the church! It's really cool because apparently a ton of their family is In the Ward and this is really an answer to their prayers. :)

So something really awesome this week is that we had the great opportunity to walk all day the other Day! It was so cool! We got the chance to walk almost all over town, from the flats, all the way to Walkerville. (Walkerville is the part of town on the hill that they have a hard time driving to when there's snow on the ground, so they have to walk - hence "Walkerville". ) It was so amazing! While I totally felt like that kid from the Christmas story, it was quite a cool experience to walk all over town yesterday. :) Also, it's now snowing! It's been snowing for a few days now and there is snow everywhere! Our backyard probably has a few feet honestly.

Honestly, apart from the amazing Christmas Day, it's been pretty slow, however things are totally looking up! We finally have a few investigators and the one on date is totally going to be baptized. :)

I am so thankful for this gospel, for our loving Heavenly Father, and for his son, Jesus Christ. :) I love this gospel, my family, and my friends. Thank you all for all of your support. Have a most Fantastic week!

 A picture I took with the wonderful Bro. Jennison  who gives us free lunches at the Leopard Cafe.

On Christmas Nick told us of the morning he woke up to a bright orangish glow coming from his kitchen window, and he assumed it was going to be another glorious Montana sunrise.  Unfortunately that was not the case as their neighbor's home had caught on fire.  Fortunately he thinks the whole family was away for the Holidays so nobody was hurt, but unfortunately he heard that they lost everything in that fire. 

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Santa!

Good Morning everyone!

To start off, this week might as well have been called Exchange week.  I was able to start off with an exchange with Elder Mills, Our Zone leader, then we went on a several day exchange with the Elders in Deer
Lodge. I was with Elder Patterson in our area. On both of these exchanges I learned so much about the gospel, with Elder mills it was a great lesson in how important it is to set backups. With Elder Patterson it was the power of prayer. That elder can pray. I'll admit, I was a little selfish on our exchange, I was always asking him to pray just so I could hear his absolutely sincere and spirit filled prayers. They are Fantastic!

Also this week was, of course, Christmas Zone conference! It truly was an amazing and powerful meeting. One of my favourite parts was that President and Sister Wadsworth used a lot of the time in the conference to call up missionaries to give their testimony. It truly was absolutely amazing as missionaries bore their testimony of Jesus Christ and how he has personally helped them in their lives. 

OH! one cool blessing that happened this week was that we were able to re-contact Jean, our miracle investigator that we found back in October. She told us at the time that she would be gone until January, however we felt like we should stop by the other day and found out that she never left! she has actually been wondering why we stopped coming by! thankfully though, her spirit is still as strong as ever and she REALLY wants to learn more about the Gospel. I love it! 

High for the week: Jean, Zone conference, and Transfers

Low: Driving in the snow. I had to drive a lot this week due to exchanges, and, well, apparently ice is slippery, thankfully nothing happened, but we did have to dig our selves out of the snow a ton. It wouldnt have been that bad but it snowed a ton while i was driving, totally reminded me of a crazy dust storm, just more slippery. 

I hope that you all have a most fantastic week! I love you all!

Never give up, Never surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Snow!

Good afternoon!

Sorry I've been a little late writing this email today, it just snowed a bunch (still snowing) and I've been a little distracted. It's just so different and completely unlike anything I've ever experienced. We thankfully didn't have this problem but I even saw some people shoveling their cars out of the snow! It's crazy, I love it!

So let's see, this week, it honestly was pretty crazy. I think I'll start with my highs and lows

High: The high for this week was definitely our Ward Christmas party, while the party it's self was really amazing, we had so many Investigators and less actives show up it was amazing! We even had one of the less actives (Benjamin) bring a friend with him who is super interested in the gospel so that's fantastic! Of course another highlight was that our recently baptized sister Morris brought Pecan Pie to the party so I finally had the opportunity to eat some Long awaited Pecan Pie :):) I'm also getting the recipe from her tonight so that will be fantastic. Pecan pie combined with Liam's awesome crust :) Gloriousness.

Low: We unfortunately had to drop one of our investigators this week.  It's rare when we have to drop someone. I've only had to do it twice now. It's usually them dropping us or we loose contact with people. It was sad because she just wasn't progressing at all and I know how much the gospel could have helped her. :/ some day. Thankfully though, the area book on our iPads gives us a chance to put in a re-contact date so hopefully it will work out sometime in the future.

Oh! Also, I found out that Christmas zone conference is this week and we all get to sing in it! They emailed out a pretty awesome version of O Holy Night and I can't wait to sing it! It's going to be awesome!

I hope that you have a most wonderful week! I love you all!

Zach!

December the Twelfth, in the year of our Lord 2015 (I think that's how you write it fancy)

Merry late Thanksgiving too!  Oh and haha yes, I did eat at 6 different houses.  Apparently (thankfully) the Relief Society told everyone (minus 1 family) to feed us lightly so thankfully I didn't get too stuffed. :)

That's so cool that the whole family got to sit down and enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner :) I know that it seems small but that's honestly one of the best ways to do it.  It's so wonderful and personal. :)

Ooooh, I do have to admit Zach, I am a little jealous of that pit cooked turkey :) Elder Wessendorf and I tried to do our own little meal, but since the only meat that we had was ribs, that's what we made.  We cooked them in the crock pot for about 24 hours in Spicy Stubbs BBQ sauce, and they were glorious!  As we were taking them out of the crock pot, the meat was literally falling off the bone, we had to use a spoon to get the meat out. :)

That's so awesome that you all got to put up the Christmas decorations! Elder Wessendorf and I have been doing that with our awesome tree :) and with all the little things the Andersons sent us like little window stickers with lights! :)

So, how are you doing?  Are you still Deacons quorum president?  Also as Deacons Quorum President, do you get to attend ward council?  I've heard a few wards do that and I'm just curious.  Being in ward council as a missionary is so cool.  You really get to see the Love that the Bishop and all of the auxiliary leaders have for everyone.

