Year mark and conference

Hello Family, 

This week right after preparation day was over, I went on exchanges with Elder Hatton in Missoula until Wednesday. On Tuesday however, we were driving around trying to figure out where we were going to tract because we had nothing else in our plans to do. But while we were driving around, Elder Hatton remembered that there was a less active lady in the area that they have been trying to contact for a few weeks now. We decided to stop by and try to get in. On the way there it started to rain pretty hard. When we knocked on her door she answered and saw that it was raining so she let us in. We shared with her the new Easter video and she really liked it. The conversation had many different topics and we taught her a lot of things and she really felt the spirit because she was crying the whole lesson, she was touched. One thing that she told us was that she had made cupcakes earlier that day and for some reason she set 4 cupcakes on a plate and covered it up. She didn't know why she did that, but she decided that they were probably for us. So she gave them to us. It was a very powerful lesson. It's nice to have those lessons that you just cant stop talking about for a while. 

Also this past week, I hit my year mark as a missionary. My year mark was on the second. All we did for my year mark, (since it landed on a Thursday) was weekly planning for the coming week. Then we headed out to Drummond to have dinner with some members out there. For dinner we went to a small restaurant called Parkers. This restaurant is famous for having over 135 different kinds of hamburgers on the menu that you could eat. None of those hamburgers looked appetizing to me. So I told the waitress that I just wanted a double bacon cheeseburger and her reply was, "are you kidding me! out of 135 different burgers to choose from, you want a plain old simple double bacon cheeseburger?!?!?!" She wasn't super mad because she was just joking about it. In my mind I thought, "your focusing on how good all of your 135 different burgers are but lets see how good you can make a classic." and being honest, that was a really good burger! There was also a challenge that Parkers had where you had to eat a two pound cheeseburger, one pound of fries, and a large milkshake in 20 minutes! That is a lot of food! The waitress said that there have been a few missionaries in the past that have beat it and some of their pictures are on the wall. That really tempted me to take that challenge but I don't think that I could do it right now. maybe someday I will try it.

Conference was amazing! there was so many great speakers. I took a lot of good notes and I hope that you did too.
Well that was my week. Hope yours was good.

-Elder McKade Daniels 

new year

As you know; this new year is a time to reflect on the past and to see what you want to change for the coming year. During thanksgiving,  I had made the decision that I was going to read the whole new testament. but my new years resolution, that I am going to keep, is that I am going to read the whole standard works by the end of my mission. The end of my mission is just a little after next year so I thought that this would be an appropriate goal that I could accomplish. It seems crazy that I am going to hit my year mark in 3 months! 

Ringing in the new year was pretty fun. We tried to get in with a few people but they were not home, most of them took a trip down to Utah. Apparently Utah is a hotspot for new years?!? But since most of the people were not at home we went to the stake center where the ward was having a party. We are usually supposed to be home at 9 but we were allowed to be out till 10:30. By the time that we got home and did our nightly planning for the next day and getting ready to go to bed, it was already midnight. So I was able to stay up till midnight even though I am a missionary. haha! But the bad thing about that was that we had to wake up at 6:30 that morning to go and do missionary work again! So we got 6 hours of sleep. But we would take a nap during our lunch hour to get some more rest. haha!

The new year kinda started out a little rough. We went tracting on new years day and we felt that we should go and tract this certain street in town, So we did and we got shut down and a lot of the people either didn't answer the door or when they did answer they were pretty rude. A lot of the people were not really happy to see us. It was a very interesting way to start out the new year I guess. 

This week has been really windy in WY. It has been warming up the past few days but it is really windy! Its pretty hard to do missionary work without a car every other week, its hard to have a lot of appointments during the day but it takes forever to walk to the appointments when they are not right next to each other. But we are seen a lot  when walking next to the roads in the cold at night. Like my letter last week, a lot of people have offered to give us rides but most of the time they are single women and we cannot get a ride with them. 

I hope that your new years was amazing, and that you have made some new years resolutions that you are going to keep. I love the area and the people that live here. They have great spirits and are very friendly. 

-Elder Daniels

Merry Christmas Family and Friends

am very grateful for this opportunity to be on a mission for the lord at this time during the Christmas season. I am grateful to be here in Northern Wyoming as well, along with being companions with Elder Horsley who is from American fork Utah. all of the members I have seen since transfers have been very welcoming. Even all of the people that are not members are very nice. Since we live a little out of town in a little cottage on the KOA, we have to walk into town. We do not have the car because we are in a car share. but every day that we have had to walk into town. Somebody has always stopped to give us a ride into town. There is a lot of potential here. A lot of the people that we are meeting with seem pretty solid, but its hard to try and schedule a time during this Christmas season   Most of the people that we are meeting with say, "just come back after the holidays." which is like in a week or two.I

Other than that we have been really good at having 8 o'clock lessons. this week while we were tracting, we were tracting in a snow storm that just came up suddenly. We knocked on a door and they opened up and we did the regular door approach. They saw that it was snowing outside and that it was cold so they invited us inside. We started talking about Jesus Christ and how he is the real reason for Christmas. While we were talking they interrupted us and said that they did not believe in Christmas because they were Jehovah Witnesses. We were unaware that they were Jehovah witnesses let alone that they did not believe in Christmas. So we just started talking about each others beliefs and why we believe what we believe. We brought up the pre-mortal life, and they asked us if that was found in the bible or just the Book of Mormon. I explained that it was in Jeremiah 1:5. so they pulled out their Jehovah Witness bible(which I think is the new world translation bible) and they turned to it an read it aloud. Jeremiah 1:5 is where it says," before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee." but when they read it out of their bible it read, " before I formed YOU in the womb, I knew YOU." then we started talking about the need for the Book of Mormon using the scriptures from the bible. such as " by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every work be established." once we finished talking about the necessity for the Book of Mormon. the conversation basically ended. They were the first Jehovah Witnesses that I have had the chance to talk to without them trying to bash on us. it was a really nice, wholesome, non-contentious conversation. other that what I have explained, that is all the things that have been happening here this week. 

Hope you are staying warm. especially because it is starting to become more and more like winter.  

-Elder Daniels