Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe day celebrating our freedom not only in our country but the free agency we have from God! Where do I begin? This was a very busy and productive week. The time just keeps going faster and faster the more that gets accomplished it seems. Work wise we had another great week of teaching and finding new investigators. We have found eight new investigators this transfer and we still have two weeks left. It's always a good thing to increase your teaching pool. One of the new investigator couples is a young family, husband and wife, with two kids. We had tracted into the wife a few weeks back and she said they had just started going to the Fresh Life Church but would be interested in what we had to say. The Fresh Life Church is a church that is a happy go lucky, feel good, and rock out for God church. They have a radio station that plays more modern christian music so a lot of people in Kalispell go there. We're excited that they had just started to attend because that probably means they are kind of just getting into church again or for the first time. I went with a brother from the ward on splits to see them and we had a good lesson. The brother from the ward, who is a convert, and the husband were able to find some good connections between them as far as LDS people they both know and hang out with and they enjoyed hearing the first lesson so they've invited us back this week to teach them more. The wife is pregnant which is suppose to be one of the best times to teach someone because they are bringing a new life into the world and like to hear about the pre-earth life part of the plan of salvation. I hope we can get somewhere with them. I'd love to see their young family benefit from the gospel.

Another good thing teaching wise that happened was committing 82 year old T to baptism in Aug. She really enjoys meeting with us and reading the Book of Mormon. We know it's going to be tough for her to overcome smoking and get to church because of health but we promised her that the Lord would help her overcome those trials. We also had a great lesson with M. He's one of the ones who's 9. He and his mom have really stepped up their efforts to prepare him for getting baptized. He was even at church despite her having to work which before probably wouldn't have happened.

We met up with the chicken lady again. She's such a nice lady I just wish her house didn't get cat hair all over my pants. I thinks it's kind of fun to have the chicken around. haha it does stink though. We had committed her to pray ever night which she did and you can already see a difference in her. Another one we are teaching is A. He's the one who's friend is LA. He's in his 20's and is a big time bible studier. We had two more good lessons with him. He is still trying to figure things out but you can see he is making baby steps. His friend who is less active talked about how she's always known this is all true and that she once had strong feelings in her life about it all but with the lack of church attendance that has slipped a little. She bore her testimony though that as she's been meeting with her friend and us that that spirit is coming back into her life. Pretty neat for her to share that with us and her friend.

Ok now to the other affairs of the week. We'll start with last Monday. Last Monday we went on a fun little hike up to the top of a mountain in Kalispell called Lone Pine. It gives you a really nice view of the whole valley. For pictures of that you can check them out on my facebook. We are hoping to make it up to Glacier with the help of some members next Monday but we'll see.

We saw a huge peacock while driving down the street. I know random but thought I'd share that. haha
I noticed a little video on facebook that someone posted about BYU's Football shirts are out! I PLEASE WANT ONE!!! THANK YOU!!!! Elder Mower and I decided to have a little fun with BYU Footballs independence day and that's why if you saw the profile picture on Friday that it was BYU/American/Missionary.

Now onto this weekend. So the 1st of July is Canadian Day in Canada (Lame) and what do they all do to celebrate Canadian day....Come To America!!! (Super Lame!!) There were a ton of canuks at church. You can tell pretty much who all of them are because for some dumb reason they wear flip flops with church socks to church ! Hey Canadian!! This is church not the beach ya hoser!!! HaHaHa! It was worth it though because we got to sing patriotic AMERICAN songs in church. I laughed when we sang the Star Spangled Banner at the end and all stood up and this one Canadian just stood there and wouldn't sing! hahaha It was crazier in Bigfork though. I guess on this weekend every year church is crazy because of all the tourists that come from both other states and Canada. The ZL's said they had 1,200 people at church!!!! They only have an extended testimony meeting and then cancel the other meetings. They have people in the halls, RS and Primary rooms with TVs in there. It took 45 min to pass the sacrament! Pretty crazy huh?!

So now onto the 4th of July events! What a great way to spend the 4th of July and a Pday! The Flat Head Valley is an awesome 4th of July destination! This year was way better than last years 4th. We went down to Bigfork to be with Elder Wells and Elder Weight for the big breakfast they had invited the whole community to. They had a full on flag ceremony with gun shots and a cannon! It was pretty cool! I'm going to write more about this in my blog so check that out later. They set a table up for us with Books of Mormon and pass along cards and they had us offer church tours. We didn't have a whole lot of people jump at it but we were able to give 5 with 3-5 people in each so that was good. After the breakfast we headed down to the parade route. We walked the whole route looking for a good spot in some shade hopefully and let me tell you missionaries are truly famous! We walked the whole parade route and we had people saying Hi Elders! and Hey look it's the missionaries! We talked to members and people from Arizona, Washington, Utah, and California. It was pretty neat! Along with that also came the people that gave us weird looks haha. That doesn't faze us though. There were a lot of people there for that parade. It was a neat feel to it too because it's going down Main Street which is like the old main streets that have all the old shops still. It was just a neat feeling to be there and the weather was perfect! They also give out the best stuff! Not just little candy like most parades. They has some people throwing out otter pops and then the last float was throwing out full size candy bars!!! It was awesome!

We went back after to Kalispell, had a bbq at the Ms, who we live with, went and saw a less active member, and then came back and hung out at the Ms for the rest of the night. Pres said we could be out of our house till 11. The Ms backyard overlooks a big valley so it was a great place to have a fire, watch their son and his friends shoot off fireworks, and then watch the ones through out the valley. We had a great night and a great 4th of July! Definitely need to come back with the family next year!

Well I better get going now. I hope all is well and you keep enjoying summer. Stay cool! Haven't seen Parker yet but I did talk to him on the phone. We'll hook up some time this week. I'm on team ups with Elder Wells today. The two AZ boys out and about! Love you all and talk to you later!

Love,

Elder Davis

PS I loved the SD slide show!