Anyways, I love you Zach!  I hope you know that not a day goes by that I don't think of you too :) I absolutely love getting all of your emails and also hearing of all your adventures from the other emails I see too :)

Zach, Have a Wonderful week!  Remember to have some fun!  Also, real quick a question, what scripture are you ponderizing?  I'm re-studying/actually ponderizing D&C 12:8 Next week/Rest of month is totally all about Christ, I'm thinking something out of Luke, I'm not sure what yet, but I'll find something good :) Love you!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
-Elder Berrett

PS Give mom and Mad lots of extra hugs for me :)

I sense a great hunger in you

Brothers and sisters, this week was amazing!

But real quick before I start, I need to correct something I said in my last email, apparently I was completely wrong about it being a "slow week" lesson wise. As my companion was reading my email he told me that not only did we have a good amount of lessons that week, but that we had hit our all time record of lessons for the area. :/ granted, most of them were lessons with members, however we had quite a few less active lessons as well. I have realized that this is one of the very reasons as to why I Journal and keep a note book with me at all times. Apparently I'm forgetful or something. ;)

So to start off this week, I would like to talk about one of the greatest lessons ever. There is a less active that we ran into a week ago, sorry I can't remember if I have already talked about him, who's name is Benjamin. We met him while serving a Thanksgiving meal at the local Shelter. Apparently he has been less active for a while but when he saw us he ran up to us and asked us how he could get back into the church and told us how much he missed it. While we unfortunately didn't have too much time to teach him a lesson we told him where the church was, what time it started, and if he needed any help to let us know. At first we were worried that next Sunday that he wouldn't show up but he did! He stayed all three hours and loved it! And afterwards he even made an appointment to go and see the bishop! The coolest part of this story however is what happened at our lesson this last Thursday. Fist of all, I felt so terrible during it because I had a feeling that I should bring more than one Pamphlet and several copies of the Book of Mormon but didn't! When we showed up at the shelter to teach him, he had apparently invited a ton of his friends to come and listen to us! The coolest part however, was that throughout the lesson he was constantly inviting more people to sit down and listen to us also throughout the lesson he constantly apologized about stopping us and bore his testimony! It was so amazing! Not only was the spirit really strong, but it was an amazing experience to listen to him bear his testimony on how much this gospel and Jesus Christ and his Atonement have done to help him :) Another cool thing was that at the end of the lesson a bunch of the people asked us to come back because they felt something different listening to us :) I absolutely love it!

Ok. So high this week: gosh there were so many, while it was definitely probably that lesson, there was also the new Christmas videos that the church put out that just Testify of Christ so beautifully :) (For those of you who haven't seen it it's really awesome and both videos are found at www.Christmas.mormon.org or at your local missionary :)) The first awesome video is of children quoting scripture and testifying of Jesus Christ, and the second is about the Importance of Jesus Christ and what this world would be like without him. While it's not as spiritual, another high would probably be the Star Wars poster that we found in a box of Mac and cheese and our new mugs :) we have had too much fun :)

The Low for this week was probably accidentally helping a sister to cry. I say helping because apparently she was already having a rough time and was apparently at the edge all week. She just came out and has been pretty stressed :/ While all we did was give her her (by the way, I hate how that's a thing in English) first district meeting assignment, it was still awful.

Other than that however this week has been fantastic, while our few investigators are still struggling, (we are probably going to have to drop one :/) our less actives are all doing amazing! It's such a wonderful thing to be able to see the Gospel and The Atonement help people and change their lives. I absolutely love this Gospel and am so thankful that I have the truly awesome opportunity to help others :) I hope that you all have a great week and I hope that you are all feeling the amazing Christmas spirit that is always present this time of year!

(When I asked about the weather and his seemingly lack of appropriate clothing)

Haha it's not too bad out as long as you limit your exposure to just a min. Or two. I'm told it's supposed to get worse, but it's actually been really nice, that jacket that dad gave me has actually been about all I need as long as I'm wearing thermals. :) 

(After I told him about a dream I had that left me all sorts of conflicted because in my dream he was home, but I knew he shouldn't be.  So I was happy to see him, but worried about why he was home.)

I had a dream where my companion and I showed up to a Halloween party at our house, except I forgot to shave, and wear a costume (Elder Wessendorf was Darth Vader) so I just told everyone that I was dressed up like a disobedient missionary :)

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Low: - 26

Gooood morning everyone!

How are you all doing this week? I'm personally doing pretty dang Fantastic :)

So this week in Butte we unfortunately weren't able to teach too many lessons (most of them all canceled) but however we were able to find a new less active, who even showed up to church! It was so cool! So while we didn't teach too many lessons, we did have a really service filled week. :) One of the fun things that we are doing is there is this awesome investigator named Allison that the sisters are teaching in another Ward who is going through a really hard time. However she is really working as hard as she can to get back on her feet. One of the things that we are doing for her is helping her to remodel her house (basically a ton of construction work) so that she and her son can live up stairs while she has a day care down stairs. While normally I would be overwhelmed about undertaking a huge project like this, I am so glad that I have had insanely awesome teachers in my life who have helped to teach me skills that I need. ( like Mr. Ginger beard :)) (ps. Stahl, measuring twice THEN cutting really is a thing!  I can't even begin to tell you how much wood that has saved us all as I make sure that everyone is double checking their measurements.)

