Low: - 26

Gooood morning everyone!

How are you all doing this week? I'm personally doing pretty dang Fantastic :)

So this week in Butte we unfortunately weren't able to teach too many lessons (most of them all canceled) but however we were able to find a new less active, who even showed up to church! It was so cool! So while we didn't teach too many lessons, we did have a really service filled week. :) One of the fun things that we are doing is there is this awesome investigator named Allison that the sisters are teaching in another Ward who is going through a really hard time. However she is really working as hard as she can to get back on her feet. One of the things that we are doing for her is helping her to remodel her house (basically a ton of construction work) so that she and her son can live up stairs while she has a day care down stairs. While normally I would be overwhelmed about undertaking a huge project like this, I am so glad that I have had insanely awesome teachers in my life who have helped to teach me skills that I need. ( like Mr. Ginger beard :)) (ps. Stahl, measuring twice THEN cutting really is a thing!  I can't even begin to tell you how much wood that has saved us all as I make sure that everyone is double checking their measurements.)

Another cool thing that we have been doing is helping out at the Food bank and shelter. Those are both wonderful places to serve and it's so wonderful to see people who are honestly struggling get the much needed help. :) there is nothing quite like the joy that comes from serving others (except possibly missionary work) and I have been so thankful for the opportunities that I have had this week to do just that :)

Another big part of this week has obviously been Thanksgiving! While we did actually have 6 dinners and a breakfast scheduled, most of them were just snacks and getting to know the members/doing service for them. Also this week I had the most terrifying experience of driving in snow. While I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to have a car in this area, because I know that there are missionaries who don't, it's terrifying driving buttes 19% grade uptown. I am so thankful for members who have offered to give us rides in trucks (since we have a small two wheel drive Corolla) and who have given us tips on driving on ice.

High for this week: Pie, so much glorious pie :) :) :) And also getting to meet the two new missionaries in our district :) it is so much fun to see these brand new missionaries figuring out themselves and realizing awesomeness of the work that we are doing :)

Low: -26 Thank goodness for layers and thermals. :) while I actually managed to stay quite warm it still has its moments :)

I love you all and hope that you all have a most wonderful week!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Excerpts from a letter to Madison - 

Hola!  Ich am spitze!  Und du?  (Spanish & German for "Hello!  I am good! And you?")

Sorry I haven't been very good at replying to your emails... I always read them and then get all excited and try to send you a giant email, but then my companion reminds me that I have to write to the Mission President first, which takes at least an hour, then the day gets crazy.  Sorry it has to be like this, but it looks like I'll just try to shoot over a quick reply every week, then just write you an amazing (handwritten) letter.  

Let's see, what else... Oh! can you believe that you are almost 16?? That's so crazy.  I have a sister who's almost 16!   (Then again, you have a brother who's almost 19...)  Sooo, concerning dating I have reached a conclusion, I shall grant you my permission to go on dates AS LONG AS they are all group dates.  I realized that this is completely ok after hearing several horror stories from several sisters in my mission.  

May the Force be with you always, (By the way, did you hear about my Darth Vader Goblet? :)  It's so cool! )

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

A long time ago, In a mission far, far away...

Good Morning Everyone!

I sincerely hope that you are all having a wonderful day and that you will all have a great Thanksgiving week! So apparently I have 6 dinners on Thursday :) it's going to be insane! 

So for those of you wondering, this week is Transfer Week! I just got the notice that I'm being transferred to the Nashville, Tennessee mission! Actually though I get to stay in Butte, WITH elder Wessendorf! It's Fantastic! He is such an amazing companion and I can't wait to continue working with him :) Plus this area has progressed way too much for me to leave. :)

So guess what everyone, I'm done training! My path to the dark side is now complete :) In honor of this great moment I now have both a Darth Vader mug, and a Light saber tooth brush :)

I'm now a fully trained real Mishamary! It's really awesome :) Only problem is that now I'm even more likely to train new missionaries now. Every transfer will bring the fear of the possibility of training. I'm honestly torn about that, I really want to train a new missionary, it would be so much fun, but I would be so stressed out about it. "Wait, I'm now responsible for teaching a new missionary everything that he needs to know!? Seriously?" But ya. That's all I have to say bout' that. 

Let's see, high and low of the week

High: that's hard, I get to stay in Butte with Elder Wessendorf!

