Voice Recording July 10

Well, good morning! This week so far, good morning mom, this week so far has been wonderful. Oh just thought of something else I’m going to bring up, adding it to the list.  I’m trying to be somewhat organized this week, I have a list, I figured I’d write down stuff, so I’m not just completely rambling on the whole time.

Let’s see, obviously first things first, you probably want transfer news, I’m staying!  I’ll be staying in Stevensville for my last transfer! Elder Hand and I will be staying together.  I'm so excited! Elder Hand Is literally an amazing companion. Just a stud.  So, as long as he doesn’t get sent home, which I really don’t think is going to happen. I’m hoping for the same miracle that I got.  I think it will be great.  That’s our transfer news.  In fact, just about my entire district is staying the same.  So that’s going to be super fun.  There’s a sister in my district that’s going home with me, Sister Jacobi.  She’s from Flagstaff.  So that will be fun. She’s going from here to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Phoenix, and then she’s flying from Phoenix up to Flagstaff.  So we’ll be on the same flights together up until that point.  Cause obviously I’ll be with you guys.  Yes. The whole last transfer thing is SUPER WEIRD.  And it doesn't make it better that salt lake rubs it in your face with Myplan every week.

Let’s see, we’ve been in a trio this last week, because one of our zone leaders went home. Elder Bezou, he’s from Missouri.  His ancestors killed Mormons, it was great.  But now I’m in a trio companionship with Elder Crockett, he’s a ginger.  First name’s Davey.  Not really, but he’s a stud.  Great Zone leader, best one I’ve ever had. (voice in the back ground – presumably Elder Crockett – “You’re darn right.”) You’re darn right!  Laughs.  That’s that, well that’s it so far, I have other things, but that’s that item.

Shrine? What’s that?  Oh yeah, so Elder Hand, I guess I’ve sorta been contributing to it, but it’s mostly Sprite.  Elder Hand has built this shrine on top of our wood burning stove.  I think I told you about this last time?  I’m going to take a picture of it, cause it’s grown to the point where it looks great.  There’s a couple cans of Country Time Lemonade, but it’s mostly Sprite.  You’ll see a couple Squirt cans in it, but it’s this whole shrine just basically stacked up on top of each other, and built out of Sprite cans and with an Arizona on top. An Arizona Lemonade.  So, yeah.  Elder Crockett walked into our apartment his first day here and he goes, “What is this?!? No other Gods before me, this is blasphemy.” It was funny.

We have a campfire lighter and messing around I sorta, I think I broke the igniter, so if we want to use it, we have to bring it over to our stove, light the stove, and then use that to light the lighter.  Which is kinda ironic because you usually use a lighter to do that to the stove.  So, yeah, I see the irony in that.  Had some watermelon and cereal for breakfast.  We had a storm that was here, now it’s not any more.  It was kinda nice actually to sit back and listen to all the thunder and lightning and rain and think “Ah, it’s monsoon season back home.” Or I guess monsoon season is in a couple of weeks, but it’s about that time.  I’ll be getting home in monsoon season. I was reminiscing with that with Bishop, and telling the family, the Olson’s, they’ll be moving down.  Technically they’ll be in Queen Creek, but that’s just a couple blocks over practically.   I love telling people here that I’m from a town. I’m like, “okay, so what if it’s one of the world’s largest towns?  In fact, I think it is classified as the largest town in America, last I  checked on Wikipedia.  Still classified as a town.  #winning. Elder Hand makes fun of me for that, he’s like “It’s not a freaking town!”  I’m like “So what if we have a Costco and a couple of Wal-marts?”  He’s like “It’s Not A Town!”  I’m like, “Ok.  Fine. But it’s still a town.”  We have a town Council.  So ha.  We have signs that say “Welcome to the Town of Gilbert.” It’s a town.  There’s horses that occasionally ride through the street.  Well, not on the street, more like on the sidewalk.  At least It was back when I was there. You said it’s changed a bit.  Is it still… I really hope it’s still a town.

Umm let’s see, miracles.  Oh!  So we’re working with this family, the Smith’s.  This less active family we found a couple weeks ago.  Amazing family.  Mom and a dad, both pretty less active, and two kids.  Both like, if I had to guess ages, seven.  Both about that age.  One of them might be baptized?  I’m not sure.  But, super, super great family.  We tracted into them, and we figured out they were members pretty quickly when the kids were all like, “It’s the missionaries!” And we’re like, “Oh. Okay.” We were able to teach them, set up a time to come back, and then they came to church. So her dad and brother are both active members in the ward.  Her brother is actually the one that owns Romeo’s the really great Italian restaurant.  The missionaries get half price there so I can get this giant fettucine alfredo burrito for like $3 there.  It’s amazing.  Everybody loves us there, and we love them.  Tip well.  So that’s where my allotment goes, apparently. #twiceaweek.  But anyways, they were at church again this week, and they are in the ward that has had nothing going on, so I’m like “Prayers are being answered, this is amazing.” 

And then, at church we have this new couple just randomly show up from Sheridan Wyoming. #wrongsideofWyominginourmission West Side, Best Side. Kinda like last row, best row, I’m starting that campaign.  And #Iagreelastrowbestrow I love that package you sent me!  I think I talked about it.  Those photos.  I love them.  Thank you mom.  Let’s see… so that’s been going on there.  Anyways, so we had this new couple show up, super great there.  Right now they are looking for a home, they are living out of their car.  They kinda moved up here, I think some things happened down there, but all I know is that she is a recent convert of about a year, he’s a Baptist, but the whole time he’s literally like, “I just love this church!  Everybody here is so nice!”  and everything, so we’re hoping to start teaching them.  And helping them out.  And hopefully they will progress.  I know that bishop in ward council, they know we work hard, but it’s kinda like “Okay… let’s start seeing something, please.”  We’re like, “We’re trying!”  So, that’s that ward.  And that just awesome miracles.

Elder Hand is walking out of the shower right now.  (Elder Hand - #Faithwassufficent we still had hot water)  So, Elder Crocket and I both took a shower and our laundry machine has been going all morning. And the washing machine only works on warm/warm so #faithwassufficent also starting that hashtag campaign.  That’s probably a way better campaign than #lastrowbestrow and I don’t even remember the other one I said a couple of seconds ago.  So yeah.  Miracles at church, we have a lesson with Amanda this week, super excited about that.  We’ll be teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to her, we still need to pray about it, and plan it and all that, but… (Elder Hand belches in the background)  Anything you have to say my glorious redneck companion? (Elder Hand – No. ) Alright. Have fun.  So we have a lesson with Amanda this week so pray hard for that cause I’m super excited to see how things are going with her.

Elder Hand.  We got a consultation with his doctor this last week, the doctor said it looks like a torn meniscus and ligament damage, and so we’ll be getting his MRI this next week.  Which I’m like “Oh, I remember what that’s like.”  Really great, actually.  I took a nap during mine.  They gave me headphones, and were like “What kind of music do you want to listen to?” And I was going to say ‘Classical’ but ‘Classic Rock’ came out, and it was amazing. So, that was that sin.  It was amazing sitting there. Of course, he’s like “I can do some classic rock, I’m just going to put it on shuffle…” (Elder Hand – Leave my crutch alone!) I just accidentally stepped on it! (Elder Hand – to himself- Get over it, Elder Hand, you’re not even using it!) Yeah, you’re not even using it. (Elder Hand – I’m using one.) One crutch, yeah. I see how that is.  Let’s don’t listen to Sister Wadsworth, let’s see what she says. (Elder Hand – It’s fine! Leave me alone!) Anyways… Being in a trio is really fantastic, cause you can all just make fun of each other.  It’s a freaking college apartment.  If I’m being honest here, I’m living in a college apartment.  We have Nerf guns here.  We have battery powered Nerf guns.  We have a shrine made out of Sprite cans.  Half, no literally all of the furniture we’ve got in this place in the last three weeks has been free.  So, yeah, that’s a thing.  So that’s his news, we’ll be waiting to see how that goes. 

(coughs) Freaking cotton in the air.  Yeah, I was thinking I would love to move to Stevensville, it’s beautiful here, the people here are great, but winter’s suck, and allergies suck.  Also I don’t know if I could find work here.  Maybe Missoula.  You don’t have to record this, but that’s a Liberal town.  I don’t want to go there!  It’s a Liberal College town.  So, I’m glad I never served there.  That place is ridiculous.  They call it Zoo Town for a reason.

