Voice Recording July 24

Well, howdy mom, this is Elder Berrett.  Making a voice recording now, we didn’t have too much time today.  This morning we got up at 6:30, and went and, there’s this really awesome hike called Lake Como, over by… It’s pretty close to our house. It was only maybe a 10-15 minute drive away.  So we got up early to do that, and we pretty much went straight from there to where we are now doing laundry, and I totally could have made a voice recording then when it was nice and quiet, but I was thrown off and realized that I haven’t made one yet. And I was going to do it on our drive to dinner, but I saw that’s only like ten minutes, so here I am.

So let’s start, so Monday I had a great time up until Elder Hand’s news obviously.  We were both a little crushed by that.  But, we had a good time.  It was good. We’re honestly both glad we just got it out of the way, peeled off the bandaid, didn’t wait until Wednesday when they could fit it us in.  He’s home now.  Left Thursday morning, that was an adventure and a half.  We got to stay with the zone leaders, Elder Tucker was one of them, so of course we probably stayed up until one, just all talking and laughing, at which point we then went to bed for 2 ½ to 3 hours, woke up at like 3:30, got ready, drove him to the airport, dropped him off, took pictures, drove back, and then slept.  Slept another couple of hours, got up, made crepes for breakfast, thanks to Elder Tucker, I forgot how great he is at making crepes.  And then went on with our day.  That was an adventure and a half there.

Right now we’re in the Searle’s gym, so you can probably hear all the background basketball noises, probably have been for awhile.  After the bike ride, a really awesome running swing set (??) and a bit of basketball earlier, my knees are pretty well done for today.  And especially since we are planning on hiking, doing an awesome hike next week called St. Mary’s,  I’m thinking I really should not do anything the rest of the week.  Obviously do like missionary work, but not like go play basketball or do things that are going to hurt my knees.  

The hike today was normally a walking one, but we decided to bike it. So, that was a bit of an adventure.  Some of the trail definitely wasn’t made for biking, but we made it work, and it was great.  There were no rules against it, we made sure we were legal, and we had tons of fun.  It wasn’t anything dangerous, there was no like slick rock or anything like that.  I mean, it was really flat.  Just it got skinny, and there were a couple creeks that went through…  There was one point where we’re like, riding along a really gravelly road, and it’s a sheer drop off of jut rocks on my left side.  “Okay!  Don’t think about that.  Keep moving forward.”  But hey, it all went well, It was fun.  So that was Monday.

Tuesday was packing.  That was an adventure and a half.  While Elder Hand packed, I also packed up one of my suitcases with everything I had.  I mean, we loaded this suitcase up to the brim.  I think at the end we weighed it, and it was about 115 lbs.  And you know, there’s a 50 lb weight limit at the airport, so I put basically everything that’s not essential into this suitcase and brought it over to the wonderful glorious family, The Olsons.   Which, they should be in Arizona by now.  Have you guys met them yet?  I get that you drove to Utah, you’ve been working, you’ve been busy. I’m not going to hold that against you, I was just curious.  I don’t need any of that stuff, so…  yeah, that’s been that. 

That was Tuesday, we packed, and also went out.  We were able to teach a couple of lessons, not too many though.  We kept trying, but people just weren’t home.  We were able to have a lesson with the Smith family, I think I’ve told you about them.  Returning less actives, found them just by tracting, it was a miracle.  What was also a miracle is that she has an active brother, and her parents are both active in their same ward.  And they’ve been nothing but loving to them this whole time, and they were so ready to come back.  They just needed that little push. And so, it’s been really fun to teach them.  Their kids are great.  I don’t remember the boy’s name, but the girl, she got really sad the second time we went over there and I couldn’t remember her name.  And I’m like, “Okay, I’m so sorry.  What is your name again?” And she said, “Tallulah” and I went “Oh crap, I’m never going to remember that…” and then I went, “Oh, it’s just like ‘Cholula”.  So that’s how I remember her name now.  Now I’ve got to find something to remember the boy’s name.  Thankfully she’s usually yelling at him, cause, I don’t know.  They’re little kids.  That’s what they do.  So I’m like, “Oh, that’s right!  That’s your name!”  We had a great lesson with them.  They weren’t able to come to church because they had a family reunion to go to, but they’ve been coming pretty consistently, so that’s been a blessing.

