Memorial Day...the day after ;)

HahahA!! So as you can tell, y'all never got an email from me yesterday.....that's because EVERY library or place we could email from was closed due to the national holiday!

Sorry. I don't have much time today...one quick story. We were out tracting out this trailer park out of town and it started hailing and raining on us! It was so much fun and then the park manager came and kicked us out pretty much. Said it was private property! Fun times! Got some flooding here too! There has been so much snow over the winter that hasn't even melted yet and it has been raining like crazy! Streets have been flooding and stuff. No major damage here yet, but supposed to get worse once the snow starts to melt :/ It is pretty interesting!

I love y'all and hope all is well! Keep up all the good work and SMILE :)

LOVE YALL!

-Elder Parr

Morning studies in the mountains! Looking out over the vast people and area the Lord has blessed us with to teach and spread the gospel to!!

Livin' the Dream!

It's been over 7 months now...it's ridiculous! Time FLIES when you're servin' the Lord. And you don't have time to think about anything else for sure!!

This week has been awesome! Found 4 new investigators this week which is awesome because we've been in need of some more people to teach since our teaching pool took a hit when everyone went home for the summer! 2 of them are older gentleman. The one has owned his own lawn design and landscaping business forever and very successful. Even sought out by Bill Gates here in the Yellowstone Club to design his yard. Won't go in to details but now is struggling to get by. Truly seeking to have a relationship with God and loved meeting with us! Even had a hike planned to go on with him Saturday but was rained out.

The other is divorced with 3 kids and is one of the most sincere guys i've ever met! Called us up the other day and set up an appointment and called just before to say he had to cancel and couldn't meet at his place because his roommate had some different feelings about religion and didn't want anything to happen and he didn't have time to meet us at the church. I felt that we needed to meet with him that night and for some reason I said, "Is there a park near your house?" and he was like, "Yeah". "Let's meet there! Where is it?" and come to find out it was the same park some members pointed out to us a few days before on the way to dinner. So then I was like, "Elder, we're still meeting with him, but how in the world are we going to get over there in 20 mintues?! It will take an hour to walk there!" And then I remembered our bikes were outside the institute. With flat tires and no helmets we made our way to the park. (sorry mom for not being safe. I did stay in the bike lane though and the Lord was watching out for us) Awesome lesson and it was just what he needed :) I love how the Lord works in our lives!

The other 2 are a couple. I sent a picture home awhile back ago when we played basketball with those kids we met on the court. Well, one of them is named Eugene and over time we've been able to get to know him better and his younger siblings as well. They are 10, 7 and 4. We got to know that he is not too close with his parents, but LOVES his grandpa! Well, we had made the deal the first time we played them that if we won we got to teach his family. We tried time and time again and they were never home. Saturday we went by and Maria the 7 yr old was by the window with it open and saw us and was like, "Finally y'all come! Come in and teach us about God!" We were there for 2 hours teaching them and talking with them! They have great interest and loved everything we taught them! They are native Crow Indians and she is going to bead something for us! The gospel truly can bless families lives! The father when we first sat down to talk was kind, but watching wipe out (which I must say has some good courses this year) and didn't pay too much attention. We continued to teach and slowly the tv got more and more quite til it was off and he took the Book of Mormon from his son and started reading through it! So cool!

Basically this week has been awesome and so much fun! Had some wonderful opportunities to provide service and get out in this BEAUTIFUL Montana weather! Averages about 55-65 everyday now! AMAZING!

So President Heap, the stake president here in Bozeman, had a meeting with President Gardner and many other individuals to go over missionary work and lots of other stuff. I have a weekly call report that I call President Gardner to report how Elder Hokanson is doing and learning and such and he said that President Heap said, "Make Elder Parr's permanent address here in Bozeman. Don't let him leave!" haha So hopefully President listens to this wise counsel and lets me stay a LONG time to DO WORK here! I absolutly LOVE it here and Sunday was awesome! I feel the members are jumping on board and getting involved in the work and have a desire to help out in any way they can. It's so much fun!

