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