Someone we haven’t been working with, because he was already active when we got here, he’s recently returned to activity, and I didn’t even know he was less active for a while there.  And to be completely honest, I don’t remember his name, and I feel so terrible about this.  I’m going to find a way to see if I can learn it this Sunday.  Oh, no, I know how to look it up. He apparently has now been active for a year, is clean from everything and just got the Melchizedek priesthood.  I had to go teach a class, and so I didn’t know, but supposedly he wanted me to be in the circle.  And I didn’t know.  And I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” He’s just an amazing guy.  And I feel terrible about this.  All I did was say hi to him and chat with him every week.  I can’t even remember his name.  But, that’s that.  Clearly I’ve improved a lot in that area. 

Church was weird this week with Elder Hand being gone and such.  I had a member come and pick me up in Hamilton and take me to church, and he was my companion, but I was the Lone Ranger at church this week.  With everyone asking, “Oh where’s Elder Hand?” “Oh, he’s home.”  Some of the people are like, “Oh, okay.”  And there’s a couple of the ladies that were like, “Oh, so he’ll be back in what, like 3 weeks?” “No, he’ll be back in six months.”  He’s having a cadaver ACL put in, and 1) they want to make sure his body accepts it, and 2) that he’ll be okay and he recovers fully so, six month recovery there.  He is planning on coming back out though.  He left a suitcase here.  He said it’s being held hostage so that’s great.

Wednesday all that happened, and we were able to do a little bit of work in the morning.  We had district meeting, ZLC, service, dinner…  Service we do at the Clothes Closet over in Stevensville, which I guess we don’t any more. That’s sad.  I think I’ve planned to go do some service there this Wednesday however.  Wednesdays are the day we’re going to be in Stevensville.  So service, tried a couple of people, went to dinner, and from there went to a fireside. 

Ok.  I gotta tell you about this fireside. It was amazing. So there’s this member Brother Jessop, he’s actually now my ward mission leader here in Hamilton.  He is from Pinesdale.  Pinesdale is the big polygamous colony here in town, which apparently I now cover part of.  I worked with a couple of people, but not too much.  Like our ward mission leader’s wife in Stevensville first ward, which I still cover, is from Pinesdale and she has a cool, cool story of how she was able to get out of that.  They had to sneak her out and other stuff.  But Brother Jessop here, that’s a big, big name around here, he basically went through the entire history of polygamy and how all these colonies started, and all these branches that have come off of the church, and he went through this whole history lesson with us for a fireside, and told his story, and that was cool.  There’s a lot of prejudice, between us apparently and the Pinesdale group when they first came down.  It got to the point where High Priests from both churches, cause their church is organized the same way, would sit up on a hill near a bridge, and they would watch for people driving, and they would take notes for who was driving to basically see if any of their members needed to be excommunicated.  “Oh are they going to the other ward?  Okay, excommunicated!” I’m like, “Holy Cow.”  He said that when he first realized that all this was wrong, he showed up at the Corvalis church, and the Bishop greeted them, “Hi!  What’s your last name?” He said “I’m brother Jessop.”  And they looked at him and said “You’re not welcome here.” It was just this, ‘We don’t need to cause all this contention’ and you know there’s just a lot, a lot of anger.  He said he even had the Stake President come up and tell him that, but he kept showing up.  It got to the point that even when he married his wife, the stake President pulled aside his wife and he said, “Hey listen, this guy, he may be a member now, but he’s not going to stick with it, he’s probably going to go back to the colony, you really should find someone else.”  But, since then however, a couple years back, the man who… they don’t call him… I want to say he’s basically their prophet, was found guilty of child molestation and is in prison right now, and that really, really for obvious reasons, splintered, I mean not splintered, but I mean like earthquaked everything that was going on there.  And since then, it’s basically woken everyone up there, and people from Pinesdale are flooding to the church.  For the longest time, the Corvalis ward was the highest baptizing ward in the mission, in this whole region because of all these families that were coming over.  The Corvalis elders have a bunch of families that are being taught, they have to call up President every other week for an interview from him, and they have to get a General Authority to come down and interview.  But it’s amazing.  So that was a really cool fireside. It did go a little long.  I think the fireside ended at…  I don’t know, what time did Brother Jessop’s fireside end at, Elder Davis?  Like 9:30, 9:45? It was something like that.  It was late, and we’re like, “We still really need to drive to Missoula.” That was an adventure and a half.  So yeah, had a ton of fun there.

