Don Sherwood Family Blog: Transfer 1: Week 1: The First Seven Days

Wow, has it already been almost a week since my last email. Crazy how quickly time flies by when your on a mission. Well. Better get started.

To start, I'm a little upset with the fact that I am actually writting this email now for the second time because I lost my first draft. Agh.😲

It has been a pretty crazy week. It all started with us leaving the mtc last Tuesday. There were 13 of us going to Montana in our little travel group. It was good. From the moment we left the MTC, there were two feeling most of us expressed. Sadness to leave, because we enjoyed the mtc. There was also a feeling of us breaking free from a prison, because we had gotten out into the real world.

Our trip to Montana had several points to it. First, we rode a bus to the front runner station, where we boarded the train, and traveled all the way to the north temple stop. We were then to transfer to the trax, and ride that all the way to the airport, where we rode a plane for a good hour to Billings.

Funny story about the whole expedition, we were told by our bus driver that at the switch between north temple and the trax, we are going to have to get up a double flight of stairs. There was an elevator, but he said that it would take way too long for all of us to take the elevator since there were 13 people, and almost 30 suitcases( including carry ons) to get up the stairs. Luckily there was an escalator he said, but when we got to that point, there was an escalator, but it wasn't working, so you can picture 13 missionaries struggling to get up s few flights of stairs, several times, with 50 lb suitcases. Not all that fun. 😥

After we got onto the plane, we talked, and the fact that this was my first flight came up, and I kept getting mixed "help" from the other missionaries. Sister Lopez Perez, who was sitting next to me was trying to calm down what the other missionaries were trying to do, syke me up scare me a little. The flight itself was alright. Take off was a little bit rough, and it took a minute for the pilot to stabilize. We could tell he was a younger pilot. The plane ride wasn't bad until we started to descend. I ended up losing the Wendy's we had for lunch.

For the first couple days, we spent them at the mission home. We learned a lot here, from President Wadsworth. We went to the temple, spent time in the stake center learning mission specific rules, and went to golden corral for dinner. It was a great first few days.

It was then where we also received our assignments on where we are serving. Some of the missionaries were going to Wyoming. While others were sent places like Bozeman, Butte, Helena, Missoula, and Great Falls. I was assigned to go to Great Falls. The two wards I am over are the Fairfield and Sunriver wards. The towns include Fairfield, Sunriver, Vaughn, Simms, and a few others I can't remember. Overall we cover about 1000 people. Yeah, there isn't a whole lot for us to do out here. Most of the people are lds, or Lutheran. It is a great area.

My company's name is Elder Ritchie. He is only 18. He is from Lubbock Texas, and has been out for about 11 months. It's kind of crazy that my trainer is younger than me, but it's cool.

These last few days have been pretty great. We spent a lot of time either trying to set up appointments with the couple people who we are working with, one of which is on date for baptism, but it may need to be pushed back, because of his smoking addiction. And another is so golden and ready, but his father won't approve of him being baptised. 😢. Other than that, we just work with strengthening the members of the area.

This past weekend was stake conference. It was a great time we got to spend the night at the zone leaders apartment. We also had the honor to meet a general authority. Elder Steven A Snow of the seventy. It was really cool to learn a little more about some church history. Afterwards we got ice cream with the Wadsworths. We wanted to get coldstone's, but it was too crowded, so we got McDonald's instead.😭.

Today we are headed to go to our zone conference in Missoula. I think It will be a great time. So excited.

Now to answer a few questions. 1. Sister Rushton loves to play jokes, and when we had dinner at her house, she took a picture of us, and sent it to our(elder ritchie and me) moms, and told them we ate dog. That is false. There was no dog eaten by the missionaries here. 2. Yes, my preparation day in the field is Monday.

There isn't a whole lot to do here. But I know that there is a reason for us being here. The Lord needs us to help build up his church in Fairfield, and we will do our best to make that happen. It is marvelous, and I'm super excited to see how much I can do to help out. After I learn everybody's names, and don't feel like I'm just tagging along.

Now, my address for this transfer, for any type of postage is:

309 1st Ave

Fairfield, MT 59436

Love,

Elder Sherwood

Now for pictures: