So this week was great! I think it's what happens in missionary work when it all just goes up and down and up and down to different extremes. This past week we had interviews with the mission president/district meeting. I always like being able to talk to the mission president because I just unload EVERYTHING that i've been thinking about, struggling with, and doing in my area. It was really helpful. It's funny because it's stuff that I know but need to be told before I'll kick myself in the butt to get moving and working. So it was really helpful. He said that with the work here in Colville, it's about rebuilding the area and the cool part is that S. Brown and I saw it start to pick up. We had reached a point in our work where it seemed like everything had died (aka last week when I was frustrated...) and I talked to her about it a lot and shared a lot of what I was frustrated with. Much of what I said was "I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!" haha. So we figured stuff out that we could be doing better, we talked with the ward mission leader, we talked with the activities chairman and I talked to the mission president. With all of that, we have plans in the making to find more people who want to be taught and we've reached good progress with the people we are teaching.

Pauline finished off her week of the stop smoking workshop; she didn't follow every step and slipped up a few times but was happy that she had cut back on the amount of cigarettes that she used to smoke each day. She's been super busy working on her mom's home (doing renovating, etc) so she's super hard to get a hold of and usually home and dead tired when we drop in. But she's still willing to meet with us so we continue going. Her adopted daughter/cousin has also been listening in and reading with us and we're trying to help her even to believe in God. It's pretty slow but I figure that's the way it is with most everyone. It's hard to change.

Andrea has been having trouble believing in just one God; she believes in the egyptian gods and feels like God should have a complimentary goddess in order for there to be balance. She also brought up the point that if we're all created in God's image, why do we not all look like men? We've shared what we could about the family and about God and what he wants for us and how that relates, but for the most part she just needs to find a firm faith in God and especially in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer. So we're taking it slower with her as she reads the Bible and the BoM. It'll be good though.

I feel like I'm doing a report. I'll do a more brief overview. So it was kind of slow up until Friday (btw mom, I got the package and letter on Thursday night. Does that help? I'll pay better attention to the dates and let you know...) and I was concerned because we had a "traveling sister" coming up from Cheney (don't read that wrong: it's pronounced "Cheeny" haha) for exchanges. BUT....Friday EVERYTHING seemed to work out! We had lesson after lesson after lesson! It was so great! And all of them went so well! It was amazing! We tracted and met with the pastor of the Lutheran church and he was super nice; we shared our different beliefs and he told us we could come back anytime we needed to see a friendly face, haha. We also had a guy tell us right away "Never come back here!! Leave and never come back! Write it down in your book! NEVER COME BACK!" but all the while I thought he had a hint of a smile and was on the brink of laughter so I was waiting for the time we could all laugh and....it never came. We felt like he was TRYING to be serious, it just didn't work the way he wanted it to. Haha. So WE laughed as we walked to the next house and continued with work. It was the weirdest thing. The sister that exchanged with us was then able to give us feedback and help us see what we needed to work on and then Saturday went well and then Sunday was good and we just have a lot of hope for everything coming up this week. Both of our goals for this area are to be able to help people progress in faith to where they are ready for baptism OR to get things in this area progressing and moving.

Anyway, we're going to explore the town today to see downtown and get more of a feel for Colville. We haven't been able to the past 5 weeks because of moving and "bonding time" with the elders from our district (aka playing games for 3 hours last week). We played a game called "poo head" and the object of the game was to NOT be the poohead. It was sweet. I'll teach it to whomever wants to learn. I never was the poohead because I'm just that good. :)

So I hope all of you had a good week! Spring is here!!


love, sister Hulet

So I don't really have much to say (plus my comp is already done with her email....something tells me I ramble or something....).

This week was good and mmmm...interesting? We gave the stop smoking workshop to Pauline to start and we've been calling each day to check up on her, but we haven't been able to talk with her herself. She has a cousin/adopted-daughter who we have taught a little bit too but her concern is more: is God really there? So we've tried to get in touch with her but no luck. Andrea and John we were able to see but briefly and they were friendly again (last time they were just grossly indifferent to what we had to say, etc) and we'll meet with them this week. Al (the 90 yr old) dropped us. He left a note that said "Please Do not disturb. These are the doctor's orders, not mine. --AJD" so it was a bit of a let-down. I dunno. Someday he'll learn it. We think he wants to but his family would be the ones to hold him back. Anyway, continuing on, we met with the 7th Day Adventists again, haha. We had told Kaylie about the priesthood and how Joseph smith became a prophet and why that mattered and she expressed concerns that the BoM was from the devil, sent to confuse us. But she also said she hadn't read enough to really know, so we told her to continue to read and pray about it. We then went again and met with her group and showed "The Restoration" DVD and we all discussed the nature of God and Jesus Christ. It was good and it always ends well whenever we have to rush out (cause we're late to another appointment) so I have hope. Kaylie's husband seemed more open now than she had been at first. It's interesting. Missionary work is very much a roller coaster.

RS lesson was crazy. It's funny how it's about gospel principles and yet somehow we get on the topic of did the dinosaurs really exists. It was a bit of a blessing that no investigators were at church....

anyway, it should be a good and busy week. So I'm excited. I hope all continues to be well look forward to hearing from you all again.