Another cool thing that we have been doing is helping out at the Food bank and shelter. Those are both wonderful places to serve and it's so wonderful to see people who are honestly struggling get the much needed help. :) there is nothing quite like the joy that comes from serving others (except possibly missionary work) and I have been so thankful for the opportunities that I have had this week to do just that :)

Another big part of this week has obviously been Thanksgiving! While we did actually have 6 dinners and a breakfast scheduled, most of them were just snacks and getting to know the members/doing service for them. Also this week I had the most terrifying experience of driving in snow. While I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to have a car in this area, because I know that there are missionaries who don't, it's terrifying driving buttes 19% grade uptown. I am so thankful for members who have offered to give us rides in trucks (since we have a small two wheel drive Corolla) and who have given us tips on driving on ice.

High for this week: Pie, so much glorious pie :) :) :) And also getting to meet the two new missionaries in our district :) it is so much fun to see these brand new missionaries figuring out themselves and realizing awesomeness of the work that we are doing :)

Low: -26 Thank goodness for layers and thermals. :) while I actually managed to stay quite warm it still has its moments :)

I love you all and hope that you all have a most wonderful week!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Excerpts from a letter to Madison - 

Hola!  Ich am spitze!  Und du?  (Spanish & German for "Hello!  I am good! And you?")

Sorry I haven't been very good at replying to your emails... I always read them and then get all excited and try to send you a giant email, but then my companion reminds me that I have to write to the Mission President first, which takes at least an hour, then the day gets crazy.  Sorry it has to be like this, but it looks like I'll just try to shoot over a quick reply every week, then just write you an amazing (handwritten) letter.  

Let's see, what else... Oh! can you believe that you are almost 16?? That's so crazy.  I have a sister who's almost 16!   (Then again, you have a brother who's almost 19...)  Sooo, concerning dating I have reached a conclusion, I shall grant you my permission to go on dates AS LONG AS they are all group dates.  I realized that this is completely ok after hearing several horror stories from several sisters in my mission.  

May the Force be with you always, (By the way, did you hear about my Darth Vader Goblet? :)  It's so cool! )

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

A long time ago, In a mission far, far away...

Good Morning Everyone!

I sincerely hope that you are all having a wonderful day and that you will all have a great Thanksgiving week! So apparently I have 6 dinners on Thursday :) it's going to be insane! 

So for those of you wondering, this week is Transfer Week! I just got the notice that I'm being transferred to the Nashville, Tennessee mission! Actually though I get to stay in Butte, WITH elder Wessendorf! It's Fantastic! He is such an amazing companion and I can't wait to continue working with him :) Plus this area has progressed way too much for me to leave. :)

So guess what everyone, I'm done training! My path to the dark side is now complete :) In honor of this great moment I now have both a Darth Vader mug, and a Light saber tooth brush :)

I'm now a fully trained real Mishamary! It's really awesome :) Only problem is that now I'm even more likely to train new missionaries now. Every transfer will bring the fear of the possibility of training. I'm honestly torn about that, I really want to train a new missionary, it would be so much fun, but I would be so stressed out about it. "Wait, I'm now responsible for teaching a new missionary everything that he needs to know!? Seriously?" But ya. That's all I have to say bout' that. 

Let's see, high and low of the week

High: that's hard, I get to stay in Butte with Elder Wessendorf!

Also I made a Snow angel! (See picture below)

Low: This week was a really slow week, all of our less actives/Investigators canceled on us this week, also Linda (the new member who was baptized a couple weeks ago) is now really struggling with a few things. Thankfully she is really turning to the Church and most importantly to the Lord for everything so there are no worries with her going less active it's just sad to see her struggle. :/

Another cool thing about this week is that we got a new less active!

We were walking in uptown by the prison's Pre-release center and this guy just came running up to us asking if we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Upon looking at our tags, and hearing our response he quickly told us that he has gotten into some trouble in the past and now really wants to come back to the church! He's so amazing! His first name is Edward, so he is basically the only person that we are working with that is progressing, however he is an awesome person! Love that guy to death!

The thought for this week comes from the Story of the Ten Lepers. This week in Elders quorum we were discussing why the other nine possibly didn't come back to thank and praise the man, Jesus Christ, who had just healed them of this terrible disease. One of the Elder brought up the point that he was positive that they had all justified not going immediately back with some reason in their heads. Perhaps they felt like they needed to hurry and go visit loved ones first, or perhaps they didn't even see it as a blessing since like them, Christ was a Jew and maybe they felt like they deserved it. What ever the reason, they all still justified not coming back. In our lives just about every sin that we make has a justification behind it, even if it's "I'll only do it once". One thing that I've been trying to do this week, besides trying to notice and thank Heavenly Father for every blessing in my life, is to pay attention to all of my usual Justifications and see what I can do to change.

I love you all! Stay strong and remember "Life's always better behind a smile!"

Exchanges!

Goooood morning everyone!

I sincerely hope that you are all having a Fantastic week!

So to start off, I GOT A CROCK POT! A glorious crock pot, I can't wait to consume all of the fantastic meals that I will be making with it. :)

So this week, I had the opportunity to go on a 3 day exchange with some other elders in our district in Deer Lodge! It was so fantastic!