Horse Liniment Gel, most amazing thing in the Universe.  It solves all problems. I’m fairly certain it’s made from 20% water, 30% whatever stuff, and 50% Christ’s atonement because it heals everything.

Preacher?  What, oh yes.  So we got this referral a couple of weeks ago, for this guy, and we’re all “Oh sweet!” He contacted some missionaries in Salt Lake at Temple Square, the referral said he asked so many great questions, and so we went to go meet him.  and so we went to his address and his address is a church.  The Lone Rock church down the street.  It’s a non-denominational church.  A born-again Christian Church.  And we go in, and see the office hours and ask for him and they’re like, “Oh, he’s still in Salt Lake, he won’t be back for another week.”  Oh, okay. We get his number and call and set something up.  He was busy, and then he wanted us to come over the day we were getting our car fixed, so we’re like “Crap.  That’s tomorrow and we set that up like a week ago, sorry we can’t do that.”   Anyways we were just finally able to meet with him, and we had Elder Crockett with us, and he is an amazing scriptorian, and so we were really, really thankful, cause we show up, and it basically turned into him trying to talk us out of our religion and our faith.  To the point where he’s saying that we’re going to hell for what we believe.  And that we’re servants of the devil and all these things.  Like, not in a very mean way, but he just kinda throws it out there and you’re like “You’re still smiling, but you just called us servants of the devil.  What?!?”  And literally just saying what we say is wrong.  And we’re just like, “uh…”  And the spirit is just NOT there in that situation.  I mean it got to the point where we sat there and tried to answer some of his questions, and tried to teach and testify, threw out a couple of scriptures, but once it really started to get to the point where the spirit of contention was really there, and once we could get to a point where we could leave, we left.  And dropped him as not interested. But he brought up a lot of really interesting points, it was really actually believe it or not my first time that I’ve encountered, or sat down in basically what was a bashing session.  We didn’t bash him at all.   We’re like “No, what you are saying is wrong.” A couple of times, but so that experience was a first for me.  And I’ve been really pondering and learning a lot from that. And I’m like holy cow.  It was actually quite testimony building by the end.  I definitely think every missionary should have that experience at least once.  Cause wow.  I’ve definitely encountered people that have like thrown out anti against us, I guess the trick is that you’re like “I could throw out stuff, and in my mind rip you to shreds, but the spirit is not going to be there, and that’s not going to do anything.  You’re not going to come closer to Christ from that, I’m not going to come closer to Christ from that, so what’s the point in doing that?  What’s really fun though is when you’re teaching a lesson and people start bringing up, like slyly, kinda like what he was doing.  He was asking very pointed or directed questions to lead us onto a certain anti topic.  And we could tell, and we’re like, “Aaaagh.  Ok.  Whatever.”  That’s fun when people do that when you’re tracting or such.  But hey, that’s life. That stuff’s out there.  People are going to think all sorts of manner of crazy things about you.  And you’re like, “No… Believe it or not, we do believe in the same Christ.”  And such.  So, that’s real.

I’m driving again.  Bless Elder Hand.  I’m sorry he can’t drive because of his condition, but I’m kind of happy to drive.  Choir this week.  We performed in sacrament meeting and it was wonderful.  Everyone did great. It was just a super great experience.  Sang a great song, looking to sing again in two weeks.  Holy cow and I get to be here.  I get to finish in Stevi. Love Stevi. 

Anyways, that’s right, the Olsons. Had a great chat with them.  I’m dropping my suitcase off tomorrow, which means I need to p…. Ugh.  Do you know how weird that is?  I’m packing up a suitcase.  Like, I’m packing to go home.  I’ve still got six weeks.  I’m not gonna get trunky, but like, I have to plan stuff that I’m not going to use for the next six weeks, and send it home.  Here’s a whole suitcase of mine.  That’s weird.  I’m really thankful for it though.  So’s the church, because it’s saving the church like $60.

Squirt is still wonderful.  Love Squirt.  I don’t drink nearly as much as I want to, thankfully.  But probably still a little too much. And I think that’s all I had written down for now. Also this voice recording is at 18 minutes.  Should probably wrap it up.  So I can send it off.  Uh, that was a lot of stuff.  This week, it was a crazy week, but it was a great week.  I hope you have a wonderful day, I hope everything is going well.  I’m praying for you guys, I  know this week must have been pretty hard, being alone. And I think you have all of next week too, or part of it. So, bless your heart.  Know that the Lord is there with you.  I’m praying for ya.  I know you’re doing great. So, see you in six weeks.  Have a great day, Love you.  Bye. 

Another injury and a free car.

Good morning mom! 

Sorry, no voicemail today :/ We were super busy cleaning this morning, well I was. Bless my companions heart, this week while he was away on exchanges he was playing basketball and ended up hurting his knee real bad. We think he might have torn something. Hoping not, it honestly looks and is behaving a lot like my knee back when I was on crutches so we are hoping no surgery. so needless to say, he has been taking it pretty easy :)

This week has been really good though other than the knee incident. We got to do service for a lady that will hopefully become a new investigator! someone gave us a 1999 blue Audi A4, We had some great exchanges this week, Got to meet with some super progressing less actives, and gave a daughter of one of them a blessing for some oral surgery she is having the next day. 

This is just a quick email, I'll be sending you another soon, we don't have too much time on the computers today but I will have my tablet, so I love you!

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LLAP

Voice Recording June 26 part 2

Well good morning again, I’m standing in the kitchen, this morning we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast.  It was actually, we warmed them up from last night. We made biscuits and gravy for dinner since we didn’t have one.  The ward here has been really good at feeding us, but something happened to our meal calendar last week I think?  We had it in the Relief Society room, it was all ready for the next week, and then somehow it disappeared.  No one knew where it went.  We’re like, “This is not good.  We kinda need that. Where’d it go?”  And then it just reappeared again this Sunday.  But we didn’t have a dinner last night so we made biscuits and gravy.  They turned out pretty good.  I mean it was just instant gravy mix, we didn’t have the time to make real gravy.  But I mean, it worked out.  It tasted decent.  They were the biscuits that you get out of the container thing.  Pop open and throw them on a cookie sheet and throw them in the oven for like 15 minutes.  With like the Pillsbury Dough Boy on them.  So we made those.  It was decent.  Bachelor meal.

Oh, so Saturday, it was basically that whole day was just service.  We didn’t put on a white shirt and tie until 7:30 pm.  We woke up at the normal time, and at 8:00 we were at the Daly mansion in Hamilton, cleaning up the grounds and doing a giant stake wide service project there.  At noon we went over to an investigator, we have Chris, helped him more with irrigation, and doing some other things around his orchard there that he’s trying to start for the community.  We talked to him some more.  He’s grown really really close to Elder Hand, and Elder Hand is like, “You know what? I’m just going to ask him straight out to take the missionary discussions.  I really feel like we should.”  And he feels like he’s close enough to do it, and I’m like, “Perfect.”  We’ve tried to broach the subject before, and he has some doctrinal concerns, he’s only been talking about the gospel funny enough when he’s mildly intoxicated, like when he drinks Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  And then he’s like “So is it true that you boys….”  And we’re like, “no, we don’t do that.” Or other things like that.  He has a couple of questions that probably need to be addressed.  His wife isn’t too interested and I think that’s a big thing keeping him back.  She’s like, “I respect you boys, but don’t start teaching me.”  And he has these two young kids.  One however is like, when he turned 11 missionaries invited him to go to the scout program, and the dad loved it.  He’s like “Heck yeah!  Scouts is great!” And so he’s been with the scouts.  He’s 12 now.  And he’s with all the scouts there, he’s allowing scouting things to be held at his house, and so, we talked to ward council and I think they are going to extend a calling and have him be a scout master. Or not a scout master, but an assistant scout master or something like that in the scouting program.  So that’s going to be really, really cool.  He really respects us missionaries a lot and the church a lot, what we do, we’re family oriented, and he loves that.  I really think that his wife is going to be a bit of a hang up.  But I’m excited to see where this is going to go.  Anyways, did service for him and had a lot of fun.

