Elder Nicholas Berrett is currently serving in the Billings Montana mission (serving most of Montana and a good portion of Wyoming) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is excited to serve the Lord and the people of Montana and Wyoming for the next two years!

Monday, May 29, 2017

Voice Recording May 29 part 2

Good morning, mom!  Let’s see, just finished washing the pan and the spatula.  We ran out of Pam spray which is the saddest day ever.  We ran out like a week ago. Nine days ago.  And I forgot to buy some last Monday.  So, thankfully, in the cupboards I found a thing of sesame oil, so I’ve been using that.  And it’s been an adventure. Since, I’m never too sure if I put in enough until I spread it around, and then I’m like, “Oh crap.  I’m freaking deep frying my eggs right now.”  Today it looks like I put in just enough.  So, kinda the dilemma, I kinda like the taste of using sesame oil more than Pam definitely.  But, I don’t like my eggs to be oily at all.  So I use less oil, but then they stick to the pan.  So that is kinda the dilemma I’m in.  What are some of your cooking thoughts on that?  I mean the taste isn’t that much of a difference, I can deal with it, I mean this morning I’m probably going to go buy Pam and I’m going to deal with it, and use it, because it’s so much easier and faster.  And I don’t end up with oily eggs.  I don’t know.  Yeah.  That’s that.

So, How have you been?  Things have been going well.  Things here have been well.  It has been a tough couple of weeks. My companion’s in the shower now, but it has been a tough couple of weeks. Elder Johnson’s kind of like checking out.  Definitely.  But the Lord has been really good in helping me honestly.  And teaching me a lot more.  Like even in my studies today, I’m going to grab my… I was… oh crap…I don’t even remember where it was.  Gosh darn it.  This is why you write stuff down.  Oh, yes.  Now I remember.  It was last night, I was kinda feeling a little frustrated, and I ended up turning to Alma, Chapter…. It was near the end… sorry, turning to it, if you’ll forgive me… wow I could have sworn like… okay maybe it was a little later… Yeah I think it was a little later.  So I’m in like about the 50’s? Long story short, it’s that one chapter where… Oh! Got it! Alma 56.  Nope. Nope. Gosh Freaking Darnit. Well, I thought I had it. Got it.  Alma 60. So this is the chapter where Moroni basically writes a letter to Pahoran, just chastising him.  Just being like, “Hey, Because of your sin and your ignorance, and forgetting us, men are dying. We don’t have supplies.  All these children, these families are being slaughtered by the Lamanites out here and we can’t protect them adequately enough.”  And then come to find out Pahoran is like “Dude, I’m trying!  My heart sorrows because of this, however I am rejoicing because of your faithfulness.  These men have risen up and basically a civil war has started as well, in the middle of this war.”  And there were a couple of verses that stuck out to me as I was reading, It was kinda like, Alma as he was “Or is it that ye have neglected us because ye are in the heart of the country and ye are surrounded by our security that ye do not cause food to be sent to us, also men to strengthen our armies? Have ye forgotten the commandments of the Lord your God?  Yea, have ye forgotten the captivity of our fathers? Have ye forgotten the many times we have been delivered out of the hands of our enemies? Do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us as we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?”  Especially that verse, 21, really stuck out to me, and I am just like “Am I making use of all the means the Lord has given me to receive strength?  To help others. To love, have charity, patience, forgiveness, and all these things.”  The Lord has taught me a lot about forgiveness recently. I don’t know, it kind of hit me really hard there just kinda taking those verses, not out of the context of the story, but the principles they were saying. I was like “Oh! You’re right!” That was pretty cool for me this morning to read that and to see.  And also I was watching Life of Jesus Christ Bible videos, back in Helena I found a way to basically just download them all, because we don’t have access to the app or anything, so I went on LDS.org on my tablet, and since it’s a Samsung I can just download videos off the internet, or off of the internet we get access to, so LDS.org. I can download and save them to my device to view later.  So I downloaded ALL the Bible videos, and have them all in order, in chronological, so I’ve been watching those and got to the… Oh which one was it? There was a couple that hit me.  I don’t even remember immediately.  I’m trying to look at the list.  Let’s see… My Files… SD card… videos… Bible videos… (whistling Ode to Joy) Yes! Um, so there’s a couple ones, like “Go and Sin No More”, you know the woman who was caught in adultery, that was huge, “Go and sin no more, neither do I condemn thee.” And then the “Forgive Seventy times seven” is big.  And there was a lot of these like, In order for us to receive forgiveness, do we not realize we have to treat others with forgiveness and love them, and cherish them, and help them out?  Even with Alma and Amulek, or Alma initially in the city, he strove to, even has they were rejecting him, to love them, and cherish them.  And that was cool.  However, we’ve been getting along pretty well.  So it’s not that bad, it’s been good.

