“Good Riddance: Hope You Had The Time Of Your Life Elder Hancock”

Hey Everyone,

Yea...that title isn't being mean in any way! It's tough to say goodbye to such an amazing companion. Transfers are this week and Elder Hancock is going and I am staying. So, it's hard to say goodbye to such a great friend and companion. 

Super busy and great week here in the Three Forks Ward. We put JEANNIE on book for Baptism last night. She thinks her leg infection will be healed by May so we have her on book for May 9th! Most likely I won't even be serving here but it's okay as long as she is baptized! We also found three new investigators: JOHN, CHEYENNE and MAGDALENA. We taught them this past week and we will continue to teach them in the next few days. Cheyene and Magdalena are sisters and they have so many questions that it has been great teaching them because they are asking good basic solid questions. John is a single father or 3 daughters and he is taking it slow and has enjoyed hearing our messages. We are continuing to share messages with SHAUNTEA and she is coming to Church every Sunday. We also will have a lesson with JORDAN this week. She is who we tracted out in Ridgeway when I was out on Exchanges. 

This week we tried the "bring brownies to the door" approach and we weren't very successful. Elder Hancock and I made some delicious brownies and knocked on several doors in our small area. One guy refused them stating he was on a diet, but he did talk to us for over 30 minutes so who knows. We thought we'd have more success but it wasn't meant to be. Good effort on our part though!  

We spent some service hours at Jeannie's house this week. She has so much to do to get her home cleaned out and in order. We moved a huge oversized dog kennel that had rotting metal and every step we took our shoes were filled with dog feces. 

This morning we were to meet a member at a nearby gym to work out and about 5 seconds after we pulled out of our garage our car indicator lights popped up that a tire was completely flat. We changed the flat to the spare and drove to a tire repair place to have it taken care of. There was a screw in the tire (picture at the end). 

Our P-day today was back in Cameron with the Zone where we played volleyball and had a potluck. We grilled hamburgers and had a great time with everyone in our zone. 

The Three Forks ward members have been so great at feeding us and even inviting us to their homes at the last minute when another family was sick and couldn't have us over. The picture below with the Civil War Sword is from a ward member. 

The ward members here in Albany are wonderful about missionary work. They actually care and do things to find people for us to teach. They move mountains if needed to help us! This area is definitely not easy to serve in just because it is rural and there is nothing here, but there are amazing people all around us. 

This week we traveled to St. Joseph for Elder Hancock's follow up appointment from surgery and he got a clearance to resume all activity. But, after the appointment it was snowing so hard that our car got grounded and we were told by President Ames to stay with the St. Joe Elder's and we slept at their apartment with no pillows or blankets or change of clothes. It was supposed to be a drive there and back situation but we made the best of it. 

Some of the other pictures this week are of Brother Wall's dog that loves to lick me, and our "celestial TIWI lights". The story goes out here in the field that when our TIWI (the car tracker) lights up white lights--all three of them, that we call it the CELESTIAL TIWI LIGHTS. It is VERY rare that all three lights are white at one time. We celebrated 2/22/22 on Tuesday by making TACOS. They were great! 

This week I studied the story of Job. There is so much to the story if you really study and pray and ponder the messages hidden in there. I truly loved spending some time reading and thinking about what I could learn from Job. God literally talked to Job and promised him that he could find himself in a better situation if he had faith. Job was blessed for his hardships. He served his fellow men and God blessed him with double of what he had before. Any time we find ourselves in a low or a trial of our faith we can always rely on Heavenly Father to be there, help us and get to the other side of it. 

Elder Mortensen