Happy New Year!

an e-mail sent on Monday, December 29, 2008

Hello and Happy New Year!
This was a fairly uneventful week, considering we didn't do much work on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day. Still, it was nice to celebrate the holiday (and especially nice to call home).
Christmas Eve we had district meeting over in West Branch, so it was nice to spend part of it with the other Elders in my district, and then we drove over to Hale where the Karn family fed us and played with us. Afterward we went with them to the local Lutheran candlelight Christmas Eve service. (Although the Karns are LDS, Brother Karn's parents are Lutheran and Brother Karn's daughters were singing in the choir). It was nice. On Christmas we had dinner with Pat Morris and her family. It was so nice of them to share their Christmas with us! When we got back to the apartment, Elder Sodenkamp called his family (you'll recall that I called y'all in the morning) and I worked on a puzzle with a bunch of missing pieces (not the little puzzles you sent me for Christmas; they still have all their pieces). We're totally out of miles for the month, so we've been doing lots of walking. Friday we walked about 6 miles and Saturday we walked almost 15. It wouldn't have been too bad but it warmed up almost to 50 on Saturday, so we were mostly wading through puddles and slush and the snow boots I bought aren't really waterproof. Needless to say, my feet were soaked, so they're still a little raw.
Thank goodness it's a new month on Thursday! Miles again!
We finally had church this Sunday, which was very nice. They ended up doing the Christmas program they had planned for last week. Sis. Drury, the Branch Pianist, had me play the organ while she played the piano (which we do most weeks). For the opening hymn, we both started at different parts of the introduction and it sounded absolutely horrible! Eventually, I figured out what I had done and we got back together. The best part of the meeting was that they ran out of time to have me sing! Unfortunately, Sis. Drury told me later she would just have me sing next week. Apparently, Silent Night is still allowed in January ...
Sadly, we didn't have any investigators in church Sunday. The three sisters we're teaching were out of town for the holiday and nobody else had a good excuse (so far). There was one family we were really hoping (and expecting) would come - we have an appointment with them on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll be able to keep helping them along. Well, I can't think of anything else to report. I'm excited for the New Year - I can't believe I've already been a missionary for 4 months! Love and Happy New Year,Elder Cloward

The Halls are Decked

Hello and Merry Christmas from very snowy Oscoda, MI!

It's snowed a bunch this past week. Church was canceled again this week because of it - understandably - we decided to go out in it anyway but our car got stuck several times and we almost caught frostbite eleventeen times once we started walking instead, so we spent the evening indoors. Just the same, we were very disappointed that church was canceled because we were planning to have at least four investigators there! I don't know if I mentioned last week that Elder Valentine and Elder Seely, one of the zone leaders, met a man while door-knocking last week who was very interested and has now tried to come to church twice. We plan to see him tomorrow, though, so all is not lost.

The three sisters who are investigating the church are doing so well! We finally met up with them again for a lesson and it was awesome! We challenged them to pray and specifically ask Heavenly Father if it was right for them to be baptized on January 17th and all three of them said they were willing to ask. The Lord has promised that if we ask, we will receive and I trust that they will receive.

I am very excited to call home on Christmas. I will call between noon and 1 our time (so between 10 and 11 your time). I had hoped to be able to wait until grandma and grandpa are with you but our Christmas dinner is at 2, so I'll be busy. I'm excited to hear all your voices again!

In other exciting news, I have a bunch of new pictures attached!

#1 - I'm standing ON Lake Huron! Yep!
#2 - That's me, with our lovely friend the ...
#3 - Possum!
He just sat there while we took pictures of him and after a while he got bored of it and jumped off the landing - about 15 feet off the ground - and scurried off into the bushes. Crazy Michigan varmints!

#4 - That's the lighthouse at Tawas Point, or whatever it's called. We tracted nearby so that we could go and see it.

#6 - I made an ornament for our Christmas tree! It needed a topper, so, who better?


#7 - Thanks for the package! This lovely tree you sent me is set on our kitchen table.

#8 - C'est moi with Elder Sodenkamp, my new companion! You may also notice that I cut my own hair! Fantastic, no?

Things are happy in Michigan. Are they happy where you are? If not, make them happy! "Men (and women) are that they might have joy!"

Lots of love,
Elder Cloward

Some Say the World Will End in Fire

Merry Christmas!

Things are going well in Oscoda, MI! First things first, we got our transfer calls on Friday - Elder Valentine will be going down to Midland and I will be staying in Oscoda. My new companion will be Elder Sodenkamp, who has spent the last six (and only) weeks of his mission down at MSU in Lansing. I'm a little nervous to be the "experienced" one, but President told me we're officially co-senior, so - thank goodness! - I don't have to take all the responsibility. It should be a lot of fun; I'm excited to meet him tomorrow.