I hope all is well back home and that things are going GREAT! I look forward to hopefully going home this evening and opening a package from y'all tonight! :) Thanks so much for sending a package!

It rained all day Friday and we got to get nice and soaked in it :) haha

I love all of y'all so much! Let me know what I can do for y'all!

Remember that you can't do it all. Rely on the Lord. It's a LOT easier when you do it His way ;) Just to let you know haha DO WORK!

-Elder Parr

MIGHTY Winds!!!

So mom, I totally agree with you when you said that you need another "Mother's Day" HaHa! Not that i'm home sick, but as we were walking to the library this morning I was like, "Man Elder, it seems like it's been sooo long since we communicated with our families! It's only been a week though!"

This week has been wonderful though! Regarding my title....On Friday night we got home and the winds were howling like crazy! Things flying everywhere and stuff all in the air. Odd, because we live kind of in a valley and also in Bozeman they don't get much wind at all! So we thought it was odd and would just go to sleep and it would be done by the morning for our service project. Thought wrong! Hahaha! :) It was even more windy in the morning and we were going to pick up rocks throughout the D's yard (a task that was bigger than we thought once we started working! haha) We weren't going to let that stop us from working though. We started at 10 and worked til 12 and still didn't get it all done. Probably because I broke the wheel barrel :/ haha Don't worry. I fixed it this morning ;) It was SOOO windy though! So windy it almost knocked me down a few times! Plus it dropped a few degrees and was pretty chilly. In the meantime, somehow (while wearing gloves) I tore the skin off my pinky finger so I took the glove off and just let it air dry and scab up and kept working. It was lots of fun and we had lots of laughs during the process!

Saturday we didn't have ANY set appointments at all which was a bummer, but we decided to make it a day of finding. Probably not the best day to do that, because one, NO ONE was out with how windy it was! We had a few people we were going to go by and see and NO ONE was home and EVERY door we knocked WAS NOT even opened! haha We did that for an hour and I could tell Elder Hokanson was losing his mind so I stopped and was like "Let's take some pictures!" I've attached some of them for y'all to enjoy! So we got back to work after that and then went and had dinner with the N's! After we left it was back to finding again! Elder Hokanson was like, "Man that was REALLY nice to be inside for a little while" and then me yelling back, "WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" It was windy alllllllll day long and the evening was just like earlier. People actually answered the door but we got responses like, "I'm spiritual, I'm good, not interested, I know Jesus, i'm saved, then (some old guy) Were good Lutherans, we're fine! WHAM!" It was a blast and each time I was like "Elder Hokanson, isn't this AWESOME! haha" Let's just say that day the scripture came true...

Helaman 5:12

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

Satan put forth his "mighty winds" against us ALL day and "his hail and his mighty storm" with all the words and things said to us that night beat upon us. Our foundation is and still is set upon Jesus Christ so it was all worth it! No effort is wasted. We only received one potential who we could come back and see, but other than that nothing. I'm confident the Lord recognized the effort we were putting forth and we received 2 calls yesterday for people who are interested in meeting with us this week! So sweet! I know that if we persevere through hard times, the Lord will bless us! :) Through strong winds, rejection after rejection and no productivity we continued on! DO WORK!

Funny story during that day, Elder Hokanson was like "Man i'm surprised we haven't tracted into a member today" Then 5 minutes later we knock on someone's door and he tells us he lives right next to the Stake President (who didn't answer because no one was home) and then 4 houses down we knocked on the door, then knocked again. No answer. We start walking away and then they knock on the door and we turn around and it was President DaBell, the second counselor in the stake presidency! Hahaha it was so funny and relieving a bit too :)

