Well, good morning!
How are you doing? I’m doing
great. It’s been a fantastic week.
Let’s see, I’ve been making a list all week of things to
talk about, so I actually have a little checklist on my tablet. It’s smarter than just trying to go by
memory. So I have plans today. It’s great.
Anyways, things here have been going wonderful. I love
Elder Hand. He’s a stud. It’s kinda fun having a companion who actually like knows how to do
things. Like, so we’re at the store, and
I’m like “So we got this flag… “ Someone gave us this United States flag, brand
new, folded up. “But we don’t have
anything to put it up with.” And he’s
like, “Ok, we’re going to Ace Hardware then.”
And so we just went to Ace Hardware and bought a kit and threw it up.
And I’m like, “Oh my goodness! This is
how adults do things. This is awesome!”
So he’s a stud. I love, love
serving with him.
Let’s see, things to tell family about… Okay. So this would
have been Tuesday night. I’m calling
this… Crap, I forgot to call the sisters last night. They even had an alarm go off. I suck at
remembering to call. Call my
district. I’ll call sporadically
throughout the week. I’m supposed to call every now and then, see how they are
doing, obviously since I only see them at district meetings and maybe
preparation day. Not even today, because
we’re going to Missoula, I’ll tell you more about that later. So yeah,
apparently I forgot to do that yesterday.
See how their week’s been, get reports… yeah. Well actually I don’t get reports anymore, we
got rid of that like 4 months ago? So I
was normally good at that, and that was the big reason to call, get their
report and then minister to them, but I forgot.
Okay, so making brownies.
Tuesday night I’m calling, get to the Lolo sisters, no the Blodgett
Canyon sisters, and I go “Hey sisters, how are you doing?” and it gets to the
end and I ask if there’s anything I can do for them and Sister Wood, who’s been
with me since Helena, so she feels comfortable enough to joke around and be
sarcastic with me, which is kinda funny because she’s normally this really
really shy girl. Shy cow girl, just,
yeah. She goes, “Elder Berrett, I want
brownies tomorrow at our district meeting.”
And I go “Okay.” And I see my
companion, and he’d heard some of her sassier remarks throughout the call, and
he just gets up, and it’s like 10:10, and so he just gets up and walks to the
kitchen. And so I’m like “Well, we’ll
see what we can do. We have a box of brownie mix, you’ll have a box of brownie
mix tomorrow.” And she’s like “No, I
want them MADE.” I’m like “Okay, Sister Wood. Have a good night.” I hung up the phone and look over and Elder
Hand is like “The woman wants brownies, we’re making her brownies!” (laughs) So
we went to bed a little later than we should have. Like 10:50… 11:00 at night because we made
brownies. It was great. Cooked with our
gas stove for the first time. Which was
an adventure, because our pilot light has been a little wonky. We like looked at it, opened it up after 30
minutes, and were like “Is it cooked? I
can’t tell…” Yeah, it was fun. Getting
a stove with a light in it is something I’m going to do when I’m an adult. Well, when I’m off my mission. Or just invest in a flashlight. I even have one. I don’t know why I didn’t… So yeah! That was a fun adventure.
Allergies… Yes. So, I
apparently have allergies now, other than just cats. It’s been fun this last week. Like it hit me, I think it was Monday, I just
started getting sniffly. Tuesday, I
don’t know, really really congested. I
want to say it really hit like Wednesday.
I was lying on the couch, just dying.
I’m like, “This is awful.” I was
like “What the crap is going down?” And
it kinda hit me, I’m like, “Oh, No. Allergies.”
Throughout the whole day it kept hitting me, and at the end of the day
it was like this climax. I have freaking
seasonal allergies. What is going
down? I’ve never had this before. And I’m like “Elder, what do I do?” And he’s like “I’ve got some Benadryl.” So I took Benadryl and that was fun. Loopy.
Had a great night’s sleep, woke up and he gave me, what’s this
called? Allegra-D allergy and congestion
24 hour. And that was wonderful
Thursday. Like I had no symptoms it was
just like after an hour, boom! Gone. I
felt like back to normal. I’m like, “Oh
my goodness, this is Glorious stuff.”
