April 21, 2014

Family!!!!

      

This week!!! This week has been great! On Wednesday Sister Spencer was sick, so we did not do a lot.  

 

We did our normal routine in the morning and we had a appointment with Eliza, she is sorta less active. Anyways she is amazing! It was the first time I really have met her, and oh my goodness she is great! That day got so much better cause we were able to see her. I convinced Sister Spencer to let us go back to the office, so she could relax, but I could also get work done, because I hate sitting around when I am not sick. We went to the office and I got a lot done. In the evening I was struggling because we went back to the apartment for dinner and stayed there for her to rest. At 8 Pm I asked if we could just get out of the apartment for a little bit, so we left and got her some medicine. After that we went back to the apartment and I did not want to go back inside, so we planned in the car for the next day. While planning Sister Strong called us and said "Sister Draudt, someone wants to talk to you" Then the best thing ever happened, I heard Sister Austin's voice! She was being transferred to Kalispell!!!(It was transfer day) I really wanted to see her the whole day, but I didn't know if I was allowed, so we did not go to the church where she was. So hearing her voice was the best!  She asked if I could come see her and well, I had to! Haha. So we drove over to the Stake center, and I ran in and Sister Austin and I just hugged for like 5 minutes Straight! Oh my goodness I love sister Austin so so much. We talked and talked and talked. We ended up having to take her and another sister to the Monad sister's apartments, which was awesome! We talked forever, she told me all about everything happening and caught up. I did not want to leave, but we had to. When we got home Elder Hemenway called (our ZL he is from OREM!) and asked if we would take the sisters to the mission home in the morning, so I was able to see her in the morning too. I could not have asked for a better 2 days! After Sister Austin left early in the morning we continued with our day and It was a good day.

     

On Thursday night we went to a less active's house, Brandie. I think I have mentioned her before. She is an interesting lady haha. Well we had a good lesson with her, but at the end we were joking around. She is from Powell Wyoming, she always says they need spunky Bold missionaries down there, and she was saying how sister Spencer would do great, cause she is bold, and I am not. It was not a rude comment at all, but it really started to bug me and I got really down. I realized I am not nearly as Bold as I was in Riverton. I was so sad.  I am determined to change. We were talking about Easter and I don't really remember what made me think about what I am going to say, but It helped me. I thought about how the Resurrection of Christ and how he lives again. I realized that We are not just physically resurrected after this life, but we  can be spiritually resurrected each day. We can repent and we can change, we can have new beginnings because our Savior paid for our sins, and he died for us and he lives again. We can live again like him also, every day. I determined right then that I would live again right then. I was repenting and determining to change. I would live again. I will be that Bold missionary again, I will be the missionary Heavenly Father wants me to be. This is my new beginning.   I felt at that very moment that my Savior lives!!! I know that he lives, but right then it  was so strong!!! I know that Jesus Christ lives!!! In one of Elder Hollands talks he testifies of God and says he is more sure that he lives than he is sure that that the people in the conference center sat before him. This is exactly how I felt, and I feel. My Savior lives! What a miracle that is! He lives. 

        

At the end of the lesson, Brandie looked at me and asked why I was crying (because I am totally a bawl baby now bleh) Right then I testified to her that I know Jesus Christ lives. It was a very simple testimony, but it is true. I know my Savior lives. I hope all of you know that too, that he lives and because he lives, we will too.

           

