More Faith in My Savior, More Sense of His Care, More Joy in His Service

Aloha from rainy Michigan!

Nothing much going on here. I don't think this week was any more exciting than the last. It has been getting cooler as most of the leaves are now on the ground instead of on the trees. This has been a rainy week (it actually hailed yesterday) but no snow yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't come until at least November.

Wednesday we had trade-offs with our district leader and his companion. I spent the day in Charlevoix with Elder Robinson. It was a pretty busy day for them down there, which was nice. I got to meet a lot of neat people but I was kind of sad that I probably won't see any of them again. I suppose we'll have tradeoffs again sometime next transfer, maybe I'll go down to Charlevoix again.

Thursday we had our interviews with President Jones. I had been sort of looking forward to it and was a little disappointed that we only got to talk to him for about 5 minutes each. Since Traverse City is a district and not a stake, President Jones is actually the presiding ecclesiastical leader for the district so he was also going from place to place doing temple recommend interviews, etc. Anyway, he was late in getting to Petoskey and then had to hurry off to Cheboygan and Gaylord.

Also on Thursday we received a visit from two women that Elder Williams knew from when he served in Badaxe in the thumb. They came up with the Midland zone leaders, Elder Mineer and Elder Seely. Elder Mineer knew them because he trained Elder Williams in Badaxe. They were fun; we went out to lunch at Applebee's.

We spent almost the whole day Saturday at training with the Red Cross. Eventually we will be on the DAT (I think it stands for Disaster Aid Team). If there were a single-family fire anywhere in Emmet County, they would call us out to contact the family and see what their needs are and give them whatever the Red Cross is able to provide. It sounds like a neat thing to do. I'm just hoping that once we finish all our training it will end up being worth it. Thankfully, once we have the training, we can go into any chapter (at least in Michigan) and be put on the team.

Tori (our one investigator) bore her testimony in church yesterday (again!). She is amazingly solid. I'm so excited to be teaching her.

Piano lessons are officially starting this Thursday. A lot of the members have said they're intending to come but I don't know if any of them will be bringing other friends from the community, which was sort of the idea. That can come in time, I suppose. I'm a little nervous, especially since it seems like it will be such a mixed class, ranging in age from 6 to 60. We'll see how it goes, I guess.That's about all the news that's anywhere near fit to print (or at least type).

My piano skills are being used frequently (shall I say exploited?). I'm now the Primary Pianist for the branch and I ended up playing the organ yesterday, too. (I way butchered the closing hymn, though, so maybe they won't ask me back.) It's nice to be able to play since I don't ever get to practice during the week. Well, I hope all is well with all of you.

I love you lots!
Elder Cloward