Thursday night I started to get really loopy though. When I say “loopy”
I meant like really, really dizzy. I
couldn’t quite focus as well. It was
hitting me Friday morning too after I had taken it, and I had interviews with
President that morning and Sister Wadsworth was like “Well… The D in Allegra-D
stands for…” something, I can’t remember what she told me, but she said, “Yeah,
that could be causing it.” But it’s been
getting less and less, I think my body is like “I don’t know what to do with this
stuff.” It’s also been working a little
less, it hasn’t been as great as that first day, but it certainly helps, so
that might be something to look into investing in at some point. How long do allergies last? I know it’s all the pollen in the air. Is there bad allergies back in Arizona? I don’t think there’s that much pollen, but I
know we have citrus trees, I just know
that we were at Phil’s house, and that was when it was really, really bad
Thursday night, and I’m looking out the window, and he lives a little higher
out in the country, so we can just look out over the whole valley, and from far
away you can just see it covered in pollen.
Like this haze over the whole place.
And I’m like “That’s why I’m dead.”
But it’s been great! And now I
know what it is, and I’ve been treating it.
So yeah, any thoughts or advice on that would be wonderful.
How long has this been going on? I’m going to pay a lot more attention because
apparently 22 ½ minutes or whatever that was, was my limit, and other than that
I have to upload that to Google drive and I’m not doing that again.
Let’s see, fixing… I got to freaking man-up and… Elder Hand,
before his mission he went to tech college for small engine diesel
mechanics. So I’m like “Holy crap, he’s
awesome. He knows what to do for everything.”
Like, we’ll be at lessons and I’m like, “Yeah, the atonement is real,
because we’re not perfect, we’re going to make mistakes, unless you’re like
Elder Hand. He’s already perfect. He’s glorious.” Love Elder Hand so much. Definitely a friendship for life. But Elder Hand’s tablet has been giving him
so much grief. It’s two OS’s (Operating Systems) behind, or two updates behind,
and we were able to install an update, well we were able to download an update,
but when it goes to install it, the whole thing crashes, and we get an error
message, and (has issues starting up) and then they release a new update, and
his tablet is really behind, and with Moss 360, the church’s software and so
it’s getting really slow and buggy. And
so we felt that we needed to set aside a lot of that day, because it was kinda
slow anyway, we didn’t really have any lessons planned. We did weekly planning and then just set
aside the day to figure that out and get it fixed. So I’m like, “Oh this is awesome!” So the whole day I’m like “I get to use some
skills that I know” I guess. It was just kinda fun like, the whole week
I’m like “Yeah, I’m with Elder Hand, he’s this mechanic who knows everything.” Our car is giving us grief, that’s why we’re
going to Missoula, the dealership, and I’m just like, “Oooh! I can finally do something!” And so, we ended up having to take it to
another guy in the ward, brother Augusto, he’s awesome, he’s this older guy in
the ward, the one I was telling you that served in Gilbert, that now has 11
stakes, I forgot to mention that to him.
Anyways, his son is really really good with computers, both of them, and
they are living with him temporarily. So
I sat down with them, and we sat down to fix this darn tablet, and it’s still
not good. Thankfully its under warranty,
so basically we just have to send it back in to Samsung. They’re trying one more guy over in Missoula
today over there, his mom apparently made a few calls, and found a guy that
supposedly can do it. So what we have
to do, is force the new OS in, updating the firm ware in the device, we have to
basically force it in through a… and you probably don’t even care about that,
so I’m just going to stop talking.
Anyways, we had it all set up, had it all ready, but we were unable to
find the freaking OS, or the update file.
We called up Samsung, and they are like, “Oh yeah! It’s on the internet, just go to our
website…” No, all of us were searching. We couldn’t find it, all we could find were
third parties, which probably installed like bugs and malware and stuff in
it. So hours upon… We give up. We quit.
None of us could find it, we talked to Samsung, and they’re like “Oh just take
it to Best Buy”. No. We called up Best Buy and they don’t even
have it, so I don’t know what that guy at Samsung was thinking. Long story short, that was fun. I actually got to do stuff that I know how to
do.
So, check. Check. Check.
Next one, ‘Interviews with President’.
That was awesome. I say this all
the time, I love President Wadsworth.