After that we then ran over to our dinner appointment, so it would have been 4:30 where we helped her install a hood fan thingy above her stove.  The thing that sucks up all the smoke and so we installed that.  She called us up and said “I put it together, if you could just come over to dinner early, and install it.  Wire it in and everything.”  And we’re like “okay.” We show up and it’s the thing assembled together and its sitting on the table with this whole giant booklet of instructions and I flipped over to a page in the middle, and she’s like “I have the instructions right there for you.” She said that comment a couple of times.  Like she’s like “There’s the instructions.”  And we’re like, “okay.” And neither of us looked at them, we just like take a look at the things, it would fit above the stove, figure it out, and she’s like “Are you sure you don’t want these?”  She’s like, “I tried to read the instructions but I just can’t understand them.”  And we’re like, “Yeah.  Makes sense.”  And at one point I’m like, “It looks like we need to take out this bit of metal here…”  It looks like they’ve created a serrated (he probably means perforated) edge, so you can just hammer it out or something like that to install it where the hood goes, or where the pipe for the smoke to travel up goes, and I’m like “Do you have a hammer?”  And Elder Hand is like “I got this.”  And just punched it real hard and the thing popped out. And I’m like “Woah.  Okay.” That was fun to be able to help install that and wire it in and get that going and screw it in.  And you know, feel like, “Yeah, we did this.”  She made the comment, she’s like, “I think I know how guys always manage to get their stuff done all the time.  I couldn’t figure it out. And you boys managed to do it, and I think I know why. ” And we’re like “Why?”  And she’s like “Because guys don’t ever read instructions.  They just figure things out and learn it and do it.”  She was a character.  She was going to be a nun for the Catholic church.  And nuns, I didn’t know this, they are married to Jesus Christ.  I think I heard that once.  But it didn’t really like stick in until now.  She had a picture of the day before she was going to be a nun, where she’s in the full wedding white and everything. She was going to go take her vows the next day.  And she said that as she laid in bed, she distinctively heard the spirit speak to her, “This is an abomination before my eyes.  You know this is wrong.”  She said that the spirit just testified to her that she should not do this, and she immediately went and stopped becoming a nun, so they put her on a flight back to the US, and gave her $10.  That’s all she had to her name.  Her family disowned her.  And she started her life.  I’m like, “Holy cow.”  She ended up being a doctor over in Mesa, or a nurse, that’s right because she met a doctor there who kept telling her “You’re basically Mormon, you just don’t know it.  You live the same way.”  He convinced her to take the missionary lessons and she did, and at the first lesson the spirit spoke to her and said, “This is true.”  It was kinda cool, she shared part of her patriarchal blessing with us that says she has faith like the Brother of Jared.  And it’s true.  You can just feel the spirit around this lady. She’s older, super sweet, and just loving.  Loves the missionaries, to the point where she’s like, “Yeah, like 30 years ago the missionaries used to come over all the time, and I remember when the new Lord of the Rings came out, we sat down and had a giant marathon and they watched Lord of the Rings with me.”  And I’m like, “Uh… okay.”  And then she’s like “But I think President Monson is a little stricter, because apparently you’re not allowed to do that anymore.”  And she had us sitting down waiting for dinner, while she cooked, and she’s like, “Are you sure you boys don’t want me to put on the news or something?”  And we’re like, “We’re good.” She’s like “You can’t watch anything?” We’re like, “Nope.”  She’s a huge nerd, loves all the Marvel movies, Doctor Who and everything. 

Oh!  I got my Doctor Who blanket back, I left that in Helena.  I realized that at transfers.  I’m like “Elder Shumway, I left that back at the house!” And he’s like “Ok, I’ll get that to you when I see you in a week.” Well they forgot. But I finally got it back.  I mean it was my fault for leaving it there in the first place. I was so devastated, but I got it back.  And it’s great.  Nina’s the best. Oh yeah, I heard from her the other day.  She’s doing pretty good.  She says that life’s still hectic and crazy but it’s good.  Super sweet of her.  She says that she’s been going to the temple about every other week, just to get the strength and spiritual upliftment and she says its been amazing.  She says that every time she goes in she puts my name and our family’s names.  She says she doesn’t know all of our names so she puts Kirsten Berrett’s Family.  But I’m like, “Holy Cow.” I’ve definitely felt those prayers.  I don’t know if you have.  But it’s (crash!) Oh crap.  That wasn’t quite empty. Elder Hand loves drinking Sprite, and has decided to stack up all of his Sprite cans on our wood burning stove, well he just started a couple of days ago, or it’s probably only a week’s worth of cans, but it’s a, let’s see (starts counting) 17 cans.  I do have two Squirt cans on there.  I love Squirt. Squirt’s the best.  I will admit, part of it is it still gives like, there’s no Caffeine in it, but as I drink it, it does give a bit of a burn.   I’m like “I miss Coke.”  Yeah, so that’s that.  I love Nina.  

Oh yes, so we were at someone’s house for dinner, we’re sitting down to dinner, and she’s like, “So I love hearing romance stories, do either of you have girlfriends back home?”  Elder Hand does and so he’s telling her his story and I’m like “Elder Hand go for it.”  And she’s like “Oh, I’m coming to you Elder Berrett.  Do you have one?”  And I’m like “Well there was a girl I dated back before my mission…”  And I guess the funny story I am trying to get to is, she turns to Elder Hand as he is speaking, and she’s like “Yup. You’re going to marry her.” And he’s like, “What??” And she’s like, “ And you’re going to have 5 kids – 3 boys and 2 girls.”  She’s like, I just know this sort of stuff. I’ve predicted several of the people in the ward.” And we’re like “oh, okay.” (said sarcastically)  And then she turns to me, and she didn’t say anything specific, but she said that it was within 6-8 months of me going home I’m going to be married.  And I’m like, “Oh, let’s not.  Holy crap.” But yeah, that was kinda funny.

Let me think… I’ve had a cough lately, that’s kind of annoying.  Allergies are kindof annoying, everybody is freaking cutting their hay.  I figure that that’s a big part of it, that and all the cotton in the air from the cotton trees.  Those two things are… we were driving by the road one day, and the side of the road was just completely white from all this cotton that was falling from the sky and I’m like, “Elder Hand, that, that right there is how you know Satan is real.”  I’ve just taken some Claritin, it was helping a bit, but I’ve got some stuff back home, but it’s awful and I feel bad and I forget how bad it gets and after dinner I only have one more hour of work left, so I ask, “Do you guys have any Benadryl I can have?” And so I take it, and then the rest of the day is a bit of a fight, but then I can get home and just go to bed.

Trying to think?  What else happened this week?  We tried to teach Mary, she’s been super busy and she hasn’t been able to come to church in months because she’s been constantly working on Sundays.  She’s trying to start a band. Bless her heart, she’s like 65, 70, and she’s trying to start this band up. This Christian Rock band, and she’s like “I’ll quit this job when it (the band) becomes big, and then I can go to church.”  And we’re like, “uh… Maybe that’s the answer, but let’s really pray and let’s hope that there’s another way that will allow you to come to church.”  I feel bad about that, but it’s kinda true though.  I think I told you last week I heard from Jacob, he’s doing good. It was really nice to hear.  I’m excited to see where he goes.

That’s about all I think I have for right now actually, I’m probably going to stop this recording, my laundry is going to be finished soon, at least part 1 of my laundry, and then I’ll throw part 2 in the dryer.  Oh crap.  I’m going to die. I’m hearing my voice now, I haven’t taken any allergy medication today.  My eyes are getting itchy.  Yep.  I’m going to die. I’m gonna go up stairs and take some.  Allegra-D or whatever it is.  Love you so much.  Hope you have a wonderful day, I love hearing from you and love you guys a ton.

