The Branches

Dear Family and Friends,

One of the common confusions we get asked about is the three kingdom's
of glory. They ask, "do Mormon's have a hell?" Into the past I would
show them 1 Corinthians 15:40-42 and try to explain it all that way,
but this week I read a scripture that says it all for me! I want to
share that. It's Mormon 9:2-6.

2 Behold, will ye believe in the day of your visitation--behold, when
the Lord shall come, yea, even that great day when the earth shall be
rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, yea, in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before
the Lamb of God--then will ye say that there is no God?

3 Then will ye longer deny the Christ, or can ye behold the Lamb of
God? Do ye suppose that ye shall dwell with him under a consciousness
of your guilt? Do ye suppose that ye could be happy to dwell with that
holy Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt
that ye have ever abused his laws?

4 Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with
a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before
him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell.

5 For behold, when ye shall be brought to see your nakedness before
God, and also the glory of God, and the holiness of Jesus Christ, it
will kindle a flame of unquenchable fire upon you.

6 O then ye unbelieving, turn ye unto the Lord; cry mightily unto the
Father in the name of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found spotless,
pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb,
at that great and last day.

I LOVE THIS!! I've had so many people disagree with us because they
feel that we've turned God into some vengeful being that takes joy in
punishing everyone that doesn't follow the rules, but that's not it at
all. Like it says, how could we "be happy to dwell with that holy
Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt that
ye have ever abused his laws?" We couldn't! God wants us all to live
so that we might come back to live with him, but if we don't obey his
laws he will be forced to put us away from him because he'll put us
where we can be happiest. I know this is kind of random, but I enjoyed
this so much I just wanted to share it with everybody!

I also wanted to tell everyone about the work in this area. We live in
the middle of nowhere. We cover about ten little towns, the largest of
only has a population of about 2000 people. We are only able to work
in one town every day because of how limited our miles are and how
many miles we have to drive just to get to the town. Once in the town
we tract, visit active and less-active/non-active members and
sometimes we do street contacting. The common response we receive is,
"no thanks, I'm not interested." They are usually quite polite, but
they are not interested by any means. We spend most of our time being
rejected, which is a little hard sometimes, but it strengthens our
testimonies as we face trials with patience and with Christ. We've
received a few referrals but because we only visit one town a day, it
often takes a while to get to the referral. If they're not there the
first time it takes a few days before we can knock again. Essentially,
the only way to really do missionary work in this area is through the
members. A lot of the members have someone they're slowly trying to
introduce to the gospel through materials and conversation but this
last week we have invited the members to step up their game a little
bit and have someone, an investigator or a less-active, at every
dinner! They seemed to accept it well so we hope and pray this will
make a big difference and help the members and missionaries to be more
unified.

This week has been a week with a lot of rejection but things are
looking good for next week! Adam and Cristina just got back from their
honeymoon, finally, and we're hoping and praying they will come to
church next week! Patty and Lynn are still both reading the Book of
Mormon but we only got to visit Patty for a minute this week. Lynn is
still doing really well and we were able to talk to her about how
innocent children are and how much God loves them! She was a teacher
at a Christian school so she loved talking about this. We tried to
contact the referral we received last week again, Wesley, but only his
wife answered and said he wasn't home. She was very kind. We're not
going to give up on them! When a woman calls and asks you to go help
her father, it becomes very personal.

We got to have a ward trek fundraiser with the Red Lodge branch this
week! It was so much fun, they had games, food and it was good just to
talk to everyone. For games they had a stick pull which Elder Harper
was the champion of, a tug-o-war with Elder Harper and I as team
captains (my team won), and an arm wrestling tournament won by a very
muscular kid named Terik! It was a blast. We love our branches!

We both gave a talk in the Absarokee branch this week and they also
had us sing (a little much...). I love this small little branch with
these people. It is so easy to get to know everyone and have a
personal connection with most everyone in the ward. The Absarokee
branch is much smaller than the Red Lodge branch by about half, Red
Lodge is almost a ward! Absarokee is so small and they are desiring to
make it bigger! They are becoming very missionary minded.

It has been a lovely week and we are excited for next week! I know
miracles happen and I know if we do our best we will find those that
Heavenly Father needs to find. I love you all!

Love,
Elder Thomas

A foggy night in Red Lodge.

Montana sunset!!

Morning runs!

Skipper goes running with us!

Terik beating me in arm wrestling. This kid is pure muscle. Notice how he's just smiling the whole time...

What a view.

Short one

Dear Family and Friends,

Time flies by and I can barely keep track of it! I don't have much
time today but I'll cover the highlights of the week.