One of the really cool parts about their area is that there is this really awesome member who gave them a whole house, like 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, with a giant kitchen and living room house, and has an open tab for them at this amazing restaurant called Broken Arrow with the second best burgers ever! (first being Slaters 50/50 :)) The elder that I was with (Elder Palmer) was pretty fantastic as well. It really was a treat to watch him teach. I think one of my favorite parts about exchanges it the opportunity that you get to learn from others. One of the things that I really learned from Elder Palmer was how important it is to have members at lessons. He had an investigator who is really struggling with some things and the member that we prayerfully brought just happened to know some people who might be able to help, plus they connected really well so now the investigator can really start to feel the love that a ward and the members in it can provide :)

Another one of the cool things that happened on the exchange was that I got the crock pot! Apparently these elders just found it in their house a while back, but decided that crock pots were absolutely useless. So, thanks to them and their sad lack of knowledge of the glory that is the crock pot, I now have one :)

We don't have too many plans for Thanksgiving that I know of so far, but president did just send out an email telling us that we need to start asking members if we can join them for thanksgiving because it's a great opportunity to get to know that members better and see if there is any service that we can provide for them. I'm a little worried though. Apparently the average amount of dinners in Montana is 9 with the least that I've heard being 6 and the most 14. I don't know how I'm going to do it. It will be glorious and amazing, but insane. 

This week was also Zone training! It was an absolutely fantastic training meeting on the importance of planning. One of the coolest parts was when several companionships got up and shared miracles that they saw and wouldn't have gotten if they didn't have successful nightly and weekly planning sessions :) I am so thankful that we had such great lessons at the zone training. It really helped to cover up my companion and I's musical number. The funny thing was that while we were given a week to prepare, we sorta forgot about it until the day of. Thankfully thanks to all of the memorization practice that I had in choir (I always forgot/lost my music so quickly memorized it) I was able to quickly memorize the tenor part to "I know that my redeemer lives" and sang that while Elder Wessendorf sang the melody. Also thankfully it turned out pretty well :)

 It's amazing the miracles that the lord will provide, both on and off our mission, when we plan out things. One example of this is one of our investigators Randa. She is really struggling to progress at this point and we were really afraid that she would become an eternal investigator, one who just likes to have us over because she likes the gospel principles that are taught, but never acts on them. Yesterday, we decided to utilize prayerful planning and carefully identified and prayed about a member who we thought and felt like would be a good one. The lesson went fantastic! In the past Randa didn't really understand why it's so important to attend church. She kept telling us that the mountain was her church and that she could feel close to God there. The member that we brought managed to wonderfully explain that she used to think that way as well and that what she had come to realize, was that while the woods/mountains are fantastic places to be, we can feel even closer to God when we obey his commandments such as church attendance. Then she testified of how now she feels the mountains are even more spiritual to her as she now strives to keep all of God's commandments. :)

Another thing that made this week interesting was that we finally got into the single digits of temp. Several times this week. Thankfully I was prepared! While I may or may not have been the laughing stock of the city with all of the gear that I was wearing, I was fairly warm. :) Thankfully this next week shouldn't be as bad, we finally got a snow shovel so now driving should be way easier!

Thank you all so much for everything! I hope that you all have a most fantastic week! And in the words of the Immortal bard Samuel J. Snodgrass, as he was about to be led to the Guillotine....Make em' laugh!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

PS - the picture is Post pod ball :) we would have had our gym clothes on too but they were still in the dryer so we played in our church clothes :)  Pod ball is the greatest game ever made :) it's basically everyone vs. everyone dodge ball :) the only difference is that once your down, you have to stay there so that other people can "pod" the ball to you.

They do that because you aren't allowed to move with the ball. The only way to win is to literally get everyone out because the moment the person who got you gets out you are back in. Some games can last upwards of 1-2 hours :)

Baptism of Linda

Good morning everyone!

I hope that you are all having a fantastic week/day!

So this week was pretty amazing, want to know why? Linda's baptism was Saturday!!!

It was so absolutely amazing to see the smile on her face as she came up out of the water :) I think one of my favorite parts however was after she came up out of the water she asked to go back down again just to make sure that she was baptized :) She is so solid! During the baptism we had a great musical number by a daughter of one of her fellow-shippers who played her violin, a talk by that daughter's mom, and a talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost by yours truly :) I am so thankful for that opportunity that I had to witness someone make the decision to come closer to Christ and feel the joy that it brings :)

Also this week I got assigned to give a talk in sacrament meeting, on Saturday evening. Needless to say using my common sense to the greatest of my ability, I wrote it all 30 min. Before the meeting started. Thankfully I managed to write enough, in fact I accidentally went over 5 min. And I also thankfully had the spirit with me, which was able to help me discern what the congregation needed to hear :) It was actually an amazing experience for me :)

Another cool thing this week was all of the snow that we got! It was so cold! I am so thankful that jackets, hats, gloves, and wool socks are a thing. Because they are glorious! It was actually really funny as I was dressed in most of my winter gear while my companion just had a sweater and a jacket on, with gloves and boots of course, and most of Montana was wearing T-shirts and jeans! I had so many people come up to me these last few days and ask if I'm from the south :)

(Excerpt from a written letter shared by a friend-)

So get this, Today is the first day of snow.  Like actually we are getting 6 inches today snow! It's crazy, we just woke up to it snowing! Ya, I'm not looking forward to going outside today.  It's only 7:45 so I still have about 2 1/4 hours.  Crap, my companion is in the shower and just told me that he left something out in the car and needs me to go get it.  Noooooooooooo.  Sweet I got them.  It's crazy how wet snow is.  I always thought it would be dry and powdery.

Hey, I'm sorry that I haven't had too much time to email today, but I really wanted you guys, and all of our other friends and family, to know that I love you so much. You all have been so amazingly helpful in strengthening my testimony.

Mom, dad, thank you so much for keeping our family strong in the gospel.as missionaries, we come across so many who have fallen away, or even haven't experienced the gospel because their parents were "too busy" or just fell away. Thank you so much for raising me the way that you did. I seriously can't thank you enough. And I don't think I will ever be able to really thank you for all that you have done. You have given me something so precious and amazing. This is truly the most amazing gift that you could have ever given me. Thank you.