Oh. I remember. So, My Plan got sent out.  My plan is a thing in the last six weeks of your mission, so when it gets sent out, you’re like, “This is rude. Why are they freaking sending this out?”  I ended up getting it, because there’s a bunch of people in my mission, tons of people in my group going home 30 days early for college, to BYU and such, because that’s just the way their track starts.  And so Salt Lake started our group for My Plan, like, I guess 30 days early.  So I got it a week ago. You know this thing, “Do your My Plan!  Last six weeks of your mission! Start it!”  And then just yesterday I got this other notification, a second reminder to start My Plan, and I’m like, “I’m not on my last six weeks!  You shut up!” Cause I thought it was (unintelligible) and ended the first week, the first section of it, which thankfully that wasn’t so bad, it’s uh, let me see if I can pull it up here…  So My Plan is divided into six weeks, six learning experiences things.  The first one is Remember and Become.  And basically it was all about what My Plan is, all these things… There’s a video they had us watch that was about 4 minutes long, and I finish it, and I’m like, “Did I just watch a trailer for My Plan?” Cause that’s what it looked like.  And it’s all these returned missionaries talking about their mission, how they continue to…  they said they finished their mission and continued to, they said “I just finished my mission, and I just knew it doesn’t end”  or “I have to continue reading every day” and all these things, and “continue becoming more Christlike”  and it’s all these couples and they’re all holding babies and stuff like that, and I’m like, “This is wrong.  This is awful.”  So, the only thing they really had me do other than watch videos and listen to a couple of things, and read some scriptures was just list ways that I’ve… uh, list things that the Lord has taught me, and ways that I’ve become more Christlike.  At least three things for each, and I’m like, “ok.  I can do that.”  The next one is ‘My Vision and Goals’, which you’re supposed to come up with like a year, like where you want to be in a year, and goals on how to get there, then ‘Continuing Discipleship’ I have no idea what that’s like, 4^th week – ‘Self-Reliance’, 5^th week is ‘Dating and Temple Marriage’, supposedly one of the questions in there is like “list the names of 5 people you will go on a date with when you get home.”  I’m like “Holy crap…” and then the 6^th week it says ‘My Plan’.  So that’s that.

(coughing) Oh, my cough drop wore off. I’m going to throw in another one, and this has been 19 minutes, that’s all I have for today. Love you to death.  This week has been good.  It’s stressful near the end, but I’ve learned a lot, and grown a lot, and I’m really excited to help this area grow.  We’ve seen some really cool miracles lately, starting to get some more new investigators going, hopefully have some new potentials, which we haven’t had in awhile, so this will be nice.  Love you, and goodbye.

Voice Recording June 26 part 1

Well good morning.  Wow this has been one roller coaster of a week.  Holy cow.  Granted college stress has been a majority of that, but that’s all gone now.  So where to start?  Probably with college. So last Monday and Tuesday I was in doing all the applications and everything, you know, you got the email end of all of that. So I have all the accounts created, got my email set up, which gosh, I’m really thankful for because the account they gave me has unlimited space.  I’m like “No way!” Typical accounts will have like 15 gigs free.  Our LDS one is 50 gigs free.  This one is unlimited, so, yeah.  I’m like storing everything in there now.  It’s great.

Let’s see… Wednesday.  Just a super great day. Trying to remember what we did.  We didn’t do district meeting because we had a zone conference this week.  So I’ll just skip to that, because that’s next at least as college wise goes.  Friday I’m talking to President and I’m like, “Hey, so…” Oh yeah, as I’m doing all the forms and everything, I’m going through and I see that the placement test has to be done completely (before he can register) and I’m like “ugh, are you kidding me?” So maybe I go home what, like a week early? And then I’m going through and I also have to attend this Coyote Kickoff thing, whatever that is? Some orientation thing?  And I’m like, “Okay, when is the latest one of those?”  They run through July and their latest one is August 3^rd.  And I’m like, “Uhhhhhh…. No. I’m not going home two and a half weeks early.”  But then I’m like, “Crap, what if I have to? I don’t want to do this.”  So at Zone Conference I was talking to President, and I didn’t tell him about this third thing, but I’m like “So I might need to go home a week early…”  And he’s like “Oh, ok.  Just let us know. We’ll get that all figured out.”  And so Friday we get home from Zone conference, I look up the number and call the counselor, and the office is closed because they are only open Monday through Thursday.  So I’m like “Oh perfect.”  So this weekend has kinda been like “Waiting for Monday, waiting for Monday….”  And then Monday hit and I just got off the phone with her.  Super sweet lady.  She’s understood what a mission was, and I explained to her all I’d done so far, and she’s like “So classes start the 21^st…”  And I’m like “I get home the 19^th.”  And she’s like “Oh.”  And then after talking and doing some figuring out, I can skip the Coyote thing, and I can do like a late start or something like that.  Basically I go in Monday morning, the 21^st,  take the placement test then, and then go see a counselor, plan my schedule out, enroll in everything, and get all this done that Monday.  And then start classes.  However because it’s late start classes, I can only sign up this semester for Tuesday / Thursday classes and I think meteorology was a Monday / Wednesday class. Which I’m like “Crap. Ok.” That will limit my options to classes, but it’s the only thing we can do.

I’ve had just a lot of cool spiritual experiences this week.  Like this morning and last night I was really praying.  I was like “Heavenly Father – 1) please help my family, 2) please help me know what to do right now, I have this decision to make.  What am I going to do?  And as I sat down this morning, I was praying the same thing, I prayed it as I began my personal study, and I opened up to Alma chapter 43, and my attitude has just been like “Oh great.  The war chapters.” Like they’re great, and there’s tons of stuff in there, but it’s just a lot harder to look for principles in them.  But immediately, the spirit was with me, I was clued in, and, let me open it up here,  So Alma 43  - there’s the Zoramites that Alma has been trying to teach, and they had very little success trying to bring them back into the gospel.  You know, all these less active members.  And they end up joining the Lamanites, and then stirring them up to anger along with Amalekites, and were basically saying, “Hey, lets go kill the Nephites.”  We’re talking at the beginning it says they came upon the Nephites in thousands. You know, just falling upon them.  They had this massive, giant army.  I’m like, “Holy crap.” Immediately the spirit is like, “Yeah, that’s your problem.”  The Nephites saw that the Lamanites were coming upon them. But it says “Therefore they made preparations for war.”  And as I’m reading, the spirit is like, “okay, what are you doing to prepare for the rest of your life? And all the battles and things that Satan is going to throw at you and your family and temptations and everything?”   And it talks about the Lamanites designs and the purposes that they might usurp great power over them and bring them into bondage.  And the Nephites purpose was to support their lands, their houses, their wives, their children, their families, that “they might preserve them from the hands of their enemies”…. That they might worship God according to their desires…. Their liberty, their rights…  But ultimately in the end, along with obviously the Power of God, one of the big things that helped them, was the fact that the Lamanites all they had was their weapons basically.  Apart from “skin girded about their loins”, they were naked.  And the Nephites were girded about with, “Moroni had prepared his people with breastplates, and with arm shields, and also shields to defend their heads…”  and they also dressed with thick clothing, and it says a couple verses later in 21, “therefore they were exceedingly afraid of the army of the Nephites because of their armor, notwithstanding their number being so much greater than the Nephites.”  And as I’m reading this, the Lord is basically like, “Hey.”  You know, poking me with the spirit.  And he’s like listen, “This mission is to prepare you for the rest of your life.” It makes a comment in here, in verse 38, “While on the other hand, there was now and then a man fallen among the Nephites by their swords and the loss of blood, they being shielded from the more vital parts of the body, or the more vital parts of the body being shielded from the strokes of the Lamanites, by their breastplates, and their armshields, and their head-plates; and thus the Nephites did carry on the work of death among the Lamanites.”  You know they had armor covering all their vital parts, not part, not most, but all.   And basically as I’m reading the Lord is like, “You need to serve the full two years.”  It talks about just all that they did to prepare and calling upon the Lord and relying on him and they were able to be victorious and save themselves.  And then I went and read Preach My Gospel Chapter 1 – My Purpose, and it testified that there are people out there who need the gospel.  So not only do I need to finish preparing myself, setting the foundation for the rest of my life, there are people out there that need the gospel, need me the last bit. I’m like, “okay.”  So basically I finished personal study with the attitude that no matter what, I’m not going home early. And I know that the Lord is going to help me and provide a way to do what needs to be done, because I do feel like I do obviously need to attend college, but if needs be I’ll just work and postpone it, but it was really cool this morning it was just like I did call and see that he did provide a way.  It may just be a couple of classes, but I’ll be able to get started.  And honestly it might be better because then I’ll have more time to get a job, work, get myself going, get a schedule going, and then when the next semester comes, sign up for more classes, and then work my schedule around that as well. But, it really, really worked out.  I’m really thankful for that.

