What's Your Name?

Hey everyone!

This week FLEW by. I blinked and its Monday again! Ah! To echo the words of President Nelson, "This isn't missionary work, this is missionary fun!" I'm here to testify that it is WORK, but it is also oh so very fun. :)

This week has been absolutely amazing and incredibly exhausting. I keep thinking about Alma, Lamoni, and others in the Book of Mormon that have amazing spiritual experiences that render them completely and totally without strength. It's a real thing. We drove to Helena for MLC this week and taught zone training with the zone leaders on Friday. I've never been so stressed in my life! But I learned so much and I LOVE being here.

Last week I talked about how we are praying to see miracles here and we are seeing them! I wanted to share one super cool one. We had a referral from a member that we felt super good about but couldn't seem to ever get a hold of her. We pulled up one night and decided that this would be our last time trying to contact her before we would have to drop her. We prayed before going to her door for a miracle that she would be home and answer the door. We knock....no answer. We knock again...no answer. Out of frustration we knocked a third time very loudly and in a weird pattern that we had never done before. A few seconds later the door swing open "J! What are you doing?! Oh. You aren't J. I don't answer the door ever. Just for my neighbor J and we have a special knock. How did you know it?"
MIRACLE.
We are meeting with her this week :) she contacted the member that referred her to us and told him that she was ready to let religion into her life again. Always pray in faith! Miracles happen!

Let's see...what else....
We met a guy the other day and when we asked what his name was he said "My name is...don't trust anyone...ever" Hahahaha allllllrighty.

I am soooooooooo grateful for the Book of Mormon and for the miracles it can work in our lives. I know it is true. I know that it is the key to our testimony of the restoration. Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration. Thomas S. Monson is our prophet today. I don't think I'll ever get tired of sharing my testimony. :)

I'm going to respond to some individual emails now. Don't have a ton of time. We were helping the bishop in 1st Ward demolish a room in his house. SO FUN!!!

Love,
Sister Fletcher :)

  

1 Year!!!

 little house

 Driving to Helena

 Deer!!!

 Fresh water

 Outskirts of our Missoula area

Shenaniganizing

Hey all :)

WOW. It's been crazy my friends. Crazy.
I'm typing this letter to all of you as I sit in my new room in the attic of the Henderson's home. My picture collage of conference quotes is to my right and Sister Hodgson is sitting on her bed within arms reach to the left of me. We live in a members home. This house is ooooooooold. I love it. Minus the creepy noises at night. Haha We have a mini fridge, a table to study at, a dresser, shelves for all our food, and a cute little walk in closet all in one room. We don't have a shower....but we have a bathtub thing with a hose...so that's fun. Hahaha

Leaving Billings was rough. I don't think it hit me until my last day there and we were driving to the church to pick up the sisters that were transferring from Wyoming. We had driven from one end of the area to the other and I finally realized that my work there was done for a time. So sad. I'll sure miss you Mighty Monad ward.

This was my second time transferring somewhere and I was going the full 9 yards...again. Missoula zone...Billings zone ....and back to Missoula. I did that exact same drive a year ago when I first came on my mission! Crazy. Haha It felt like coming back home. IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL HERE. Missoula is surrounded by these amazing green mountains. GREEN. EVERYTHING IS SO GREEN. I love it. It's still as crazy to drive here as ever...but just pray for me and hopefully I'll get the hang of it and not kill sister Hodgson in the process ;)

I can't even explain to all of you how much love I have for Sister Hodgson. She is such a hard worker and we have hit the ground running. I'm learning so much and just trying to catch up with how great of a missionary she is. Also. We just laugh. All. The. Time. Sister Henderson (we live with her and her husband) was talking to us yesterday and asked how thing were going with adjusting to having a
new companion. We told her how we have known each other for a year now, and how we were so excited to be companions and she said "oh well that explains all the laughing and giggling I heard last night! I was wondering how you two had clicked so fast!" Hahaha we are working on laughing quieter ;)

We have gotten this transfer off to an AMAZING start. We had a zone conference call this week and the zone leaders shared Mosiah 18:30 with us and whenever it said Mormon they said Missoula. "And now it came to pass that all this was done in Missoula, yea, by the waters of Missoula, in the forest that was near the waters of Missoula; yea, the place of Missoula, the waters of Missoula, the forest of Missoula, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever." Brilliant eh? We have a goal to make Missoula like Mormon. So what do we have to do? Help them to come to a knowledge of their Redeemer! Aka. Teach everyone. Talk to everyone. Testify to everyone. Missoula means baptize. Hahaha

In all reality though, the area has gone pretty dry. We have next to no one in our teaching pool. BUT. That will change. Sister Hodgson and I are bound and determined. People just need to stop breaking things. Breaking the law of chastity, breaking the commandments, breaking our hearts. Yeah. The breaking of things needs to stop. We had to tell someone the other day that Bishop had already told him he had been excommunicated and so he needed to be rebaptized. That was fun. We had a pretty solid part member family and they decided to drop off the face of the earth. Joy. So we have been tracking down a lot of potential investigators that have turned out not to really be potentials...because approximately zero of them have been interested...........We had a few people we are working with come to church so that's awesome! Lots of ups and downs.

We had a pretty cool moment last night at the Pepions. My trainer, Sister Rammell, worked with them a lot when she was in this area and they are doing amazing things now. They are working toward the temple and are making great steps to do that! :) they got a calling to teach the youth Sunday school class and Sunday was their first day. From what it sounds like, it went great! They are both noticing how the gospel is influencing  them. They were just so happy. I started tearing up a little bit when we were talking to them because I realized that at that very moment I was exactly where God needed me to be right then. It's always good to be able to feel that, especially when you transfer to a new area.