Elder Zeller just finished playing some awesome b-ball. Cause he’s a stud.  Right, Elder Zeller? Sure.  That was that.  It was super spiritual and super uplifting, and I’m really excited to work with this guy.  He’s the one that gave us the personality test awhile back at that zone activity.  Found out, you know there’s the four personality types or whatever that is…  The driver, the expressive, the amiable, and the basically intellectual, but I can’t remember what the word that was used for it. I’m amiable. Like, apparently hard core, and I’m like “Okay, I’ll take it. Whatever.”  He is super fun.  Let’s see how long has this been going? 14 minutes. Okay, I’m good.

Anyways, that was Wednesday.  Thursday – weekly planning, no… Thursday, we’re back to our area, back to my house, packed up everything, I want to say did some work, went to dinner, I don’t remember what we did Thursday evening.  To be honest, Thursday and Friday was a bit of a blur.  Friday we did some weekly planning.  We went to Logging Days. No, that was Saturday.  Getting used to this whole new area has been crazy.  We had Logging Days at one point, which is a big thing over in Darby, another town we cover apparently.  Another whole ward over there.  I told you already that because of us covering two wards over here, they gave away second ward to the Lolo sisters.  They’re really happy about that, because now they actually have more work to do.  And I’m like, “That was ALL my work in Stevensville.” Sadly there’s just not really anything in First ward other than the Smith family.  Really, though. So, that’s that.  It’s really good though, because there’s a sister that’s training there.  And to be honest, covering the two wards was pretty hard for us.  But they also cover Lolo, and that’s a whole other ward there.  Their area is now huge, so it will be fun to see how that works out.

Logging days, that was cool.  It was a big community thing. We were going to it, saw that it cost money, we were like, “Oh, never mind.” We were about to leave and a lady is like, “Oh, Elders!  I know the missionaries! I’ll pay for them.”  And 15 bucks each, she just paid for us to all go in.  And we’re like, “We’re only going to be here an hour.” And she’s like, “That’s fine.” Super sweet of her, not interested, but super sweet.  In there, there really wasn’t much we could do, we stayed around and tried to talk to people for an hour, but everyone was drinking beer and just was not interested in talking to us about spiritual things.  So, I was offered more beer than probably a standard week in Butte.  It was pretty crazy.  No drugs though, so that was the upside.

I’m trying to think, I’m so sorry about this. You even told me to write down a list.  Last night we had some fun.  Ambushed Elder Crockett.  I have pictures of that.  Elder Davis has his shirt wrapped around his head, and I’m up there with an Iron Man mask, and I’m holding a semi-automatic Nerf rifle.  With a 10 round banana clip. And a standard Nerf pistol.  Apparently Elder Crockett and Elder Davis have lots of Nerf guns and have Nerf wars. I’m like, “okay!  That’s chill.” I would get some, but 1) I don’t have money for that and 2) I’m going home in 3 ½ weeks.  There’s no way I’m packing home Nerf guns.  That’s actually helped me a lot.  I’m like, “I don’t really need that. I’m kind of going home.”  I’m literally just spending all my money on food.  It’s good.  I do already spend my missionary allotment pretty wisely, but I don’t go out to eat as much because especially this next month, I’m going to have a limited allotment, because I’m only going to be there 19 days.  Take this month for instance, Elder Hand was going home so he wanted to eat out at our favorite restaurant Romeos like every day or every other day.  Which it’s great, and we get half off there, but 5-6 dollars every lunch really wears down your allotment.

I’m trying to think of what else… Honestly it was just a crazy, awesome, hectic, great week.  I need to get a haircut.  A neighbor reminded me about that.  Tomorrow, I think we have plans to call a lady about it.  I had one lined up in Stevensville, but I had to cancel it.  Because I’m now in Hamilton.  I live here in Hamilton full time.  The apartment here is nice.  Don’t have a washer and dryer, but we have members here who will let us use theirs in the guest house they have.  The same members that own this giant gym.  They are crazy awesome. 

This has been 19 minutes.  I should probably pause this, gather my thoughts, and maybe make another one as we are riding up to dinner.  I love you a ton mom. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.  Your encouraging words really did help.  You know, it’s kinda crazy to think that I’ll see you guys soon, but I really need to continue to live worthy of the Priesthood and strive to become more Christlike is the thoughts that have been going through my mind.  It’s just one of those reminders that I am going to be the only Melchezidek priesthood holder in the house right now.  I really have to strive for that, and I’m like, “Got it.”  So, ending this up, have a wonderful day, God Bless, and keep on smiling.  Bye!