Voice recording April 17 - part 1

Well howdy, and good morning!  It’s been what three weeks?  No I think it’s just been two weeks without a recording.  But good morning mom!  It is great to be able to finally talk to you.  I mean, not quite talking, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. 

Um.  Wow.  I’m leaving Helena. Tomorrow.  President changed up transfers a bit so it’s on Tuesday.  I don’t know if this is permanent, it’s at least what he’s doing for this transfer, which means we found out news on Saturday, thus the text you got (from a member in Helena) Except I actually found out… was that Saturday morning?  No, it was Friday morning because we were here in Boulder, no not Boulder… Where am I?  East Helena.  I was here, President called, and he just goes “Did you get your new tablet?”  “Yeah I got my new tablet.” “Did you set up Moss 360?”  “Yeah, I set up Moss 360.” (the management software) “Good for you.  Is it working for you?” “Thankfully! I’ve been super careful with it, it’s pretty much been in both hands the whole time.”  And he goes “Good, good.  Well, Elder Berrett I’d like to honorably release you as a Zone Leader.”  And like, I don’t know, I was just kinda surprised. I was just like, “Oh.”  Like honestly we totally all expected Elder Shumway to leave.  Our whole district, our whole Zone thought that, all of Boulder thought that… He had a goodbye party with the Grovers.  Took Goodbye pictures with them, and then we get the news that I’m leaving and he’s staying.  (laughs) So it was kinda funny. 

I am pretty sad to be leaving, I am going to miss this place.  But at the same time I am pretty excited about Stevensville.  I’ve heard amazing things about it, I’ve heard it’s one of the most beautiful places in the mission.  I cover Stevensville first and second ward which, as I looked it up, there’s only two wards in all of Stevensville.  And so I have that and all the country all around it.  Ummm, things I’ve heard about Stevensville, it’s a smaller town.  It’s like… I mean, they have a Super1 food store so I mean, it’s not too small. I think they have a couple stop lights.  Maybe. It’s not like Greybull or Basin sized, probably more like Powell…  Umm let me think, other things I’ve heard about it, again gorgeous, gorgeous, great people, I think I live with members over there, I typed in the address onto google maps, zoomed in on it, and it’s like this giant house out in the country, and so I highly doubt that that’s our apartment.  So that’ll be fun, I get to live with members still.  

I’ve got three transfers left, can you believe that? Since I came here, my prediction was that I was gonna have two more areas, so this is one, Stevensville is my second, my prediction is I might finish there.   I don’t know, again it’s the Lord’s will, clearly I know the Lord’s will perfectly for everything in my whole life.  And two more companions.  My companion is going to be Elder Johnson this time, and I don’t know who the second one is going to be but this is my prediction.  Back on Stevensville, I’ve heard it’s like… oh, crap, what was that place called?  Umm, I know it, I know it, Don’t tell me, I think it’s Stars Hollow? The Gilmore Girls town?  I met a couple sisters in Butte who came into our zone, they were just in the other district while I was there, but had a lot of fun, it was that same sister who served in that Nauvoo mission? A temple mission? She was just telling me she came from this place, she’s going to miss it so much, she’s like, “It’s basically Stars Hollow.” I don’t even know if it’s Stars Hollow, I think that’s the place. But she kept going on about all these comparisons to it and everything, and I’m like, “okay.”  So pretty excited about that. 

Elder Shumway just walked in.  He gave himself a really nice haircut, he gave me a haircut yesterday, not yesterday, Saturday. (Friday) Friday.  One of those three days.  It was Friday. Friday night.  That’s right, cause we were at Jimmy’s house.  The member we stay with in Boulder.  I’m going to pause this, I’m going to go upstairs and get a vacuum, that’s about it for now.  Love you, and I’ll keep on talking, Bye!

