I'm Thankful for Jell-O and So Much More

So this week has been a little different for me and I find myself sitting here looking at this screen trying to figure out how to put into words what I am feeling.  

It hasn’t been a bad week but I’m in a teeny tiny town on the outskirts of the mission and this is the first round of holidays.  I’m away from home and it feels weird.  I mean Thanksgiving was the first major holiday I spent away from home. It was kinda bumming me out at the beginning. I was all like, "man I'm not gonna say I'm thankful for Jell-O this year because no one will have it or even get it... I'm not gonna get a popcorn turkey this year... we aren't gonna go around the room and do “cheers” on what we are thankful for..." a bunch of these memories that I've had from past years kept swirling around in my head.  So to be honest, I was kinda getting bummed out.  

And then we went over to the “Mc” (edited for privacy) house (our Branch Mission Leader) and we had thanksgiving with him and another family.  We were about to eat and Brother “Mc” gives the prayer. And I don't know why but something he said really struck me and stood out to me. Like it made such an impression upon me that I even wrote about it in my journal. But he said something along the lines of, "as these missionaries sacrifice their time away from their families, know that they are a part of our family." Anyway it really was cool and it helped remind me that I'm out here and I'm apart of people's families out here. It was really actually pretty cool!! 

And that lead me to think that I have been blessed with a great family out here (of course they will never replace my own family - that was for you mom).  But there is no doubt that the Lord knew exactly what he was doing when he put us together to work.  With the help of good ol’ president Wadsworth I've been able to fully jump into the work and honestly change my whole thought process of how missionary work goes!  Like really and truly you have no clue how much President Wadsworth has helped me out and even some of my closest friends have too out here!  They've all been so great and in a way like a family.  There are so many people here in Cut Bank and Browning too that I love like family.  This has been a sweetest experience so far.

This also led me to a different thought about those who might not have a lot of family and how hard that must be for them.  The LDS church is doing a “Light the World” challenge and I just thought it would be awesome if all those people out there who are lonely felt what I have felt at this time how much that really could light the world.  So I hope that during this Christmas season (whether you are LDS or not) if everyone who reads this could “Light the World” by looking out for someone without family how cool that would be.

I am so grateful I am where I am.  The Lord knows what we need when we need it.  Love you all and let’s all get going and #lighttheworld

Elder Zeller

123 1/2 4th Ave Se Cut Bank, Montana

The Miracles that Tie Us All Together... The Lords Timing

Hey everyone!!  This week was pretty good!!  

It's pretty crazy how the Lord works as a missionary!!  I've been praying for people to teach for a while now.  Haven't really seen a lot of a difference until this week!  This week we got two different referrals!  We got one online referral from a girl who referred herself and her family!  And we were able to go over and meet them and teach her mother with a stellar member who came with us!  How cool is that!  Then a member told us about this lady which he had talked to already about the gospel and she was really interested!!  So he brought us over to meet her and this lady is a machine when it comes to reading material!  We have given her every pamphlet and book we can and she just eats it up.  However the one thing she hasn't read all the way through yet is the Book of Mormon!  But she is reading it, so that is super exciting!  Plus she's at the hospital so she's stuck there for us to teach her.  She even told us that once she gets out of the hospital she would like to get baptized!  How amazing is that!  Another miracle that ties this all together is that the referral Family, the mom works at the hospital and she looks after the lady we teach in the hospital so we get to see her a lot!  I love it!  

The Lord works in such mysterious ways and it's so important to know that we may want something right now but the Lord has his timing of when it'll be perfect.  How amazing is Heavenly Father that He can bless others through us!  I just love the thought!  

I love this gospel and I love seeing people's eyes be filled with the love of Christ especially in this Christmas season!  I love seeing the lights all around.  The court house here in town set up a ton of cool lights and so naturally I had to take a picture... or two... or more!!  I just love Christmas and I love that they keep Christ in Christmas!  I love you all and I'll catch y'all next week!!

Love,

Elder Zeller

123 1/2 4th Ave Se

Cut Bank, Montana

Birthday Celebration and Inspiration

Howdy everyone! This week was pretty awesome!! My birthday came around and I'm 19 now!! Kinda weird, because in less than one year now I won't be a teenager anymore.  Kinda scary not gonna lie 😅 anyway I had a super cool experience this week in Browning.  So this is what happened...

The wind was blowing across the town of Browning.  We could hear dogs barking in the distance but we didn't care.  We had a job to do as missionaries.  A job that required our complete and 100% focus.  We had just left a members home who wasn't totally active in the church and we were hoping to maybe get her to come to church that Sunday.  After we left we were at a loss.  We had some time and didn't know what to do with it.  We threw ideas back and forth then finally another less active member popped into my head.  We decided to go with it.  Not knowing what would happen but we had the confidence that the Lord knew what he was doing. 