Um let’s see, zone conference.  That was amazing.  Had just super spiritual, powerful experiences. As President Wadsworth talked about striving, and you change just as much as you allow yourself to be changed.  He said that when he was younger, he didn’t want to go on a mission, he said “cause I was afraid that I’d go and I’d change too much, and I wouldn’t like the same stuff, and all my friends wouldn’t want to hang out with me.”  And then he’s like, “I went on my mission and guess what?  I changed.” But 1) it was all good, and 2) he only changed as much as he allowed himself to be changed, his personality was still the same and all these things. He challenged us all to be more obedient.  Sister Wadsworth spoke of having good attitudes about things. I think there’s been a bit of a pessimistic attitude about somethings on our mission, like tiwi coming – a little black box that yells at you in the car, which comes in the first week of August. That’s the official date now. Like they are saying “C’mon!  No! Rethink those negative thoughts!” From “This is gonna suck” to “These things save lives!” These things have been proven to reduce the amount of accidents and also the severity of accidents and they’re really trying, and I’m like “It will be great!  I only have to deal with it for two weeks, but it will be great!” That’s probably not the right attitude to have.  But, yeah. 

Things are going good here.  Didn’t make any more improvements on our house this week because we’ve been busy, which was good.  We went on a fun hike Monday.  There’s tons of pictures that were taken, and I think I have some on my camera, but a lot of them were taken by a sister in our district.  She goes home with me actually.  Sister Jacobi.  And so I have to wait until this Wednesday to get them all from her, and also pictures of like the float and everything, so, yeah.  I have lots of more pictures I am going to send you, just none from the hike or things this week.  Also, I was going through and I can’t remember what I have or haven’t sent you and so thinking back to the principles, and going over all the rules, I do feel that this is acceptable.  Remember back when, near the start of my mission, there was the apple icloud share or whatever it was thing? You know, I had my pictures on it and everything, well President Wadsworth asked us all to not use that.  The biggest reason being that people could comment and ‘like’ all the photos and everything, and it was kinda like social media.  Well I was thinking, on the photos app here, I can create an album and share it with people, but people can’t comment or really do anything, as far as I’m aware of.  I’ll double check that.  I’ve been looking and I can’t really see a way.  It’s just like “Here’s a bunch of photos that I have.”  So I’m basically just going to stick all the photos so far from my time in Stevensville.  I counted and it’s like 103.  Granted like 40 of them are really cool views or sunsets that I’ve taken.  Especially around Elder Johnson, he loved taking nature photos, so I just kinda took them around him as well, because you know, I’m not going to waste the time.  So, there’s that.  So keep an eye out for an email like that.

Let me think… yeah.  I love the work, it’s going great here actually.  We had a lesson with Amanda this week. That was amazing.  Getting to teach the restoration to someone who has never heard it again.  It’s been awhile.  Sadly. We’ve been trying, it’s just like no one is immediately wanting to hear it.  But Amanda, she’s super busy she’s an English college teacher, over at the University of Missoula, and then she also teaches English online to foreigners, so she basically creates these online lessons, and then students submit these minute, or two minute clips of them speaking in sentences, or writing sentences and speaking them.  Things like that.  And she listens to them and grades them, that’s a job that she likes because she can pretty much do it at any time, or she can say get up at six, and do it, she has two young kids, one is like two, three, and the other is like five or six, actually I think he might be nine, and you know she says “I like it because I can pull out my headphones, get them something when they need it, or help them when they need help, and then sit back down, put my headphones in and press replay again.  But she is definitely a mom.  Every time we go over, she’s like “Can I get you boys anything to drink?” And I’m like, “We’re fine.” She’s like in her early 30’s.   Her personality, well partly, so take Jamie, and instead of dogs, she loves the kids, but that same just crazy personality just like everywhere, and that’s her.  She’s a little calmer, and maybe not as brash.  Or violent.  But I was just kinda sitting there, and I’m just like “You remind me of someone…”  and then it clicked, and I’m like “Oh! You remind me of aunt Jamie.”  I’ve met a couple of people who remind me of aunt Jamie out here.  But yeah, it was super fun to teach her that.  She has read the Book of Mormon a bit since we last taught her, it’s been two weeks.  She read the introduction, title page, all the testimonies of witnesses, and then read up to 1 Nephi 4.  Had a couple questions about what some things meant, like in the introduction it talks about the latter days, and she’s like, “What is that?”  and we read it and as much as she loves the scriptures, she has a hard time understanding the Old Testament, or not necessarily understanding, but she’s like, “it’s just… boring. It’s more of a historical account.”  Which is fair.  She was saying “You guys challenged me to, so I was reading First Nephi and trying to go through it, and it was just so historical, and so I decided to skip to 3^rd Nephi 11 where you pointed out that Christ came, and so I’m reading that and comparing it to the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible…”  And I’m like, “Woah. Okay. ”  So we’ll see how that goes.  Like, that’s kind of a cool thing, I should do that sometime, you know, when I’m not doing a thousand other things.  I’m trying to finish the Book of Mormon, I’m also trying to complete Presient Nelson’s challenge he gave to all the YSA over the last YSA devotionals, to go through the topical guide and look up all the scriptures on Jesus Christ and read them all.  And Holy Cow, it’s like, it’s a crap ton.

But yeah.  I’m going to pause this because it’s been 19 minutes and 23 seconds, and make a new one.  Love you  Bye! 

Voice Recording June 19 part 2

Well howdy again! Continuing on… this week we got to know several of our investigators that I’ve never met before.  Elder Johnson only ever taught some of them when we went on splits.  One of them, Jess… so looking at and reading his profile I’m thinking that this guy is what, 18-30, in that age range, we pull up and it’s this old guy with this giant beard.  (To Elder Hand ) Elder!  If you had to describe Jess in one phrase how would you describe him? (Elder Hand - I don’t know, old?)  Really interesting guy.  Apparently some of his biggest issues with our church is that he believes in reincarnation and we don’t. So…. Yeah.  He’s been meeting with missionaries for over like three years now. So…. No, that’s not him, that’s William and Jamie.  We also met with them this week. She’s not active and he’s a non member.  They have a daughter of like three years, no she’s almost two.  And the missionaries have been trying to get them married and active for ages.  They love missionaries, they love having us by, but just aren’t interested in progressing so we’re probably going to end up dropping them soon.  We’re planning on having a lesson at the church, we still need to plan and figure that out.  We’re basically gonna say like “Hey! Next week we’d like to meet with you and have it at the church.”  We’re prompted to just get them out of the house for a lesson and see how that goes.  We’re like “We have a really fun activity planned!”  And we have no clue what we’re gonna do.  So yeah, that’s a thing.

Not much else that I can think of other than that.  Laundry is just about done.  Today as a zone we’re meeting in Hamilton, and go for a small hike and then go to some guy’s gym and play basketball and stuff.  I’m probably just going to do the hike, and then sit down, relax, and rest and don’t push myself too hard.  I’ve got to at least be able to walk when I see President and Sister Wadsworth this week.  Put this grapefruit juice in the cabinet down here…. (Elder Hand – Hey.  How many doors did Noah’s ark have?) Three. (Elder Hand – One. One door. ) Is that true?  I thought you were telling a joke. (Elder Hand   - No. Jr Jots and Tittles.  I don’t know. Trivia game for LDS youth, converts, and adults.) Interesting, I thought it was a joke. Hmmm.  Apparently we have another game in our car that neither of us knew about. Also found a game, Othello.  A three game set.  Apparently some missionaries really liked to play games.  And go camping and play golf.  If I were to judge by the state of our apartment and car. Oh, Elder Hand found a nerf gun.  Like, it’s battery powered.  This giant semi-automatic rifle with a grenade launcher attachment. Instead of grenades it shoots like these giant dart things. Laughs.  So he’s been having fun shooting that.  At the other person who lives here. Me. Yeah.

Elder Hand makes a good DJ.  Since there’s only one ipad, we listen to talks or music and night or during lunch. He pretty much goes, “Elder Berrett, you suck.  Give it to me.”  Except much nicer than that. So he plays DJ, and he’s a good DJ.  Especially since I cleaned up a lot of the music on here, so there’s no unapproved stuff.  There was some, but that’s just because I get music from other elders and other things, and I’m like “Uhhhh… I don’t really feel like this is approved music”, and so I finally got around to cleaning that up. So when I hit shuffle it’s not like Imagine Dragons- Gold or something like that. Which that actually came on the other day and I’m like “Oh… I loved this song back home.”  Skip.  I did it. I was proud of myself.