We got to do service at the wildlife conservatory again! This time we
painted a barn and ended up getting very messy! It was a blast. It's a
lot of fun because the main man there (I don't know his
official title) is named Tom and he has been very kind to us. We hope
we get the opportunity to teach him!

We also provided service at Project Hope, the thrift store in
Columbus. I love doing service hear because all of the elderly ladies
that work there are so appreciative and they love it when we come and
help. After we served at project hope we went to contact a referral in
Columbus. This man was referred by his daughter in Utah. When we
talked to her it was obvious that she wanted him to have the gospel so
bad. When he came to the door it was obvious that he knew who we were
as soon as he saw us. He said he was busy at the time but we should
come back later. A little bit about contacting people in this area,
it's kinda crazy. The thing that makes it hard is the fact that we
live in the middle of nowhere and everybody else lives in the middle
of nowhere too. We have two branches and we can only work in one
branch a day, sometimes only one small town because of our limited
miles. It's hard, but it's worth it.

We saw Lynn this week and she tells us that she is still reading! Yay!
We hope and pray that she will continue to read and to pray about the
Book of Mormon. We only got to see Patty for a little bit this week
because they were busy at work, hopefully next week. Adam & Christina
are still on their honeymoon, those lovebirds. Keep them all in your
prayers. I love you all very much, I'll try to write longer next week!

Love,
Elder Thomas

Beautiful Montana!

We've started singing in members homes. This is us practicing :) 

What a mean sign.

The alpacas at Jim and Gail Young's ranch. They let us lead some on a rope. It was crazy.

I LOVE MONTANA! 

Studying outside!

Transfer Week

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday and Tuesday were my last days with Elder Ross! Goodness, I love
him! We became such good friends and I'm so thankful for everything he
has taught me! We went in to play dodgeball and a game called pod-ball
Monday because it was zone preparation day. We had a ton of fun
seeing the zone before transfers. On the way home we saw a super cool
double rainbow, the picture is good but it was even better in real
life. Most of Tuesday we spent saying bye to members in the branch. It
made me a little sad to see him go, but the Lord has work for him to
do in Ronan!

I got Elder Harper on Wednesday! Elder Harper has been out for 19
months and we share a common interest in singing, tons of movies,
(even Joe vs. the Volcano!) and even the toy we played with as kids!
(Lego/Bionicle) He's going to teach me how to beatbox... If he can!
The Fowlers say they love that we sing all the time, we'll see how
they feel at the end of this transfer!

Elder Harper was very sick when I got him on Wednesday so we went home
and he got some good sleep. The next day was wonderful weekly
planning! After weekly planning we went and did service at the
Wildlife Conservatory. This place was crazy! They had bears, mountain
lions, bears, elk... Etc. it was fun to be raking leaves and look up
to see a coyote running around it's enclosure. We saw a lot of the
customers as well.

We had to go to a District Leader meeting in the morning on Friday and
then go back to Columbus for service in the afternoon. We served at
the Project Hope thrift shop for a couple hours and then headed over
to the Mccally's to help them with some yard work. We spent quite a
while at the Mccally's raking the rocks out of their yard and sifting
out the rocks so that they can lay some sod. This was quite exhausting
and left us both completely weak, but they fed us after, so it was
perfect!

On Saturday we walked Red Lodge Main Street. We wanted to go visit our
Lutheran friend, Lynn, but on our way to visit her in the little shop
she works in, we ran into a familiar face. A while ago I wrote about
running into a drunk guy on Main Street, well we ran into him again.
He seemed more sober so I thought I'd give him a chance to see if he
was kinder. He was, but his girlfriend was not, in fact she was very
rude. She rattled off a bunch of her questions that I imagine she'd
been saving up for a long time, all of which were manipulative and
unanswerable. I was trying to look for a kind way out of the situation
but eventually I just walked away. Elder Harper laughed because the
drunk guy he was talking to was super kind. Bars are such weird
places. When we talked to Lynn she said she had started the Book of
Mormon!! She has been reading the testimonies and introductions and
has loved it so far! We are so excited for her.

Well, I love you all, but I gotta go play pod-ball! Have the best week!

Love,
Elder Thomas

P.S. Adam and Christina are married now!

Elder Ross!

Cool moon above the sprawling metropolis of Roberts...

Beautiful sunset

Found this gem :)

Transfer Week

Dear Family and Friends,

On Monday, Gail Young fed us lasagna. She was super nervous because
she hadn't made lasagna in thirty years! So nervous, that she made a
whole lasagna the night before to see if she still could! She made
another one for us on Monday as well so she invited us to come back 
Tuesday night as well.

