March 21st

Hey,

So this is what I have found over the course of my mission. I have found that when you go about doing missionary work, you have good days and bad days. The odd thing is, is that when you have a really awesome week where tons of things happened and missionary work is progressing, then the next week is just super un-progressive and you struggle teaching people and the work is super hard. Well, we just had one of those weeks. Last week we had the baptism of T. (which was really awesome) and we had a really successful week. Then this week we struggled a bit When we were in Cutbank. On Tuesday we had the zone conference in Helena, it was my final zone conference of my mission, so most of the missionaries I knew there, I would not see again until after the mission. Of course during the final zone conference of your mission (if the zone conference is on your last transfer) you bear your testimony in front of almost half the mission. I was not the only missionary to bear my testimony in Helena. There was another elder that I came out with, as well as a sister that is going home with us (she came out 6 months after we were out, so it lines up 18 months and 2 years). I thought the zone conference was great. I was the last of the three to bear their departing testimony. I stood up their and started speaking and then I just stopped for a second and I was fighting back tears. I accomplished not crying. But during that moment of silence. I looked out at the missionaries and I noticed that some of the sisters that I had served around were starting to tear up. I don't know why.... But when I was finished, I walked down and I sat down and looked at elder Archie (who was the other elder who bore his testimony) we looked at each other for a second and elder Archie said while everyone was still quiet, "this sucks man!" And everybody heard it and they all started laughing, it was weird to be bearing my testimony. 

After the zone conference was over we split up and went on an exchange with the district leader since we had not done one this transfer. During the exchange we met with a few people and one of them in fact was M. who we have not seen in about 2 months. We came back and finally met with her just on her doorstep. (You can probably see where this is going) as soon as she opened the door we didn't even really get a word out at the beginning, she said, "guys, I love my church and it was good to get to know about your church, but I just love my church and I am not going to join yours." So in other words, she dropped us.....hard. But I was actually fine with it. Usually when somebody drops us, I get pretty upset. But this time I was actually calm.  Usually when you stop going to someone weekly and then show up a few months later, the investigators usually either do two things. They either realize that they missed you and become super interested (and eventually get baptized), or the opposite happens, they harden against the church because of anti-Mormon stuff or they finally got the courage to say "not interested" to us. Which in this case was the latter of the two. 

After the exchange was over we tried to go to Browning the next day but when we did, Nobody was home. We tried so many different people but were unsuccessful. Sunday was pretty good. We spoke in church and everybody loved it. Also, when we went to browning. There was a old lady there that was coming to church. She said she is a member but we don't have her records. She said the last time that she came to church was 1987. We have no idea why she decided to come that Sunday. We asked her but she was keeping silent. She wouldn't even tell us where she lived so we could visit her. 

Anyways, it is winding down but I am still going strong to the end even though the end of my mission is nigh. Have a good week!