Week Five/area ONE

Well, its been an interesting week. First off, anyone who had written me in the past week or before that...you've all been written, so expect letters some time soon, they got sent out today.
Alrighty, well last time I wrote I told you all I was serving on an Indian Reservation temporarily. Well, I went back home to Pierre last Wednesday, after we had a district meeting, which is where all the missionaries in our district get together and teach each other (we're supposed to do them every week, but since the 2 places where missionaries are in the district are 2.5 hours apart, we only do them once a month). It was good stuff.
When we got back to Pierre Elder Daly and I visited Markata, a callback (someone they met tracting earlier that week), and she was home..remarkably, and let us in. We taught her about the restoration and she was extremely focused on every word, and she would stare whoever was speaking straight in the eye, it was intense. After the lesson we asked her if she would offer the prayer. She did, and she just broke down, and expressed how she had been having a hard time, and praying earlier for some help. And how she had forgotten that we were coming over and how greatful she was that we came and helped her learn more, and that she wanted to learn whatever he (the Lord) wanted her to learn from us. It was awesome. We gpt to visit her later in the week and show her the video on the Restoration and she said it was really helpful in explaining more what we had taught, so she is excited to learn more.
We got to do some service for a member in the branch, Scott Olson again. He is making a shed, I don't remember if I have talked about this already, and we helped him build the retaining wall around it, which took a while and was pretty tiring..toting around 80 lbs cement blocks is quite a work out, but it was good stuff. Service is always awesome.
So this week had some disappointment as a lot of our investigator's didn't show for their appointments, like Ramone. And the lady named Kara is no longer an investigator, her father said he wouldn't allow her to be taught anymore, so that's lame.
But we did get a new investigator, Buckley. He's a native who has led a pretty sad life. Him and his sisters were forced to be adopted, because their mother was too drunk all the time to take care of them. So they got placed with a family who abused them physically on a weekly basis. I won't go into detail on what he talked about but all I can say is that it broke my heart. And because of it he has become a very timid person, and he says that he is afraid of people. But he is way nice and what's awesome is that he trusts us implicitly. He wants to learn and grow, and wants some friends, he's a pretty lonely guy. We got to teach him about the Plan of Salvation and he thought it was good stuff and we invited him to church but he wasn't able to make it for some reason we haven't found out yet.
We got to help a memeber in the ward move as well, which is always good, service is good stuff. The highlight of the week was definitely Sunday. We had two investigator's show up, Markata, with her 2 five-year-old children, and Judd, a tracting contact.
Markata enjoyed it, but her kids were giving her trouble so she had to leave during Sunday school, but she said she wants to come back next week and she'll find a babysitter.
Judd is interesting. We actually tracted into his fiancee(I can't put accents in) earlier and were trying to contact her one day and instead he answered the door and wanted to hear what we were about. He told us how him and his fiancee(Rian) had sobered up recently, gotten off of drugs, got their own apartment and two jobs and how they're getting married soon and how greatful he was for all of it. He said he hadn't really ever been to church but now he feels like he needs to go. So we got him and I sat with him during Sacrament meeting, he had a ton of questions, but did his best, even sang during the hymns and everything. It was good stuff. He attended sunday school too, and I kinda smacked my head when the teacher said, "Today we're learning aboutn the 10 lost tribes of Israel." DOH! But he still enjoyed it and even answered some questions, correctly!, even though he has never really been to church before . He was like..."its all common sense, we just read about it.." he was a neat guy. Just a sidenote...on the mission, bringing investigator's to church is way stressful...you're praying and hoping that nothing too extreme will be taught and NO FALSE DOCTRINE will be taught...its scary some things members say and you got to hurry and try to correct it to the class, or to the investigator personally so he doesn't get a wrong impression. Needless to say, a little false doctrine was preached..but no damage was done.
Next week he said he was going to bring his fiancee to church with him and stay for all 3 hours instead of just the first 2, which is awesome.

Well that's about it for now, keep sending letters and emails, they're always welcome. I love you all and thank you for your support. One thing I've learned out here is to be grateful for what you have...there are people out here who have had some crazy lives and live in such disarray it is crazy to even think about...so be thankful for what you have and tell your Heavenly Father. We have been told one of the biggest sins of this generation is that of ingratitude...I know I am guilty of it at times, but thats why we have the atonement and repentance. I love this gospel and this opportunity I have to serve, it is way awesome. Soo...get out and serve!(And feed the missionaries in your area, they appreciate soo much...I know I do, now if only the members here will feed us more than once a week....)

Love,
Elder Fitt