Elder Brian Montierth: March 2, 2009

I can't believe how fast time is flying by! It feels like it was just Monday yesterday! I can barely keep track of the days as they fly by! This was another great week! There was a lot that went on! Monday night we had FHE with a family in Mo-ville (Mormon Village), the Forreds, and we taught them about baptism because they have a daughter that will be turning 8 soon. That was pretty good. Sis Forred's non-member sister was there also. After that we went over to the Capener's house to teach Monica there. It was a good lesson. We were going to have dinner at the Capener's the next night also so they invited Monica to dinner. We got to the Capener's house early and helped them prepare dinner. It was hawaiian haystacks! MMM! Then we had another good lesson with Monica. That night we also taught Erick and Alyce the 10 commandments. That went pretty well. They are doing great. Erick is steadily reading the BOM.

Elders Davis, Hutcheson, Murie, Stevens, Mapa, Corzo, and Clayson

Wednesday's District meeting was on helping investigators keep commitments. I think it went very well. After district meeting, since we were all out of money, we made egg drop ramen noodle soup at the church. It wasn't too bad... I never was a huge fan of ramen anyway.

After lunch I went on exchanges with Elder Mapa in his area, Chapel Hill. That was pretty fun. We biked SO much! Haha! It was great! We taught a guy named Jimmy Green. We were super bold with him. Well, at least I was. Ha ha! We also played basketball with some high school aged black kids on a super ghetto court! I was the only white boy there because Elder Mapa is half black- half Tongan! It was fun! It was a good exchange. Thursday was pretty uneventful. Friday Ali had her baptism interview with one of the zone leaders. She did awesome! So by Friday night we only had 14 lessons taught for the week. We needed 6 more, but we had a ton of stuff going on on Saturday. It was a super crazy day! Here were the set things that we had to do: 9-11 in the morning we were going to be helping an elderly lady move, 2-4:30 we had the baptism, and 6:30-8 we had the Elder's Quorum Pinewood Derby. Oh! And we didn't have the car or any rides to these things as of Friday night. So I'll take you play-by-play through this day.

Woke up Saturday morning and looked outside... about 3 inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. At 9:00 we walked about a mile and a half to get to the elderly lady's house. There were only 8 people there to help, including us, the whole time we were there. She hadn't packed ANYTHING up yet. There were only 4 males there. The other 4 were women. It wasn't too bad. In her basement , garage, and upper level she had probably at least 300 2 ft-long plastic tubs! She had SO many! We filled up the entire U-haul and only got about half of them out of her house- it was actually a duplex. Ha ha! We had a good time!

At 11:00 we came back home and made Bro. Shriner (the guy we live with) lunch in exchange for a ride to an investigators house and then to the church! Ha ha! We made spaghetti then headed up to Jesse and Joyce's house. Oh, we also taught Bro. Shriner a lesson after lunch! The lesson with Jesse and Joyce went really well! Then Bro. Shriner dropped us off at the church at 2:00 so we could get things set up for the baptism at 3:00.

The baptism went awesome! There were lots of members from the ward there to support her, including her family's visiting teachers, home teachers, primary teacher, and most of her primary class! It was so cool! Her aunt Amanda and Amanda's boyfriend, Marcos, were there, too. They are investigators so it was good for them! Ali is in the Hickory Hills ward, but Sis. Capener came with Monica so Monica could see a baptism in our church. That was awesome to see 3 of our investigators there. Oh yeah, clarification: Sis. Capener and Monica are from the Overland Park 1st ward area. Elder Murie baptized Ali and I gave a lesson while they were changing back into regular clothes. Since we had investigators from 2 separate wards we had to count my lesson twice, one for each ward. We made an appointment to teach Monica again at 4:30 at her house.

We were done cleaning up the baptism by about 4:00 so we had our ward mission leader drop us off in Mormon Village. Then we started searching for a team-up to go into Monica's house with. Haha! Bro. Taylor from Mo-ville was available so he came with us. He is really awesome! We taught about baptism and confirmation and answered some questions she had about the baptism.

Our dinner that night was at the Sheffers. They also live in Mo-ville. Haha! So after we taught Monica we walked over to the Capener's and talked with them a bit until 5:30, which is when dinner was scheduled. Bro. Sheffer is way awesome! We always go see him to get our back and neck adjusted. He's very good. We had pizza for dinner then taught them a lesson. Were you counting all those lessons? Because that last one was number 6! We did it! We taught the 6 lessons we needed to get to 20! and we did it by 6:30 pm! That's a miracle! That makes 3 weeks in a row with at least 20 lessons! At 6:30 we went to the pinewood derby and won 4th and 5th place. Booyah! At 8:00 we didn't have anyone to go see so we just went home and prepared lessons for primary the next day.

Sunday morning I confirmed Ali a member of the church. That was very special! In OP 1st ward I got up and bore my testimony. For the 3rd hour in OP1 the RS was having a visiting teaching conference so all the women in the ward had to be there, so the men had to take over the Primary. Wow. 5 year-olds are CRAZY!! Ha ha! The lesson was on the different priesthood blessings... and I learned VERY fast how short the attention span of a 5-year-old is! Ha ha! I had a whole hour so I adapted my lesson quickly! Let's just say I have a lot of respect now for primary teachers! HA HA! I think I did pretty well, though.

I started this letter on Monday (March 2nd) and now it's Wednesday morning and my comp. is sick so I have some time to finish this letter. I've got to tell you about yesterday! It was awesome! We went to the Liberty Jail... Twice! ha ha! We went at 11:00 AM with Monica and the Capeners! It was so amazing! That was my first time ever going there. Same with Elder Murie. Monica really liked it! THEN... at 7:00 PM we went again with ERick, Alyce, Alyce's son James, and brother and sister Feaster. It was another amazing experience! To me, the second time was much more spiritual. Each time was a different sister missionary. The second time it was a sister that came out the same time as me. She was very powerful! And guess what?! She is done with her mission in 6 weeks! The sisters I came out with are going home at the end of this next transfer! That's so crazy! Well, on the way home from the Liberty Jail the second time we got transfer calls! You should have already gotten the news from the Capener's, but if you didn't... we are both staying! We are both excited about that! We will both be here for Monica's baptism! Yay! There are actually only 2 missionaries in my zone that are being transfered. One from my district is becoming a district leader, Elder Davis. He will be very good! He has been in Chapel Hill for 7 1/2 months! It was time for him to go. Well, I've got to wrap up this letter now. :)