Week 35

Zone Conference

why not jump on the bed?

Putting a squirrel out of its misery

Hey everyone!

Welcome to another exciting week in the life of Sister Miles. Helena
is full of smoke and it's residence are slowly withering away. The
inside of my lungs are probably black and everyone we talk to is
positive the end is near.

This week had it's ups and downs, but I would like to focus on the ups.

I got my haircut on Monday at the only salon open in town
due to Labor Day.  We were the only ones, along with the hairdresser
who started asking questions about the church! She said that she hoped
to see us around so we left her with our number and I'll probably go
back to get my hair done soon.

That night while driving around we saw this less active. we pulled over and Sister Labrum yelled "MICHAEL! COME OVER HERE!" And I am positive she scared him half to death since he had no idea who she was. But once he saw me hop out of the truck all was cool.

Tuesday we pretty much street contacted all day and no one was interested.

Wednesday we woke up early and dropped our car off at the body shop.
The Sisters from 6th Ward picked us up and we drove to Butte for zone
conference.

But zone conference was really great and uplifting. I learned a lot of
great stuff about helping people make and keep commitments and really
felt the Spirit.

The next 2 nights we stayed with some members, the Zullos, since their
house is in a central location and we could easily walk to most of our
appointments. At one point we were walking when I decided
I just really needed chocolate. We walked in a gas station when a
lady approached us and said she always wanted to met with missionaries
but her boyfriend was against it. They have since broken up and she
moved out. Also turns out we are teaching her sister and she lives
there too!

Thursday was really great. We had our first lesson with a new
investigator named Terry. We taught him the Restoration and he told us
he could feel the Holy Ghost telling him what we said was true. Sister Labrum
invited him to be baptized and before she finished the sentence he said
yes and set a date for October 14th!

That night we met this man Sister Labrum and I now call "Spiritual
Scott". The conversation started off normal as we talked about Christ,
faith, and all that good stuff. Then he started going on about child
birth and crying and it was really weird. At one point he started
telling me how beautiful I was and then he turned to Sister Labrum
and said "And you have really bad acne." A sentence which really
boosted her fragile self esteem. And we keep running into him! Like
everywhere! It's super weird.

Friday was rough and a day that I don't want to go into detail about
but some events from the day include guys rolling joints in the
library and finding a member of our ward on the side of the road
drunk.

We got our truck back early that evening and were able to go back to
our house. The next morning we were greeted by the Nielson's cats, who
brought us a mangled ground squirrel, still alive and writhing in
pain. We couldn't just let it suffer. I suggested we crush its head to put it out of its misery, but Sister Labrum suggested a more humane approach. So we put it in a trash bag and tied it to our exhaust pipe. Afterwords we held a funeral service for the rodent in its grave of pine cones.

That day we also taught Steve. Missionaries have been meeting with him
for a long time and he's never gotten completely on board with the
entire gospel yet. We asked him if he believed the church was true. He
said that he's read the Bible and from what he can gather, we have the
closest organization to what Christ established when he was on the
earth, but he wasn't sold that we were in fact, the same church Christ
established. Sister Labrum asked him if he believed Joseph Smith was a prophet and he said yes, in which Sister Labrum rebutted "If Joseph Smith was a prophet, then isn't this Christ's church established on the earth today? The one, true church?" In which he reasoned "I guess you're right. guess that means I need to get baptized now. I'll pick a date and tell you next week." And he went on his way.

Libby came to church on Sunday! She told us she was only going to stay
for Sacrament Meeting but ended up staying all 3 hours and she loved
it! She said she was definitely going to come back and that church
inspired her to clean her house more.

But Sunday was also pretty rough. We had a rapid succession drop fest
of people telling us they were no longer interested in meeting with
us. Including one investigator who we couldn't get a hold of for 2
weeks. She came to church and we stopped by her house that night, in
which she yelled thorough the door that if we ever stopped by again
she would call the cops on us. We're not sure what happened to make
her feel that way but it was definitely heartbreaking.

I love you! 

Love,
Sister Austin Miles ♡