As far as other things go this week, like I said, we had some great lessons.  Mary is still struggling to come to church.  She was doing super good. And now it’s just been that Satan has been working really hard against them lately.  It’s been things like “Clearly Satan doesn’t want you guys to come to church.” So the last three weeks it’s been, I don’t remember what it was two weeks ago, I really don’t remember.  This last week her son had taken her car and pretty much ran it out of gas, and took all her money and bought cigarettes.  So she was stuck and we found out a little too late to give her a ride.  This week she slept in and woke up right as church was starting and she’s like, “no,no,no,no!” And so she texted us, “Guys, I’m so sorry, is there another session that I can come?” And we’re like, “Yeah!  Don’t worry.  There’s one at 12:30”  Well, apparently she didn’t get the text.  And we texted her at like 12:15, and asked her if she was still coming, and it didn’t work out.  She’s been so looking forward to coming.  She’s an investigator we’ve been teaching.  Super awesome lady.  Used to be Jehovah’s Witness, but never really found a lot of fellowship or love there. She found like care but, in her words, “I had a lot of great experiences with Jehovah’s Witnesses”, but it was always like the attitude of “You should be thankful I’m doing this to you”, she really needed help and they weren’t there for her, but Mormons were, and so that helped a lot.  She’s recently loved the Book of Mormon, although she hasn’t been reading it so  I’m worried about her.  I know she struggles a lot.  Works RIDICULOUS hours at the hospital, and is just always exhausted.  So we’re trying to help her find ways to do that.

Mary, Jacob, Amanda, Hurless family… I didn’t get to meet with them this week.  Another investigator family we are teaching.  It’s this older couple.  Brother Hurless has a terminal brain injury. He’ll be dying soon. I don’t know how soon, but pretty dang soon.  He’s been feeling it more and more affect him, but he’s found a lot of peace in God recently.  The missionaries used to meet with him, and we recontacted him, and they let us in.  Don’t know how interested they are in learning, they love it when we come over and share a message of Christ, of peace and hope.  We went over a couple of times, we challenged him last time to read the Book of Mormon and to pray if families can be eternal.  And this next time, the spirit was kinda telling us, “Yeah, that was great that you taught that, that’s really a principle that they need to hear, but you should teach them HOW families can be eternal, not just that they are, but HOW.” And we’re like, “Oh. Okay.” So that’s our plan for the next lesson. We still need to pray about it obviously, but that’s the thought we had last time.  We’re planning on visiting him this week, or on splits this Thursday.  We have a couple fellowshippers in the ward that they like.  (Sigh)  I love the people here so much.  There’s so many struggles here.  They just break my heart. But, there’s this one guy that we went and did service for, I think I told you about this last week.  Maybe. Maybe not.  We went to help move hay, like I got scratched up ridiculously, and I was kinda like “This is a long service project… I don’t know how effective it is…I’m still doing it… I don’t feel bad about it, but… ”  Those were kinda some of the thoughts going through my head. And then the next day in ward council, literally the next day, the Bishop tells us that he has a terminal disease as well, like it’s getting to the point where he just approached Bishop to make arrangements, finalize his will and everything.  It’s going to be soon.  So it really was good that we, at least that’s what kept hitting me, and even the spirit was like telling me, “No, you’re doing a good thing, shut up.” And so I went and did it. But yeah.  

The Lord knows what he is doing.  That has been the theme of this transfer.  I swear that a lot of these transfers have themes. Like Powell, when I was with Elder Tucker, we joked that our theme was “There can be miracles when you believe.”  And we played that song all the time from Prince of Egypt.  Here it’s “I am the Lord, I know what I am doing. Just listen to me. Listen to my spirit please.  TRUST ME. I know I’m doing.”  I’m like “You’re right.”  I feel like I listen to the Lord, I just doubt sometimes.  Doubting Thomas.  That’s what I am at times.”  And now I’m out of tortillas, good thing today is Monday.

Let’s see, what else has been going on?  As far as eventful stuff goes…  See, the eggs, well I guess you can’t see, but the eggs are good, but oily. Like I only put enough in to just kind of coat the bottom enough that it won’t stick.  I had a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches this week.  Kinda off topic, but holy cow. I’m just like, kinda done with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  There was one day when I had one for lunch, I had a bunch of toast that morning , oh yeah, I discovered an old jar of Nutella in the pantry that no one’s touched.  Long story short, that jar of Nutella is now gone.  I was like “Oooh!” and so every day I would have one or two pieces of toast with Nutella on it.  It was glorious.  But that jar of Nutella is gone.  And I don’t get money for another couple of days so I won’t be buying any this week, which is probably best for my health, since it’s not good for you.  It was such an easy breakfast. I could get up and I was lazy and I’m like “I don’t want to make eggs. I’ve had them every day for awhile.  Oh yay! Nutella!” And so I’d just have toast with Nutella and a bunch of water and lemonade, and that was my breakfast.

How long has this been going? 18 minutes.  Good, I just finished eggs, they are in my tortilla, I need to bless it, so I’m going to stop this recording anyway since it’s getting long, bless my food, and maybe come up with a list of other things I’d like to tell you this week.  I feel so bad about the last couple of weeks, like literally I will be sitting down with my ipad for like an hour, chatting to other people, and like trying to start writing a weekly email, or something. And, I just have no desire to.  I’m like, THIS is just so much easier.  It’s HARD to sit down and write an email.  I’m going to try to force myself to sit down and write something, because it’s the end of a transfer and I haven’t sent one out.  So I’m going to send out SOMETHING even if it’s a “Hey, I’m alive.  Don’t have too much time today.  Love you all.”  With pictures.


Anyways, I’m going to pause this. Love you to death. Have a wonderful day. Bye. 

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