Church was canceled yesterday because of road conditions, so we were told we had to stay in. We got a lot of study done but decided to fly the coop in the evening because conditions weren't as bad as they were supposed to be. We didn't even crash!

Nothing real exciting in the "work" this week; it just keeps going along. Thursday and Friday we had trade-offs with the zone leaders and Elder Valentine found a couple of solid contacts while knocking doors with Elder Seely in East Tawas. It seems that there are many people in our area who are open to learning a little more about our religion, which is fantastic!

I think I forgot to mention my WEST HIGH PRIDE(!!) last week. At zone conference, I discovered that three of the senior missionaries also graduated from West High (in 1959 and 1960) - Elder Horne and Elder and Sister Seeley. If I did mention it, you'll have to forgive my Panther zeal. Also, I found out that Elder Stayner, who is currently serving in the next area over - West Branch - lives on Emerson Avenue! Crazy, no? He went to East! Small world.

Our Branch Christmas Party was Saturday night. It was lots of fun and a great time for Elder Valentine to say goodbye to everyone. The Karn family were very angry with them because we lied to them the day before. They asked us to call them as soon as we found out where we were going. Well, I called them, but due to the encouragement of Elder Price, one of the zone leaders, who served in Oscoda a year ago, I told them Elder Valentine was staying and killing off an elder who only has six weeks left and that I was going to be training while re-opening the Alpena area and serving as a district leader. To my credit as a skilled dealer of deception, they ate it right up. Later, of course, when we confessed our sin, they were rather upset. Elder Valentine says I've lost member trust in this branch. :)

The Karns must not be TOO angry, because they gave us a Christmas tree!
A picture of which is attached!

The other picture is from our last district meeting.

From top to bottom and left to right we have: Elder Fortuna (District Leader), Elder Valentine, Elder Yours-Truly, Elder Price (Zone Leader), Elder Wilkinson, Elder Lish, Elder Seely (Zone Leader), and Elder Stayner. Notice how I'm the center of the pyramid. It's because I'm the most important. :)

Lots of love! Have a wonderful holiday season! Sing a Christmas Carol or two just for me! I know it is the Lord's work we are about here in Michigan and He is guiding it!

-Elder Cloward

P.S. It's definitely ending in ice! (The world, that is. We've got lots of it in Michigan right now.)

P.P.S. That's a Robert Frost reference for all you poetry-haters. At least I think it's Robert Frost. I'm not really that well-acquainted with the world of poetry.

I Brought My Camera!

Hello!

We're expering a much-appreciated Michigan heat wave this week. We got up to a record high of 18 degrees yesterday! Can you believe it? I've had a bit of a cold this last week but the warm weather is really helping me kick it.

I don't have much time to write this week because I've taken a while figuring out how to upload and attach pictures. Since I can't include them directly in the email (with captions), I'll just have to explain them by number.


No. 1: My district back in Petoskey from left to right (Elder Horne, Sis. Horne, Elder Stoddard, Elder Robinson, Elder Williams, Elders Rau & Hatch (the zone leaders), and me!


No. 10: Elder Valentine. We were tracting. Seriously. LOTS of distance between houses sometimes.


No. 11: Me while we're tracting.


No. 12: Hunting and getting haircuts are both popular pursuits for Michiganders.


No. 18: So, I love Michigan. And even Michigan winter. Why? Because it's BEAUTIFUL!! Of course, right after taking this picture we returned to the car, which we subsequently dug and pushed out of a foot of snow. Somehow we thought our little Malibu could do it, no problem. Thankfully, our prayers were answered and a semi-driver pulled over and helped us out. He made us promise we'd keep the car on the road from now on, though. This picture, by the way, was taken at Iargo Springs along River Rd. (in between Oscoda and Hale).

The week was fairly uneventful, really. Zone conference down in Harrison was great, even if I did end up playing the piano most of the time. Although President told us we are dead last in the baptisms-per-missionary category (they will be cutting our mission back by almost 30 missionaries beginning immediately) he says our numbers have been improving, so that November was the best month for our mission since he got here in July.

Saturday I witnessed my first baptism as a missionary! Riley, An eight-year-old branch member was baptized and he asked Elder Valentine and I to give the talks at his service. I spoke on baptism and Elder Valentine spoke on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a very nice service. Matthew, a really cute three-year-old boy who came to the baptism, shouted out "All done!" when Riley came up out of the water. His mom told me that right afterward he turned to her and said "More baptisms!" She told him he'd have to do a little missionary work first.

And we did have some good happen yesterday: The less-active brother we've been working with came to church and had a really great experience! It made up for having no investigators there this week (the snow makes it hard when a lot of them live 30 or more miles away). Not a bad week, but we hope the next will be better.

