Happy 4th of July!!

This week has flown by! Let's see...where to start!

We have been visiting a BUNCH of people this week!  We have been given a lot of referrals and names of people we need to visit and so we've been stopping by, introducing ourselves, and having lessons.  It's been pretty great!  I really love the people here in Hamilton.  They are so kind and friendly!  Just like Texas :)  One family I really like is Ed Sharp and Jamie Cosby.  It's a couple and they are just great! We definitely clicked with them right when we walked in the door!  Jamie is bubbly and loves the Gospel and Ed is kind and has started reading the Book of Mormon. They want to have us back this week for dinner and I can't wait to continue to get to know them! 

Zone hike last week!! It was gorgeous!!

This week we also went out searching for volunteer opportunities. We went to a care center called the Discovery and we now have it set up where we will go there every Thursday and do manicures for the elderly ladies there and then we help out with bingo on Saturdays!  It is super fun and I especially love giving manicures!  Their faces just light up afterwards and they're so grateful for this fun little thing!  One lady asked me afterwards how much she owed me and I was happy to explain that it was completely free!  Her expression was so tender!  I love all of the cute old ladies that we meet!  When I saw them a few days later at bingo, they were still showing off their nails to me :) so cute!! 

Also, 4th of July was pretty awesome!  Our ward mission leader, Chris Howard, had a huge pancake breakfast to celebrate!  He invited the ward members and also his neighborhood.  It was great because we got to meet a lot of people and we met this guy who was a pastor for another church.  We had a good conversation with him and invited him to visit our church.  He invited us to his, so I would like to do that as well!  I heard whenever LDS missionaries visit other churches, they call us up to speak.  So whenever we go, we will see if that happens! Throughout the day, we continued to visit people and make stops.  We visited this one guy named Michael Jones in the care center.  He used to take the lessons before his stroke, and we had a great conversation about Jesus Christ. We have an appointment to meet with him this week too, so I'm looking forward to that!  He is such a sweet man!  Then that night we got permission to stay out later because of fireworks, so most of our zone went to the Fair Grounds and watched them!  We also talked to this girl who walked by us for a long time while waiting for the fireworks.  She has a lot of Mormon friends and it was a great contact to have while waiting :) 

After cleaning up from the breakfast party, we made a little friend while jumping on the tramp! :)

This Saturday we were driving to try and see if an individual was home and we passed this family that was walking on these wheel barrel/spindle things. I said out loud, "Oh, we should totally do that and get to know the family!" Sister Bonn said she would totally turn around and I said, "Let's do it!" So we turned around and parked the car and I yelled out, "Can I try?!" Haha. And the kids got SO excited!  They were all like "yeah!! Come on over!" So we did that and got to know the mom and the kids and shared with them who we were and a bit about the church. It was fun playing with them for a bit and they invited us to come over anytime.  We will for sure take that up and visit them sometime this week.  What a great and fun way to find people! 

Walking on the wheel barrel thing! Haha. Soo fun!

We live with the sweetest couple! The Harris' are in their 70s and I think and they are like grandparents to us.  We didn't have a dinner appointment for Friday night so they had us come over and Brother Harris made turkey burgers, fries, salad, and then we made homemade ice cream together!!  It was so fun and sooo delicious. They are so sweet!  Sister Bonn and I were joking how Brother Howard is like our dad and then they are like our grandparents here in good 'ole Montana. :)

I really love it out here!  The ward is so great!!  They are just so kind to us!  Sister Bonn and I get along great and already have a ton of jokes that we quote throughout the day.  I think something I love most of all is how serving here has solidified my testimony of Christ's Restored Gospel even more.  Just seeing how the Gospel blesses the lives of so many families and hearing their own testimony is so powerful!  It was interesting.....the other night we went to a block party with the Harris's and at the home of the hostess, everyone went around introducing themselves. Once they got to the Harris' and they started talking, it was so interesting to see the difference from when they talked compared to the others.  I mean, everyone in there was so incredibly nice! But there was an extra light about the Harris' and I know it's the light that the Gospel brings into our lives when we decide to believe in Christ and follow His teachings. We all have the light of Christ, but how bright it is really just depends on what we do to help it grow :)

I love you all! Keep up the great work!

Sister Asay :)

Note from the Editor:

Random pictures that I overlooked.

 

All of the continents/countries we represent!!

Oh yeah, and three of us wore the same dress one day without planning it!  #TSquareProbs