On Saturday during studies I really wanted to read about Christ Resurrection out of all the 4 gospels. That was one of the most powerful experiences I have had during my study time. I noticed how there were all different versions of the simple simple things that did not really matter, like how many angels there were and stuff. But the major points stayed exactly the same. I recognized that in all the gospels the last thing Christ said before ascending to heaven is to preach the gospel! His last words are to preach the gospel! How amazing is that? Obviously it is so very important if those are his last words! I love in John where it says "Why seek ye the living among the dead" I love that!  It is obvious with Christ Rising, but I think we do this all the time in daily life. We seek truly living (having eternal joy) in worldly ways and places (which all are only temporary, and will leave, will die) Ok that probably makes no sense but it makes sense in my head haha. While studying I had this idea, which was more like a prompting, to tract with an Easter message. Then it got more specific, to go share a Easter message with our very devout Lutheran neighbors. They are so sweet. I told sister Spencer about  this and she was excited also. We went over To Fred and Eileen's. What a blessing to be in their home. They shared so many miracles that they have seen. Fred is a walking miracle, at like 8 months old his head was burned so badly, and he shoulder. He had over 80 skin graphs and surgeries. Then one time he had a nail in his eye, and another time a piece of wood fell right in his head and went in his brain. He had cancer at one point, and they prayed and he had an anointing in his church and when they went in there was no cancer. We had a testimony meeting with them pretty much about how our Savior lives and everything he gives us. We shared that "Because of Him" video! I love that video, we have watched it over 15 times and never get sick of it. I know that we were supposed to go see Fred and Eileen, we were able to strengthen our relationship with them and help them. I love that even though they are Lutheran and we are Mormon it does not matter at all, we could just sit and talk about our Savior with them. We all can know that Jesus Christ is out Savior, and that he lives.

Ok so yesterday EASTER! Was the best Easter ever! We has a Morning Devotional with out District. Elder Thomas who is our new district leader planned it. He is also from Orem! He is a really great missionary. He only came out a couple months ago. We watched the "Because of him" video, and we all took turns bearing our testimonies on the Savior. Elder Thomas told us that today could be the best day of our missions so far. I really took that to Heart and decided that it would be the best day of my mission so far. After the devotional we went home and put scriptures about Christ Resurrection in plastic eggs so that we could give them away at church.

         

Sacrament was the coolest! It was a great meeting but what made it cool was that Korrin, who is one of our investigators brought her mom with her to church so she could watch her sing in the choir :) Then Ben our investigator with aspergers/ autism :) He is such a sweet guy, he sang in the choir also :) Right then his mom walked in the chapel and was able to watch him sing. What a sweet sight to see. She just grinned from ear to ear. Sacrament meeting could not have been better. These 2 moms were able to see their children in the choir and to see how much the ward loves them. 

          

After Church we went home and studied, not for too long though, because we had Easter Dinner with Eliza and her mom :) It was so fun and just awesome! Eliza's mom is a member but not active and we were able to have a great conversation about our Savior. Dinner was so good, and they are classy people, so it was very nice haha. We then went all the way out to Shepherd, which is about half an hour from Billings. Johnathan his aunt Randy and her daughter Promise and Promise's boyfriend Ernesto were there. We played chubby bunny with them and the elders. I got 5 in my mouth and it was awful I was like about to gag. It was gross, we all had marshmallow slobber..so freaking gross. It was so funny to go from Eliza's to Johnathan's haha, where we were all loud. I will have to send pics. We talked about Promise's baptism a little which was great! We then left and saw Jessie, he still does not want to come to our ward, but we will get him there, haha he is a very sweet person. Then we finished the night off at out Bishops :) Best way to end the night. Easter was one amazing day!

        

This week has been great. I want to bear my testimony that Jesus Christ lives, and that he is the Savior of the World, he is my Savior. He understand me perfectly and did what he did so that he can help me. I love him and am so grateful for his sacrifice and for Heavenly Fathers sacrifice. This gospel is true.  I love you all so much :) Happy Easter :)

               

                -Andrea :)

April 14, 2014

Oh my goodness where to begin this week has been amazing! The first couple days was crazy busy with office work and I was really beginning to become frustrated, I wanted to be out proselyting, but I was able to see so many amazing things in the office. It is really cool to see the work truly hastening, and seeing how every missionary is really hastening the work of salvation. That was miracle number one, the work is hastening. 

       

On Thursday morning we get a text while at the office and it is Johnathan's aunt, and the text just says "Promise wants to be baptized asap!" Promise is her daughter. Bahahaha this seriously made my day! I am so happy she wants to be baptized, and she is a great person, it is just funny cause of the situation..like over a text, and the phrase "baptized asap" We are going to begin teaching her, but it will not be asap, because there are a lot of things she will need to work out before being baptized. I love this because it shows that people in the world recognize truth and they want it in their lives. We are excited to being working with Promise.

