Lexi's second letter...May 20, 2013

Hello! This week has been good. I am now in Montana with a new companion, Sister Chapman. We live in a house owned by the stake president, and we live with one other sister companionship. The house is tucked in this little corner, right below the rims (those of you from Montana will know what this is i think). Oh, and I forgot to say...my first area is Billings!! Haha, so much has happened in the whatever many days it's been since last P-day. I don't remember a lot of things, haha. So, I'm here in Billings, and everyone says Billings isn't pretty, and I think it is, which makes me wonder what the rest of Montana looks like! Deer are everywhere, and my companion got a little scared yesterday when I didn't really slow down by the deer that was glaring at us on the side of the road (meaning he was thinking about darting in the road...they do that here).  Sister Chapman has been out 6 weeks, and she is my trainer! She was in Wyoming for the first 4 weeks, so she has been in this area for 2 weeks, so we are both learning the area together! Each day, we go down the ward list, look at a map of our area, and plan out where we will go. We study and train from 8-12, eat lunch, and then head out. The members here are amazing. The Hammers and the Hoopers are two families who we have had dinner with already, and they gave us lists of names to visit: referrals, less-actives, etc. and have offered to be there for our visits. The members make a huge difference. Already, if those families hadn't helped us, our work would be a lot less productive and more discouraging. We had a cool experience this week. We were going down the ward list, and we were driving through this established mobile home neighborhood, and then there was this big house in the middle of it, and we realized that was the address we were going to. We were kind of hesitant, but we went inside, and it was this lady who was really friendly and who we soon found out isn't active. She just opened up to us as we were getting to know her, and she told us that her active 18 year old grandson died a month ago and how hard it's been, and she just started to cry. She then told us that the reason why she doesn't go to church is because she smokes and drinks and doesn't like feeling guilty at church. We visited with her for a bit and then Sister Chapman sang "Because I Have Been Given Much" to her (this is Sister Chapman's and my favorite song). Her husband heard us and came in and visited with us and told us about his Catholic beliefs. We left them with a prayer, and the Spirit was really strong. They are going through a really hard time, but they were able to open up to us, and we could learn about them and their needs. We are visiting them again, and we hope they can progress in the gospel. I am learning how real the Spirit is, and how powerful it is. Something I learned in the MTC: "You are never more like Jesus Christ than when you are helping someone repent and come unto Christ." I know that this work is of God. I am grateful to be a missionary. I hope you are all doing well :) Love you! Wait. One more thing I can't not say! When my district arrived here on Tuesday, we went to the Billings Temple. Normally we would do a session, but it is closed for two weeks for cleaning, so we were able to help in the cleaning. We were able to clean the chandelier of the celestial room. The way they clean it is by lowering it, and taking every crystal off (there are about 18,000) and dipping them each individually in a cleaning solution, drying them individually, and then putting them back on. That is how important the Temple is- that we would clean every crystal of a chandeleir individually. Something to think about. Thank you Eva, Brooke and Luke, Andy, Asher, and Mom for the letters/packages. Love, Sister Hixson