Ups and Downs - Monday, October 25, 2010

Hello Everyone,

This week was surely a week of ups and downs. Monday we had a good Pday. Bro. P played tennis with us at about 8 in the morning because that's the time he had free. So we altered our study schedule and went to play what could be the last good tennis I play on my mission. When we first got out there it was 23 degrees! That is definitely the coldest I've ever played tennis in. Thanks to the long sleeve BYU shirt gma G sent and my BYU sweatshirt I stayed warm enough though. The only thing that was cold was my hands holding the racquet. Elder Wahl didn' t want to play so he just wrote letters while Bro.P and I battled it out. We played two full sets. I won the first and he was up in the second when he had to go so I guess it was a tie.

Tues. we had a slow day and probably one of the craziest days of my mission. Let's just say it all started when I got up from studies in the morning and realized I had a HUGE hole in my grey suit pants! They had been wearing thin and a Sis. in Chinook had tried to fix them but it only lasted 3 months. So those pants were no good anymore. Well I go to look at my navy suit pants and there is a little hole starting to do the same thing! So now I'm thinking Great! I'm going to be in a General Authorities presence tomorrow and I have Holes in my Pants! So we ran around looking for a patch and looking at suits at Herbergers and then we ran into Sis. P and she said she thought she could fix them. So we took the patch over there and she fixed up my navy suit pants. In all the running around I kept leaving stuff at the house and the church and it was just a crazy day. It didn't end much better though. We drove to GF and didn't hit any deer so that was good but when I got there I realized I had left my bathroom bag and my towel! Luckily Lewistown was still on their way so they picked me up a tooth brush and some contact solution. Elder Butler also let me use his electric shaver the next morning to shave.

So we are finally to the big day. Wed. Lewistown and us drove to Helena. I love Helena. It just feels like home to me when I go there. Just being there for Pdays and district meeting days created a great love for Helena when I was in Townsend. Anyway we arrived there and I was able to see Elders Child, Holbrook, Whitlock, Kuck, Stewart, Cabral, Coker, and a bunch of other Elders! The whole west half of the mission was there! It was a lot of fun to see so many missionaries there. Elder Packer focused pretty much all of his thoughts on the spirit and how we need to BE a missionary not just Do missionary things. It was really good. He also promised us that if we'd follow All the rules in the white hand book that our mission would double our baptisms. So Pres.Gardner has issued the challenge to read the white hand book before the end of the transfer and that we need to get the little things out of our lives. He compared it to the beetles that are killing Montana's forests and how the little things like not fully following a rule or things similar to that are what can cause great damage to us, our areas, and our mission. It was a really good conference and Elder Wahl and I have talked a lot about what we can do better in our work to get the little things out.

We helped Bro. J pick a ton of potatoes on Sat. They have a root cellar and they have about 3 big buckets full of potatoes. I think it finally hit me how long I've been here when I was picking the same potatoes I planted back in June. It really will be interesting to see what happens at the end of this transfer.

So Pres. Gardner drives so much! He was going to Glasgow for an interview, and then to Havre to interview K, and then to GF to interview another man on Sat. Well then we get a call and K tells us how she has to go to GF to pick up her sister who just had a baby. So we rearrange things to have her interviewed in GF. Well on Sat. night we get a call that she never showed up. So now we are worried and can't get a hold of her. Pres. tells us if we can get a hold of her he was spending the night in GF and would come up to interview her before heading off to Lovell. So we run over there and wake her up Sunday morning. She said she had been kind of thrown into some crazy stuff and her sister found out her man as she called him was cheating on her and it was a crazy night and that she was so sorry that she had missed getting interviewed. We told her it was ok and that we were sorry she got caught up in the middle of all that but that there was still hope. She said ok I'll be at church and pres said ok I'm on my way. So we're sitting in sacrament meeting during the sacrament and waiting and waiting and praying and praying and No Kristi. Finally just after the sacrament she walks in. Feeew! Huge relief. So Pres. Gardner shows up and does an interview with her and afterwards he telsl us he can't guarantee anything but he feels hopeful. So K is potentially one step closer to being Baptized!

Well we were suppose to be headed to GF today for Zone Olympics but I've been feeling not good at all. It started with a cold and big time runny nose yesterday and then last night I threw up. So we are taking it easy today and not going to GF. Lewistown is going to come up here after Zone Olympics and have district meeting here tomorrow. It's a bummer we weren't able to make it and I feel bad for Elder Wahl that I'm causing him to lose out on some fun and getting to know other elders but he understands and I think can tell I'm not feeling so hot.

One last story before I take off. So in the pocket on our white shirts as missionaries we carry our white hand book and pass along cards. Well sometimes if you bend down too far they'll spill out onto the floor. It's jokingly called a "Greeny Barf". Well the other night I had gone to the bathroom and as I went to pull the toilet I bent down and bam! I greeny barfed into the toilet! Oh man it was so bad. I grabbed my white hand book out as fast as I could and took out my ministerial certificate and the missionary commission thing Mom had sent me. Luckily they are both laminated and I was able to sanitize them and salvage them but my white hand good was toast! Luckily I had one from Gma G that was in my binder that I was able to replace the soaked one with. There were also pass along cards with Christ on them so I dug those out of there and threw them away. I felt it would be really sac religious to flush those down. It was horrible but it made for a really good laugh and Elder Wahl, the zone leaders and Lewistown all got a good laugh out of me.

Glad to see BYU finally won a game! We talked to C, the recent convert, about fasting in other ways like not watching tv since she can't fast the normal way and she looked at us and said But It's the Playoffs!! haha that was funny. I think I found it a lot funnier then ElderWahl did. hahaha

Well I hope you all have a great week. I love you lots. Thanks for the package Aunt Cindy. Thanks for the Ensign Mom. And thanks for the blog updates Gma G. I really enjoy his blog. Well hopefully we can have a good week 5 of the transfer. I can't believe it's week 5 already. Crazy stuff!

-Elder Davis