One of the most intriguing things as a missionary is that everyone has
a story and sometimes it feels like everyone wants to share it with
you. On Tuesday we went Tracting in Joliet. While we were walking down
a street, Elder Ross saw a man working on a car outside a house, which
immediately appealed to Elder Ross. He wasn't interested in talking to
us but an elderly lady came out to talk. Her name was A-lee. A-lee
left her home at the age of 9 and lived on the streets. She shared
many of her incredible adventures with us, it was an amazing
experience. We had arranged to meet with the Pratts that night as
well. We were both very nervous for this meeting because after much
prayer and pondering, we felt we needed to drop the Pratts. We had
been working with them on three commitments my whole time here,
praying, reading the scriptures and attending church. They could not
keep any of these and sometimes the best thing to do is to let them
know you weren't going to be coming back until they were willing to do
their part. It's sad, but sometimes there is just nothing you can say
to help if they aren't willing to do the work. They understood
everything we said, I think they had seen it coming. They will be in
our prayers.

This whole week we've been trying to contact three referrals we got
last week. One referral told us the man had been reading the Book of
Mormon and was interested, but his wife is less-active. When we went
to contact him, his wife answered the door and turned us away just
about as fast as she could open the door. For the other two referrals,
we had a very hard time finding their houses and when we got there
there was no one there.  For one house we had to drive out on dirt
roads for about an hour before we found he house, but no one was home
so we left a restoration pamphlet with our number. We got a call the
next morning from the man who lives in the house and he told us that
the referral no longer lived there. Hopefully we can contact her on
the phone.

We had a hard time contacting our investigators this week. Adam and
Christina are getting married in 5 days!! And when they get back a
week after that, we'll be able to teach them again!! We didn't get to
see Patty this week but we're going to stop by tomorrow to see how she
is doing. We went and visited Lynn in e Village Shoppe and she let us
know very excitedly that she was going to start the Book of Mormon
that night! We can't wait to see how that goes.

Saturday was CONFERENCE!! We watched conference with the Fowlers, the
members we live with, and had a great time. The talks were so inspired
and answered all my questions. The gospel felt so real that day.
Before we went to bed that night we went out on the front porch and
looked at the beautiful stars. It felt like we could reach out and
touch them. Heavenly Father was so close that night. The next morning
we went to the Mccally's, our branch mission leader in Absarokee, to
watch conference. What a powerful way to end conference! It was so
amazing how Elder Holland's talk ended up being exactly what I needed.
I needed his words and his inspiration. It was amazing.

Now for Referral news, Elder Ross is leaving. This makes me super sad
because Elder Ross and I have become super close and we were super
excited for our next transfer! He is headed up to Ronan by Missoula.
My new companion will be Elder Harper, an Elder I've known for my
whole mission. Elder Harper loves music and running and many of the
same things I do, I think we'll get along really well.

I love you all!

Love,
Elder Thomas

My District :)

BIG FAT LUNCHBOX!!

When it snows in the spring and you forgot a coat.

Found my next companion!

Birthday, Easter, HAPPINESS!!!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been fantastic.

First off, we haven't had any lessons with the Pratt's this week. They
have been having a difficult time progressing because of all the
things they're dealing with. We're quite worried about them, keep them
in your prayers.

The week started off pretty well with an awesome exchange with Elder
Okerlund! He is such a great missionary and we worked really hard. The
highlight of the exchange was when we were able to stop in at State
Farm and check on Patty. Patty has been reading the Book of Mormon!
She had some questions about learning to understand the language, so
we told her the best way to learn to understand the language is to
pray for help and inspiration before she reads. She really liked this
idea and said she would give it a try.

The next morning exchanges ended. We volunteered at project hope
again. While we were there we ran into a cool little lady who lived in
Absarokee. She began asking us some questions as if we worked there,
but we told her we were volunteers. We then told her that we're always
doing service and asked her if she had any service we could do. She
said she did and that she would give us a call. We also gave her a
#hallelujah pass along card and told her to watch the Easter video.
We're hoping to stop by her place soon, she lives in a little hot pink
house, she calls it the Barbie house.