Also I made a Snow angel! (See picture below)

Low: This week was a really slow week, all of our less actives/Investigators canceled on us this week, also Linda (the new member who was baptized a couple weeks ago) is now really struggling with a few things. Thankfully she is really turning to the Church and most importantly to the Lord for everything so there are no worries with her going less active it's just sad to see her struggle. :/

Another cool thing about this week is that we got a new less active!

We were walking in uptown by the prison's Pre-release center and this guy just came running up to us asking if we were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Upon looking at our tags, and hearing our response he quickly told us that he has gotten into some trouble in the past and now really wants to come back to the church! He's so amazing! His first name is Edward, so he is basically the only person that we are working with that is progressing, however he is an awesome person! Love that guy to death!

The thought for this week comes from the Story of the Ten Lepers. This week in Elders quorum we were discussing why the other nine possibly didn't come back to thank and praise the man, Jesus Christ, who had just healed them of this terrible disease. One of the Elder brought up the point that he was positive that they had all justified not going immediately back with some reason in their heads. Perhaps they felt like they needed to hurry and go visit loved ones first, or perhaps they didn't even see it as a blessing since like them, Christ was a Jew and maybe they felt like they deserved it. What ever the reason, they all still justified not coming back. In our lives just about every sin that we make has a justification behind it, even if it's "I'll only do it once". One thing that I've been trying to do this week, besides trying to notice and thank Heavenly Father for every blessing in my life, is to pay attention to all of my usual Justifications and see what I can do to change.

I love you all! Stay strong and remember "Life's always better behind a smile!"

Exchanges!

Goooood morning everyone!

I sincerely hope that you are all having a Fantastic week!

So to start off, I GOT A CROCK POT! A glorious crock pot, I can't wait to consume all of the fantastic meals that I will be making with it. :)

So this week, I had the opportunity to go on a 3 day exchange with some other elders in our district in Deer Lodge! It was so fantastic!

One of the really cool parts about their area is that there is this really awesome member who gave them a whole house, like 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, with a giant kitchen and living room house, and has an open tab for them at this amazing restaurant called Broken Arrow with the second best burgers ever! (first being Slaters 50/50 :)) The elder that I was with (Elder Palmer) was pretty fantastic as well. It really was a treat to watch him teach. I think one of my favorite parts about exchanges it the opportunity that you get to learn from others. One of the things that I really learned from Elder Palmer was how important it is to have members at lessons. He had an investigator who is really struggling with some things and the member that we prayerfully brought just happened to know some people who might be able to help, plus they connected really well so now the investigator can really start to feel the love that a ward and the members in it can provide :)

Another one of the cool things that happened on the exchange was that I got the crock pot! Apparently these elders just found it in their house a while back, but decided that crock pots were absolutely useless. So, thanks to them and their sad lack of knowledge of the glory that is the crock pot, I now have one :)

We don't have too many plans for Thanksgiving that I know of so far, but president did just send out an email telling us that we need to start asking members if we can join them for thanksgiving because it's a great opportunity to get to know that members better and see if there is any service that we can provide for them. I'm a little worried though. Apparently the average amount of dinners in Montana is 9 with the least that I've heard being 6 and the most 14. I don't know how I'm going to do it. It will be glorious and amazing, but insane. 

This week was also Zone training! It was an absolutely fantastic training meeting on the importance of planning. One of the coolest parts was when several companionships got up and shared miracles that they saw and wouldn't have gotten if they didn't have successful nightly and weekly planning sessions :) I am so thankful that we had such great lessons at the zone training. It really helped to cover up my companion and I's musical number. The funny thing was that while we were given a week to prepare, we sorta forgot about it until the day of. Thankfully thanks to all of the memorization practice that I had in choir (I always forgot/lost my music so quickly memorized it) I was able to quickly memorize the tenor part to "I know that my redeemer lives" and sang that while Elder Wessendorf sang the melody. Also thankfully it turned out pretty well :)

