Good Morning!

Well good morning!

It’s now Monday morning,  Looking back, I was going through my memos and apparently I made a voice recording Tuesday that I never finished.  I’ll still send that off but, yeah, don’t expect an end to that apparently.  I don’t even remember what I wrote. (said) 

However, just like last Monday, we too are making, because we just have so much time here in this house, our preparation day now begins at 8 am, and that’s when we start our laundry because that’s when we get out of the shower, using the water, and the rule is, we are not allowed to leave any laundry in the dryer, or anything, which is smart, so we have to do all our laundry before we leave the house.  So we have until like 12.  That’s like 4 hours to write emails, sit down, make breakfast.  It’s wonderful, I get pancakes at least once a week.  Twice if we go to Boulder.  The member there always makes us pancakes, he’s so awesome.

So today we have assembled the gas stove, eggs, Power Cakes Protein Packed Flapjack and Waffle Mix, and then also Krusteaz complete pancake buttermilk mix. Light and Fluffy.  I’m also gonna make myself a bagel.  So we'll see how that goes.  I’m really excited for this morning.  Get a nice big breakfast, it’s gonna be great. 

So to start off, I’m just gonna make a bagel and talk.  My companion is finishing his morning workout, and he’ll be up here shortly.  Which means I’ll probably stop recording.

This past week has been really eventful.  Really good.  We went on exchanges with the, oh, I keep trying to call them the Powell 2^nd Ward Elders.   But we’re not in Powell. The Helena 2^nd Ward Elders.  I went with elder Roberts, and Elder Shumway went with Elder Rickenbacker, the district leader.  Both, both wonderful, hard working elders.  I love being with Elder Roberts, he’s been out 4 ½ months, and he really reminded me of myself back then.  Not to say that I’ve changed too much, it’s just that he’s So! Excited! about everything. I love it.

Of course now that we were on exchanges and I was staying in our area, I had to drive.  It was kind of an adventure. Out here the last couple of days everything has melted and then overnight it freezes, and then we had freezing rain, and then, I don’t know, we just had a sheet of glass over everything.  And trying to make the trip to Boulder was fun.  But, we survived.  And then we decided to drive more and go visit people out of town and all these things and oh it was an adventure.  Didn’t get stuck though.   Almost did, a lot. At one point we were driving up a hill and our car started driving backwards, giant snow banks on either side and I’m like “Okay! I guess…”  tapping the breaks, and trying to do everything I can, I’m trying to turn to the back of the vehicle kind of grazes the back of the snowbank, and that’s what finally worked and stopped and I was able to kinda turn the car around and gently go down the hill the right way, turn around and book it up this time.  It was an adventure.

Let me think… we weren’t able to teach too many lessons this week, we were able to place a couple copies of the Book of Mormon though.  And that was, that was wonderful.  We felt pretty spiritually prompted to give it to a couple members in Boulder, and both times that we gave it to the families they were like “There’s been someone on our mind! We are so excited to give it to them!”  Clearly a prompting from the spirit.  It was super cool.

Let me think, oh yeah, duh! Stake Conference! We had TWO General Authorities attending.  Obviously to set apart and announce the new Stake Presidency and do all that.  Since our current Stake President is going to Australia.  I don’t know any of them apart from the second counselor became the first counselor, but that’s it.  But hey, it was pretty spiritual and I loved the General Authorities there.  One was from Germany, he was super legit.  He was made a Seventy in April of 2014, gave a General Conference talk in October of 2014, he’s been a mission president, and now he’s an insanely spiritual General Authority, told us a lot of Doctrine concerning the pre-earth life and things like that in Stake Conference.  Super Cool.  And he’s only like 47 or 49…  Spiritual giant let me tell you.  He’s from  Frankfurt Germany, his name is Jorg Klebingat.  Elder Jorg Klebingat.  Oh, it’s funny, he said, he made the joke, he said “Most spiritual people come from Frankfurt Germany”,  and in my head I was going “AMEN, Brother!”

Oh, I’d love to go back to Germany some day.   I’m not sure how I’m going to do that, apart from visiting on a small vacation, but I’d like to do more. Like, I’d like to live there for a little bit, but I just don’t think it’s going to end up happening. If I’m being completely honest.  Granted I know sooo much.  I’m only 20. I have no clue what I’m going to do, so maybe! It would be super fun.

(thunk) Ah! Oh yay. The bagel landed on the right side, so the cream cheese didn’t get all over the counter. Yay.

Elder Shumway and I have been having a bit of a disagreement. Jokingly of course.  I feel that Christmas music should be played year round, he feels the opposite. That’s really it.  There’s no arguing. I used some scriptures to prove my point. He looks at me and chastises me.  It’s been great.

Today is preparation day.  Preparation days here in Helena are different definitely. It’s kinda like they were in Butte, honestly.  It’s been awhile since I’ve had that.  Everyone getting together, playing basketball, or podball or something.  Only there’s more people here than in Butte.  In Butte there was just 3 companionships, here there’s all six.  There’s only 6 in the whole zone. So weird.  I will admit, I kinda miss the nice small quiet preparation days. You know, where you get together with other missionaries sometimes, most of the time it’s just you and the other Powell Elders, or just brother Cheatham.  And you just kinda sit around, maybe go do some service, email, talk a lot, sing to music.  But it’s really fun out here, it’s like its own, it’s hard to compare the two.  I really enjoy it.  But I’m pretty excited for preparation day today.  We’ve seen a lot of increased zone unity lately. It’s been wonderful.  I mean not that like there was any dis-unity.  Or Dis-harmony?  Discord?  I don’t know whatever adjective you want to use, but it’s been very, very good here.  Everyone is super great.  Two of the sisters that I came out with that are in the zone are going home.  That’s super weird.  Sister Crosland and sister Unatoa (Sp?) Both fantastic sisters, both going home. 

Oh! My laundry is done downstairs.

(thunk) OH!!! Both bagels landed, of course, cream cheese side down. Well, I’m gonna go sort the laundry, probably make myself a new bagel. And then I’ll be back!  Bye!  Love you!