"Stuff" on the Horse Trailer Floor and so Much More

Hey all so I'm going to do something a bit different this week.  Instead of me trying to compose all my thoughts from the whole week I'm going to write a little bit each day about what happened as the week goes and email it on Monday. That way it'll be fresh in my mind!  So we'll see how this goes!

Alright so Monday!  Not too much happened. It’s our preparation day which is super nice!! It is very much needed to just let loose and the extra couple hours in the morning helps add time to be together with other missionaries :) I forgot to put this in the last email but on Sunday night we slept over at the other zone leaders apartment because we just kinda wanted to 😅 anyway so that was a blast! In the morning we helped them with some service that they had.  It was pretty fun.  We unloaded a horse trailer into a storage unit. The only downside to this was that when they first loaded the horse trailer they didn't really shovel it out first because all the "stuff" on the floor (it was poop if you didn't catch my drift) was frozen. But thanks to this warm weather we've been having it softened right up and me being the lucky guy I was got to be the one inside the trailer unloading it... it was fun 😅 but yeah so we did that in the morning then we went and did normal preparation day stuff like shopping and getting ready for the upcoming week.  It was kinda funny but since we had a sleepover I put my mattress in the back of their truck and slept on that in their apartment; well they had somewhere to be pretty quick after p-day so we had to just ditch my mattress at their place for a night.  I wasn’t worried because I knew I’d just snag it sometime.  But all in all good day!

Alright so Tuesday!  Fun stuff!  So we woke up in the morning and we're doing our normal missionary thing when we get a call from the sisters in our district.  We answer the phone and start talking and they're like "hey would you guys be able to come with us to a lesson at 10 this morning?!?"

"... umm you mean in like ten minutes???"
"Yeah! Can you make it?!?"
"..."
"..."
"... yeah sure we can make it." 😅
So that was a pretty impromptu lesson.  Because he's a single guy in the sisters area they can't meet with him unless we come as well but it was super awesome because we were able to teach him about baptism and the covenants made there and we were able to confirm that he's going to get baptized on Saturday!  It's been super cool because even though he isn't our investigator we loved being able to see him commit to be baptized and now to follow through on Saturday is just so awesome! 

After the lesson we went to Zone Leader Conference (ZLC), which is a meeting between the zone leaders and the district leaders... well I'm not either of those but my companion is the district leader sooooo I come along but I'm not welcomed in the club 😢 so basically I just sit around in the church and study or shoot some hoops 😂 well while I'm in the middle of "ballin up" with myself I get a call from the other zone leaders asking if we'll be home anytime soon so that they can drop off my mattress.  I told them that I'm in the middle of ZLC but that the door was unlocked so they could just throw it in that first room.  That was the last I thought of it.  After ZLC we go home for lunch and I walk in and I see my mattress and I'm like, "sweet they actually brought it!"  Then I started paying attention to the apartment and all around the apartment the other Missionaries had placed the valentine cards (you know since it was Valentine's Day) all over our apartment in random places that we would find at random times.  Like I'll give you a few examples… they put some in our hot chocolate powder, they put some in our light fixture, they put some around the shower head they put some in random pockets of my clothes and they put some in the sheets of Elder Blum’s mattress.  And those are just a few!!  They said they had a stack about 5 inches tall of them and we haven't found nearly that much.  Basically it was the funniest thing ever 😂 a perfect way to start off my day :) anyway after that we went out and tried contacting a lot of people and not a lot of people were home because it was Valentine's Day and the people that were home just kind of slammed the door in our face.  No biggy though!  Such is the life of a missionary 😂 it was a good day though :)

Wednesday!! Today was a really awesome and a really spiritually charging day! We had zone conference and so from about 9-3 we had meetings and the whole time I was just getting spiritual promptings and impressions as to how I can become a better missionary and a better person in general and also a lot of new ideas of how to find new investigators.  I always enjoy listening to President and Sister Wadsworth.  They just are able to say things that I know I need to hear and also I'm sure that others need to hear as well!!  And the spirit they bring is just awesome!  I just learned a whole lot, it was really nice.  

After that we were able to go and teach the investigator in Portage again and that was really good we taught him some of the last principles he needs in order to get baptized.  He's so ready to make that commitment.  Apparently he's been working with the missionaries for upwards of 5 years or so and being a part of this step that he's making towards eternal progression is such an honor and I thank the Lord every day for the opportunities and blessings He gives me.  After that lesson we went and picked up our dinner where we had an appointment with because she wasn't feeling too good so we really hope she gets feeling better.  

We had dinner then we decided to listen to what the Wadsworths and Apostles have said and try working with people who are in our age range so we went to mutual and started to get to know a lot of the youth in the ward and that was really awesome. They're having a combined mutual in March so we are encouraging them to invite friends of theirs who might not be members or members who don't necessarily come to church a whole lot.  We hope that they do that so that we can do our thing and try and bring others closer to the gospel :) it's been a really awesome day filled with so much promptings and spiritual impressions I feel like I'm going to explode.  I'm excited to start using what I've learned in my missionary work :)

Thursday!!  Oh man what a day!!  Started off really awesome!!  We had interviews with President and that was awesome.  We were able to talk about things I need to do that would help me be a better missionary and ways that I can grow myself and it was just so awesome!!  I appreciate President and his wife so much!  They receive so much revelation for what their missionaries need I just love being able to spend time with them whenever I can!  So we went from that to lunch which was good.  

