Sharing our Experience
The first half of this week, we shared with Kate and Drake. They finished their semester at BYU around April 24th and are staying with his family in Minnesota until they are married in July. We are exactly the halfway point between Provo, Utah and Maple Grove, Minnesota.
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| Mount Rushmore |
Monday, we took our P-day and had plans to visit Mount Rushmore. It was our first time, but Kate and Drake have been there before. I am sure it wasn’t like the experience the 4 of us had planned. We actually had 6 in our group. While at dinner at the Willadson’s on Sunday, we shared our plans for Monday and they offered to take us up there; using their favorite route. When we got up that morning, it was snowing. We are beginning to think we see all the tourist places in the snow. (Devils Tower had a blizzard during our visit). That is Wyoming weather for you. Always keep warm clothes in the car.
The snow didn’t continue for long, but the cold surely did. As you see in the pictures, we are pretty bundled for April 29th. The favorite route of the Willadson’s didn’t prove to be ours. It was beautiful scenery, but very winding roads and long. We had to stop a couple of times for Walt and Drake to get some fresh air and settle their stomachs. Of course, when we stopped and let Walt out, it’s like letting loose a puppy. He is off and out of sight in no time. Sue - I’m glad I didn’t have to raise that one!
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| Jim and Twila Willadson, Me and Walt. Mt Rushmore is behind us. The flag thing is a pillar for each of the U.S. States with info about each one. |
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| Drake, Kate, me and Walt |
The monument was pretty awesome and the visitors center was really nice - and warm. We had brought sandwiches for lunch and found a cafeteria. It wasn’t really picnic outside weather. The sign on the front door said “No outside food.” It wasn’t very busy and we did buy some hot chocolate. Should you ever go there when it’s cold, you only pay for the first cup of hot chocolate and then the rest of the day you can get unlimited refills. Two was my limit.
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| Mountain goat right beside the sidewalk at Mt Rushmore. |
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| Big Horn sheep. |
We also stopped at the Crazy Horse monument. The work has been going on for 70 years and still has a long way to go. From what I understand, it is only the family that is working on it. The museum there is fascinating. It has every kind of Indian (Native American) artifact you could image. I have always been fascinated by and admired the Native American way of life. We should have adopted more of their ways. My favorite item was the genealogy of Crazy Horse. Native American names are very descriptive. There were names like, “Red Leggins”, “One who comes home last”, “Look at her”. “Afraid of her”, and “Good looking woman.” I wonder what my Native American name would be.
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| Crazy Horse monument. Th long part in front of his face will be his arm pointing straight ahead. |
Our day ended with dinner at the Knights. We love visiting them. They live in a good sized log cabin in the wooded mountain area near us. The boys took a ride around the property - all bundled, while the girls got dinner set up. They made their yummy enchilada casserole and other great Mexican dishes. Afterwards, we had a couple of rounds of the card game “Golf.” Lots of fun.
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| Gina and Gary Knight, me, Kate, Drake and Walt at the Knight's home |
Tuesday was total focus on missionary work. The Bishop actually called Walt to get whoever he could together to put Sis Jensen’s fence back together. She is the Sister the men put the French Drain in for, but didn’t have time to put her fence back up. She has a dog and hasn’t been able to go run in the yard without the fence. So Walt and Drake went on over, and Keith met them there. They three of them were able to get it finished. So Kate became my teaching buddy. She did a great job - still has her missionary teaching skills. We taught the Smiths a lesson on the Blessings of the Temple and the Smith children the second half of the lesson on commandments with the Elders. I was the lucky one with the “Law of Chastity”, and interesting thing to teach to a 10 and 12 yrs old. I thought it would be easy, but it was awkward at times. Kate taught about fasting and young Richard thought that was the most terrible thing we could ask of him - to go without food! We asked them to at least “try”. We saw Gary in-between the two lessons. He lives about 15 minutes from the Smith’s and Renee had PT during the in-between time. Gary asked us to pick up some things from the hardware store he had ordered. When we got back, the Elders were there visiting. Gary preferred the Elders that day, so Kate and I got fried chicken at Joe’s Food Store. It is so moist!
We ended the day with The Pizza Barn. We had to take Kate and Drake there, and we invited Keith and April as well. We tried to make it so Kate and Drake could meet as many people that we work with/teach as possible. Drake was overwhelmed by the menu - sooo many choices!! He and Keith really took to each other- especially over fishing stories. We ended up inviting them over for pie to finish the stories.