 It's amazing the miracles that the lord will provide, both on and off our mission, when we plan out things. One example of this is one of our investigators Randa. She is really struggling to progress at this point and we were really afraid that she would become an eternal investigator, one who just likes to have us over because she likes the gospel principles that are taught, but never acts on them. Yesterday, we decided to utilize prayerful planning and carefully identified and prayed about a member who we thought and felt like would be a good one. The lesson went fantastic! In the past Randa didn't really understand why it's so important to attend church. She kept telling us that the mountain was her church and that she could feel close to God there. The member that we brought managed to wonderfully explain that she used to think that way as well and that what she had come to realize, was that while the woods/mountains are fantastic places to be, we can feel even closer to God when we obey his commandments such as church attendance. Then she testified of how now she feels the mountains are even more spiritual to her as she now strives to keep all of God's commandments. :)

Another thing that made this week interesting was that we finally got into the single digits of temp. Several times this week. Thankfully I was prepared! While I may or may not have been the laughing stock of the city with all of the gear that I was wearing, I was fairly warm. :) Thankfully this next week shouldn't be as bad, we finally got a snow shovel so now driving should be way easier!

Thank you all so much for everything! I hope that you all have a most fantastic week! And in the words of the Immortal bard Samuel J. Snodgrass, as he was about to be led to the Guillotine....Make em' laugh!

Never give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

PS - the picture is Post pod ball :) we would have had our gym clothes on too but they were still in the dryer so we played in our church clothes :)  Pod ball is the greatest game ever made :) it's basically everyone vs. everyone dodge ball :) the only difference is that once your down, you have to stay there so that other people can "pod" the ball to you.

They do that because you aren't allowed to move with the ball. The only way to win is to literally get everyone out because the moment the person who got you gets out you are back in. Some games can last upwards of 1-2 hours :)

Baptism of Linda

Good morning everyone!

I hope that you are all having a fantastic week/day!

So this week was pretty amazing, want to know why? Linda's baptism was Saturday!!!

It was so absolutely amazing to see the smile on her face as she came up out of the water :) I think one of my favorite parts however was after she came up out of the water she asked to go back down again just to make sure that she was baptized :) She is so solid! During the baptism we had a great musical number by a daughter of one of her fellow-shippers who played her violin, a talk by that daughter's mom, and a talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost by yours truly :) I am so thankful for that opportunity that I had to witness someone make the decision to come closer to Christ and feel the joy that it brings :)

Also this week I got assigned to give a talk in sacrament meeting, on Saturday evening. Needless to say using my common sense to the greatest of my ability, I wrote it all 30 min. Before the meeting started. Thankfully I managed to write enough, in fact I accidentally went over 5 min. And I also thankfully had the spirit with me, which was able to help me discern what the congregation needed to hear :) It was actually an amazing experience for me :)

Another cool thing this week was all of the snow that we got! It was so cold! I am so thankful that jackets, hats, gloves, and wool socks are a thing. Because they are glorious! It was actually really funny as I was dressed in most of my winter gear while my companion just had a sweater and a jacket on, with gloves and boots of course, and most of Montana was wearing T-shirts and jeans! I had so many people come up to me these last few days and ask if I'm from the south :)

(Excerpt from a written letter shared by a friend-)

So get this, Today is the first day of snow.  Like actually we are getting 6 inches today snow! It's crazy, we just woke up to it snowing! Ya, I'm not looking forward to going outside today.  It's only 7:45 so I still have about 2 1/4 hours.  Crap, my companion is in the shower and just told me that he left something out in the car and needs me to go get it.  Noooooooooooo.  Sweet I got them.  It's crazy how wet snow is.  I always thought it would be dry and powdery.

Hey, I'm sorry that I haven't had too much time to email today, but I really wanted you guys, and all of our other friends and family, to know that I love you so much. You all have been so amazingly helpful in strengthening my testimony.

Mom, dad, thank you so much for keeping our family strong in the gospel.as missionaries, we come across so many who have fallen away, or even haven't experienced the gospel because their parents were "too busy" or just fell away. Thank you so much for raising me the way that you did. I seriously can't thank you enough. And I don't think I will ever be able to really thank you for all that you have done. You have given me something so precious and amazing. This is truly the most amazing gift that you could have ever given me. Thank you.

Sorry for the short email this week but this day has been absolutely crazy! I love you all!

Nick and his Zone Leader

Never give up, Never surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Bonus emails

Nick had a little extra time waiting for a ride while he was at a church (in wifi on p-day) so I was able to email back and forth a bit.  A rare treat indeed.

