Well, this week was pretty normal, but had some bright highlights!
We are still teaching Morgan at the jail. The guards are funny, though. The women will always let us in to visit him, without any problem at all, but the men always tell us no and try to send us away. I had had enough on Friday when the man tried to claim that he saw the captain send us away. So I told him to call the captain up right then and she would tell him what had happened. She came up and asked to look at our ministerial certificates, and let us in. She had said that was the rule, and the guy had to eat his words for claiming she had sent us away once. Funny, she had a problem with the certificate being from Salt Lake, so she asked if we had anything from the State of North Dakota. We answered with, "That certificate is recognized federally and even internationally!" She swallowed rather hard at that and didn't make any more comments either! So funny how people try to make a big show of their authority, when if they would just be nice, we wouldn't have had to embarass them all. We didn't want to, but they were being jerks that day and keeping us from visiting Morgan, which we have a constitutional right to do, being ministers.
The actual visit with Morgan was great too! He understood that he couldn't be baptized while in jail, and we explained about parole and probation too. However, he still wants to know what else he needs to do in order to be baptized! He agreed with all the requirements, and had a momentary question about tea, but accepted our answer that it was what the Lord requires, and that was sufficient reason for him. Hopefully the imigration people don't make too big of a deal out of this. I think I mentioned that the whole stupid thing was a false accusation by his drunk girlfriend, right? Anyway, she even admitted in court that she made it up while drunk because he wouldn't give her money.
Anyway, we also got some new people to teach. The Danielson's invited Monica, Shawn and Brittany to dinner and we were there too. They also invited them to listen to our message, and thankfully we picked just the right one! I shared Jeremiah 1:5 and discussed how God loves each of us, explaining that "sanctify" means to set apart as special. Apparently Shawn and Monica had lost two children in early infancy, and Brittany had been old enough to remember. So this thought meant a lot to them, and they want to learn more about it. We have an appointment for Thursday.
On Saturday we had a strange experience too. Elder Jones wanted to eat out, so we went to a Steak Buffet. While there, I had this strong feeling to talk with one of the waiters. I asked him if we had met before (he looked very familiar) and he said he didn't think so. Then suddenly he asked if we were from the "Church of the Latter-day Saints" and what it was that we taught and believed! He wanted us to teach him right there! I asked if his manager would get mad at him, and he said it didn't matter, he wanted to know what we believed. He was very interested, and we gave him a pamphlet with our phone number on it.
We had a good visit with the Martinez's again. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and used a home-made visual aid to explain the role of the Atonement in getting us back to heaven. It was two cardboard walls: one for death, and another for sin. The Atonement put a doorway through death (Resurrection) and a ladder over sin (the gospel: faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, endure). It helped them to visualize the topics a lot better, and at the end of the visit, Sister Martinez asked for a blessing to help her do the things she needs to in order to get back to live with God with her family. It was very moving.
We have been doing role-plays with the families we eat with, and it has been having a good response. One of us pretends to be a co-worker or friend with a concern that we bring to the family. They address our concern and practice inviting us to meet with the missionaries. Some families spend a lot of time teaching directly, and others are very quick to invite people to ask the missionaries. Afterward we help them find that happy medium, where the person is helped and invited to meet with the missionaries and is encouraged to ponder the message. Everyone has had positive feedback for this little exercise.
Love,
Elder Callor
While we were in Bismarck, we noticed that they had left a window open during the last snowstorm. Thankfully it is a double-window, and the inside was shut. However, the outside pane was frozen open, and the inside was covered with ice on BOTH sides. Since the ice was now melting, there was a serious problem. We decided to serve our fellow missionaries and "break the ice" at the same time. It took over an hour to break all the ice off enough to open the inside in order to close the outside, and then close the inside and clean everything up! You can see some of the ice that didn't just melt! That all came from BETWEEN the windows! There was about as much on the inside of the inside window too!
Ho, ho, ho! 
A photo with Elder Bringhurst in Wright, at the Charon's
