i <3 the bitteroot

Hi there!

It has been such a lovely week-the weather is beautiful and so is missionary work! I love this place. Summer and Amanda are both getting baptised on July 26th and it is really exciting to see them continuing to learn and grow and be excited about the gospel. Summer especially impressed me this week; we taught her the law of chastity and she said that she was always taught by her mom that you have to live with someone before you get married so that was hard for her to accept at first because she was planning on moving in w/ her BF soon. She said she has seen her mom's boyfriends be really nice to her, then they move in and abuse her so she is scared to not live with someone before marriage. We asked her to have faith that the Lord will bless her if she keeps the commandments and by the end of the lesson she committed to living the law of chastity and telling her boyfriend about it--and she did that day! Then the next appointment she said she can't imagine being married in the temple without her family there and her boyfriend isn't a member so she really didn't want to go to the temple-she was pretty adamant about it. By the time we finished the lesson she said she really wants to go to the temple and she can't believe she has to wait a year. That night she called us and said she broke up with her boyfriend because he said he would never go to church with her and she said she needs someone that can take her to the temple! Wow! And her and her BF are pretty serious and talk/text/chat all day long--with the exception of our appointments =) I am so impressed by her willingness to make changes in her life to keep the commandments--and they are pretty big changes too. At Temple Square you can see people change in 10 minutes and it is amazing--but this is really fun to see the gospel totally change someone's life for the better. I wish there was a desert book or distribution center around here so I could buy them presents =( Summer doesn't own a white bra and underwear so that's what I'm getting her for her baptism, ha! I love her.

We also met this old man this week that his wife died just a month ago after 58 years together. As we walked up to his door I said,"Sister Reyes I have a good feeling about this one." He was so nice and welcomed us right in. We found out about this wife and I asked him if he believes he'll see her again and he said no =( He doesn't believe in God or life before or after this. It made me so sad I cried. He said she couldn't convince him to believe in God and so we wouldn't either--but I could feel that she is still working on him, and I told him that. He said we could come back any time and I pray that something will change in him so he can at least have a little hope of seeing his wife again. I am so grateful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge that this life is just a little glimpse of eternity and that we will see our loved ones again after this life.

Being a missionary is so much fun! Sister Reyes and I get along great. She thinks I'm nuts I'm pretty sure, but we have a lot of laughs. I do my goat impression for her and I'm trying to convince her to try it out =) Oh ya other exciting news, there are 2 investigators of ours that I want to clean their houses SO bad and they finally agreed to let me. Yay! I lovvveeeee you!!!!!!! -MaegO