First and foremost, Elder Jackson says "hi." It was very important to him that I get that message out to each of you, so there you go. You're welcome.
It was transfer week! I didn't tell you that it was coming last week, but it's true! I was expecting to stay in Mandan, so I didn't really think about it, and that's exactly what happened. The work has been super slow here, though. The elders are feeling it too, a bit, and so President Hess was saying that they're going to realign our boundaries to more evenly divide the members in our ward between the areas. S Cavey and I have like six active members in our whole area and a ton of less-actives and do-not-contacts, so we're having a hard time working with members like we're being encouraged. But the rumor is that we might get all of Mandan and the Mandan elders will start serving south Bismarck. So we'll just have to see what happens there, but I'll keep you posted! We're getting a couple new missionaries in the zone on Thursday, including a green elder, so it'll be fun to meet everyone in the next little while. I kind of like shaking things up with transfers, as long as I'm not the one moving around :)
In other news, I will hit both my 5- and 6-month marks this transfer. So that's weird.
As far as investigators go, we taught Jadon the worst restoration lesson ever. He was watching his friends' kids and there was a movie playing and they were noisy and it was super hard to get through anything. But he says he's going to read the Book of Mormon all in one day to get through it and we're like "bro that's maybe not the best way to do this," but at least he's reading it, I guess. I think he's tired of trying to figure out this whole Mormon thing. We're praying that his heart will be softened as he reads, because your intent while reading is so important. We need to find a good fellowshipping family for him, but it turns out that's really hard to do when people don't come to church and start to make friends on their own.
We had a really good lesson in a member's home with Gerard! It was my first IMH lesson and it went super well. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and Gerard committed to praying about baptism and what God wants for him, so that's way cool! Hopefully we get him in the water before I leave Mandan. He needs to get into the scriptures a little more; that will help him a lot.
Haven't been able to meet with Lori. This next week, though. We're hoping to set up a lesson in someone's home for her as well because those are usually good experiences for people :) Her son waves at us when we see him in our parking lot, though!
It's funny how everyone seems to think that because missionaries are clergy figures, they can dump all their crazy problems on us. We have a less-active member whose wife has been investigating the church forever, and it has been one crisis after another with them this week. And they call us every time like we're going to be able to do something about it. Their credit card stopped working and then they had no food and then their marriage was falling apart and then he was losing his job and then they were thinking about moving to Wahpeton to start school and then they decided to move there this Wednesday. And we're both like "We're just a couple of 20ish chicks from Utah! We don't know what to do about that!" But the ward helped them out and everything's fine now. Probably.
It has been super rainy and stormy this whole week! We were coming home last night and this massive thunderstorm hit and it was crazy how much flooding there was in the streets. We were driving with water up to our doors and it splashed up past the windows and everything. Made it home okay, but it was a real mess in Mandan. Never been so happy to be driving a Jeep! The elders just told us they're getting a new car and we're getting their tiny Corolla, though, so hopefully we won't have any more river crossings for a while.
I've been awful at taking pictures again this week, but there are two district pictures attached for your viewing pleasure: the first is very cheesy and orange and the second is far more accurate. And there's one of the whole Bisman crew from the 4th.
Love you all!
