The Master is Calling! : It is STILL SNOWING.

Dear Family and Friends,

There are few things sweeter than when someone you have been teaching
looks you in the eyes and tells you that they can feel the spirit. At
that point they have learned to recognize the spirit for themselves,
and that will help them to chase after it when you are gone. This
exact thing happened this last week during a lesson with Barb, an
inactive member in the ward. Barb has never been active, though she
was baptized as a kid. This week we taught about the Book of Mormon
and she told us she believed it was true because she felt the spirit!
She is an amazing woman.

A while ago I wrote about helping a partly active family (she and the
children are active, he is not) do demolition on their house, the
Stuart's. Well this week Brother Stuart chopped down a bunch of trees
and asked for our help hauling the wood into piles. Let me tell ya, I
felt SO MANLY, running around with logs on my shoulder and chucking
them. It was cold, snowy, wet and everything felt so REAL. I love this
kind of work. By the end we were each sore, dirty, and tired, and then
they even gave us dinner! I love the Stuart's.

Thursday morning we woke up at 4:30 AM to go to a meeting in Missoula
called Zone Conference. The entire Zone Conference was amazing, but
there is one thing in particular I would like to share with all those
reading this. Studies have found that the longest lasting conversions
happen in the teens to mid twenties. So all you youth reading this,
get to it!! We need you.

I'm not sure whether I have mentioned Melissa and Nathaniel before,
but they are two less-actives we have been teaching recently.
Nathaniel was in a bad accident a while ago so he is in a wheelchair
and Melissa is his caretaker. They are both amazing. Nathaniel is one
of the most positive people I have met in my life, and Melissa is so
kind. This week we talked about trials and how they can strengthen us,
and they both participated so well. Nathaniel's testimony of Christ
being there for us made me want to cry, the spirit was so strong. We
are so proud of these two.

Last of all, we got to teach Mike Roberts again! Mike really likes to
talk... a ton. So it's kinda hard to keep him on track, but this week
he kept his commitments to read the Book of Mormon and come to church!
He is making progress, even if it's slow.

Happy news of the week, the Gardners got a puppy, and I love her! Her
name is Nala, and she is perfect. She did scare us half to death
yesterday though. As we were leaving to go to another one of our
meetings, she ran under the truck with out us knowing and Sister
Gardner had to come running out to get us to stop, we had already
driven a few feet. We thought we had killed her! But it was just a
close call. It took some coaxing for us to get her to come out from
under the truck, but she was totally safe, thank goodness.

Wow, this email is super long today. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Thomas

The Zone at MLC