Love always,
Elder Cloward

More Pictures!

3. A dragon in Kalkaska! (We spent the night there during District Conference in Traverse City)

4. Me with Sherman and Tori (Petoskey - Tori is the investigator there!)


5. Me with the Ellsworths (Petoskey)

6. Why I cleaned the refrigerator in Oscoda. Nasty.

7. The beautiful Au Sable River (Oscoda)

14. I tied a perfect dimple in my tie!!!! You should be excited too!!!

20. The lake (on which the Schroeders live) froze over! (By the way, Sis. Schroeder might come visit you at home. She'll be in Salt Lake in just over a week.)

These Pictures along with an e-mail were sent by Josie Meyer of Au Gres, MI



Hi Cloward Family,
I am sure you are very proud of Elder Cloward.
He came for a visit on Friday with Elder Valentine whom I met this summer at the Paul Bunyan Days Festival.
I hadn't heard from him since that day in August, since I live in Au Gres a city South of Oscoda.
Elder Valentine called on Thursday evening and said he and Elder Cloward would be in the area on Friday afternoon, and asked if it would be ok for the two of them to stop by.
I responded by telling him I would be making chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon and the only way they could come is if they would have some freshly baked cookies and milk while they visited. Needless to say they said they could oblige.
They were both here for two hours and I thoroughly enjoyed their visit, they had wonderful things to say about their family and days gone by.
It brought back memories of my son sitting at the kitchen table while I was baking, my son is 32 now and will be getting married in the Spring.
Thank you so very much for sharing your wonderful young man. He looks happy and healthy.
Sincerely,
Josie Meyer

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

An e-mail sent on December 1, 2008

Hello all!

Lots of love from wint'ry Oscoda, MI. We got a couple inches of snow overnight, which is lots of fun to walk through! We (thankfully) have new miles now that it's the start of the month, but in order to avoid running out like we did last month, we're going to start out walking anywhere in Oscoda. Makes me wish it were a little denser of a city. We're probably going to kill our miles right off the bat since we have work planned this week that will take us to Houghton Lake (100 miles away), Hale (30 miles away), Tawas (15 miles away), Whittemore (50 miles away), and Au Gres/Omer (70 miles away?). Yeah. So, we won't be able to use our car much this month. Too bad.

Thanks for the package! Elder Valentine was jealous of the candy bars (I was too selfish too share them) but I didn't feel that bad because he got a package last week with one of those big bags of Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups and he had them all finished inside of one day. The cookies are delicious! The thermals will come in handy! And I'm way excited to have CDs! I love the Rejoice and Be Merry CD! Elder Valentine doesn't understand why I'm so enamored with the King's Singers but that's all right. I'll only make him listen to them through the end of the month.

Sticking to a theme of musical news, I'm going to have a very musical Wednesday at zone conference. I'm playing the hymns, performing one musical number (I'm a little grumpy at the zone leaders for letting me know with only enough time to practice one day - today), accompanying another (some of the sisters are singing), and then playing for the caroling activity (I'm not exactly sure) that we're apparently having after zone conference. For my musical number, I borrowed a Christmas songbook from one of the ward members. It's not meant for a piano solo, so I'm doing what I can to jazz it up. I wish I had paid more attention back in music theory - I'm so bad at composing/arranging. Oh, and also, I'm hoping I get transferred out of Oscoda before Christmas because the branch music-lady (whatever her official title is) asked me if I would like to sing for the Christmas program (how she got that idea I'll never know. Actually, I do know. I mentioned that I sang to Sister Karn - bad move on my part).

In non-musical news, we had really great trade-offs with Elder Fortuna, the district leader, and his companion, Elder Wilkinson this last Wednesday. We all blitzed Oscoda to conserve miles (since Houghton Lake, their area, is 100 miles away). I started the morning with Elder Wilkinson, we taught a lesson while tracting and taught one of our investigators and then I switched to spend the evening with Elder Fortuna. We did some more tracting; I felt really strongly that we needed to go back to the street Elder Wilkinson and I had knocked earlier and we found a couple of potential investigators. Mostly it was just a lot of fun to talk to Elder Fortuna. I don't know, I guess it's just nice to spend a little time with someone who's not your companion every once in a while.

Sunday was a little disappointing for us; only one investigator came to church (we were hoping for at least two), and our less-active member that I mentioned last week ended up being sick. Still, it was a good time, I guess - Elder Valentine and I both spoke (about which I was not informed until Friday night, despite the fact that Elder Valentine heard about it on Wednesday).

Oh, and also, Thanksgiving was great! We spent the day with two member families down in Tawas - the food was great, we played Apples to Apples and generally had a good time.

I love you all,
Elder Cloward