Sorry for the short email this week but this day has been absolutely crazy! I love you all!

Nick and his Zone Leader

Never give up, Never surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Bonus emails

Nick had a little extra time waiting for a ride while he was at a church (in wifi on p-day) so I was able to email back and forth a bit.  A rare treat indeed.

30 minutes! What a treat!  What to ask?  Do you like your blanket?  And what about the picture books I send? What's the best part about being a missionary?  What's the hardest?  Eaten any weird foods lately?

I absolutely love my blanket! Seriously it is one of the greatest things since crunchy Peanut Butter! And the picture books, Oh my goodness they are absolutely fantastic, I obviously don't pour over them, but they are hilarious to look through now and then, funny enough though, my companions seem to love them even more than me! They have all said that they are so cool and wish that their parents would do something like that. (I make him little "chat books" from my instagram pictures.  They fairly cheap and a light and easy way to carry around pictures of home.)

The best part about being a missionary is the look in someones eyes when they accept something that you teach as true, because even if they aren't baptized, I still fulfilled my purpose which is to bring others closer to Christ.

The hardest is probably planning. I hate planning but I have become pretty good at it already. Believe it or not I'm actually getting pretty organized. I even keep my room clean and always do dishes.  There is never an article of clothing that isn't in the hamper. Seriously. Honestly I haven't had any emotional problems since the MTC but that wasn't even that bad. 

Honestly not really, the weirdest thing that I have had, I have made.

Our latest creation, which isn't that weird, is BBQ Brats. Its just a brat with spicy Stubbs BBQ sauce. AMAZING! We eat it almost every day for lunch! Also it's fast so then we get about 30 min to nap/relax.

Did you ever get your extinguisher mess cleaned up? Speaking of baking, I saw some maple bacon frosting at Wal-Mart the other day, and I was thinking I should buy some and send it to you, because of all people you might appreciate trying something like that, but then I was wondering if I want to encourage you to bake in that fire hazard you are living in.  Thoughts? 

 

Yes we did! Our house in fact looks almost fantastic! We still have some sketchy wiring but I'm buying some rubber stuff today to see if we can't cover up that main. It's outside and with all of the snow/ice I figured that might be best to at least cover up.  Our oven is great! We manage to cook pizza and a few other things in it all the time, it's just 3 out of the 4 burners that don't work, well they work just a little too well :)

So, I’m a little sore.  I had a painful reminder last night about why you don’t leave crap on stairs.  I’m okay, (a few bumps and bruises and sore joints) but I probably can’t say the same for some of the leftover Halloween candy in the bowl I stepped in as I made my way down the stairs in the dark last night.  

I'm So sorry! I hope that the candy gets better soon! ;) But really though, I do hope that you get better soon! Speaking of which my knee is totally doing better with the car and brace, on occasion I have random muscle cramps that keep me from bending it but after a real (like just a few seconds) of massaging it, it goes away. 

Christopher has been on a bit of a kick sending you letters.  So far in the last couple days he has sent you three :) .  I won’t spoil too much, but there’s one letter where he says something like “I hope you have fun”  but the “have” looks more like “hate” so I just thought I’d make that clarification.  Also he ends that letter with an “amen”.  I asked him about it and he said “amen is for Jesus.”  (Zach thinks it’s something he saw on YouTube.- some little kid is writing to Santa and said amen at the end, and said “amen is for Jesus.” )

Christopher is fantastic :) I've been trying to write more letters as well its just takes forever and with so little time I swear it almost takes two days to write. I almost have everyone in the family written too though so its coming. My companion and I just laughed at that wonderful Christopherism. :) 

I'd love more details about your day, what you do, what you eat, where  you go, etc.  Just so I can picture you in my head :)  What your companion is like, where he's from, etc.  

OK! So our day is pretty amazing!

We wake up at 6:23 shower eat breakfast, study, companion study, then train (ugh so many videos and HW mainly memorization but still) then we usually go tracting for an hour until lunch. Our lunches are usually just at our house, unless it's preparation day, then we get a free lunch at this fancy sit down restaurant with a reserved table and everything, it's hilarious. They even have tiny portions and like 7 different silverware (thanks to drama I actually know what all of them are used for :)) After lunch, we have lessons/tracting till 5 then we almost always have dinner at a members house here. It's pretty amazing. dinner has to end at 6. We used to go tracting till 7 but its getting too dark to do that now so we mostly just contact members or investigators/less actives and try to schedule lessons for that time to.  At 9 we are back in the house planning till 9:30, then it's rest :) My companion is from Payson Utah, He used to work a ton of construction so he is actually fairly "Jacked". He's hilarious, and extremely nerdy so we get along really well. The only thing is that he hasn't ever seen Doctor WHO and I can't exactly convert him to that out here :)  I need to go but I will reply to other things on the way and you will probably get them next time I connect to WIFI love you!

This is Halloween!

Good Morning!

How does one describe Halloween as a missionary? Fun? Splendid? Candy filled? D all of the above?

Honestly it was quite fun! But that, is a story for another paragraph.

Lets see this week. This week has actually been a ton of fun! Kind of a cool thing is that we were able to really realize that we were directed by the Holy ghost several times! one time was actually a few nights ago, we were driving back from an appointment and basically both of us had the feeling that we should pull over real quick. we hurry and did then basically felt the impression that we really need to listen to the spirit while driving home. Something didn't feel right and we both knew that the spirit was telling us to really pay attention and be careful. After talking it out a bit we decided to go our normal route home but listen for any impressions that might come.