        

On Thursday we also were able to teach Korrin the Plan of Salvation. She is so amazing! The spirit that was there was so strong! Everything was going against us trying to meet with her, like none of the members could come, and she was sick, but yet she still wanted us to come. We taught her, and she bore testimony to us. This gospel is true.

      

On Friday we were finishing our weekly planning session and we were at the church because we needed wifi. I usually don't use my paper planner at all anymore, but I decided I needed it just in case, so we ran outside to go get it.  When we tried to get back in the church the door was locked. Everyone who was there when we arrived was gone and well our keys to the church were inside and so was our phone. We did not know what to do. I said that we should say a prayer for help. Sister Spencer wanted to check the other door first. So we did...and well it was locked. So we knelt down on the grass and we said a prayer. Not even kidding, as I closed the prayer we heard a truck pull in. When we opened our eyes there was a guy in the parking lot. He just happened to need something out of the basement, and he had keys so he let us in. Miracle! Heavenly Father answers prayers!!!  He really does! That strengthened my testimony.  We had a wonderful rest of the day. It was beautiful outside and we were able to teach several people :)

       

Saturday was rough, but really it was not, it was absolutely amazing, just hard haha. On Saturday morning we went into the office and well it was different then most days in the office because the missionaries that were who were  leaving were at the Temple, and at about 9:30 they returned to the mission home to grab their bags and head to the airport. I have never been here to see missionaries off, and it was hard, because almost all of the missionaries who left were ones I worked with and knew personally. The ones who especially effected the beginning of my mission and really helped me out. Elder Julander, my first district leader in Big Fork, Elder Peterson, my first Zone leader in Bigfork. Then Sister Romrell, she left. She was my personal angel in the beginning. She helped me so much. I remember being in such a rough spot and so down and sad, and when I was transferred to her 3 weeks in and she helped me out so much. I remember telling her how it seemed like 18 months was forever and it was taking so long. I remember her looking at me, and saying "I love my mission, I never want it to end, It is going too fast. One day you will feel this way too." She really meant what she said and I could tell she did. I have reached that point, I love my mission. I did not believe her at first, but she was right. She had only been out about 8 and a half months when I was with her...now she is home. 10 months later. That went way to fast. She has 10 months left when she said it was going fast, I only Have 8 months left. How crazy is that, it really did go fast. Bleh....haha. Sister Romrell really helped me and I will always be thankful to her for that. Elder Farabee left, he was my district leader in Great falls when I first got there. His district meetings were always so funny and made me laugh. Elder Rust left this transfer also. He served in Great Falls 3rd Ward. The whole time I was there we worked really closely with him. He taught me so much. He has a strong testimony and is a hard worker. I admired him as a missionary and I want to be a missionary like him. He was probably the hardest to see leave, because I worked with him the longest and I learned so much from him. He loved the people, he always had a  positive attitude and wanted to bless others. He loves the Savior and when he taught, weather in a lesson, or in district meeting I always could feel the spirit cause he really believed and had faith in what he taught. I was lucky enough to be able to say goodbye to all of these amazing missionaries. Most missionaries don't have that chance, and even if it was hard to do I am so thankful I had that chance.

        

After all the missionaries left we went home and studied, then later went out to Hardin (45 min away) We met up with the elders there and tried several people with no luck at all. Sister Spencer was a little down cause we did not have any luck, but I realized on our drive home that I learned so much from that experience! Elder Howard really worked hard, he called so many people, and he had really purposeful prayers, he followed prompting that he had. At the end of trying people we went back to the church and made a "Game plan" for next time we come out so it is more productive. I learned that I want to have more purposeful prayers, like he does and I want to speak up and follow promptings of the spirit when I have them. I want to make a game plan with sister Spencer with this new transfer also so we can have more of a productive transfer.

