after leaving miles city, i was transferred across the whole state of montana to "ronan, mt: my living grave." (something one of the ladies we pseudo-taught used to say). i don't know how people could live in such a beautiful place and not believe in God, that he created all that beauty. and having lived in arizona for so long, i definitely appreciated the beautiful mountains. i got lots of mountains in salt lake, but nothing compared to the mission mountains in ronan and st. ignatius.
i was there serving with sister stephanie mesen. man do i love this girl. she did not like to cold. in fact, i think it is safe to say that she hated the cold. and man did it get cold. we would tract in -20 degrees F (much colder if you include the wind chill). we covered some small towns. ronan was the biggest (i just looked it up and in 2010 it still only had a population of 1,871) and we covered one little town that the "downtown" was a convenient store with one gas pump, and a seasonal beef jerky stand. so it only took a little while to knock on all the doors in the town before we had to start venturing outside of town and hiking up in the mountains to find someone to teach. since this was my only chance to do the more traditional missionary work, i wanted to put everything i had into it, (not like i didn't put everything into my work at temple square). i probably drove poor sister mesen crazy with how much i wanted to get done. i wouldn't let us stop for lunch most days. i would just pack snacks for the car that we could eat while we drove to appointments.
i learned so much during my time with sister mesen. i learned more than ever before in my mission that serving my companion was so important. she was my "most progressing investigator." i am so grateful for our time together and how much it prepared me for the rest of my mission, further church service, and marriage. she was the only companion i had for longer than 6 weeks. (at temple square we changed companions every transfer while i was there.)
quick funny story, one night i was apparently talking in my sleep. i never talk in my sleep unless i am in that state somewhere between asleep and awake; asleep enough to think it is ok to talk, awake enough that i can talk. i was teaching the plan of salvation when i was interrupted by my now awake companion saying, "sister florence, it is not time to teach, it is time to sleep." i was now slowly starting to wake up. still thinking it was a little real and also feeling a little prideful, i responded, "hey, someone in this room needs to hear this." then she, a little upset perhaps and a little freaked out about a potential, "someone" in the room asks who was in the room. we both fell back asleep and laughed about it in the morning.
i got to see stephanie a couple months ago at
sister willhite's wedding. she and a bunch of the other montana sister came down from utah. (yes, my cold-hating-companion chose to move to utah after the mission.) it was so good to see her.
