The Master is Calling! : This week was A-MAZE-ING

What a week!

On Monday we made ties for preparation day. It was a lot harder than we thought it would be because I had to explain, demonstrate, and then help each individual do it, which got a little crazy. But it all worked out and now we all got some more shnazzy ties.

Transfers were this week as well, but this time they were on Tuesday when they are usually on Wednesday. The other weird thing is that we had to deliver an extra vehicle down to the rendezvous point, which meant we didn't have enough missionaries to put two in each vehicle. 5 missionaries, 3 vehicles. What did this mean? Well this meant I had a 3 1/2 hour drive We all by myself... which was super weird. I rolled the windows down, turned on some of my missionary music, and I sang at the top of my lungs as I drove through beautiful Montana. The ride was gorgeous, the music was beautiful and it felt good to sing without worrying about hurting my companions ears haha. When we got there, we saw a lot of missionaries and talked to a lot of people, but by far one of the happiest things was seeing my good friend Elder Peterson. On the way back I got to have Elder Christensen with me, which was good because we have so much fun just talking all the time:)

Tuesday night we got to meet with Autumn and Allie right after institute. Autumn is so prepared to receive the gospel! We explained to her that our goal is to teach her the basics of the gospel and that as we do so, it'll be easier to answer her bigger questions because she will have a foundation to build on. I was able to use my experiences as a pole vaulter to explain that we need to practice the basics before we do and learn the bigger things. I didn't know this before, but Autumn was a pole vaulter, so that clicked with her really well.

Wednesday we had our transfer dinner with our stake president, President Clark. It was such a good meeting!! He talked to us about getting the members doing work, we each bore our testimonies on conversion, and the food was AMAZING. It was Hawaiian themed and the even had MANGOES. Man, I love mangoes.

After the transfer dinner, Brother Wehrli gave us the best news ever... his daughter-in-law, Amanda wants the lessons and potentially to be baptized!!! Crazy right?? Welcome to the missionary field, full of miracles and awesomeness!

Weekly planning was rough on Thursday because Eric Gardner and Paxton Boyce were at the house and we got distracted talking to them for a while because they are so much fun to talk to, but we were still able to get most everything done, thank goodness.

That night we went and practiced the song we are going to be singing in church next week with Sister Cik, the pianist in the ward. First of all, Sister Cik is one of my favorite people in the world! She is so kind and friendly and one of the funniest people ever, and she is SO kind to us. Second of all, she had a guitar and I got to jam for a sec. I have forgotten EVERYTHING haha.

Friday was da bomb! For dinner we got to go over to Mike Roberts' place and eat steaks outside on his picnic bench. It was SO good. I've had some of my favorite food in the world in just this week. He also had his beautiful dogs out there with us! It was so good just to chat with him and get to know him even better. He is a very good man and his steaks are pretty good too. After dinner we went to a lesson with the Karr family, a less-active family that has decided to try and make it back to church. It was so much fun, Brother Karr and Elder Christensen got along SO well haha. They are both fly fisherman and I swear I have never heard so many words I don't understand! They weren't speaking English, they were speaking Flyfish.

Friday night the elders in Columbia Falls and Whitefish had a baptism with one of the coolest converts I have ever met in my life! She is more prepared for baptism than anyone else I have ever met. We are very proud of them so we took them out for Frozen Yogurt after.

As we drove home Friday night, I expressed to Christensen how much I miss backpacking and hiking. Well, Elder Christensen is a stud, and he expressed some pretty awesome ideas. We literally live five minutes away from tons of different short hikes! So the next morning we woke up at 6:00, so that we would have an hour for workout, and went hiking for an hour! It was the BEST THING EVER!!!! We then went back showered, got into proselyting clothes, studied, got into service clothes and headed over to do service with the Stuart family. We raked, we helped him install a drip system, and enjoyed an AMAZING lunch prepared by sister Stuart. Rice, kebabs, veggies. We were so excited for food after all the physical labor we had done that day!

On Sunday we both gave talks in Sacrament Meeting in the ward. It was actually fun! Crazy right? We both just really feel that the spirit filled our mouths and we said what we needed to. Such a good feeling.

We didn't speak in the YSA this week, thank goodness. That would have been four weeks in a row! Haha.

We had dinner with the Davis' the biggest teases I have EVER met in my life. I'm always behind in that household haha. But we love them. We shared a spiritual thought that we felt prompted to share and found out that the video we shared was perfect for Brother Davis' mother! I love revelation. One tender mercy from that dinner is that I was able to find out that my testimony touched his mother's heart one night when she was there for dinner. That meant a great deal to me to hear that. It's amazing that these little, insignificant young men can go on mission and the spirit can fill their mouths and somehow get them to say the right thing. It's such a wonderful opportunity! I consider myself SO blessed.

After dinner we went to Bishop Youth Discussion and got to chat with the youth for a while because bishop has asked us to get to know the youth and teach them whenever we can. We finished the night with some contacting which just wrapped up the whole night.

Shoutout to my incredible sister Alicia who just did INCREDIBLY well in the Boston Marathon, coming in fourth of all the women from utah. That's right y'all, that is my sister:)

Anyways, I LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH.

Love,
Elder Thomas

Elder Christensen sat in a pile of leaves while I was looking the

other way, and I turned around and saw this. 😂