New Area Comes With New Experiences - Monday, April 19, 2010

Well I've now been in the Havre/Chinook area for 5 days and so far I'm liking things. Elder Child and I get along really well so far. We are having a lot of fun and despite working only a half week and going to Great Falls we taught 15 lessons. I'm still working on figuring out the area. The first few days we were in Chinook which is where our house is. We live out on a big farm with this couple who is in their early 60s. We live in the upstairs of their home. Definitely not as much space but as I said before I'm kind of excited to experince more of a mission like atmosphere. haha. We have two desks in a small room with two twin size beds and a small closet. They allow us to use their kitchen and a bathroom ~  the only hard part about that is we have our own fridge but it's just a mini fridge so not a lot of room for food. We skip back and forth between Havre and Chinook. M-W we are in Havre and then T-S we are in Chinook. And then we rotate our Sundays between the two. Havre has a pretty good size ward that is starting to outgrow its building. In the next year the church wants to expand the building. Chinook has a branch of about 30-40 active. Definitely a lot larger then the branch in White Sulfer. Things out here are mostly flat with rolling hills and a few mountains in the far background. We cover a really large area so we do drive quite a bit except when we are in town then we walk. The weather has been really nice so we have been walking quite a bit. It got up to 70 yesterday.

Chinook is a town of about 1,500 people in the main part of town and Havre I'm not sure how many people but it's a lot bigger then Townsend. Montana State University Northern is up here and there is a lot more shopping and fast food than Townsend had. So our zone consists of our area and then the companionship in Lewistown where the N famliy lives. Elder Heywood is here in Lewistown now so when the A's who are the N's relatives heard he was from AZ they asked him if he was from QC. He said no but Elder Davis in Havre is. So we are down in Lewistown today because we rotate where we do District Meeting because you have to drive 2 1/2 hrs to get here from Havre so we come on Mondays and then spend Pday here and then spend part of tomorrow for District Meeting here. Next week they'll come up to Havre and do the same. Except for this time we are staying until Wed. morning because we are going to do District Leader team ups while we are here. So since I'm in Lewistown maybe I'll get to meet the N's cousins.

Ok now for a few random things I wrote down this week.

- First off last week before I left Townsend I finally got my name and height onto the D's wall. I'm just right behind a wall with R and all of his family's names on there so that's cool.

- At the J's where we live we go help him most mornings load some hay in his truck and feed his cows. It's kind of fun. You stand in the back of the truck and as he drives and the cow follow you looking for new food you just cut the twin and let a little bit of the bail off at a time. I just have to wear long sleeves because the time I did it with short sleeves on and the hay touched my skin I had hay fever like crazy!

- Well this weekend we went to Stake Conference in Great Falls. We drove over with a member and then stayed the night at the Zone Leaders house. The Stake Conference was good but it was really hard to hear. We were in the very very back because we got there right at 10:00 so it was hard to hear over all the crying kids. That Stake Center was bigger than ours and it was packed so that was good. Pres. Gardner and Sis. Gardner were there. He got to speak a little towards the end. He said he loves this area because his father served a mission in Montana and he said that Havre was where his dad said he gained his testimony so now I feel really special to be serving in Havre. It was really good to be able to talk to the Gardners and see them again.

- When I first got here it was raining for two days and everything was muddy. We had to go out to a dinner down this big dirt road and good thing we have a truck because we pretty much went mud bogging. We hit this huge puddle and dropped like 2 feet and all of this muddy water came flying up it was crazy. I'm surprised we didn't get stuck.

- On Sat. we get into Havre and we are trying a few places before the member takes us to Great Falls and we get a call from Bro. D. He and Sis. D are in Havre watching their granddaughter play volleyball. She plays for the college up here. So we went and talked with them for a while and met her. She had to go after a while to start another volleyball game and Bro. D said we should come visit her. I'm not sure if she is not a member or if she is just less active but I guess we'll try and meet with her and see.

- I learned this week that the government stores a bunch of nukes up here around the Havre Lewistown area. You'll be driving along and see this little fenced off area with a white pole and cameras. I guess that's where they are buried. Our Zone Leader said if Montana became it's own country that it would be the 3rd largest nuclear power behind the Russia and the US. Pretty crazy. I'll have to take a pic. of one.

Ok now questions that have been asked:  

Did you also get the square box with the Easter candy? Yes and I've eaten a good portion of it now that I'm not at Sister P's.

Speaking of food do you want to send me some coupons that I could use? Not sure what kind of food I need yet but anything you think would help for stuff like bread or eggs or stuff like that. We have dinners and some lunches taken care of so we feed ourselves mostly for breakfast and lunch.

The H's  live just outside of East Helena. They were barely in our area but I am so glad they were. And most of their family is in Utah and Colorado. Her Dad was very active and was a Stake Pres at one time. Her mom was active and then when they got divorced she went to that cult church I might have talked about but now her mom is an active member. A's family aren't members though. When A and S got married they didn't even know each other was an inactive member until later.