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| Walt, Me, Kate and Drake at the Pizza Barn |
Kate and Drake left Wednesday morning to head to Minnesota - another snowy day. We helped at the Senior Center with lunch. Wednesdays are their busiest days. Usually we get around 30 people during the other days. Wednesday there were over 80!! They would love it if we could come every Wednesday. We usually have District council on Wednesdays, but we are going to try to switch it to another day; we’ll see. After lunch, we packed up and headed to Billings for Zone Conference. Zone Conference is held every transfer (6 weeks). This time we had 4 zones meet together. It sure helps President Larson with his travels doing it this way. But he only feels comfortable doing it in large groups when the weather is good. Guess we were lucky on the snow not being on Thursday.
Zone Conference was really good. President Larson talked a lot about relying on the Spirit to guide and direct us. This is an essential missionary tool. Many times, we don’t realize how we can help a person, what things they struggle with or need direction with in their lives. We have had many experience of praying for a person and being guided in a direction we would not have thought of. The Spirit (Holy Ghost) is what testifies of truth. We were counseled to use the Spirit more and our own efforts less. It does work much better that way. We just have to be prayerful and listen for those promptings and guidance.
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| Our zone at Zone Conference. Pres and Sis Larson are in the middle |
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| Senior couples at Zone conference Inman, Childs, Vandeveer, Bakers, Pres and Sis Larson, Vanns, Thomas, Solomon (Elder Solomon wasn't there) |
President Larson also talked about how the Lord is trying to shower us with revelation, and we need to learn to put down our umbrellas. We need to remove the obstacles that get in the way of our hearing and feeling the things Heavenly Father wants us to know and understand. Both of these concepts are just as important when we’re not a missionary. It’s something important in everyone’s life.
We spent Wednesday and Thursday night with another Senior Missionary couple - The Bakers. Their assignment is with Self-Reliance. They travel all over the mission working with Stakes on their Self Reliance programs and classes. They get to see all of the mission, which would be wonderful, but not sure we would like all the traveling. Towns/cities are not close together at all here. They are a very sweet couple and take good care of us.
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| Elder Baker, Sister Baker, Me and Walt |
Friday we went to the temple in the morning and then headed home around 2 pm. We never have a bad temple experience. Walt was able to do temple work for my great great grandfather from Hungary. Now we can have that family sealed together. We’ve been waiting a long time for this.
Saturday was fun and spiritually uplifting. The junior and senior high school held the rodeo this week-end. The contestants go from town to town through out Wyoming in competition. So this week-end it was in Newcastle. We went over for a bit to check it out. My first! We saw barrel racing, bare back riding (bucking horses), calf tying and goat tying. Boys do calves and girls do goats. It was fun watching. Walt wore his cowboy boots and bolo.
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| Bare Back riding (like a Bronco rider with no saddle) |
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| Calf roping |
That afternoon, Richard Smith (the son) was baptized. We are so excited for this family. So many wonderful changes in their lives. I think we’ve shared most of their story before. This time, I got to give a talk on baptism and used the Kit Kat theme. Baptism kit - K for keep His commandments, A for Always remember Him, and T for Take His name upon you. Then I had small kit Kats for everyone. The funniest part of the baptism was the submersion. A person has to be totally under the water (all parts). If not, it gets done again. It actually took three times when I was baptized at age 8. My dress kept floating up. The Elders fill up the font hours before the baptism. It takes a long time to fill. They discovered a leak in the drain, but didn’t realize how fast it was leaking. By the time the baptism was to happen, the water only came up to Richard (the dad’s knees). His son is pretty tall. The first time, Richard’s (son) knee poked out. The second time, the dad put his knee on top of his son’s knee and held him under to make sure. Nobody drowned!! The Smith’s invited us to dinner with them afterwards at … the Pizza Barn. It was a good way to end a great day!
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| Christina, Richard (dad), Renee, Me, Walt, Richard (son,), Nick, and Haley Richard's baptism |
We have been so blessed on our mission. We love seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ bless and change people’s lives. We have made so many wonderful friends, that we know will be eternal friends. We love being an instrument in Heavenly Father’s hands in helping others follow Him and His son, Jesus Christ. We love the Savior! Our relationship with Him brings us such joy and peace.
Until next week . . .
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