30 minutes! What a treat!  What to ask?  Do you like your blanket?  And what about the picture books I send? What's the best part about being a missionary?  What's the hardest?  Eaten any weird foods lately?

I absolutely love my blanket! Seriously it is one of the greatest things since crunchy Peanut Butter! And the picture books, Oh my goodness they are absolutely fantastic, I obviously don't pour over them, but they are hilarious to look through now and then, funny enough though, my companions seem to love them even more than me! They have all said that they are so cool and wish that their parents would do something like that. (I make him little "chat books" from my instagram pictures.  They fairly cheap and a light and easy way to carry around pictures of home.)

The best part about being a missionary is the look in someones eyes when they accept something that you teach as true, because even if they aren't baptized, I still fulfilled my purpose which is to bring others closer to Christ.

The hardest is probably planning. I hate planning but I have become pretty good at it already. Believe it or not I'm actually getting pretty organized. I even keep my room clean and always do dishes.  There is never an article of clothing that isn't in the hamper. Seriously. Honestly I haven't had any emotional problems since the MTC but that wasn't even that bad. 

Honestly not really, the weirdest thing that I have had, I have made.

Our latest creation, which isn't that weird, is BBQ Brats. Its just a brat with spicy Stubbs BBQ sauce. AMAZING! We eat it almost every day for lunch! Also it's fast so then we get about 30 min to nap/relax.

Did you ever get your extinguisher mess cleaned up? Speaking of baking, I saw some maple bacon frosting at Wal-Mart the other day, and I was thinking I should buy some and send it to you, because of all people you might appreciate trying something like that, but then I was wondering if I want to encourage you to bake in that fire hazard you are living in.  Thoughts? 

 

Yes we did! Our house in fact looks almost fantastic! We still have some sketchy wiring but I'm buying some rubber stuff today to see if we can't cover up that main. It's outside and with all of the snow/ice I figured that might be best to at least cover up.  Our oven is great! We manage to cook pizza and a few other things in it all the time, it's just 3 out of the 4 burners that don't work, well they work just a little too well :)

So, I’m a little sore.  I had a painful reminder last night about why you don’t leave crap on stairs.  I’m okay, (a few bumps and bruises and sore joints) but I probably can’t say the same for some of the leftover Halloween candy in the bowl I stepped in as I made my way down the stairs in the dark last night.  

I'm So sorry! I hope that the candy gets better soon! ;) But really though, I do hope that you get better soon! Speaking of which my knee is totally doing better with the car and brace, on occasion I have random muscle cramps that keep me from bending it but after a real (like just a few seconds) of massaging it, it goes away. 

Christopher has been on a bit of a kick sending you letters.  So far in the last couple days he has sent you three :) .  I won’t spoil too much, but there’s one letter where he says something like “I hope you have fun”  but the “have” looks more like “hate” so I just thought I’d make that clarification.  Also he ends that letter with an “amen”.  I asked him about it and he said “amen is for Jesus.”  (Zach thinks it’s something he saw on YouTube.- some little kid is writing to Santa and said amen at the end, and said “amen is for Jesus.” )

Christopher is fantastic :) I've been trying to write more letters as well its just takes forever and with so little time I swear it almost takes two days to write. I almost have everyone in the family written too though so its coming. My companion and I just laughed at that wonderful Christopherism. :) 

I'd love more details about your day, what you do, what you eat, where  you go, etc.  Just so I can picture you in my head :)  What your companion is like, where he's from, etc.  

OK! So our day is pretty amazing!

We wake up at 6:23 shower eat breakfast, study, companion study, then train (ugh so many videos and HW mainly memorization but still) then we usually go tracting for an hour until lunch. Our lunches are usually just at our house, unless it's preparation day, then we get a free lunch at this fancy sit down restaurant with a reserved table and everything, it's hilarious. They even have tiny portions and like 7 different silverware (thanks to drama I actually know what all of them are used for :)) After lunch, we have lessons/tracting till 5 then we almost always have dinner at a members house here. It's pretty amazing. dinner has to end at 6. We used to go tracting till 7 but its getting too dark to do that now so we mostly just contact members or investigators/less actives and try to schedule lessons for that time to.  At 9 we are back in the house planning till 9:30, then it's rest :) My companion is from Payson Utah, He used to work a ton of construction so he is actually fairly "Jacked". He's hilarious, and extremely nerdy so we get along really well. The only thing is that he hasn't ever seen Doctor WHO and I can't exactly convert him to that out here :)  I need to go but I will reply to other things on the way and you will probably get them next time I connect to WIFI love you!

