Greeting from Big Sky Country

So here we are in Montana. 

You can see why it's called Big Sky Country...

Typical scenery here in Montana.

 

The Billings Montana Temple

Our house in Havre is not ready for us yet. They had to wait for the renters to move out around the first of October. So they sent us to Harlowton, MT, a small town in the central part of the state until that time. Population is a little under 1,000 and I feel like we've met everyone!! Just kidding, but we have worked hard and met a ton of people here. I just love this little town and it's going to be so hard to leave! 

We live in a really old "craftsman" style stone house. It's quite comfortable and we love it. 

Here's the house we are staying in right now.

We're right next door to the Branch President and his wife. 

You can see their house in this picture, but ours isn't visible. 

The chapel is a modular building that was built in '67, with a chapel, three classrooms and a kitchen. There were around 35 or 40 people there last Sunday but that's with three visiting families. Very few kids here and lots and lots of older folks. 

We volunteer in the local nursing home and go to visit with the seniors at the senior center at lunchtime. We also have to young Elders living with us. They are great guys and we have had some fun together. We drive them wherever they have to go that is too far to walk. They've tracted practically the whole town! A lot of the members live out in the boondocks, though. 

The Branch President has asked Dennie to kind of clean up the Branch records 

so we've been trying to contact everyone to do that. 

Our major job is with the less-actives, meeting them and inviting them to church. 

The land consists of rolling hills and huge flat fields. This is mostly ranching country and the two largest ranches in the area are owned by the Church, Winnecook and Muir. 

Winnecook Ranch one of the two Church Ranches.
Can't see the ranch very well but I thought it was pretty. 

The managers at both are LDS. Very nice people. We've also met other ranch owners and ranch hands and Elder Jacobsen went on a "cattle drive", although it was in a truck pulling a trailer load of heifers to the stockyard, haha! But he's loving this whole ranch scene, seeing as we wanted to do that kind of thing before all the kiddos started coming along.

Headed to the MTC by Ivy (with blurb from Mom)

Since the missionary couple is pretty busy, I thought I'd blog a little bit for them about the beginning of their adventure.

They were pretty excited to enter the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, UT.

Ethan and our family (Skinners) got to see them off.

There weren't even any tears! I think everyone was just too excited for them. 

Gram isn't short....






This is the only way they could hug Ian, to sandwich him between them. Even then getting a real hug out of him was hard, but they didn't let go til he gave a squeeze. 

And this is the best one I have of them in front of the MTC. 

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LOVE you, Elder and Sister Jacobsen!


Here's a little blurb from Mom (Sister Jacobsen) about their experience at the MTC:

"We spent a week in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, UT, and it was a wonderful experience. We had such great teachers and for the weekly devotional we had Erich W. Kopischke, a General Authority of the Church from Germany. Ethan had several district or zone meetings with him when he was AP (Assistant to the President) in Croatia and really liked him. His wife spoke too and she was so funny with her German accent and the stories she told of life in the US, since their move to Spanish Fork, a couple of months ago. Anyway, it was a wonderful experience, one we'll always remember and love."