And come they did, we still aren't sure what, or if anything would have happened, but i'm glad that we were able to listen and act on promptings that we received even if they were weird. There wee several times that we almost went down one street but then felt an immensely strong impression that we should go the other way, or keep going straight. there was even one time where right after we turned down a street we had to quickly stop and turn around because it just didn't feel right.

Another cool time was just yesterday, we were trying to decide what street to tract on and after praying we decided that we should tract on one street that is just barely in our area. We now have 5 new really strong potential investigators! The only reason that they are counted as potentials is because we don't have an exact return date scheduled with them. What was really cool however was that at first one of them DEFINITELY was interested, but while talking I felt prompted to share my testimony on how God truly does know and love all of us, his children. After hearing that he got a huge smile and really opened up and said that we would love it if we could come back again.

:)

So it's official, Linda, our extremely amazing investigator, is getting Baptized this Saturday! She is so excited for it, it has been so amazing to see how the Gospel of Christ really helps people. She has completely given up a few word of Wisdom Things that she was really struggling with before. what is really cool, is that she said after she started reading her scriptures and praying, she had no desire what so ever to continue some of those things :) I really love this gospel :)

Lets see, what else has been going on, OH HALLOWEEN!

Halloween was fantastic! It was a little weird because the Assistants called everyone and told us that we HAD to be inside our house, a member/investigators house, or the church, BY 6. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Apparently it gets dangerous for missionaries to be outside on Halloween night. It was really funny though, tracting earlier that day, because everyone kept calling us Jehovas Witnesses, and kept telling us how we were wrong for not believing in Halloween :) Halloween night was a ton of fun though! We started by having dinner at our bishop's house at 5 with a ton of his extended family. It was a little weird at first because we didn't know anyone but it got fun real fast when they brought out the menus.

Basically, we were given 9 total options and had to pick three for each course (there were three courses) Im including a picture of the menu. Each of the food items had a really fun name and it was really hilarious as you could get dessert first or just get a cup of carrots and a juice box. Needless to say much laughing and eating of very delicious food ensued. It was also funny because for our costume Elder Wessendorf and I switched nametags :)

After dinner we joined up with the Zone leaders, the other elders in our ward, and watched a movie it was either 27, 37, or 17 miracles.  I can't remember what it was called but it was really amazing!

Well we need to go now, I love you all! Have a wonderful Week!

Never Give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Dear Zach

Good Afternoon / Morning Zach!

Sorry, I say morning because that's when I'm writing this, but it's probably going to be afternoon when you get this.

How are you doing?  How is the quorum?  Any fun plans for Halloween?  My companion and I decided that we are going to dress up as each other, even switch name tags!

Oh! Guess what? It's finally here, eggnog!  I found the most delicious eggnog at our grocery store of choice, Wal-Mart.  It's this amazing caramel eggnog.  Holy cow, it's fantastic!  Also holy cow, I never realized just how powerful fire extinguishers are.  I'm looking at the mess from our fire now (it still hasn't been cleaned up) and wow, seriously though, if you ever have to use one, expect to clean up a mess, it gets everywhere!

You want to know what's one of the saddest things ever?  When you go and contact less-active members of the ward and they just have no testimony of the church whatsoever :/ it sucks.

Zach I love you so much! seriously I think about you guys all the time :)

I hope you have a Fantastic week!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
 - Elder Berrett

Dear Madison

My dearest sister Madison, (aka The Great and Powerful Jedi Master)

How are you doing today?  Felt any disturbances in the force?  So quick funny thing, my companion and I may or may not put on masks in the morning, fight with light sabers (paper towel rolls) and call that our morning exercise :)

How was the play? I kept hearing about all the stuff going into it, but never anything about it.   Also how's the new auditorium guy?  On a scale from peanut butter to Stahl?

Madison, I am writing this letter to inform you of a great thing.  Unfortunately I can't remember what it was going to be so I will have to move on now.  Soon.  Anytime  This may be the last line of this paragraph.  Almost there.  Done.

How's being a Sophomore?!  Can you believe you are already 1/4 of the way done with High School?  It's crazy how fast it goes.

How is your viola by the way?  Does it have a name?  It really should!

Oh dang, my companion just woke up from his nap.  We have to go teach a lesson now, can't wait!

I love you!  May the Force be with you Always!
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
 - Elder Berrett

Dear Christopher

Hi! How are you doing today Christopher?  Thank you so much for the pictures that you sent me! They are so cool!

Hey Christopher, guess what?  My companion and I live right next to train tracks! We get to see a train every day!  It's a really long red and blue train.

Christopher, also, every Monday, we get to eat lunch at an airport! I think that's pretty silly.

I love you Christopher! Can you please give everyone a hug for me?  You give great hugs.

- Elder Berrett

Bonus Snail Mail :) - Dear Family

Good Morning!  It's time to wake up and Be Happy!

Sorry, that's just how I feel a good letter should start off.  I mean, in all honesty, it's a lot easier to write that than to write- Hello mom, hello father, hello Zachary, hello Mad, and hello Squishtopher!   I hope at this point you are reading this in a Fantastic British accent :)

So you will be happy to know that on my mission I have already been fed pasties twice!  Once by an old English lady (yes, homemade), and once from a pasty shop that we have here in Butte.  Sorry about the other letters that I tried to send, but apparently stamps are a thing, and also dogs who eat letters.

So yes, I am indeed writing this letter from Butte.  It's a very.....interesting town.  I don't think I've ever lived in a ghetto before, it's quite different.  Thankfully we finally have a car all to ourselves so there's that, plus I've been told that as long as you avoid Main Street at night, you should be able to avoid most everything.