We walked up to the door and in an act of bravado knocked on the door... we waited... and waited... nothing happened.  We rang the doorbell... we waited again... still no answer.  In a last ditch effort we knocked on the door and after a few seconds started walking back to the car.  As I took those first few steps I wondered why we were here and why the Lord had sent us here.  After a few more steps we heard the door unlock and proceed to open.  We immediately turned around to see if it was the member we were hoping to see.  It wasn't.  But this didn't deter us.  We had been sent to this home for a reason and we needed to talk to this lady.  She invited us inside and started talking to us.  After a while she told us of her struggles in life that she was going through and how scared she was.  The Spirit then took over and allowed us to help this broken woman, who had almost lost hope, feel the love of God again in her life.  Towards the end of our discussion she told us how she felt like we were sent there for her and that God was looking out for her.  We talked about the church and she explained how she wanted her daughter to be baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  However, her daughter was two years old; so we explained to her about how we do baptisms and what we believe.  She told us that she wanted to become a member of the church as well and that she wanted her child to be blessed into the church and eventually get baptized.  As we were leaving we left her with a copy of the Book of Mormon and some other material for her to read about the church and asked her to come on Sunday.  She told us she would.  As we left the house we now knew why we had been sent there.

This experience has shown me that the spirit doesn't give us impressions just for fun.  He knows more than we possibly could and that if we receive an impression we need to act on it because you never know what could happen.  We also need to be constantly receptive and making sure that we are worthy of having the Holy Ghost in our lives so that we can receive those crucial promptings by the spirit.  "... by the power of the Holy Ghost he may know the truth of all things." (Moroni 10:5) this is how we have questions answered and this is how we can change lives.  Through the Holy Ghost we can have those hard questions of life answered and through the Holy Ghost we can change lives – both those around us and our own.  I've seen the Holy Ghost work in my life to bless others as well as myself, and through the spirit I've had questions answered when I couldn't find an answer on my own.  I know this gospel is true and that it has the power to change anyone's life.  

Love you guys!!

Love,
Elder Zeller

123 1/2 4th Ave Se

Cut Bank, Montana

Service & a Holiday Bazaar

Hey everyone!  This week has been pretty good!!  Elder Allen got up and transferred so we went by people's houses that he wanted to say goodbye to.  Then we did a lot of traveling.  Like honestly most of this week has been traveling 😅 but I got my new companion and his name is Elder Lankford.  He's a pretty cool guy and it'll be really great to work with him!  

It's really cool because I can see the work flourishing!!  This past weekend we had the opportunity to do service for the city at a holiday bazaar and there were a lot of people that needed help moving in and out of it, so that's what we were there for!  

We were able to meet a lot of people from Cut Bank that I didn't even know existed!  So that was awesome because we got a lot of referrals. Some of them were from cut bank and others were from other places in Montana.  So we will get in touch with other missionaries and have them give a visit to those people.  It really was super cool and people were very appreciative of what we did :) I definitely was able to see that when you are in the service of your fellow beings you really are only in the service of your God.

Also I realized that I totally forgot to put pictures in last weeks email so I'm putting them in this one 😅 my bad 😅 anyway I love you all!! I'll catch you next week!!

Love,

Elder Zeller

123 1/2 4th Ave Se Cut Bank, Montana

Trick or TREATING the Book of Mormon

Hey everyone!! This week has been awesome like most of my weeks:)

This Thursday we had a trunk or treat in Browning and it was so great!!  The spirit there was awesome!  We had at least 10 or so missionaries come so we were honestly inviting people in off the street offering a free dinner for them.  It was super cool to see everyone so appreciative and it was just awesome!  Everyone we invited in was talked to about the gospel.  I loved being able to see the missionary initiative like this, was just way cool!!   We gave out 2 crates FULL of Book of Mormons!  So I would guess that we passed out maybe like 50 or so books:)

We invited everyone to church and we even set up a return appointment with a guy and so we are going to see him on Saturday or something!!  I'm so excited for the work that is happening out here!!  The people out here are definitely blossoming like a rose.  It's taking some time but eventually it'll be amazing to see the saints of Browning. 

Church rolled around and no one from the trunk or treat came but its ok because we know that there are Book of Mormons out there and that some people are now able to be touch by the spirit easier than maybe before:)  So we will see what the future brings.

I love this gospel and the things I see. I love you guys and I'll talk to you later!!!

Love,
Elder Zeller
123 1/2 4th Ave Se Cut Bank, Montana