Hello -- Monday, August 23, 2010

Hello Everyone,

Well Summer is coming to a close here in MT. Everyone will be in school this Thursday which should help us because more people will be home to teach and not out having worldly fun. Now they can have gospel fun! hahaha. It is starting to cool down at nights here. I'm looking forward to Fall. I have really loved this Summer but Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons and since living in AZ I haven't experienced Fall in a while. We talked to a guy on the street the other day that told us, as he pointed to a tree that had a little bit of yellow on it, that when that tree starts to do that that it's going to snow in 30 days. He swears by it and claims it's done that the last 5 years. So we'll see if it snows on Sep.18. I sure hope not! I don't want Winter here that soon and neither does anyone else. Especially the farmers.

It was a good week this past week. It was nice to not be caught up in all the transfer craziness that can happen at transfer time. It was also very nice to have a full week in Havre and Chinook. We taught 21 lessons this week! It's nice to see what we can accomplish when we are in our area the whole time. With that said we are in Lewistown today but we are going to try hard to make the best of our time we are in our area when we are. Time management is a big focus for us this week. We want to make sure we are on time to all appointments and that we are always doing something productive even if it's just reviewing our lesson plan with 10 min. before a lesson.

So last Monday I said we had No Miles. Literally. Just enough to get us home. We walked all over on Monday to go email and eat and then drove to the church and then walked the rest of the night until it was time to go home. We ended up being 3 miles under. Phew. That was good. Barely made it. We had a really good dinner with the P's. There are two brothers in Havre that are both P's so we eat with both of their families at least once or twice a month. They are a lot of fun. They also cook really good food. I was telling Sis. P about that warm chocolate melting cake and she said she'd make it for us the next time we eat there. They had a 15 year old girl named J over that is friends with their daughters. Bro. P asked if I've seen her in the Area Book. I said I think I might have. Well after talking with her a little she has taken some of the lessons and wants to be baptized but her mom won't let her. I feel so bad for her. She reads the Book of Mormon every night and knows it's true, she is working on her Personal Progress and is almost done and yet she doesn't get to enjoy the full blessings of baptism and the Holy Ghost because of her mom. The thing I don't get is that she said she is going to get baptized for sure when she turns 18. So if her mom is aware of this and knows that eventually she is going to be baptized then why won't she just let her daughter get baptized now and stop creating tension between them. Hard to understand how others think I guess when we are seeing it from another view point. Hopefully all will work out and in 3 years she can be baptized. So there's now two people we know in Havre who want to be baptized but have to wait, K being the other. She is doing good though. She came to church this week, is reading every day and understanding it for the most part, and is trying now to get a job. She is really going to be a stronger member now than she would have been if she would have been baptized in June.

I can't remember if I talked about the guy we street contacted last week or not but his name is D and he lives in Chinook. He's 19 and has had a rough life up until he started going to the Baptist Church in Helena. Now he's living here and saw us walking and wanted to learn more. We had a really powerful lesson with him on Sat. night. Definitely the best lesson as far as unity in teaching and spirit that me and Elder Whitlock have had together which was awesome! After talking about the Book of Mormon with him he said so could I have this book? In my mind I thought oh D if only everyone asked that after we told them about The Restoration. Of Course you can! He said he'd read and come to church if his boss didn't call him into work. Well Stupid Satan got in the way and he got called into work but I still feel really good about him. You can tell he sees something in us and a Mormon friend he had in Scouts and he wants to learn more.

We helped a lady on FT. Belknap move to Harlem this weekend with Pres. J. Man people have a lot of Cword! (What Mitch means by this is Crap for those of you who weren't sure what he was saying without saying it) Hopefully she'll start listening more to us now. She said she was praying an angel would come help her and then us and Pres. J showed up on her door. It was good to help her but like I said man people have a lot of Cword!

I received the Kyle Shobe article from G and G Davis this week! Pretty cool stuff! Thanks for sending that Gma and Gpa. I also wanted to thank Dad for his letter and Gma G for her package. Those Reeses Pieces and beef jerky are already half gone haha. And thanks for the shirt.

So we happened to be at the church in Chinook around 12 on Sat. just using the bathroom and this guy knocks on the door. We got let him in and he goes on to tell us that he wants to come look at the building because he used to serve a mission here 50 years ago. It was a lot of fun to talk to him. The mission used to cover parts of ND, SD, ID, and Washington. His area was from Havre to Malta but he was mostly in Chinook and Havre. He baptized Bro. T who is still a member in Chinook when he was 19 and then married Bro. T and Sis. T. It's funny how a lot of people are still in the area just older. I'm glad we were at the church at the right time so he could see it and we could talk to him. I also learned that the Chinook church building is the oldest LDS church building in MT. It's been renovated a few times but it's still the original building. All others that old have just been demolished and new ones built. So that was cool to learn.

Sounds like BYU and all of college football and sports are in a crazy time right now. Thanks to those who sent me some info on all of that. It will be interesting to see what happens. Well I better get going. I hope everyone has a great week. Hope to hear from you all soon.

Love,

Elder Davis

PS. Elder Ika is Awesome. Reminds me a lot of Danny as far as looks and a little as far as things they say so that's funny. Oh and Please order me a BYU shirt! Thanks.