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

The typical meal

This week, October 23rd, we got to go to the stake center to have a zone preparation day. All of the missionaries in our zone met at the church and we had a pumpkin carving contest. I did not participate because I want to have a great looking pumpkin carved right before Halloween. So I am going to wait a few more days.

After the pumpkin carving contest we had dinner with Brother G. We had a hearty meal of a freshly hunted turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes. It's a pretty typical meal here in rural Montana. There is almost always some sort of meat with mashed potatoes and gravy. As we were about to leave he had us follow him to his freezer, because he needs to get some more freezer space soon because elk season is almost here. So we went out to the freezer and he gave us some black bear meat from the bear that he shot and killed last week Now at home we have black bear meat, elk country smoked sausage, elk pepperoni sticks, elk cubes, and bacon.

Right after our dinner with Brother G., we had a lesson with one of our recent converts D. She is taking the new member lessons from us. Her husband is not a member yet, but we made sure he was there because as we were teaching D. we were going to teach J., her husband, the discussions. As the lesson went on, we both noticed that he was getting pretty emotional. During the part of the lesson where we talked about the first vision with Joseph smith, we noticed that he was tearing up and he was about to cry because he was feeling the spirit so much. So it was at that time that we both knew that he needed to be  committed to be baptized. So we did exactly that, when we asked J, D got all anxious about it and when he said yes she let out a huge sigh of relief. It was the perfect lesson because we did everything that we are asked to do. I can't wait to see him get baptized.

That very same night we went over to our Ward mission leader’s house to explain to him what happened with J’s lesson. His littlest daughter kept running around and having fun. Then Elder W pulled out his laser pointer that he uses to play with cats. So he was shining it all around and she was chasing after it trying to catch it. We were all laughing so hard because it was really funny. Then we shined it on her and she freaked out because she thought it was a bug and it made it even funnier until she started crying and then we felt bad. When would shine it on somebody else she would laugh because it was on them and not her!!!! We had a good time there and our ward mission leader is really excited for J as much as we are.

On Tuesday we had dinner with a member. It was a pretty good dinner; it was fried chicken and pheasant, mashed potatoes and gravy!! You guessed it! Typical Montana dinner! We went over to the G family on Wednesday night. We knocked on the door and he said, "Elder W! Come in!" It was funny how he knew it was us without even looking.  We asked him how he knew and he said that he doesn't really have a lot of friends so he figured it was us.

 We took some pictures for some #bookofmormoning. There is not one attached but the caption was, "If you ever feel like you are lost in the world, turn to the book of Mormon for guidance.  It will help you understand your purpose in life and where you should turn." the picture was basically us reading the book of Mormon in the middle of nowhere because that would represent the "lost" part of the picture. If you can picture that in your head.

On Friday we helped one of our investigators, J (#2), take apart his engine for his VW car. We took everything off the motor till it was just the block. Then we even took all of the parts off inside the block. It was pretty hard. We also helped the B family set up Halloween decorations, and also helped brother B put a timing belt back on their car. Let's say that we learned a lot about cars in the past two days.

This Sunday we had stake conference and the whole zone got to sing a special hymn.  We sang high on a mountain top. It was really good. President and sister Mecham were there and they spoke and the spirit was so strongly there.

Well that was my week and I hope yours was just as exciting if not better.

#BookofMormoning

This week , October 13th, we traveled a lot! We had to drive into Billings on Monday because we have to email and shop and do the other things that we absolutely cannot do out in our small town. Then we had to go in Tuesday because we had to go get our car estimated for hail damage. We have gotten some hail storms lately.  Wednesday we had our district meeting and we HAVE to go in for that. Then Thursday we had to go into town again to meet at the church for our missionary meeting with the ward mission leader. Friday we had to go in for a Facebook/online training. We basically went over the rules for Facebook and some of the things that we can do now. Something that I like that was added to the rules was #bookofmormoning. Basically what book of Mormoning is is that you take a picture of something that relates to a scripture in the book of Mormon and you have a picture of the book of Mormon in the picture. Then you put the photo on Facebook with the scripture as the description and then at the end, you put: #bookofmormoning. If you are confused even from my description then I invite you to go to Facebook and search for #bookofmormoning, and it will have tons of examples. I’ll have one picture of a book of mormoning for next week since I never got one this week. Remember to have the Book of Mormon in the photo!