Sorry it's 10:28, finding the time to write in my journal, let alone write letters is insane!  I'll continue tomorrow, Love you!

Good Evening!  It's now my preparation day, also at night.  Seriously these days are all so crazy busy, If we aren't planning, we're studying, training, contacting, tracting, teaching, or sleeping.  So far every missionary I've asked when they have had time to journal just laughs.  Thankfully I've managed to write every day these past few weeks and plan to continue on!

So kind of a cool miracle tonight, because preparation day ends at 6:00, we are required to obviously stay busy after then.  The problem that occurs however is that we are not allowed to contact active members past 6:00 on Mondays because FHE.  Normally we try to plan to have an active member host a less active during those times but they all fell through.  (plus we forgot to contact members earlier today :/ )  Thankfully we had a backup of contacting and had a list of people that might be interested in us teaching them.  So we prayed then visited those that we felt inspired to visit.  The first was a less active family who was formerly unresponsive and they totally welcomed us in!  They were so pumped to have us over next Sunday and were willing to receive our Daily Scripture texts!  Amazing.  The next was an investigator who told us that she was so excited to be baptized soon!  Crazy! She has met with us for 2 weeks and is already most of the way through the Book of Mormon!  She's almost done with 3rd Nephi!  Plus when asked she quit drinking cold turkey and has never looked back!

So today we also deep cleaned our apartment.  We've been spraying Febreeze so it doesn't smell like drugs anymore and it's totally working!  You would be proud to know that I have been amazing at laundry and dishes.  Oh the joy that comes from being in a clean place.  I love it!  Sorry for not learning that lesson earlier.  My hamper is even always used and there never is anything on the floor.  Seriously.

Ugh.  Tomorrow I have to get a flu shot.  Mission Policy.  I've been putting it off and during my interview with the President on Saturday, he told me that his wife is seriously worried about the few of us who still haven't had it.  And apparently my knee issues were stressing her out last transfer too so I need to remember to give them positive updates in my weekly emails to them as well :)

I love you!  Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
- Elder Nicholas John Berrett I

Quick, where's the fire extinguisher!?

Good morning everyone!

So real quick, I may or may not have just bought a GALIFREYAN CTR RING!!! (thanks Dani) Anyways, this week has been Glorious*! We got a new investigator, who after two days is also a new progressing investigator! Her name is Jean and she is so excited about the gospel! What's really cool is that everything that we teach she usually replies back with "that makes so much sense!" She's going to be a fantastic member!  And seriously! She is totally being baptized :)  So one of the cool things about this area is that we already have someone else on date! I meant to mention that, her baptism is going to be on Nov. 7th!  I can't wait to see it!  So we have one person on date, and 3 progressing. however our new progressing one is about to be put on date, we are going to ask her after the restoration lesson (it's where the spirit is the strongest) but we pretty much already know that she will be baptized, the only thing that will probably keep her from being baptized in a week is that you have to attend church 3 times :) 

Earlier this week we also found a new less active family who said that they would like to get back into the gospel, just don't have any time but they said that they would love for us to come by sometime :)

So funny story, we had transfers with our zone leaders, well actually one of them just joined us for 24 hours and I'm not sure what that's called but oh well. Anyways, after he joined us it got really crazy.

We didn't do much that night because it was splits with the ward then we had a coordination meeting with our ward mission leader. Anyways, that night was so crazy, our downstairs neighbors dogs got out and started chasing us when we got out of the car, then because we had already planned we had a quick companionship inventory then decided to make some food.  Unfortunately the stove had other ideas...........and sorta caught fire.  Thankfully we had a fire extinguisher near by, unfortunately it took several min. and all three of us to realize that in order for it to work you have to pull the pin, THEN squeeze the handle. So if you ever wondered how many elders it takes to put out a fire, its three, as long as they have several min. :)  So, we sorta have a stove, only one of the burners work right now, but it meets our needs :)

(After asking for a bit of clarification)-

So the stove, that's a funny story. 

Literally all that we were doing were trying to boil a pot of water.  Unfortunately apparently our stove over heated, and something (we can't tell what it is now but its black and sticky)  that fell underneath the burner caught fire and spread all over the stove. However the funny part was that even though literally our entire house was full of smoke no smoke alarm went off.  Apparently it, and most of the things in the house, is broken.  Literally this house is so ghetto its hilarious.  We have exposed wires all over the place, lights randomly decide to work sometimes and then other times don't. Our fridge makes strange noises and apparently black mold is a thing. Honestly though I wouldn't trade this place for the world. I love being a missionary here. not only have we had so many opportunities to serve (including the food bank because we also get a free box of food for serving so that helps to cut down on the costs, they only offer that to missionaries :)) and I love all of the people here, even our downstairs neighbors, even if they hate each other and are always yelling and swearing, we love them and try to help out as much as we can :) It's actually really funny, because we have had other missionaries take one look at our situation and then say "we are so sorry" but I dont hate it at all. This is where I need to be and I LOVE IT! this mission is the greatest thing that I have ever done. Without a doubt. 

But anyways, other than that it was an absolutely fantastic week!

Sorry its a short email this week, its been crazy, apparently fire stuff is hard to clean up. :/

*see Flo pronunciation guide pg 7

Never Give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Good Morning!

Good morning everyone and happy Monday!

On today's show we will be talking about stake conference, transfer week, Elder Wessendorf, A new book titled "how to run away from dogs for dummies" and of course the work here Butte.

(Insert catchy tune here)

So this week was transfer week! And now I'm companions with the amazing, awe inspiring, Elder Wessendorf!