On Thursday we went down to Red Lodge to see how some of our in-store
investigators were doing. First we stopped by State Farm to talk to
Patty and Gail. A little backstory, for Christmas, the Linton family
sent me 4 copies of the Book of Mormon with their testimonies written
in them. I've been pondering and praying on who to give these to. This
last week after reading the two little boy's testimonies, Jeffrey and
Sam, I felt that I should give them to Patty and her daughter. Patty
doesn't just read the Book of Mormon by herself, she reads it with her
11 year old daughter. I presented the two copies of the Book of Mormon
to her, explaining what was significant about these books and showing
her a picture of me with my nephews! She absolutely loved them, and it
meant so much to her that I would give them to her. She loved reading
their testimonies. I am so glad that my family is helping me in my
missionary work! We also stopped in at the Village Shoppe which is
where we met a super cool Lutheran lady we love talking to. She always
asks what's been going on (in her sweet little southern accent:) so
this week we told her that we had just given a Book of Mormon to an
investigator and we were so excited! She immediately said, "Well I've
never read that! I want one!" Oh man, how cool is that? So we gave her
a Book of Mormon and read Moroni 10:3-5 with her. Her eyes got all big
and she kept saying, "Wow!" We can't wait to see her again!

The highlight of Friday was definitely the dinner. We had dinner with
the Greens, but they also had a non-member there. The non-members name
is Mitch Johnson. Mitch is married to an active woman, Carla, and he
is a very good man. He comes to church every week. We are not
currently teaching him because he hasn't wanted to meet yet. It was a
really good Easter dinner. The table was decorated beautifully and the
food was wonderful. The conversation was light and fun and we were all
kept laughing by Mitch. After dinner we had desert, but not before
singing happy birthday, for Mitch whose birthday was the week before,
and me who was the next day. After dinner we all made our way to the
living room for a spiritual thought. We started it off by sharing the
#hallelujah video and talking about the many meanings of "new life."
New life can mean that we change our lives through the atonement and
redeeming power of Christ. It can also meaning finding new life after
death, meaning resurrection, as Christ did on Easter! We talked about
how spring is the perfect time to celebrate Easter because of all the
new life rising from last years death. As we talked I felt prompted to
take the lesson in a little bit different direction than I planned, I
asked everyone in the room to bear their testimony, starting with me.
The spirit was so strong. Mitch even got a little emotional right at
the beginning, which is significant because he is your typical rough
n' tough, tall, oil mining, Montana cowboy. His testimony was
beautiful and simple. After testimonies, Sister Green presented Mitch
with his very own full set of scriptures. He loved them! We are so
excited for him and we hope and pray that he will start meeting with
us soon. He has offered to take us hiking sometime soon, which has me
totally stoked. I have missed hiking.

Saturday was MY BIRTHDAY!! Wow, such a happy day! I opened my presents
first thing in the morning! Elder Ross just covered his head with a
blanket and tried to sleep while I told him (to his annoyance) about
all the cool stuff I got! What a great way to start the day:) THANK
YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL THE WONDERFUL GIFTS AND BIRTHDAY WISHES!!! You
are all the best! I'm going to be fat with all this birthday food. We
spent a large portion of the day doing service with the Smith family
in the ward. We stacked a ton of wood, and when I say "ton," I mean
"ton." Ok, that's an exaggeration, it was about 3 cords. (Whatever
that means, right? Everyone here in Montana knows what that means, but
I sure don't.) Anyways, it was a lot. I wish I'd taken pictures! We
were hauling it back and forth in wheel barrows, throwing them all
over the place and stacking like crazy. It was good, hard work. The
Smith's are the family we want to fellowship Adam Watson and
Christina.

Speaking of Adam and Christina, they have been gone all week, AGAIN!
Craziness. However, we're pretty much ok with this one, considering
that they went to UTAH and their Mormon friend took them on a tour of
TEMPLE SQUARE and they uploaded all of the photos on FACEBOOK and them
standing in front of the statue of Christ is now his PROFILE PICTURE!
What? They loved it. He sent us a text this week, sincerely
apologizing for not being able to come to church and he said he'd come
next week. We are going to need to explain the concept of conference
to them... Haha. Anyways, keep them in your prayers.

Easter Sunday was amazing! Especially sacrament meeting, it was
beautiful. I am running out of time so I just want to end by saying
that I love the Lord. He helps me out so much! He really watches over
us missionaries and blesses us more than we deserve. I am thankful for
the joy that the gospel brings and I am grateful to be here in
beautiful Montana! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Thomas

                                           Still snowing! Dang it. That's Elder Okerlund :)

The snow melted in a day...

Found a cool new setting on my camera! 

What's guiding your journey?

Book of Mormon Photoshoot for use in online proselyting.

So many presents!! Thank you everyone!!

So much food.

Happy Days :)

Dear Family and Friends,

Our miles have been cut down quite a bit because the winter is coming
to an end. Because of this we've had to stretch our miles as far as
they could go. We've been walking a lot and the weather has been
alright, but this last week we got pounded with snow randomly. Montana
weather is really weird. The next day it was warm and sunshiny again.