(To elder Hand) Hey!  He weed whacked over here! (Elder Hand – Yep.) It looks great! I honestly can’t think of anything else I’m going to say right now, so I’m going to pause this so I’m not just rambling on.  We’re going to have a fun day today, I’m excited.  We got a new sister in our district, Sister Lewis, I think I said that last week, she’s from Helena with me, so that was kinda fun to see how she’s doing.  Went from this sister who is really timid and shy, and didn’t want to say anything, bless her heart to “She’s out there and doing the work and loving it!” And I’m like “Oh! You’ve grown!”  The gospel’s true, book is blue, love the Lord, and love his work!  Hope you have a wonderful day and God bless.  Bye.

Voice Recording June 19 part 1

Well good morning, mom!

It’s been a wonderful week, so first things first, I got your email, you know, I really think option A is for me, I just kinda want to bum around, you know, maybe go on a backpacking trip around Europe, figure out my life, you know, really learn who I am.  Ummm, no, no, C is definitely what I really feel is the best.  Go to college, try to find a job, especially get a job.  I need to get something at least and I really feel like I need to do C is the thought that has been coming to mind.  So, yeah! I liked your other points to consider too.  I don’t know, like, I definitely want to do choir at the very least.  Tech…. I’d imagine I do have to take the tech class which…. I’ll have to pray about that one.  Is there any way that you could send me, I mean I’m going to ask my mission president, but is there any way that you could send me like a list of the classes and schedules or something so that I can register and plan?  I know that missionaries do that here, write up applications, or call BYU, and he understands we have to do stuff after this and as sad as it is, and hard as it is, I have two months left, I do need to figure this stuff out.  I’ll talk to him, or see if I have to call the counselor and figure stuff out.  Sign whatever crap… yeah.  I’ll do it.   Yeah, thankfully you were right, I’m not getting too trunky about it, it was more just like “Holy crap, I need to think about this.” Cause I can pretend it’s not going to happen, but it’s gonna happen.

Allergies have been… ugh.  They’ve been there.  I haven’t gotten anything which I need to get today. So I wrote a reminder to myself – “Get allergy stuff.”  

So this last week we did a lot of service, and one of the things we did was we went to, as we were helping people clean up, there was like a museum that had a yard sale or something like that, or a rummage sale, and we helped them take all the stuff out of the basement and put it away later,  and it was the same day that we were in the parade, I don’t know if I told you about that, I got to walk beside a float while other missionaries were on it waving, and I got to hand out candy to people. It was great.  “Go family history!”  We got pictures.  But while we were going through and doing service and pretty much just spending the whole day in town talking to everyone, trying to just be out there, there was a yard sale the Methodist church was having, and I found this little like, I don’t know a small wooden, (to Elder Hand) How would you describe that?  (Elder Hand)  It’s a Jesus sign.  (Nick) well, it’s not quite a sign, but its, yeah, a little desk thing that says ‘Jesus’ on it, and it’s in kindof a cool decorative way.  I’ll have to take a picture of it. I think it’s cool.  It was 25 cents. So, yeah. (Elder Hand) I got a backpack, and a grill for five dollars.)  We’re pretty excited.  We have a grill now. It’s an old propane grill, and it was free  because it doesn’t work, but he says he can turn it into a charcoal grill. So we’re gonna have some fun with that.

Yeah, this week we did a lot of stuff, especially for our apartment, we finally got rid of all that old crappy furniture we had. It was oily and stained and holey, and very, very old and wrecked and torn.  But the Corvalis Elders got new furniture, and they’re like, “Hey so our landlord just bought us new furniture…”, because apparently the neighbors moved and gave it all to the landlord, long story short, they had a full set of furniture that is still in really, really good condition.  Like, it’s amazing.  And they need to get rid of it, so we got brand new furniture and tossed our old stuff out.  So we got a couch, a loveseat, and a chair. And it looks like something that you’d find in like a great grandmother’s house.  The floral print is just awful.  But they are comfy.  And amazing, and we’re not one to really complain.  Beggars can’t be choosers.

Also picked up, got it for free, an old General Electric radio.  I was going to clean it up and see if I could get it to work.  It’s old.  FM only.  Awesome. See if I can tinker around with that for a bit.  Finally got some more fans, it gets really hot in here since there’s no A/C in Montana, at least where we are.  We had one fan upstairs, and it was one of those square box fans, and one of the blades was missing, and the others are kinda cracked.  But we picked up another box fan, which is actually in really, really good condition, It’s just missing the handle, and a little desk fan, one of those rotating ones, the front bracket? Brace? (Elder Hand- “Shroud”).   Trout?   (EH-“Shroud”.)  I’ve never heard “trout”.   (EH- SHROUD!!)  Shroud? Oh. Okay, I’m like why are you calling it a trout? The cage thing on the front is missing, so it was in the ‘Free’ pile.  They’re like “You don’t want any kids near that.”  And I’m like, “Okay, I just won’t touch it.”  And it works great.  I mean it blows and blows.  The apartment might finally be cool on the days that it gets hot.  And on the days that it’s not hot, we have to freaking start up our heater because it’s so cold in Montana.  Oh yeah!   And this week we also experimented with… So our apartment has two stoves.  We have the gas stove, it doesn’t heat up too much, it just kinda like, honestly just around the stairs.  It’s like right next to our stairs and it’s got a vent attached to it but I don’t know where that goes.  I just think straight up to the roof, because it only just heats up that area.  I mean it doesn’t work really at all for upstairs.  I mean it kinda keeps the whole house to at least like 60-65 which is nice, but then it gets really hot by the stairs.  In the corner, which granted isn’t too much better, we have a wood burning stove.  And that just heats up the whole downstairs super nice.  And so we lit that up this week for the first time because we found some wood by our house,  and that was great.  Apparently some others in the past tried to burn Mormon Doctrine by McConkie in it, but we’ve just been great.  We now have a place to put all our old newspapers.  Like Elder Hand just threw a bunch of old newspapers in there for kindling later, because you never know when it’s going to freaking snow or get down below zero even in the middle of June.

Our car is dirty, we need to wash it today.  We wrote LDS.org in the dirt on the back of the truck.  Yeah.  We’re those people.  Things have been going good.  Laundry is almost done, had eggs for breakfast this morning. (Elder Hand – She doesn’t care what you had for breakfast!)  Nick – doing his best Elder Hand Southern redneck impersonation – She don’t care what I had? Maybe she’s curious?  (EH – you had eggs for like the past four days!) They’re good eggs.  My companion bought, before he got here he heard that there’s no Wal-Mart, so he went to Wal-Mart and just loaded up on stuff, including a 48 pack of Poptarts, and so we just kinda munch on those all day.  Along with other food.  I’m not gaining tons of weight, although I have gained a bit. (EH- hey do you want these cookies? I don’t know how long they’ve been in here.) Toss ‘em.  Glorious Elder Hand is being awesome and cleaning. Gotta love Mondays. Oh!  All that stuff fell out.  I’ll pick it up. (Elder Hand – is this your brother?) No, that’s CJ. He’s someone I taught in Butte. Love him to death.  I had a little picture of him in my notebook here, and a lot of the stuff from my notebook fell out apparently. (sounds and random comments about things he’s cleaning out)  Oh… I need to sew that on.  Oh, funny story mom, you know those things that I learned, and I knew how to sew… yeah, I forgot all that since it’s been two years and I haven’t had to sew on anything before the last month or two. I’m sure if I were to sit down with a needle I could figure it out, but… random copies of the Book of Mormon… no, I did not put my name in the other one.  I’m hoping it will turn up.  I looked in the library this week and it wasn’t there.  The pilot light went out on our oven a couple of times this week, had to re-light it.  We finally got a fire extinguisher!  So now if it ever catches fire like in Butte, we got some way to put it out.  This week, our goal, our next thing to get for the apartment, we have two projects, next we have an old desk that we picked up, and we want to put some metal or wood shelving in for a shoe rack right by the door.  Yeah, so we have that desk right by the door, and we also need to get a trash can.  (Elder Hand – Oh man, for the love of the bitterroot.)  For the love of the bitterroot!  We have a…. Bless his heart, he’s an older guy that we go and visit every now and then, and he can’t read or write, but he wrote a book, by dictating it to someone.  It’s his life story about growing up in the Bitterroot (unintelligible).  But he gives all the missionaries a free copy of this book, which we can’t read on our missions.  Another thing he (Elder Hand) bought is two 24 packs of Sprite, that he’s been drinking like crazy and just leaving Sprite cans everywhere.  I honestly don’t think our truck’s been cleaned out in years.  So yeah, we have a signed copy of his book, “For the Love of the Bitterroot – Recollections of John J Stroud.”  So yeah.  Lots of history about the area.  I’ll have to go through it when I get home.  Really sweet guy.  He’s a shut-in.  We go and visit a couple of those out here.

