:-D8 (it's a sideways smiley face with a bow tie- fyi)

Good Morning Everyone!

This week was, well wow, a ton happened this week!

To start off, lets talk about The Mission Tour from last week since I sorta ran out of time. It was Freakin' Awesome! We got to meet President Anderson who is such a boss! He is actually from Mesa Arizona, so I was feeling a little bit of Arizona Pride there :). One of my favorite parts from it however came from a giant diagram that he drew. Long story short, he basically talked about the importance that the spirit plays in the conversion process and how we can learn all of the knowledge that we want, and we should try to learn all that we can, but if we, or our investigators don't recognize the spirit when it testifies of truth, then they won't really be converted to the gospel and will most likely stop investigating the church or stop trying to come back to it. But ya, it was definitely amazing! I even ran into some old awesome friends like Elder Hendricks, and I also saw Elder Mika from the MTC! So that was pretty cool!

Anyways, this week we also had interviews with President Wadsworth.  You know, everytime that I meet that awesome man I am always amazed by how awesome he is! Both he and sister Wadsworth were absolutely hilarious and were quite the pleasure to see :). One of my favorite things that they talked about was the principle of Consecration. While this is something that is always being talked about, Both President and Sister Wadsworth said that if we truly consecrate ourselves to the Lord, and strive to obey and do all that he has asked us to do, We can and WILL achieve the mission wide goal of 4 baptisms a month. I seriously heard this and just about died, I am just so pumped up about missionary work! It seriously is the best!

Oh! One cool miracle totally happened this week, my companion and I were out contacting our investigators. Well we decided to go and try Brian, he's an investigator that we found a few weeks back, who we haven't been able to meet since. Well we stopped by his house and after a few tries, we decided that instead of leaving and trying someone else, we would just start cleaning up his yard and see what happens. Well freakin' miracles is what happened! After most of the yard was raked up and de-weeded, he came out wearing gloves (apparently he was cutting wood out back and couldn't hear us) and started talking to us! At one point he even said that he was thinking about us the other day at church and that he was really wanting to meet with us again! It was so great!

Also this week we were meeting with a less-active Vicki, who has basically been taught by missionaries for the last couple three years.  Well apparently something that we said at our last lesson hit her because when we came back for this lesson she had read at least 6 chapters of the scriptures and CAME TO CHURCH THIS WEEK! She really wants to get to the temple! It is seriously so great to see her finally progressing in the gospel.

This week was also cray busy with exchanges, we had exchanges with the Zone leaders and with the Byron/Lovell Elders. It was the exchange with the threw Byron Elders that we saw an entire roof just ripped off by the wind and destroyed. I honestly wish I took a picture earlier, the picture I sent was taken after about 20 min of cleaning up and clearing that doorway before I even thought to grab my camera. But ya, we helped him clean up, at least grab all the big chunks of roof and clear a path to the door and inside. But ya, it was really sad and crazy!  Thankfully no one got hurt.  Like seriously crazy miracle.  Even all of the pets are ok. :) 

Oh! Also transfer news! I'm staying in Greybull basin with Elder Ison!  We got another transfer together! Can you believe I'm already on my 8th transfer? I still can't believe that it's already been a whole transfer I've been here! Seriously! I am so pumped to be here! Also the member we live with us just he best! We jokingly told him that I was getting transferred out and he legit started tearing up. We hurry and told him that we were kidding and both staying and thankfully all laughed about it. He is just the best! And he is trying to talk around and see if he can get us living there permanently. While our apartment still isn't finished, he totally doesn't want us to move out and we don't want to either so ya :).

 

Also! We finally made some bread!   We made rolls!

And Indian Fry Bread!

Here are some pictures that we just took playing ping pong with the Byron elders! Dang. Sorry they're really blurry. 

And here's a cool flower I saw. 

 Love you all!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

The weekly email

Hey so funny story.

Elder Hendricks might remember this one actually.

I'll call it, when you give a missionary an assignment.

When you give a missionary an assignment (like a district leader), he is usually he senior companion.

When a missionary is the senior companion, he will be in charge of the keys.

When a missionary is in charge of the keys, he will use them to unlock doors like the family history center to email.

When missionaries go into the family history center to email, one of them (me) will eventually (right after we walked in) ask to go get a drink of water.

When the missionaries leave the room to go get a drink of water, they will accidentally lock the door behind them, leaving their iPads, phone, and keys in there.

When that all happens the missionaries will then freak out scramble around to find a program from church, call the 2nd counselor, then wait a few hours so that he can come and unlock the door.

So long story short, I can now play several more hymns! But I had like 20 min. to email.

Soooo pictures!