And since we’re here in Steve-I (Slang for Stevensville?), this is a
stake center, so this is where all the interviews are held, which means we get
to go first. It’s kind of a really neat
experience because we unlocked the doors for President Wadsworth, and let him
in and, I got to do this in Helena too which was super nice. No I didn’t get to do that in Helena, we went
last since we’re the zone leaders, so I got part of the same experience, but
not quite. So, for a half hour, It’s
just us. And President and Sister
Wadsworth. We fill out a little form,
you know how we’re doing and everything, self-evaluation sheet, and then one of
us goes in with President Wadsworth, Elder Hand went in first. And so I’m just there with sister Wadsworth,
and so basically I got to have two interviews, one with Sister Wadsworth, and
one with President. And then we
switched. And I’m kinda thankful that he
went first because I got to have two full interviews basically, because halfway
through his time with Sister Wadsworth, the sisters came in. I mean you still get to talk to Sister
Wadsworth, it’s still great, but it’s not just like a one on one. Just a wonderful experience, we talked and
she’s like “Elder Berrett, I remember my first district meeting, it was with
you and Elder Hendricks…” And I’m
like, “I remember that!” We were talking just about the adventure this
mission has been. She’s like, “You’ve
had an adventure of a mission.” Yeah,
yeah I have. But it’s been wonderful and
we talked about how we’ve both grown. They
go home in a year. They’re from Small
Town Nevada, Panaca Nevada. They’ve
really turned into another mom and a dad for me. I love them to death. She’s like “Elder Berrett, especially you
Elder Berrett, you better keep in contact with me!” I’m like “Yes, ma’am!” (laughs) Oh, love them to death. Interview with President was amazing. We talked a lot just about, I don’t know, a
lot about the atonement, enduring to the end… He brought up Moses chapter 1 and
that was pretty cool to hear him expound some stuff out of that. I got my temple recommend renewed. Apparently the way that recommends you get on
your mission work, cause mine expires
this month, when you get a recommend on
your mission it’s good the rest of your mission, and then expires three months
after you get home. That’s the date
that it expires. And so it’s basically
to help missionaries stay in contact with their bishops and stake presidents. They don’t want us going less active. So that’s fun.
I’m like, “I respect that. That’s fair.”
I was kinda hoping for a two year so I could my mission one for two
years, but I guess this also does make sense.
I’ll still have my Mission President’s one, they even gave me a little
case for it with the Billings temple. So
I have the one I used my whole mission, my first one, in that case that we got,
and now I have one with the Billings temple, so… I like these cases, they’re
like… Keep track of them, put them in a box or something so my kids can stumble
across them when I’m long and gone.
Ok, um, oh yeah, this was just a thought I had a couple days
ago that the longer I’m out, which really means the longer I’m reading the
scriptures, and praying and doing the things I need to because I wasn’t the
best at doing that before my mission, the more I know the Lord is always by our
side. I mean he’s just ALWAYS there for
us. Lifting us up. Literally walking by us in all instances, whether
Him, or angels, they are always by our side.
I know this is the case with us back home. I know angels are always by you guys and it’s
kinda crazy to think, but really though.
I mean everything we do, we have the spirit with us, as we live worthy
of it. Even when we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing the spirit is
right there prompting us to turn back around.
You know, “c’mon! Get your butt in gear!” We’re never alone. I love that. That’s just really been hitting me
lately. One thought that President
Wadsworth shared with me, and I was reading about that more this morning, is
the fact that Satan is always going to be there to tempt us, that’s a fact. But
Heavenly Father is always going to be there to lift us up and give us
power. Moses in chapter 1 had this great
experience where he was taken up on the mountain, and wow. I mean he talked to Jesus Christ face to
face, was ministered unto by Him, learned…. I can’t even imagine that
experience. Jesus Christ leaves, and who
immediately comes, but Satan.
Immediately just appears to him, and tells him, “Here am I, Worship
ME.” And Moses, like the stud he is,
just looks at him and goes, “I was JUST in the presence of Jesus Christ, and
beheld his glory. Where is your glory?
You have none.” But what President pointed out to me was new this time. Moses, he told him to “Get thee hence”. FOUR
TIMES. And it wasn’t until the 4th
time… So at the end of the third time, Satan, he’s getting angry that he’s
being rejected, but he’s STILL THERE.
And I’m like, “Interesting….”
Satan didn’t just go away. And it wasn’t until the third time, he
basically cried up to the Lord, “Lord, help me.” He was filled with the spirit
of the Lord Jesus Christ, immediately, and which point he then stood up and
said, “In the name of the Only Begotten, Leave.” Or “Get the hence.” The fourth time, filled with the spirit of
Christ, Satan wailed and gnashed his teeth, and went away. And it was the idea that we can Always call
upon the Lord, no matter where we are, or what situation we’re in, in the
presence of Satan, and with that be able to tell him to ‘Get thee hence.’
Overcome all things. We are imperfect
people. Through the Lord we CAN do all
things. And I LOVE that. I’m just like, “Oh my goodness, this is
amazing.”
So this is 19 minutes, I’m going to pause it, and send it
off and start a new one. Well I can’t send it off because there’s no wifi here,
but I’m going to save it, and start a new one so I can actually send this
off. Alright, love you. Bye!
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