 

Oh yes we got transfer news yesterday and I am staying here with sister Spencer! Wahooo Anyways back to Saturday! Saturday night we taught Brandie and well in the beginning her and her boy friend were fighting! There was so much tension there. But at the end of the lesson Brandie was so much calmer and I felt prompted to have us sing, so we sang Battle Hymn of the Republic because it is her favorite song and the lesson ended on such a positive note. We then went to Adriana's and watched the talk by Bishop Stevenson about "Your 4 minutes" which was one of my absolute favorites from conference. Adriana started crying during it, and well we just a had a wonderful time with her and her roommate Elise while we sat on the floor of their dorm room and watched that talk. I think it was good for Elise too because she is Less active and her husband is not a member. He is deployed right now and comes home this next week. She is meeting him in California where they live. While he has been gone she moved up here to go to school. She is such a sweet girl and I really hope that talked helped her.

Ok now to Sunday!!! YAY!!! Yesterday was such an amazing day! Well it was fast Sunday and we started our fast the afternoon before since they do a munch and mingle after church on fast Sunday. During sacrament almost every testimony was about the atonement, it was a fantastic meeting. The spirit was strong, it carried over to Sunday school also where we talked about the atonement also. Seriously I think it was just the best Sacrament meeting I have had since being here. I also was able to talk to Zoe and Teffy, who live in our ward, they are active, but Teffy just moved here from Utah, so I am trying to get to know them. Zoe is going to hair school, she is cutting my hair this week :) That should be fun...hahaha!! I also was able to talk to Korrin a lot : ) I just love her, she is great. We then had the munch and mingle! Dang that was awesome! I was so hungry and we had sub sandwiches. So good. After the munch and mingle we taught Korrin, and a lady she brought with her and with whom she is really close. We talked about Faith, repentance, baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost. We asked her about how she feels the Holy Ghost and also the lady she brought and it was wonderful. We also talked about moving her baptismal date up and she said she does not want to wait till August, but she is thinking about June. I think it is really cool to see her pray about a date, normally we set it, but  I have to say I think Heavenly Father wants her to pick the day and I love being able to watch her choose. She is still praying about May. After the munch and mingle we headed home and studied (I have so much to tell all of you about my studies this week, but I will save that for the end) Then after studies and dinner we headed out. Funniest experience ever. We go to try this guy, Jessie, and his landlord sees us outside and tells us that we need to walk in the door to knock cause his door is further inside. We walk in and we hear a shower, but we did not know if it was a shower or sink...so we knock...MISTAKE! The water stops, we then knew it was the shower. This young guy peeks his head outside of the door and is quiet and then he says "oh...sister missionaries...give me a second." BAHAHAHHAHAHA So awkward!  We went outside and waited for him haha. When he got dressed he came out and got us. We stood outside the apartment though cause he was alone, and so we could not go in. He is a little slow, but a very nice guy. We asked why he doesn't come to our ward. He told us that he goes to the family ward cause our ward never fellow shipped him, no one really cared about him. My heart was breaking. He told us he had seen the elders, but they never tried to talk to him. If we were elders he told us he would have not talked to us. We asked if we could come back again and he said yes. I am determined to help him know the ward does care. I think one of the reasons I might be here is for people like him. We have a lot of special needs people in our ward, more than normal. Our ward is really nice, but they do not know how to work with people like Jessie, and I think I might be here to help them. Because there are a lot of people like Jessie in the ward who don't feel like the ward cares, we have run into him a couple times. I want to help the ward realize they are children of God! It breaks my heart to see them all be left out. Not that they always are, but there have been occasions and I just think about Josh and it breaks my heart. I never want anyone to treat Josh the way I have seen some people be treated here. Really though most people are very very kind to them. It is hard to talk to people like Jessie though and see how he feels. Anyways enough of my rant.