Also! Real quick! This morning we had an awesome adventure, Bro. Cheatham took us out to an airport close by and let us go explore this huge field of airplanes, some still running, some gutted, and others that could be fixed up if someone had the desire. Really cool stuff. It was like an airplane museum, but without all of the tape and "don't touch this." Here I was actually a little afraid to touch some things cause half of hem still looked working. I had to check with bro. Cheatham if I wanted to do anything :) but ya. 

Sorry, I've been really terrible at sending pictures. Elder Hendricks even gave me a list of things that he wants me to start sending pictures of, and lists of places to go see. Love that guy :) 

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett 

Facebook Pictures

Nick's mission is an "ipad mission"  which as the name suggests means he utilizes an ipad.  He uses it for all sorts of things- scheduling, sharing videos and messages, and even facebook.  Of course there are strict rules.  I'm not sure of all the rules, just the ones that apply to me.  I can friend him, follow him, like the things he posts, and share those things, especially if they are of a spiritual or uplifting nature (which I am fairly certain they have to be) but I can't try to communicate with him.  No commenting, or direct messaging.  However, it seems that people that he meets on his mission have less restrictions.  Which means it can be awesome for me, because sometimes, they take pictures of Nick and post them on facebook, and then tag him in those pictures, and then they end up in MY facebook feed as a lovely surprise.

And then I friend this lovely person that does that, and she sends me even more pictures.  And videos!  Glorious videos of Nick just being Nick. Like videos of him trying to do a back flip on a trampoline.

And then when I send her the comment, "These are the best, thank you!  I miss that awesomely awkward child of mine.  What he lacks in style and grace he makes up for in enthusiasm and personality."

And then she makes it all worthwhile by telling me "He really does love the gospel.  I see it with how he speaks of it.  He's a really great missionary! :) "

Sorry, I'm not going to post the videos here, you'll have to ask me to see them, but here's some of the random pictures I've found over the last few weeks.

Knee pain gone

Good afternoon everyone!

Wow another week gone and another week started!

Mission time is totally wibbly wobbly timely wimey, I feel like I've been out a few weeks, but I also feel like I've been doing this most of my life so that's a thing.

This week was insane! Absolutely, Certifiably insane!

To start off we had another awesome lesson with Marci our recent convert this last Monday! While it took quite a bit to go through, apparently she is really good friends with the members that we were having the lesson in, it went really well! We taught her the importance of temples and why families need to be eternal. She had a few questions about some of the temple ordinances, but felt the spirit confirm that they are totally important so it was a boss lesson :)

The next day we decided to go and contact some referrals that our Ward council gave us, one of them was the Gimmel family. The Gimmels are actually a giant hodgepodge family. The actual only people with the last name Gimmel in that house are the grandparents, and the rest go by a different name but I can't remember it so the family will hence forth be referred to as the Gimmel family. The Gimmels are actually quite a boss family, while about half are less-active they absolutely love missionaries and apparently do a lot of them so we can't wait to build that relationship. One cool thing about the Gimmels is their daughter Jayden (I feel comfortable saying her first name since I can't remember her last). Jayden is my sister Madison reincarnate I swear. They are the same person. It is ridiculous! So in the middle of one of our lessons she went down stairs and got some tape and started putting it on her knee, when I asked what she was doing she said that she had some freak disorder where the outside muscles of her knee were stronger than the other ones so her knee cap tracted wrong and moved out of place when ever she bent it. I thought it was really funny because that's exactly what's wrong with my knee, after talking about it for a little bit, she said that she used to wear a brace but the physical therapist taught her how to tape instead and it was a ton better, so long story short they went and bought me a roll of this glorious magical tape and it is awesome! No knee pain in either knee and no more brace!  The best part is that it helps to encourage the muscle growth instead of decay like braces do or something like that.  All I know is literally no pain whatsoever! I'm sold. The only price is all the hairs around the knee. Literally I swear that tape is like wax. They all get pulled off. Oh well.

Uggg it's the worst when you meet/hear a doppelgänger of a sibling.  There is also a boy that is in band and dresses JUST LIKE ZACH, same age, same hair, face is different but the blue Superman shirt just gets me every time.  

This week we also got to help out in the days of 49 parade! We helped build one of the floats for a service project and even got to participate in the tug of war! It was so much fun!

Another awesome miracle that happened this week was the Lancaster family! We met bro. Lancaster a week ago while offering service around town and while we never really got to help him, he invited us back to his house to share a message and get to know them! They are such an awesome family! The fun thing is that this is an entire family that lives in Greybull that is interested in the gospel. Sadly Greybull has been a little bit slow going in the work but it's totally picking up!