How does one describe elder Wessendorf? Well. He's experienced, knowledgeable, and also completely random! The only difference is that he's actually really good at sports. Especially basketball and Pod-ball. Plus he's all about getting "jacked" and keeps telling me how "jacked" we are going to get.  I'm a little curious to see how that will go :)

Butte is pretty interesting. Basically it's divided into three parts.

The flats, Mid-town, and Up-Town. The flats is where all of the farms and nice houses are, Mid-town is sketchy, up town is where all the sketchy people hang out. I'll let you guess where we live :) Actually we are in between up-town and Mid-town. It's actually a pretty nice house.

Basically as long as you remember to lock all of the locks and put up the brace on the back door you are completely safe. Honestly though, once you do all of the locks you feel so safe. I've never had this many locks on a door and it's really fun to lock them all. :)

Thankfully we are really lucky and respected here in butte. Most people see us as "religious men" and either talk to us or are polite.

The rest are usually drunk and tell us satan worshippers to go away and kill babies somewhere else. ;) It's so funny to listen to all of the stories that people come up with. I swear some of these people think we probably actually have horns or something. :) Usually it's just the people that are high that are the fun ones though. :)

So one cool thing that we do here in Butte is we get to serve at the food bank once a week, we serve for two hours and help then we get to take home a box of food!!! While I'm sad to leave Great Falls and the great Air Force base. We get tons of food here :) also apparently there is someone in the ward here assigned to make sure that the missionaries get fed every night by a member so that's really cool! We have met tons of great people and had tons of great food!

The work is also going pretty great here too! While our area was just recently opened again, so we had a teaching pool of 0, we now have 3 progressing investigators, one investigator with a baptismal date who in two weeks has almost completely finished reading the Book of Mormon, about 5 new investigators, and about 8 potentials! It's so much fun to be able to meet so many people and help them come closer to God :) I am so thankful for all of the opportunities that we have to serve here. Service is so pushed here that we pretty much have a minimum requirement of 5 hours a week, thankfully we have Justserve.org to help with that. (You should all use it! It's so amazing! 2 stars! 5 thumbs up!)

Sorry I have to go now, apparently getting "jacked" is a thing :) talk to you all soon!

If you give an elder a recipe

If you give an elder a recipe (in particular it's the cowboy casserole that Mama T sent),

He will want to make it.

When he and his companion decide to make it, 

they will also decide that they must make cornbread muffins to go with it.

When they decide that they must make cornbread muffins to go with it,

They will then tear apart the entire house looking for corn.

When they realize that they already have a box of premade cornbread muffin mix, 

they will laugh then play Rock-Paper-Scissors, to determine who makes what.

When Elder Berrett wins the cornbread muffins,

he will attempt to follow the instructions.

When Elder Berrett attempts to follow the instructions, 

he will inevitably end up pouring in 1/2 cup of water instead of milk. 

When Elder Berrett ends up pouring in 1/2 cup of water instead of milk,

He will then assume that the only logical thing to do is to pour in 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, add flour, then hope for the best. 

When the elders hope for the best,

they will enjoy a delicious meal with the 9 min. that they have left of dinner and then hope that the mess will go away.

When the elders hope that the mess will go away, 

it doesn't.

The end  

Really hoping these aren't the ingredients used in his cowboy casserole or that he has to eat these at all.  Ick.

Can you believe that it has already been 1 1/2 months, a whole transfer. Wow. I still can't get over the fact that I've been here that long and I'm still having to look at my little glorious notebook (again thank you Hannah Oliekan For that amazing gift last Christmas timeish, it has saved my life so many times I really cannot thank you enough!) To remember the names of all of these people. However as amazing as this area is, and how utterly amazing the people are, I will have to bid it adieu. 

So last night elder Hendricks and I got our transfer news! Unfortunately I will be leaving Great Falls and heading to some place called Butte. The cool part is, My new trainer, will be Elder Wessendorf, Elder Hendricks' old companion/trainer! I've heard so much about this man and now I finally get to serve with him! 

Great Falls, and this entire companionship have been amazing! I think one of the coolest parts about transfers is that they are completely inspired by the lord. My testimony of that has increased so much. Elder Hendricks has helped me so much as a missionary and as a person. He has helped me to be way more loving, caring, forgiving, and generally more Christlike. 

Elder Hendricks will be staying here and will continue to serve as district leader and get a new companion (whose name we have both forgotten).

On the bright side, because transfers are on Wednesday, I GET MY KNEE BRACE ON WEDNESDAY!!!! (insert fireworks and exploding Death Stars here) I'm so pumped to be able to walk normally again and not have everyone ask (Are you ok? Why are you playing dodgeball with that? Do you want to sit down? Did you know that Joseph Smith also had a limp too?) 

Sorry this emails a little hectic, elder Hendricks and I are rushing trying to do everything to say and say goodbye to everyone today that we don't have a lesson with. 

Let's see what else, oh actually missionary work!

The work has been fantastic this week! not only have people all of the sudden become more receptive, but a ton of members have been contacting us this week asking how they can help further the work and if there are any investigators that they can fellowship. We have one of our investigators, Dan, who we have been trying to contact all transfer, who just called us and set up two lessons this past week. while one of them fell through it was still amazing! He is almost on date for baptism and he is so willing to learn!

Also, The wedding. for those of you who didn't hear, one of our less active couples asked me to marry them this past week, it was so crazy, I'm only 18! I don't even know what to say!  Sadly/thankfully after a really nice conversation with our mission president, he came to the conclusion that the Bishop should marry them. Unfortunately because the Bishop was sick this last week they put it off until tomorrow. 

I hope that you all have a most fantastic week! The church is true! Thank you all so much for all that you do!

-Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

????

P.S. Companionship quote of the week "Elder, last I checked, Hell wasn't Horizontal."