   

After meeting Jessie we went out to Lockwood (which is a suburb right outside of Billings) We tried finding one person, and they lived in the middle of no where, I had to back up Sister Spencer at one point so we could turn around and try finding someone else. We both Felt we should see "James" we have never met him, he is just a less active on our list. We started driving and I realized the phone was gone! We thought it was under my chair, it was not. We then got out and took pics with the sunset. :) So pretty. We finally got to Jame's house and knocked on the door. Sue Holman answered and said he did not live there any more  and he has a baby (her grandson) but she let us in and her husband was there and her other grandson John who is less active. He is YSA age and loved to talk to us. We were definitely there for a reason haha. Not for James, but for John :) We chatted with all of them for a while and held their baby ducks....it pooped on me! But it was so cute, so I decided I was not to upset... hahaha.  Brother Holman kept talking to us, which was great, but I kept having the feeling to ask John to come to the singles ward, but I did not get a chance for a while. Finally I sorta made my chance and just interrupted a little and told John he should try out the singles ward and he said "Ok, that sounds cool," That was so much easier than I thought. We got to talking and he told us he wants to come back, but he is just self conscious because of his tattoos and his beard haha. He is scared people will judge him. Sister Spencer was the best, she said "They won't judge you, and if they do, you tell me, I will punch them" Bahaha I love Sister Spencer haha. We also were able to get John to coming to FHE tonight. :) I hope he comes. He seems like he will. Before we left we asked if we could share a message. I have been trying to apply what I have learned in my personal study in teaching and so I shared something from my studies earlier that day. I really had no idea how it would go, but I really felt like I needed to share it, so I did. I shared 3 Nephi 17:5-8. I want to share it with you all also, because It really stood out to me in my studies It says 

"And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus spoken, he cast his eyes round about again on the multitude, and beheld they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them. And he said unto them: Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you. Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy. For I perceive that ye desire that I should show unto you what I have done unto your brethren at Jerusalem, for I see that your faith is sufficient that I should heal you."

     

This really made an impact cause I think about the Nephites and how they felt that the Savior had to leave the next day, and it was so hard for them. I would not want my Savior to leave me either. That would be so hard! Then the Savior decided to stay a little longer, and he heals these people of their infirmities. I love that he does not want to leave them either, so instead he heals them. I know that, is what our Savior does for us. He loves us and wants to help us. He will heal us. I love when the Savior says "I see that your faith is sufficient that I should heal you." I want to have that faith. I want my Savior to be able to say that to me also. While we were at the Holmans I challenged all of them to think of something that they can be healed from and to let the Savior heal them. I want to challenge all of you (who ever reads this) to think of something you need healing of, weather it is physical, spiritual, emotional. Ask and pray for healing, and then act on the faith you have to be healed from it. I can promise you that the Savior will heal you with the power of his Atonement.

      

When we left the Holman's;  Sister Holman gave us huge hugs and said "You were suppose to be here tonight. I needed that message. I need to be healed. She explained to us why and it was so special. We were able to feel the spirit so strong, and I know we needed to be there for us and for them. I love how Heavenly Father works.  He will put us where we need to be at the time we need to be there. Just like tonight :) What a miracle.

     

After the Holman's we prayed to find our phone and we went back to the middle of no where, and our phone was right there, so easy to find. That was a miracle also :) This week has been a week of miracles.

    

I was able to learn so much from my studies this week. I have been reading in 3 Nephi.  I am going to ask all of you to read chapter 11, because that chapter is Christ coming to the Americas, and I know we read it a lot, but it really is one of the best Chapters, so please read it this week, and also Chapters 17 and 18. I have learned so much from 17 and and 18. I promise that when you read these chapters you will learn something that you have not yet learned and you will also receive guidance that you have been seeking. I can promise that. Please read them. I love you all and I know that this church is true. I know Heavenly Father guides and directs our church and he loves us and he wants us to be happy. The atonement is real.

   

Sorry the email is so long, I love this gospel and I am so thankful I was able to share with you so much of what I learned this week :) I love you

                 

                 - Sister Andrea Draudt

 

Best sunsets ever!

Sister Mechams birthday! we decorated for :) and we got her that sash haha

Our life in the office..it gets crazy!!! That board took us forever haha...

Pictures!!!

Sister Draudt and her Companion

The Karikers