I picked up a couple bottles of cider, Grape-apple and Apple.  I’m not a big fan of the Grape, but… Oh yeah, (laughs) we did service at the food pantry out here and I made the comment that I love grapefruit juice.  And apparently they’ve gotten just tons and tons of these things of grapefruit juice.  And he’s like, “Well go take one!”  And I’m like “Oh my goodness, you guys are so nice!” They have way too much to give out and no one likes grapefruit juice apparently, so I took one, and he’s like “No,no,no,no… You get two, and your companion also has to take two.”  So now we have these two giant things of grapefruit juice… (Elder Hand – Four....)  Four.  Yeah.  Four giant things of grapefruit juice that uh, well, they’re going to be in our apartment for awhile, cause he ain’t drinking em, and I’m still working on the one I bought at the store awhile back.

Trying to think… We’ve been teaching Mary still.   She’s still not progressing.  Every week we visit her… we have a great powerful lesson… she commits to come to church and to read… and then she doesn’t show.  I mean it’s getting to the point where we’re like…. Yeah.  Frustrating.  And I know like a big factor is that she works at this hospital, cause get this, the closest ER is like half an hour away from us clear over in Hamilton.  And with the horror stories I hear over there, I’d rather go to Missoula.

(discussion between Nick and Elder Hand about an SD card…) Bless his heart, I think I told you that his tablet is messed up.  Thankfully it’s under warranty apparently, so he sent that in to Samsung and it will get figured out in 9-11 business days. (Elder Hand – It’s already been two days) Today is day three since we sent it in on Thursday.  So yeah.  Bless his heart.  Picked up some wooden golf clubs…. Someone just gave us those.  “Here, take these!”  So we’re like “Oh, okay.”  So we’re going to try and see how much we can sell them for.  Just go to a pawn shop and, oh yeah, apparently missionaries here golfed or something because we had a whole golf set in our closet.   I’m like, Ok…  Apparently that’s a thing.  We also have sleeping bags, and air mattresses.  We’re keeping the air mattresses because you never know when you need to house other missionaries.

So Mary… I really hope she progresses soon.  Jacob we got a text from him with his address.  He’s doing great in Salt Lake.  Attended the YSA ward there, loves the missionaries and was really thankful for all we’ve helped him out with so far.  He gave us his email, wants to stay in touch.  It was just kinda one of those really bitter sweet moments.  I can’t wait to hear all that happens with him. Sad to see him go.  Love teaching him.  The mission is still going great though.  As hard as it is out here, it’s still going good.  Amanda, that referral we got, we supposedly have a lesson with her on Tuesday or Thursday, we’ll see.  Or I don’t know if we can do Thursday because we have a zone conference coming up, so that’s… (discussion with Elder Hand about an umbrella) How long has this been going?  19 minutes! Or 20 minutes!  I’m going to send this off real quick, hope you have a wonderful day, talk to you soon, bye!

Voice recording June 12 part 3

And Good morning Gilbert, Arizona! It is 9:04 am, well where you are it is 8:04 am.  Over here it’s a beautiful 52 degrees.  Over in Arizona supposedly it’s a beautiful 72 degrees.  Skies are clear, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Continuing on – talks in Sacrament meeting.  So I have that old tablet of mine, this is just a bit of background, it’s cracked and everything, the LCD doesn’t work, still it’s in its box.  I got a hold of this cable, and I’m like “I can hook up my tablet to a tv in district meeting!” and I’ve been sitting there, and I’m just like, you know, Moss 360 is no longer on that old tablet. And these have just been thoughts that have been in my head.  Not constantly, but those little things that Satan puts in there, like “Hey you could put a game on there, you could do this… you have a means to hook that old tablet up to a screen.”  And I obviously have chosen not to do that, but if I had to say that I had one weakness, that would be it.  You know, this is just proof that the Lord strengthens us so much.  Sacrament meeting – amazing, amazing talks, and they are all on obedience, the power that the Lord gives us to be obedient. And I’m like, “okay, where’s the candid camera here?”  I’m like, “that’s awesome.”  Just really powerful talks.  And then that evening we had a priesthood meeting, one there was a returned missionary that just returned recently, and he got up and gave experiences from his mission, and then testified of the power of keeping the mission rules and preparing yourself for it, being obedient…. And I’m like, “yes.” President Wadsworth and I even had a talk, he’s like, “you’re in a crunch time Elder Berrett…” and I’m like “Stop talking… don’t remind me.”  But they were just really, really powerful spiritual experiences that I had there. That were just reminding me, I CAN do this! Just really strengthened that desire to shove all those thoughts away.  And then I was reading in the Book of Mormon this morning, Alma 24, and that’s the Anti-Nephi Lehi’s.  They had just formed themselves and they talk about, ‘These are our weapons of war, things that we’ve sinned with, and all these things and “How merciful is our God, behold it has been as much as we can do to get our stains taken away from us, and our swords are made bright.  Let us hide them away that they may be kept bright as a testimony to our God at the last day, or at the day that we shall be brought to stand before him and be judged, that we have not stained our swords with the blood of our brethren, since he has imparted his word unto us and has made us clean thereby.”  And I was thinking about it, I was listening to a Hank Smith talk awhile back, and he was comparing this to our weapons of rebellion these days.  They buried them deep in the Earth.  And he’s like, “We all have stuff that keeps us from coming closer to the Lord.  We need to take those and bury them deep, deep within the earth, to the point where….  I mean obviously they could access them again, to the point where the anti-nephi lehi’s sons who hadn’t made this covenant were able to dig them up and use them as weapons of war, the stripling warriors, but you know, they were buried deep, they were out of sight, it’s not like they threw an inch (of dirt) over it, “Oh, I can’t see it… but it’s right in my back yard, and I just need to shovel one or two shovels and grab it and go…”  But I imagine it would have been like, for me I’ve always pictured it in the center of town, had a monument built over it, and they all KNEW that under that were the weapons of war.  Deep, deep in the Earth.  And that gave them strength to know that they had thrown those down there.   And I’m sure that if someone were to go and start digging, his friends would have gone up to him and been like, “hey! No!  Come on, you made this covenant, stay true to it. “ It was something they had all committed to, and all strengthened each other in.   And Hank Smith gives a wonderful, wonderful talk on really burying our stuff, our weapons of war.  And as I’m reading that, I’m like, “you know, there’s that family that is moving to Gilbert, Arizona…” well for one, the thought was this has been sitting on my desk here, because for awhile I was working on it, seeing if I could try to get any old information off of it, figure out exactly how to do it to help sister Wood out, and I’ve been struggling with that because Moss 360 has been blocking all my attempts.  And Moss 360, you know it’s an old tablet, so they erased Moss 360 which reset the tablet anyways, so now there’s nothing to get off of it.  But, so it was sitting next to my desk for awhile there, and I’m like, “you know, I’m just going to go put this up, bury it deep in my suitcase, you know the part of my suitcase that I never use, all zipped up, with all my winter clothes, and then the thought that there was this family moving to Gilbert, Arizona, and they are driving a big truck down, I’m sure if I asked, they’d be willing to send a suitcase down with them.  Well, technically they are moving to San Tan Valley, for a year or two, but they are looking to eventually get to Gilbert, but I’m sure they’d be willing to let me send that home with them.  So that’s what I am going to do.   I’m going to bury that so deep, so that I will be able to finish my mission knowing that I was obedient, it was just one of those cool moments, where I’m like, “This applies to me, right now.”  I love it!  I love reading the scriptures! They’re the freaking best.  The Lord knows how to take us and be like, “Hey, I KNOW you’re struggling with this, here’s a way to help you out. Strengthen you.”  And I’m just like, “You’re the best!  I love you so freaking much.”  It’s amazing how the Lord doesn’t judge us, I mean obviously he does, but in the sense that like,  “Elder Berrett, are you kidding me?!? You’ve been on your mission HOW long, and you want to do this??  What’s wrong with you?”  No, it’s “Hey, are you kidding?  You’re turning to me, you’re paying attention…”  He’s always going to be helping us, we just have to tune in.  And if we sit down and make the time to read our scriptures and go to the temple, seek his help, pay attention in Sacrament meeting, go to our meetings, we’re going to be strengthened, endowed with that power like what Moses did.  To be able to throw off all the temptations that Satan gives us.  We don’t HAVE to give in.   That was a big thing that President Wadsworth and I were talking about.   That was really cool, I’m like, “I love that point.”  So, I’m like, yeah.  That was that. That was the point I wanted to talk about.