This is Halloween!

Good Morning!

How does one describe Halloween as a missionary? Fun? Splendid? Candy filled? D all of the above?

Honestly it was quite fun! But that, is a story for another paragraph.

Lets see this week. This week has actually been a ton of fun! Kind of a cool thing is that we were able to really realize that we were directed by the Holy ghost several times! one time was actually a few nights ago, we were driving back from an appointment and basically both of us had the feeling that we should pull over real quick. we hurry and did then basically felt the impression that we really need to listen to the spirit while driving home. Something didn't feel right and we both knew that the spirit was telling us to really pay attention and be careful. After talking it out a bit we decided to go our normal route home but listen for any impressions that might come.

And come they did, we still aren't sure what, or if anything would have happened, but i'm glad that we were able to listen and act on promptings that we received even if they were weird. There wee several times that we almost went down one street but then felt an immensely strong impression that we should go the other way, or keep going straight. there was even one time where right after we turned down a street we had to quickly stop and turn around because it just didn't feel right.

Another cool time was just yesterday, we were trying to decide what street to tract on and after praying we decided that we should tract on one street that is just barely in our area. We now have 5 new really strong potential investigators! The only reason that they are counted as potentials is because we don't have an exact return date scheduled with them. What was really cool however was that at first one of them DEFINITELY was interested, but while talking I felt prompted to share my testimony on how God truly does know and love all of us, his children. After hearing that he got a huge smile and really opened up and said that we would love it if we could come back again.

:)

So it's official, Linda, our extremely amazing investigator, is getting Baptized this Saturday! She is so excited for it, it has been so amazing to see how the Gospel of Christ really helps people. She has completely given up a few word of Wisdom Things that she was really struggling with before. what is really cool, is that she said after she started reading her scriptures and praying, she had no desire what so ever to continue some of those things :) I really love this gospel :)

Lets see, what else has been going on, OH HALLOWEEN!

Halloween was fantastic! It was a little weird because the Assistants called everyone and told us that we HAD to be inside our house, a member/investigators house, or the church, BY 6. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Apparently it gets dangerous for missionaries to be outside on Halloween night. It was really funny though, tracting earlier that day, because everyone kept calling us Jehovas Witnesses, and kept telling us how we were wrong for not believing in Halloween :) Halloween night was a ton of fun though! We started by having dinner at our bishop's house at 5 with a ton of his extended family. It was a little weird at first because we didn't know anyone but it got fun real fast when they brought out the menus.

Basically, we were given 9 total options and had to pick three for each course (there were three courses) Im including a picture of the menu. Each of the food items had a really fun name and it was really hilarious as you could get dessert first or just get a cup of carrots and a juice box. Needless to say much laughing and eating of very delicious food ensued. It was also funny because for our costume Elder Wessendorf and I switched nametags :)

After dinner we joined up with the Zone leaders, the other elders in our ward, and watched a movie it was either 27, 37, or 17 miracles.  I can't remember what it was called but it was really amazing!

Well we need to go now, I love you all! Have a wonderful Week!

Never Give up, Never Surrender!

-Elder Berrett

Dear Zach

Good Afternoon / Morning Zach!

Sorry, I say morning because that's when I'm writing this, but it's probably going to be afternoon when you get this.

How are you doing?  How is the quorum?  Any fun plans for Halloween?  My companion and I decided that we are going to dress up as each other, even switch name tags!

Oh! Guess what? It's finally here, eggnog!  I found the most delicious eggnog at our grocery store of choice, Wal-Mart.  It's this amazing caramel eggnog.  Holy cow, it's fantastic!  Also holy cow, I never realized just how powerful fire extinguishers are.  I'm looking at the mess from our fire now (it still hasn't been cleaned up) and wow, seriously though, if you ever have to use one, expect to clean up a mess, it gets everywhere!

You want to know what's one of the saddest things ever?  When you go and contact less-active members of the ward and they just have no testimony of the church whatsoever :/ it sucks.

Zach I love you so much! seriously I think about you guys all the time :)

I hope you have a Fantastic week!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
 - Elder Berrett