Hey, I’m back!  So when I got to this area, in a drawer, left by previous missionaries, I found a space saver bag. One of those vacuum seal ones where you suck out all the air and it makes things smaller?  Well, I just decided to try that with my blanket, the big blue one, and you know, I’m sure it would have worked really really really well if we had a vacuum that could suck out the air, so instead I was upstairs trying to push out all the air, trying to squeeze it out myself and it worked alright, it’s definitely smaller, more compact, a lifesaver in what I’ve been trying to do with the darn thing, I’ve been lugging it around my whole mission without it.  It’s been good.  I completely forgot what I was going to say.

So yeah, I’m going to that wonderful little town. I mean supposedly it’s tons of similarities, it’s great, I’m pretty excited.  (conversation with companion about lost Clorox wipes.) We bought some the other day, and now we can’t find them.  Let me think, Oh crap, there’s some socks and a sweater that I forgot to throw in the washing machine.  Yay.  I’ll just ask if I can throw them in with my companions. Or it’s just a sock and a sweater.  I can go without washing those.

Let’s see, things here are going really well, we’ve… wow.  What has even gone on the last couple of days?  Andy, Andy is progressing, so she did decide to move out, and she’s in Great Falls.  We asked the sister missionaries over there to stalk her and track her down. Well, not stalk her, but do a bit of investigative work.  See if shes at the same place that they taught her before, they know where her mom lives, and they were able to find her at her moms house.  She doesn’t have a phone, and she was like “I kept planning on contacting the missionaries, and let them know where I was, I just needed to get around to it.” But the sisters tracked her down, and we sent over her record, she’s loving the church, like I said, bore her testimony the other day, is on date to get baptized, wants to go out and go teach with the sister missionaries, so there’s a great success story there.  Someone who’s changed their life for the better.  Got out of a baddish situation, yeah, bad, and helped themselves.  It was great to see that.  (Another conversation about the elusive Clorox wipes.)

Lets see, we had a really cool miracle last night, we’re going around, and we’re like, “It’s Easter! We need to spread the gospel!”  And so we’re going around showing the Easter video, trying to share scriptures of Christ, and we fell prompted to go try a member that we’re right next to.  We knock on the door, they let us in, we talk, we say “Have you seen the video?” “Yeah, we’ve seen the video!” And so we watch it again with them.  And we’re like, “It’s Easter, is there anyone that you know that would want to watch a two minute Easter video?”  And they’re like, “You know what, we have this neighbor, like three houses down that we think would be interested.  She’s a sweet older lady..”  And the wife was like “You know what, I’m going to go grab her right now!”  And just runs outside. They get her and she comes over, and she’s this sweet, sweet old lady, she watches the video with us, loves it, we read Alma 7: 11-13, and bear our testimony of Christ, and it was amazing. She accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, with the new Christ pass along card with our information on it, well, not mine, we wrote Elder Palmer and Elder Shumway on it. 

Yeah!  Elder Shumway’s new companion is Elder Palmer who came out with me.  I don’t think you know him, I was never companions with him.  He was in Butte with me and in Wyoming with me. He was in Butte for like two transfers with me, my first two transfers, and one transfer in Wyoming.  He served in Thermopolis in Wyoming and Deer Lodge in Butte.  Really great guy, I’m excited for him in this area, my new companion is Elder Johnson, I don’t know anything about him, but I’ve heard great things, I’m excited.  Packing is going alright, I’ve got pretty much everything but clothes and random stuff packed away.  (companion jokingly accuses elder Berrett of hiding the Clorox wipes so he doesn’t have to clean the bathroom – they discuss the wipes for awhile)   Gotta love losing stuff. Yep, I’m hiding it.  Muahaha I don’t want to clean the bathroom. (they look for it in the trash can)

Anyways, that’s about it for now, how long is this recording?  Eleven minutes. I want to make sure this sends off through gmail so love you, hope you have a wonderful day, I’m going to begin looking, and I hope you have a wonderful Monday.  I’ll continue to make recordings as I pack.

Love you!