We've had some AWESOME dinners lately and Elder Hokanson is beginning to warm up and become himself in member's home which is only helping the area! Lots of good work going on here! Members are now coming up to us and wanting us to come over for dinner and we're having to tell them that we would love too, but we're packed! I think we might start a lunch calendar too ;) haha jk The members are awesome! Got some free protein mix from it ;) haha One dinner we had with the C's. So much! Homemade lasagna and bread and such and then we helped take care of their land! Fed the fish out at the pond, pumped water for their cows, put snow mobiles up and all this other fun stuff! Such a beautiful house and property! They were the MC's for the ward talent show on Friday that we attended! Got to meet their son and daughter who came home from BYU for the weekend with two special someone's. We were in the talent show as well. Our role was when Bro. C would tell a joke and no one would laugh or anything, we would jump up and had these 2 posters that said "APPLAUSE" and "LAUGH" It was so funny and I think we pulled it off quite well ;) Everyone loved it!

Did some gardening this week too! EVERYONE here in Bozeman gardens and it's one way we use to find people! Met this nice family who was out gardening and we just offered to help and she said she never turns down free gardening. Good stuff!

I'm loving the mission and having TONS of fun! Got invited to a BBQ tomorrow with one of our investigators before she leaves to go back home for the summer! I miss Texas BBQ for sure!

Sounds like the family is doing awesome! :) Keep it up!

Let me know what I can do for y'all! I love y'all and think about y'all often!

Love,

-Elder Parr

Doing my best to do my best

So first off I'm so glad to hear the news on your knee, mom! I'm glad the doc was able to fix you up and you will be back in NO time I'm sure! Just follow his orders and DO WORK! I'm excited to hear how your recovery goes! I know EXACTLY how you feel about staying in bed, being loopy, and not being able to do much! Just keep smiling and make others laugh! It will make your day MUCH better ;) Trust me!

So as I mentioned last week I'm training!!!! It's so much fun! My companion is Elder Hokanson! I call him the "Hulk" all the time! haha no one can say his name right. It's hilarious! We are just alike though! He loves peanut butter as much as I do and eats all the same stuff like me! He is awesome and loves to work and be productive! He is from Westerville, Nebraska from a town of 50! His family makes up almost half of it because he is smack dab in the middle with 10 siblings! 5 older, 5 younger! It's awesome! Finally don't have a baby companion ;) haha It's a WHOLE different experience training rather than being just a regular elder for sure! I had a conference call with president and all the other trainers. Talked about the difference in a teacher and a mentor. I have to be his mentor and really the decisions and habits he makes now will affect his entire mission! Doing my best to do my best and lead by example! It's so much fun because he is SOOOO pumped to work! If I haven't said yet, I LOVE IT!

So we had dinner with the S's and they had to play a joke on him. So I had missionaries talk up this Caramel Apple eating contest from the time he got in the mission home. Had elders tell him I had the record in eating the fastest and that night we had dinner he was so pumped! He was like man I can tell you're a competitive person and love to win. I'm so going to beat you! haha But little did he know it was a caramel covered onion! haha HE TORE THAT THING UP!!! Didn't even care it was an onion! He was going to beat me no matter what (p.s. I never did it :/) We had to stop him! That's how I knew he was willing to do what ever it took to DO WORK here! I love him to death already!

So I will be performing my first baptism here on the mission this saturday! C has decided to be baptized and has asked me to perform the baptism! I'm so excited for her and the decision she is making! Also B is getting baptized on the 14th and bore her testimony yesterday on how she received personal revelation and that she now KNOWS that the church is true! And THEN, R (13 yrs old) is getting baptized on her birthday on the 18th! She will be the only member of her family to be a member and attends with the young women here in the Bozeman 1 Ward! The work is going GREAT here!

I GET TO CALL HOME NEXT SUNDAYYYYYYYY MAY 8!!!!!!! I hope yall all are ready for this!!!! Here is the plan!

We will be skyping home from the B's home this Sunday! We are so excited to talk with y'all!

Well, farewell til Sunday! I love all of yall!

LOVE Y'ALL!!!

-Elder Parr