We had lunch with our zone leaders at Dairy Queen so that was pretty good. Then after that me and Elder Blum got haircuts because my hair was getting a bit too long!  I just don't like when my hair gets long.  So I was sick and tired of it so I got it cut short so I hope that it'll stay this short for a while but I never know with my hair 😅 

After that we did some planning since it was our planning day and then we went to a lesson with the sisters with their investigator whose getting baptized on Saturday.  They finished up teaching him the last things he needed before he's baptized so now all that needs to happen is an interview (which will happen tomorrow) and then the actual baptism and he's golden!  So that was good then we had splits and there was some communication errors (on our part) where we had told the wrong time so the appointment we set up wasn't able to happen and it was just such a bummer because I was really looking forward to meeting with the people we had set up time with and I just feel really bad about the whole thing.  But we ended up meeting with one of our investigators on the base and that was good.  We were able to talk with her about the Bookof Mormon and the restoration a bit and we hopefully will be able to find a way back onto the base for our next appointment with her! So that was nice!  Lots of cool things happened today!  Lots of miracles.

Friday!!  Today was super awesome!!  We started out the day by playing some games for exercise!  So that was fun and a super great way to start the day!  After that we went over to do a baptismal interview with the sisters investigator and guess what... he passed!!  So all things are a go for tomorrow and I couldn't be happier!!  After all was said and done and we had gone over everything with him we went over to help the other zone leaders with some service that they had lined up.  So we shuttled off that direction and helped them for a while.  It's pretty interesting how many people are moving at this time.  Like honestly, we've helped at least three different people within the past two weeks move.  After that we went over to Salvation Army to see if they could use some volunteer service from their friendly neighborhood missionaries and they said that they would love to!!  So we are going to head back tomorrow and talk with a lady to get that all set up.

After that we went to dinner at like my new favorite restaurant.  It's called the Roadhouse Diner and man alive, they have some good burgers... like the first time I went, I got the PB & J burger... I know it sounds nasty but it was actually pretty good!!  But this go around I wanted to try other things and the Spicy burger caught my eye and man was that thing tasty!  So that was good!!  

Then after that we saw that the other zone does this missionary game night thing where missionaries and youth get together and play games.  So it's like a perfect opportunity for the youth to invite their friends who may or may not be members.  So we wanted to get that started in our zone but we wanted to see what they do for it so we went and did that and it was a lot of fun and I'm way excited to get that started over in our zone!!  But yeah today was super good and I couldn't be more stoked for the baptism tomorrow!!  It will be so awesome and the spirit felt at a baptism is such a special one.

Saturday!!  Man today was so solid!!  We woke up and went to the baptism and it was super awesome to see him get baptized.  The spirit was super strong there.  Then after that we went to a lunch that a family had put together for him after his baptism.  That was pretty cool because we were able to meet some of the members from the Portage ward.  After that Elder Blum asks if we can stop by Walmart and the other Stake Center because he needed to get some things and he left his missionary clip at the Stake Center.  So that's what we did and after we couldn't find his tag we decided to just leave... buuuuut the other zone leaders apartment was right there, so being the 19 year old that I am I decided that we should see if we could get into their apartment somehow, so we try for a bit and we get let in!  So we go into their apartment and prank them a bit nothing too bad just had some fun 😂 then we go on our way and start trying to contact people and go to some lessons we had set up.  We went over to our first "lesson" we more or less were just seeing if she was feeling better so we could teach her.  We go and knock on her door start talking and she says that she just got started eating lunch... which was a little weird... seeing as how it was 3:30.  Oh well we set up a return appointment for Sunday at 4:30 so hopefully that works out.

Then after that we go and contact this less active and man was he an interesting guy 😅 he basically told us that he got baptized because he was told he couldn't do it so he felt challenged.  But he was a way cool guy.  He talked to us about not getting married and not going to college so that was fun 😅 we were there for about an hour and a half to two hours.  Then we went to another lesson we had set up with a new investigator we found trying to contact someone else, but that fell through so we decided to go head home and have dinner... I walk in our apartment and my first thought was, "oh no..." the other zone leaders had put cups full of water all throughout our apartment 😅 it was so funny I was dying laughing 😂 so we cleaned that up, declared prank war with them and set up rules so that things don't get out of hand.  Then we started brainstorming as to how we should get them back... after that we went and contacted some people but no one answered.

Sunday!!  So today we got up did our morning thing then went to church.  It was pretty good!!  The talks in Sacrament meeting were all about missionary work and getting the members involved so that was awesome!!  Then it was kind of funny but I was looking around and our ward mission leader was gone and our assistant ward mission leader was gone as well. So I legit thought that Elder Blum and I were going to have to wing the lesson in gospel principles!!  But it turned out they got a sub so it worked out!!  Then we went to priesthood and had a lesson on the pioneers and their faith and how we are different pioneers now.  It was pretty cool!!  Then after church we had a ton of lessons... which all fell through 😅 like I kind of understand because we set up these lessons like a week ago, but the one we set up yesterday I was like that’s a bummer!!  We literally talked yesterday!!  Oh well we were able to meet some other people and it was super cool.  The Lord works in mysterious ways so maybe we needed to be in the neighborhood for someone.  I'm not sure.  

We had a bit of time before our dinner so we were like, "let's go try and find the Great Falls." So we went looking for them and we found the Rainbow Falls but not the Great Falls.  At first I thought it was the Great Falls and I was severely underwhelmed... 😅 but it was all good!!  Then we took off to our dinner and ate with a family where her brother who got off a mission about 8 months ago was living with them.  So that was super cool to be able to talk to him about his mission!!  Then after that he asked if we wanted to go help him with his horses.  We didn't have anything planned after that so we were like, "sure why not!!"  So that was fun!  Then we went and did our laundry and went to bed.  

This week I've been a witness of right place right time.  We may think that because we have an appointment with someone that we need to be with them, then when the appointment falls through we get bummed out, but someone there needs you.  The Lord put you there at that time for a reason.  We just had to find the reason!! I love you all take care!!

Love,
Elder Zeller
2425 6th Ave. S Great Falls MT 59405