Funny note from the Priesthood meeting though, there was a guy from another ward, I don’t even remember his name, but he was also kinda talking about the Atonement, and he’s like, “People think that like if I want to get from Butte to here,”  and Butte is in Western Montana,  or at least it’s west of here, way over west.  He’s like, “If I were to go to Missoula and go to this road and just head east…”  apparently it’s like some freeway or something that everyone’s familiar with, or interstate road or something like that.  “If I were to just head East, I’m not going to get to Butte.  Like technically  I could go all the way around the world, but that’s besides the point.  That’s not how you get to Butte.   I don’t care what people tell you, you are not going to get to Butte by traveling east.  You have to turn around and drive west.  People can tell you to make all the facts in the world, ‘Well it’s more economical and you’ll be able to do this, and actually this is the faster way to get to Butte.  Go east.’  But that’s not going to work. Obviously.  The same with the gospel. Satan is going to throw all this stuff at you, and tell you, ‘No, this is how you get peace and joy.  This is how you get to Heaven.  Go east.’”  And then he stops and goes, “Uh, not to say that Butte is the Celestial kingdom, or to be confused with Heaven.”  He kinda made a joke and I’m sitting there going, “Yeah, don’t want to bash on Butte, but it’s definitely not there right now.”  Not to say that there’s not lots of heavenly messengers and servants there, because I know there are, there’s powerful work there, powerful experiences to be had in Butte, but definitely not quite Zion yet.   So that was just kindof a funny moment I had.   He’s like, “The only way to turn west is you have to take an exit. You have to turn around.  Make a u-turn.  You have to go back the way you came.  Head down the right way.   There’s no alternate path, “maybe I can take this dirt road…” or do this… you have to go the straight and narrow way.   I’m like, “that’s a really good analogy.  I like that.”

Reading the Book of Mormon has been awesome lately.    It’s just really been one of those fruitful times.  I’m reading about Ammon, and the Sons of Mosiah, and Alma the Younger, and all these people, and I’m just like, “These guys are studs.”  But it’s more than that, like small verses will just stick out to me. I’m like, “Oh!  I love this!” Yeah.  The Book of Mormon is great.

Let’s see… the Bowmans are a recent convert family that we’ve been teaching.  I don’t know if I’ve said this, they have over forty rabbits.  Like they keep them in cages outside and they show them in this giant shed thing, but they have over forty rabbits.  And I’m like “Holy Cow.”  They all have a name, her group is nationally recognized, Emma, she’s 18 and they’re called The Nerd Herd cause they all have nerdy names.  She did just buy a rabbit from someone who names all her rabbits after heavy metal bands and so she has a rabbit called Metallica now.  And I’m like “Oh my goodness, what?” So that’s kind of a fun new part of the world I’ve never heard of before.  We’ve been having fun teaching the Bowmans, they’ve been struggling a bit reading, but they’re doing good.   I had fun with them last night.  We usually teach them every Sunday night.

Phil.  Oh, Phil is this less active who for the last couple of months has been trying to change his life around completely. You know from running with the devil to coming back.  He knows the church is true.  He knows that Jesus Christ is there lifting him up.  It’s been amazing to watch this and help him out.  We haven’t been visiting him too much lately and he gave us a call, and he’s like “Hey, I’m really struggling and I need you guys to come”  and we’re like, “okay.”  So we set a time and came by and he had just broke up with his girlfriend of two and a half years.  The girlfriend doesn’t want to get married, he’s been asking her for ages, because her deceased husband was a member of the military and died out in the service, it was his career, and if she were to re-marry she would lose the really nice military pension that she gets. So she’s not re-married and he’s like “I’ve let this woman take away really coming back because obviously we’re not married.”  But it’s really hard for him.  So we wanted to strengthen him and help him draw closer, and so we decided to fast, and had an amazing fasting experience this weekend with him.  We’re having dinner with him, or hopefully even just meeting with him on Tuesday, and we’re going to hear a bit more of his experience fasting.   We haven’t really met with him too much yet. So, I’m excited for that.   This is truly the Lords work.  I love doing missionary work.

Okay, another funny thing.  Lactaid free milk. Most glorious thing ever. I found this brand, Dairy Gold, where basically they take milk and they add in enzymes that break down lactaid, or they break down lac…tose? I think that’s what it’s called. Yeah, not lactaid.  Basically they added in lactaid to it, so it’s lactose free milk, and they add in the enzymes that are required to break it down, and so it pretty much tastes just like regular milk. Because it is.  A little sweeter, but it’s milk, and it also lasts like a month, month and a half. Like the expiration date on it is awesome.  I’m looking at this like “Holy crap.”   We had dinner with someone who is way more than me had to be lactose free, and she had this and my companion hasn’t tried any, he’s from Florida, lives out in the country, drinks milk all the time, goes through a gallon or two a week.  Not quite like a gallon a day, but… we got him to try it last night and like everyone else at the table and it was funny.  He had it in this fancy glass and he’s swirling it around… smells it… “good texture, good texture.  Very sweet, good year.” ( Laughs.)  

He’s also been having some knee problems, poor guy.  So we’ve both been taking ibuprofen and using glorious horse liniment gel and having fun with that.  I’m like, “yep.  We’re gimps.  It’s great.” Also, so we’ve been cleaning out our apartment, and we came across this…  as we’re going through stuff, I’m like “what is this?” and I pull out  his giant manual thing and it’s like 2006, so it’s a little old, but it’s a ‘Gun Values Manual’.  I mean, the thing is huuuuge.  Does it have page numbers?  Yeah, like 700 pages, giant, “Fully Revised!  Over 7800 guns! 3500 photos! For modern arms, 1900 to present. Twelfth edition.”  I’m just like, “Oh my goodness. Some missionary really, really had fun here.” I did sit down and look through it, so yes, there was that.  It’s just gun values, can’t learn anything with this, thanks.  But I just thought that was kind of funny.  Of all things to come across.  We also found a sleeping bag, several air mattresses, we clearly absorbed another whole apartment when they closed down one of the Stevensville areas.   The missionaries were living above a bar, it wasn’t the best situation.  But we absorbed all their stuff, so we have like a random box spring, some really run down furniture, we’ll be getting some new ones soon.  We don’t even have a trash can, we just have a big trash bag.  But then we have this whole corner that’s like “The old apartment stuff”.  And I’m like, “Oh, I’m kind of glad I didn’t live in that apartment.”  But yeah, that’s that.  

And also we were in Napa the other day getting new windshield wipers and corrosion cleaned off our battery, we could have done it ourselves, but the church has an account there and it’s easier, and saves us some time.  It’s just baking soda I believe that you just pour on the corrosion on the corrosion on the battery, scrub it with a toothbrush, wash it off with water, and you’re good to go.  But we just took it in.  We needed new windshield wipers anyway.  And what they charged us, it was ridiculous.  I’m never taking in a car back home.  Like they charged us at least $6 to install the wiper blades themselves.  I’m like, “we didn’t want you to install them…”  it was… yeah.  Anyways, as we walk in, they have this just Sale sign, no, wait, that wasn’t at Napa, that was Tire-Rama we went to to get all of that done.  Why did we go to Napa? That’s right because our check engine light came on, and we needed them to scan it and get the error code.  My companion is like “Gosh Darnit!  I need them to send me mine from home.”  And I’m like “Of course you have one, because you’re a stud.”  But so we walk in and they have this giant Bluetooth rugged speaker, it looks like a miniature boom box practically, waterproof, all these things, but it was $30, and my companion just looks at it, and grabs it.  “Dibs!” Slams it down on the counter, “I got this!” And it’s amazing, holy cow.  We teach several people who can’t always hear what we have, so it’s going to be really good for him on his mission.  I mean, it’s awesome. We played it throughout the whole house… I’m like, “ This is sick.” So that was kind of fun.

That’s about all I immediately had for now.  Oh, crap, 21 minutes. Love you! Hope you all have a wonderful day, bye!