Andrea is in Montana : September 8, 2014

Well this week has been awesome! Except that out of the three main investigators we have, Lazarus is going to start being taught by the elders, Zack is moving back to Billings and Austin has not answered the phone! Goodness gracious! We have been able to talk to a lot of people this week but no one is very interested so yesterday for fast Sunday we were fasting to find a family to teach, to bring a family into the gospel together. Honestly I have never focused that much on a fast before. Every time I would want to, I would complain about being hungry. I would think about why I was fasting and then we prayed a lot as a companionship and individuals for the fast. The beginning was a little rough. Testimony meeting was amazing I felt the spirit so strong and it was awesome, then at the end Lazarus got up to bear his testimony, he is a sweet heart but...he turned it into a anti abortion speech and how they should rally together on a campaign he is working on to stop abortion, and if interested to contact him. This went on for a while, and there were some really good parts about prayer and repentance, but the whole abortion part was....crazy and I almost passed out. I was so worried! He did not completely know what fast and testimony meeting is, and it's over and it's all OK, but it still was weird haha

After church we had about an hour before dinner and so we started trying to contact referrals and less actives around the neighborhood of our dinner appointment, since our area is so spread out we need to stay in that neighbor hood to get anything done. Well no one was home and so we started tracting, and well I was not very excited to be tracting cause I was tired and hungry and stressed because of some stuff that happened that day, but we went anyways and we did not complain. The first door we knock on the man was so so nice to us, we talked about eternal families and family history he was interested in family history but not much else, however he told us he loves Mormons because they are so nice and he has some really good friends that are LDS. We started walking to the next door and there was a young man about 22 that pulled in and was getting all of his army gear out of the car, he just came back from training. We thanked him for his service and introduced our selves, and before we could even try to share anything with him he started asking us questions about Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon and so we were able to teach a little about the restoration. He was so nice and invited us inside and we got a return appointment with him. Heavenly Father blessed us so much!, by the time we left we were a little late for dinner luckily it was right around the corner. We had dinner at Bishop's and it was so good and fun. The Bartons are such a wonderful family! After dinner we ran to an appointment with Roy Pino and his wife Lisa. Roy is a less active and joined the church in Peru. We got there and the member we invited was already there talking to them. We found out that Roy misses his church, he loves his church and wants his wife to learn more. He is honestly one of the most sincere people I have ever met. He bore testimony to her about the truth of the gospel and the book of Mormon. His wife grew up thinking we worshiped Joseph smith, but she has been learning a lot from him and they both said we could come back. They were feeding us banana bread and juice. It was the sweetest thing ever. He asked his wife if she would learn more. He seriously did like all of the teaching. He pleaded with us at the end of the appointment to come back next week, it was so sweet! We of course told them that we would of course come back. He just came back from Peru and brought back these chocolates and gave us some..they were amazing! it was chocolate with caramel and pecans in the middle...so so so amazing! After, Sister Harwood and I left we both we so excited and joyful! We could not stop talking about how our prayers and fast had been answered. That Roy and his wife are prepared. They are wonderful, I can not even express how much love I have for them, and it was a love that already was in me, like it did not start yesterday I can't explain it, but I love them! Yesterday was so amazing!

This week, on Thursday we went to the temple as a zone also, that was so awesome! There's is something about being in a session full of missionaries. We actually met in the chapel an hour an a half before with president and sister Mecham and president Jordan to talk about temple stuff. That was really cool too, I learned so much!. In my scriptures study I have been learning a lot also, that I did not realize applied to the temple, but my understanding is growing so much! Being in Billings was pretty hard I have to say, we passed too many people's houses that I know and I could not stop and say hi. That was hard. I loved Billings when I was there and I realized how much I loved it again while I was there. There is a spirit there that is just special and I know a big part of it is because there is a temple there.

I love Bozeman so much though! I will send pics this week for real. It is so pretty here! The people are awesome too! All the doors we have tracted have all been pretty nice, even if its just "no thanks" and shut the door, but they are not bad, except for one lady. haha funny story we were tracting in a trailer court cause we were just in that-area trying people and we had like 3 doors left on this block and everyone had been pretty nice so we get to this trailer and we figure that the front door is the one not in the garage part so we go through this gate and knock on the door. This lady answers and sister hardwood gets out "Hi we are missionaries" then there was this awkward 5 second pause and next thing we knock she is yelling at us "You woke my baby up, you knew this was my back door and you knew my baby was sleeping. I think you looked at my front door and saw the sign about my baby sleeping and you woke my baby up on purpose!" We tried to apologize and she just got louder and louder so we just slowly walked away....it was intense...haha we were both just so scared haha. That lady was totally just trying to find a reason to yell at us...shes crazy...

Well I love all of you and I hope you all had a great week! I love this gospel so much and am so grateful for the blessings it has brought into my life and knowledge it has given me. :) I love you all :)

-Andrea