Yes, we went to B's funeral. It was weird though. The daughter didn't want any prayers or anythings religious because she doesn't like church things even though he did which is dumb because it was his funeral not hers. It was really short and not what he deserved so the M's dedicated the Gospel Sing to him.

You asked about Bro.P. aka R. Well he's not a member but he goes every week and is more involved than most of the members. He's been doing this for 30+years. We talk a little gospel with him. He reads out of a scripture quote book every morning to us and reads scriptues with her every night. He is a mystery as to why he hasn't been baptized and when you bring it up he tries to avoid it. One day though he said. He just lacks the faith and thinks that one day he'll get his answer.

Yes mom that is a real gun. It's a 22 Short and it's not loaded and it was B's. He had over 100 guns and when he died W. got a few of them and he was showing us them when that pic was taken.

Well I hope everyones week went good. I hope you're enjoying your clinicals mom. I pray every night that you'll drive safe. I think it'd be cool to have a family prayer every night. If your still up where ever you are say a little prayer with me because I pray pretty much every night at 10:30. Let me know what you think of that. I didn't get your family emails because we emailed early today. We are off to shear sheep. I love you all. Talk to you later.

        -Elder Mitch Davis

Big Sandy, MT

What a week Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Hey Everyone,

Well first off I transfer news. After Elder Lanham was telling everyone how he was about 95% sure he'd be transfered the 5% happend. I am currently sitting in the Chinook library on Wed. with my new companion Elder Child. I am in the Havre (pronounced Haver) Chinook area which is in the Great Falls zone and is in the middle of the state about 30 miles south of the Canadian border. Its been a long last few days.

We got the call Friday that I was the one being transfered so I started packing and saying my goodbyes. I'm really going to miss Townsend but I am excited to get to see new things, meet new people and experience a real mission now. Being at Sis. P's was awesome but I think I am now in the real mission. hahaha

We had a member missionary fireside workshop on sunday which was nice because I was able to say goodbye to a lot of the members there. The best part was that the H's came and shared their testamonies at the end. It was really hard to say goodbye to them but it was also a perfect way to leave after hearing their testimonies. They are really sad to see me go especially Sis. H and E but I promised them I'll be back to visit. Sis. P also took it really hard. Her mom who is Sis.R and is like 90 years old was talking to me Sunday and she said Sis. P hates when transfers happen. I got a picture with Sis. P before I left and both of us were crying a little. Elder Lanham said that he feels so bad for her because he knows how much she hates to see us go and that she probably went inside and cried after saying goodbye. I definitely want to go back and visit her and Townsend when I'm done. The good thing is Elder Kuck., my MTC comp is with Elder Lanham now so I feel good to have him following me.

Ok so Monday I go on the big van the mission has and Elder T drives all the missionaries around for transfers. We drove from Helena to Missula to Kalispel dropping off and picking up elders all along the way. Oh man what a pretty drive. I got to see Missoula where the Grizzlies play and Flat Head Lake and some pretty cool mountain ranges. So we stayed the night in Kalispel and me and Elder Heywood who is from AZ and was in my district and who is going to be my District Leader here, spent the night with this old couple. It was fun to be able to just sit there for a couple of hours and talk with them. They are a really nice couple. They said to come back and visit them.

Then on Tues. We drove from 8-1 in some snow and finaly arrived in Great Falls where I met my new comp. Elder Child has been out for 7 1/2 months and is from Payson, UT. He seems like a lot of fun so far and he used to serve in Helena 5 and Townsend which used to be combined when he first got to the mission so we have a lot of things we can talk about together with that. We live in Chinook which is a town of about 1,500. They have a branch there with about 50 members. We live with the couple out on a farm in the upstairs of their old house. It definitely is not the P's but it does feel like what you could expect on a mission.

Havre is a little bigger town. Definitely bigger than Townsend. They have a small university there and a lot more shopping and fast food than Townsend did. They have about 200 members in the ward there. The area around here is pretty flat. No mountains. You'll have to take a look at Google Earth to see what I'm talking about. I'm really excited to get started here and I hope I can pick things up quickly. It's been really rainy/ snowy here so everything is muddy and wet. Luckily the elder who was here left a suit that didn't fit him anymore and it does fit me. So I have a suit I could wear and not really care about getting it dirty because it was free. Well I better go.

I have so much more to say but I also had a lot of emails to read which was nice. I'll be emailing again Monday so that won't be too far away. Thanks to all those that wrote me emails and letters. It was good to hear from all of you. I'll definitely try to send a letter home this week but we'll see. At this point it might be better just to wait since it wouldn't get there til Mon. I did send a package home though so I hope you get that soon. Good luck with your clinicals this week Mom. I hope you can stay awake on your drive home.

Good to hear a good tennis update also. I have so much more to say but I'm strapped for time. So just know that I love and miss you all and I hope you have a good week.

-Elder Davis

My comp says if you look on google you won't find it. haha We're that far out.