Good Morning!

Good morning mom! Well, good morning family.  If you haven’t guessed, this is me, Elder Berrett, and today we will be making some pancakes.  Considering it’s now 8:21, I don’t honestly feel like emailing too much right now, and I’m really hungry so we’re gonna make some pancakes.

Setting you right there so I don’t have to hold that and record at the same time.  Let me know if you can’t hear me.  Umm, let me know in the comments below!  Make sure to like and subscribe.

This week has been wonderful.  Absolutely and completely wonderful. Where to start off?  Let’s see.. Monday, Monday, Monday… (bang) Hey. That’s the cabinet.  Oh! I think this last week was MLC.  Holy cow.  So yeah, Monday we had a wonderful preparation day, we had a great snowball fight.  Still have not built a snowman yet. I probably won’t get time to do that today so I really hope that I get another preparation day with snow.  That’s likely to happen, it’s only barely February.   But that’s a goal of mine, I’d like to build a snowman at some point.

Anyways, let me think.  What all happened after that? Monday night we were able to teach a little bit but not too much. Oh that’s right, (laughs) we were planning on teaching, and then at like 8:00 as we were heading back into East Helena, our area, which is like 15-20 minutes away from Helena, no it’s like 15 or 20 miles, nevermind.  We got a call from the assistants asking us to set up for MLC and neither of us have done that before so that was an adventure.  MLC is a Mission Leadership Council and it’s the, so we have all the zone leaders and all the sister training leaders come to Helena for this, we do this once a transfer, and it was kinda fun setting up for that not knowing a thing, I mean I know what it’s supposed to look like, I mean I’ve been there to it before, but clearly I remembered exactly how it was set up.  So we guessed, moved some stuff around once everyone got there, it worked out.  It was more of a fun time.

(pots and pans banging and crashing in the back ground)

Sweet. Found a pan.

But MLC was absolutely wonderful.  Super spiritually power, uplifting.  Overall it was a great experience.  We talked about the new daily schedule change.  Got to eat some more Reese’s Puffs cereal that Sister Wadsworth provided.  That was, oh, bless President and Sister Wadsworth.  I got to spend time with them which I think was in all honesty the best part.  Oh! I saw Elder Hendricks and Elder Hatch!  They’re doing so great! They’re companions!  Oh! They’re companions in Billings!  I will admit I was a little jealous when I heard that.  I’m like that’s kind of a boss companionship. 

But I’ve really come to love Helena more and Elder Shumway, he’s a really great guy.

Sorry, I’m just reading the instructions really quick, so I might be rambling just a little bit. Pre-heat griddle to medium to high heat…combine one cup pancake mix with one slightly beaten egg.  Slightly beaten, that’s very important, make sure the egg is slightly beaten, and ½ cup cold water.  Interesting.  Cold water.  I know that when you make pastries you want to make sure the water is cold, because it adds a little bit of crunchiness to the crust or flakiness.  So I wonder why they ask you to do that with pancakes?  Answer in the comments below!  I’m gonna stop that, that’s so stupid.  Mix just until batter is smooth.   Lumps are good, brother Cheatham taught me that.  We love lumps.   Now I need something to mix the batter in.  That looks big enough.

Yeah! MLC was wonderful, I think that’s where I left off.

Oooooh! Oh by the way mom I’m using the “My Favorite Pancake Mix –Southern Pecan”.  If I could freaking open this! (sounds of a struggle) These are harder to open than they look.  Like they have a little tab on the tinfoil thing covering the top, but the tab is like glued down.  I’m weak, okay?  I’ve been working out almost every morning.  I’ve been very proud of myself, and it’s all thanks to Elder Shumway, because that man is such a stud and he actually gets me to work out.

Umm, “one cup pancake mix…”  Where’s a cup?

But yes!  One day I will finish what I am trying to talk about. MLC was absolutely wonderful.  Super spiritually uplifted.  We talked a lot about how we can more become a Preach My Gospel mission, the importance of consecration.  The big focus especially was on finding.  Finding and the importance of helping others to keep commitments.   You know, why we invite people to do things, why you know in a sense every time we invite someone to make or keep a commitment we are inviting them to repent and come closer to Jesus Christ and I thought that was really interesting and super cool.   So that’s a little spiritual tidbit for today. Whenever you are invited to make or keep a commitment, whether it’s from a bishop or family member, they are inviting you to repent and come closer to Christ.  So now mom whenever you ask us to do something like clean our rooms you can officially say “Kids, I am calling you to repentance.”

(cupboards and drawers can be heard opening and closing and banging around throughout that whole paragraph) And I am sure there is a measuring cup somewhere around here, if not, maybe I can just like guesstimate.  I mean it’s just baking, or not baking, cooking, you don’t necessarily have to have exact measurements with that I’m fairly certain. It’s baking you do, cooking you don’t, I don’t know.  It will work out somehow!  (more banging)  Oooh! Okay, I found a panini press. Or a George Forman. Well, I’ll find that. 

Well anyways, this week was really really good.  I really enjoyed it.  Oh! We got to go to Boulder this week. Love Boulder.  Small, small town.  Boulder is a branch that we cover. Fun, fun people.  Oh, so we stayed there Friday and Saturday night, and attended church Sunday morning and then came back and the house that we stayed in is like this perfect cabin, that overlooks this forest, we woke up to elk, about 10 elk walking through the yard.  I didn’t think to get, I have some pictures but they’re kinda, they’re not the best quality, I’ll try to send them to you., and hope that you can at least get part of it. Oh, it was just a beautiful sight and I can’t wait to go back there. 

We just had a meeting with our stake president yesterday and it turns out that he’s getting, our Stake President, President Bingham is super awesome, loves missionary work, loves missionaries,  and just does everything he can to make sure missionaries are doing okay, and he focuses on missionaries so much, their needs, if anyone is struggling, I think that’s so cool.  We got to have a council with him and the sister training leaders, and focus on that, but he just got news, well, back in October but it just went public that he’s been asked to be a mission president. In Australia. The Sydney mission. Sydney West or East, or South, or North… Yeah it’s North because he said he’s going to stay in the south end when he goes there. It’s the other way around? Okay, South! The Australia Sydney South mission.  He’s super, super excited.  He said back in October he got an email from Salt Lake and he said that’s pretty normal for a Stake President, but in the text it was just a sentence or two and it said “Please give me a call when you get a chance.” And it was from Elder Bednar’s secretary.  And so he gave her a call and she said that Elder Bednar would like to set up a video chat session with him and his wife, where they were then told that they were considering them for a mission.  And a little while later, they got another email saying that President Uchtdorf would like to talk to them, who then extended a call to them to be a mission president, but they didn’t know where they were going to go yet., until they got a letter a couple weeks later, that they opened in front of their family on Christmas saying that they’d be serving as a mission president in Australia.  Which was cool because that mission that he covers is bordering on two sides his mission that he served.  So that was really, really cool!

So I still have yet to find the cup.  So I’m going to pause this recording, or stop it and then just make another one, since this is getting a little long and I don’t know if it will email. I hope it will.

But I really need to find that cup because I’m getting hungry. So I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful day! Bye!  If I can figure out how to stop this…. There we go.