I met all of the sisters in the two zones that Sister Hodgson and I cover. I love them all so much! They are doing great things here. We are starting up exchanges next week. It gives me a bit of time to get to know the area as all of the sister will be coming here to work in our area for exchanges. I have no idea what I'm doing! Ah. We travel down to Helena for MLC on Wednesday. Waking up at 5 and driving 2 hours! Woot! ;)

Love you all :)

Love,
Sister Fletcher :)

 The picture collage is back!

Whole lotta rain

Ready...set...street contact!

 Trying to take out the trash and someone calls....missionary work at its finest.

Grapes huh? Reliving the MTC.

Bye Billings

Bye Billings

Hey y'all!

Oh my HEAVENS. It has been SO CRAZY.

First things first. TRANSFER NEWS.

Are you ready?????????????????????????

I'm......
Going......
To.......
Be......
Going.......
Toooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

......
MISSOULA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back to zoo town!!!!!!!!!!
And GUESS WHAT.
My companion is SISTER HODGSON. We were in the same district in the MTC together. No joke. Her and I emailed each other on Monday and talked about how it would be so cool to be companions and how it would happen someday. Well it looks like SOMEDAY is WEDNESDAY.  I couldn't have asked for a better companion to help me adjust to all of the new things that will be thrown at me in this new area with lots of new responsibilities. I'll be going to the surrounding areas of Missoula too go on exchanges so it'll be lots of fun!

Half of my heart will DEFINITELY be left in Billings. I have grown to love this area and the people in it immensely. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm leaving. Ah! I started saying goodbye to people on Sunday and my heart just breaks more and more. TRANSFERS. AH.

It has been such a good week though! Lots of progress with lots of people here. I have been with Sister Unutoa since Friday and we have had so much fun. We knew each other in high school! What are the odds?! We got to go on a walk around the temple with a part member family yesterday. So amazing. They have so much potential and SO want to get to the temple to do the work for a daughter that passed away a year ago. Miracles are happening in that family. I'm so excited to see where they end up.

It has been really cool to gain a different perspective of my mission this week. There are so many ups and downs in mission life and I feel like this week I was able to hit a summit and look back down at all of the things that have happened and see how they have helped me to be who I am and where I am right now. And I can see how EVERYTHING has helped me to be prepared for this next transfer. It was a tender mercy to be able to see and understand all of that. It has strengthened my testimony that prayers are always, always, always answered.

I love being a missionary :)

Next email will be coming from ZOO TOWN!!! Ahhhh!!!

Love,
Sister Fletcher :)

 

 Love this district

 Welcome to Montana where we have potholes the size of Alaska.

 Companions and High School Rivals! Anyone recognize her? 

 Got to see a little bit of the country this week. #missingit

 

These Are The Best Days

Hey everyone!

What a week! I loved every single second of it! We kicked off Monday last week with an AWESOME lesson with Matthew and Marcy. They are progressing so well. All we are waiting for is for them to get married. They are SO close and Marcy is SO ready to get baptized. I'm so excited. Seeing them from 6 months ago to now just amazes me. The gospel of Jesus Christ truly does change lives.

Did some awkward referral contacting in Kmart. Hahahahaha Someone called us and asked us to see if we could share the gospel with the pharmacy lady that worked there. So....what better way to do that then ask for her advice on allergy medicine! We planted a seed for sure. Hopefully she doesn't remember how awkward we were though. We had an AWESOME district meeting on Wednesday. Really sad that this week will be our last one with this group :( that night we had dinner with Sister Beck. She really wants to go on a mission but has been stopped in her progress because of health problems. I felt prompted to share with her some things I experienced 6 months ago when I couldn't do missionary work AS A MISSIONARY because I was so sick. Lots of tears. But it was cool to see that I didn't go through all of that in vain. She needed to know that there is always a reason behind things that we feel are halting our progress.

We biked all day on Thursday. So fun! I'm getting used to it again. The Billings valley was SUPER smokey that day due to all the fires in Canada (or so I hear...who really knows. It was smoky. That's all I know ;))  it took me back to last summer when it seemed like the whole state of Montana was on fire. We finally caught up with the Realbird family again. Rama is on her way back from Denver with 4 of her kids. The baby still has to stay I the hospital for one more surgery. Her step mom and step sister came to all of church yesterday :) I was SO proud of them.

Annicka got baptized this week! She's 9 and I have been working with her and her less active family for the nearly 6 months that I've been here. It was such a sweet experience. Everything leading up to it was SO chaotic and stressful. All baptisms are stressful (especially without a Ward mission leader) but this one was nuts. It was in the heights because all of Annicka's extended family lives there. Forgotten towels, forgotten keys, lost missionaries. It was great fun. Her 94 year old great grandpa wouldn't have been able to come if it was in our stake center. He got to confirm her as well! Plus, all of her other family members have been baptized there, so...we made it happen. It all worked out in the end though. The biggest pay-off was seeing Annicka in the font with her grandpa and her mom and dad standing right up against the glass watching her and absolutely BAWLING. Her older siblings cried as well. I KNOW they felt something there. The member of the bishopric presiding pointed it out too, which was great. I'm excited to go follow up with their family and see if we can get them to understand how we don't need to wait for special occasions to feel the spirit. Annicka literally SWAM out of the font. Hahahaha I love that cute girl. It was a wonderful day :)

Mother's Day was wonderful :) 6 hours of church, speaking in sacrament meeting, and teaching relief society. Wouldn't have it any other way! It was so good to see my family :) love them. It really is crazy how time flies.

I'm going to reply to personal emails now. :) love you all SO much!!!!

 View from the Rims

 View from the Rims-mission home 

Waiting...

 Smiles for Mother's Day

Annnnnd skyping da fam :) some things never change... Hahahaha