We had some super cool experiences this week! When we had dinner with
the Young's last week, Sister Young told us that she would like us to
come and share the new #Hallelujah video with her coworker, Patty. The
next day, Monday, we had the opportunity to visit their work and show
her the video. We have met Patty before and we love her! She is so
cool and kind, not to mention her curiosity about the church. We ended
up showing her about seven videos. At that point she began to ask
about the church. She had many questions, so we got to teach her the
restoration! She was so cool about it. We told her about the Book of
Mormon and she said she would love one. She wanted to give one to her
daughter so we told her we'd bring her another one. As we left she
told us that she would, "put it on her nightstand so she remembers to
read it every night!

We had exchanges with the the District Leader this week! I went to
Laurel with Elder Smith and his companion, Elder Baumer, came down
here. Elder Smith and I had a lot of fun together. He has only been
out a month longer than me, like Elder Ross. We were able to teach a
few lessons, one of my favorites being with a young 7 year old boy.
There are two boys in this family, the older one is 11 new the younger
one is 7. Their parents have decided they want to get back in the
church so the missionaries are teaching the boys. They tried teaching
them together but they fought to much. So they ended up teaching them
separate. We taught about choosing the right and even gave him a CTR
ring. For the lesson, we did different role play situations and asked
how we could choose the right in that situation. We all had a lot of
fun and he got really into it. It was a very good time. Elder Baumer
and Elder Ross had a really good exchange, including finding a new
investigator! Elder Baumer and Elder Ross were also able to visit
Patty and give her another Book of Mormon! We'll be going back 
tomorrow to see how things have been going with her.

The tourists were everywhere in Red Lodge this week. The tourists
aren't quite as kind as the locals. This week as we were walking Main
Street in Red Lodge a man from the other side of the street said
loudly, " oh no, are you Mormons??" We were both smiled at him and
almost in unison said, "yes!" Rather enthusiastically! That disarmed
him.

Adam & Christina just got back from a trip but now they're headed out
again!! They're on their way to Utah. They will be there for two
weeks, so if you meet a man with a southern accent and a woman with a
Hispanic accent, it might just be my investigators! We stopped by and
were only able to visit on the porch for a minute because Adam was at
work, but Christina seemed really happy to see us and told us she was
very sorry they were traveling so much. We also found out that they
are getting married on April 6th!!! That will be happening in Oregon,
sounds like another trip haha. We are so excited for these amazing
people.

We met with the Pratts again but only Kevin and Brother Pratt were
there again. We read the Book of Mormon again because not everyone was
there. It was a good lesson but the Pratts are struggling with some
very hard things right now. We love them very much and it is hard to
see them go through these hard things. Please pray for them.

Probably the craziest thing that happened this week was getting to SEE
FAMILY!!!!!! Last week when I got on my email I saw one from my dear
sister Jenni, letting me know that she had called my mission president
and received permission to COME VISIT ME! The idea was that we could
meet before church and talk for a little bit, then they could sit with
me during sacrament. Oh my goodness! As I'm sure all of you can
imagine, I was so totally stoked on our way to the church building in
Absarokee Sunday morning! As we drove, we ended up being behind a line
of cars, three trucks and a minivan. Now, a minivan is not a common
sighting in Montana, it's usually a truck or a Subaru. We both had the
same thought, "it's probably them!" We got close enough to the van to
see the NORTH DAKOTA license plates! This only made me more excited.
We followed them for about 14 miles till we got to the church
building, and pulled up right next to them! It was so surreal! It was
so cool to see such familiar faces. I wish I could describe every
second and how much fun it was. It was amazing just to hold my cute
nephews and to see my sister and brother-in-law when I'd look over. It
was fun to watch Jenni and Burkley with their kids and with each other
and to be reminded that this is the goal. The goal is that those we
teach will go through the temple. That those we teach will have that
amazing opportunity to be sealed to their family for time and
eternity! The goal that they will live the gospel in their families
and experience that love and joy! Families are forever. That's the way
it started with our father in heaven and that's the way it will always
be. I'm out here so others can find that joy as well.

I love each of you very much.

Love,
Elder Thomas

Exchanges!

Healthy lunch in front of the Red Lodge Pizza fireplace. Jk, it's ice cream.

The MINIVAN.

FAMILY. Wow, I love them.

The first part of my birthday package :) Thanks Mom!

Lookin' like a fancy cowboy on an old tractor.

It's a beautiful preparation day :)

Looks like spring to me!