I had the opportunity to play in primary AGAIN this week. it looks like they do not have a piano player for primary and they have the primary program not this Sunday because its stake conference but the next Sunday and I might have to play for that as well if they do not find a player! We were finally able to get in with one of our investigators this week that we haven’t seen since I got here seven weeks ago. It has been really hard to get in contact with them. It is mostly a hit and miss situation. 

Oh my aching back

Our mission is going through a purification process. Sending things home that we have collected over time, and do not need, or non approved media, this is in preparation for the missionaries to go to the temple. Even though I did not have much to send home, I noticed I had a few things. I am so excited to be able to attend the temple in the next two weeks! It is always a good thing to go to the temple whenever possible. Whenever you get the chance, you should always take it. nothing beats going to the temple.

We were able to meet with J. who we have scheduled to be baptized this coming Tuesday. We met with him on Wednesday to make sure that he still wants to be baptized, and also to finish the lessons. We were able to cover the topic of chastity. The topic of chastity is always a hard subject to explain without making weird. We still needed to finish the lessons of laws and ordinances. We were able to meet with him on Friday and finish the lessons, as well as get everything set up for the baptism. We scheduled the baptismal interview to be this Sunday. He is ready to be baptized!

One other thing that happened this week, happened on Friday as well. We got a text from one of our investigators, J. (a different person), who was in town. We went to see him first thing the next day. He still has a desire to be baptized, but his dad doesn't want him to until he turns 18. He told us that his sister got baptized in another church, and his dad let her be baptized even though she was not 18 either. We told him that the devil doesn't care if people get baptized in the wrong church, but he cares if they are going to be baptized in the right church! We are struggling a little bit on how we can help his dad let him be baptized now and not when he his 18.

This ward is a very missionary work minded ward. We are very privileged to go on splits with the members every Sunday and Tuesday. It's kind of hard for me to go on the splits when I don't know the area and the people to well. Most of the time we go and see the people that the members have in mind. I'm getting to know the area better and better each day though.

One other thing that happened this week was really back breaking. We helped our elders quorum president pour some concrete stairs. He had about 20 stairs that wrapped around a retaining wall. We went over at 10 in the morning and helped out making sure the forms that we made were going to hold up and there were not going to be any blowouts while we were pouring. We started pouring around 2 and finished around 6. The reason why it took so long was because he didn't order enough concrete and we had to wait until the truck came back. One thing is for sure, concrete work is really…REALLY hard bending over all day is no fun and for the next day my back was aching, along with Elder Wilson's.

Pouring concrete stairs



Local HS football game

They also went to the local HS football game. Not sure, but we think the second J. may be playing. At the very least, hopefully someone they are working with was at the game. Then again, it is a small town, so maybe almost the whole town  is not home during the games.

Farewell Malta

This week was the longest week ever. I thought that I was going to be staying in Malta for sure. Elder Sumner and I got along really well, and we did a lot of service and work there and I loved the area.

a picture of my zone

At least now I won't have to drive for 4 hours each week for district meetings. My new companion is the district leader. 
I am now in a big city, with 6 sets of missionaries. My companion and I live with a member in their basement. I am already seeing myself adjusting to this area and I love the people here. I am doing very well.

I sent a box home that has a hat or two or three in it. These were given to me by a really cool guy. I kept others to wear during service projects. You can try them on and take pics with them and send them to me to see how you look with them. That's the only time that you can wear them. When I come back off my mission,  and speak at my homecoming, I might be wearing boots and pants and a vest and a hat. That would be a sight to see. (Don't forget the bolo tie)