Sorry I really need to go but I want you all to know that Christ's atonement is ridiculously real. It can help us with ANYTHING in our lives, we can grow and truly become who Heavenly Father wants us to be. I love you all!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Ich Spreche Nicht Spanisch

Good Afternoon everyone!!!

Wow, another week has already come and gone in the mission. I can hardly believe it!

Life is Wyoming is great, as usual :). Things are going really great honestly! We came into this area with a TON of investigators to work with, and we just found two more! I am just so pumped to be here! 

Life with my companion is great, he's almost always sarcastic, so that's interesting. Not that sarcasm is bad, it's just hard to tell when he is joking sometimes, but he honestly is really nice. He's absolutely hilarious though and would be a perfect companion except he likes the AC on ALWAYS. :) Apparently anything above 75 is WAAAAY too hot. Gosh I've missed the heat, did you know that it's supposed to get in the 100's this week here? I'm so pumped! 

This week lets see, on Monday we had an awesome lesson with Marci! It was honestly our first real lesson with her, we have seen her in church but this was the first time really meeting her! She's a hoot, she literally introduced her self by walking up to us, shaking our hands and said "Hi I'm the problem." She's hilarious, a little crazy, but hilarious. She is a recent convert that we are now giving the new member discussions to, and she just loves the gospel, it's been so much fun to teach her! Today we are going over there and are teaching her about temples, we finally get to use those new pamphlets the church put out! I'm so pumped I've been waiting to use them for two weeks now! Heck ya!

On Tuesday we mostly worked with less-actives, got to know a bunch more and thankfully had some great lessons :).

On Wednesday however we had a lesson with BRIAN! Brian is a former investigator that we contacted who is TOTALLY interested in meeting with us. He was dropped a year ago because the elders tried by a few times but weren't able to meet with him, thankfully he's just had more time to prepare. At first he was a little standoff-ish, but then once he realized that we actually aren't weird and actually believe the same things that he believes, he was way more open :). Anyways after discussion with him a little bit about our common believes I pulled out the Book of Mormon. It was kind of funny because he immediately stiffened up and looked like I just pulled out a gun or something.

When I asked if he would take it, he looked me straight in the eyes and told me to explain what it is in two paragraphs. Holy cow the spirit was so strong! Both me and my companion took the opportunity to then share our testimonies of it and how we came to know that it is true, and explain that it truly, like the Bible, testifies of the Savior and promised him that he will come closer to Jesus Christ by reading and abiding by its precepts. :) He totally commitment to read it! Fingers crossed that he will pray about it!

Thursday not much happened outside of weekly planning. We mostly went around and did finding activities that day. :)

On Friday we literally did service all day. Except at the very end but it was crazy, in the morning we helped someone break down a wall :) tons of fun there, :) then we had bowling at a senior center here in Greybull, then we did some service at the other senior center in Basin, then we finished off the day with a couple active member lessons :).

Saturday was mostly contacting and teaching people that our Ward council asked us to go visit, tons of fun and wonderfullness, just not much to say about it.

Then finally glorious Sunday came. I just love Sundays here. I get to help bless and pass the sacrament every week! It is just a serious reminder of all that our Savior did for us and how important the sacrament is. I know I said this last week but I am again truly thankful for it. :)

Oh! Almost forgot, on Friday, that's right it wasn't all service, we had a lesson with the Garay family. The really cool thing about the Garay family is that only one of them really speaks English. The dad sorta speaks it but his understanding is really low. Because of this my companion and I now get to teach the Gospel in Spanish! We were a little curious if this was going to happen when we got here and half of our supplies were in Spanish, and it finally did! Thankfully we have a few members who will said that they would come to our rescue at our next lesson so we won't be completely on our own, but ya it's awesome! For our last lesson with them we showed the Restoration video (the last 10 min. Of the 20 min. version one) and the spirit was so strong! I don't know if I was just paying more attention to the spirit because I couldn't understand a single word the video was saying, or if Spanish is just more spiritual 😀 but it was amazing! It even brought the dad to tears, who is actually a less-active member! It was great! Because about 1/4 of Greybull speaks Spanish, half of the supplies we get are in Spanish so I can just about bear my testimony in Spanish now!

I love how much the lord helps us in our daily lives. Lately in comp study we have been reciting ether 12:27 which reads "27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." I LOVE THIS SCRIPTURE! Satan is always pointing things out to us that make us think that we are weak, or aren't good enough, why try? But you know what? Yes. We have weaknesses. We aren't good at every thing! But through the Lord, we truly can do all things!

We have never gone too far, are too imperfect, or too messed up. If we let Jesus Christ's Atonement into our lives, we can do all things!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett