It Snows Less Here!!

Greetings from Oscoda, MI!

This has been an eventful week, getting to know a new area with new people and a new companion. Tuesday morning we drove down to Mt. Pleasant, where Elder Williams picked up Elder Johansson and I met up with Elder Valentine. Since Elder Valentine doesn't have driving privileges yet, I drove and he navigated our way back to Oscoda. (Because he hasn't been driving, Elder Valentine doesn't know his way around as well as I would maybe like, so we've been making a lot of U-turns.)

Oscoda is nice. It's not Petoskey-nice, but it's still nice. Lake Huron isn't as pretty as Lake Michigan, but it's still pretty. Our apartment is nicer than the one in Petoskey but not as clean. I'm working on that. I think Oscoda is about the same size as Petoskey, but our area is much wider. If you're looking at a map
View Larger Mapour area covers Tawas City and goes all the way down to almost Standish (b). It goes West past Hale(c) and North past Harrisville(d). Anyway, we've got a lot more driving to do and less allotted driving miles than we did in Petoskey. It sounds like I may have a walking winter. Thankfully, Oscoda gets very little snow in comparison to the rest of Michigan, and especially Petoskey, which is up in the "snow belt". Unless they get a Noreaster, the lake effect is felt on the opposite shore. Wahoo!

Elder Valentine is from Benicia, California, in the Greater Bay Area. He's been in Oscoda since August, although he spent the last six weeks working in a threesome in both Oscoda and West branch because an elder was sent home early and some elders were moved around. He left on a mission straight out of high school, where he played football and basketball. He's fourth out of five boys in his family; one of his older brothers has served a mission. I'm excited to work with him because he is extremely intent on being an obedient and diligent missionary. Our combined lack of experience is, at times, embarrassingly evident, but I suppose this is as good a time as any to learn to allow the grace of God to make up for our inadequacies. I don't think I enjoy the experience of learning a new area. It's nice to meet so many new people, but it's difficult to dive in and start teaching them when I don't fully understand what they have previously been taught or what their prior experiences with the missionaries or with the church have been. We have four or five investigators, but all of them are pretty stagnant. They've been taught all the missionary lessons and, for the most part, read the Book of Mormon regularly but none of them are actively attending church or preparing for baptism. As I meet them, I suppose we'll have to figure out what it is they really want.

This last weekend was Stake Conference down in Midland. As nice as these large conferences are, I'm really ready for a Sacrament meeting, which I haven't attended in 2 weeks. It was fun to meet all the elders in our zone. I think we may very well have the youngest zone in the mission. Among the six of us that spent the night in one of the Midland apartments, we didn't even have two years of experience. Many of the other elders in our zone have only been out a year or so and another companionship is in the same boat as Elder Valentine and me. Sunday morning we had interviews with President Jones. I was very appreciative that he spent a little more time with us than last month. He told us that he had felt strongly impressed to put so many young elders together in our areas and that if we will learn to work by faith, trusting completely in the Lord, He will bless us to find, teach, and baptize. I'll do my best.

When is the BYU-Utah game? I want to try to watch it with some members. I've been getting regular updates on BYU's games from members - that TCU loss made me so sad, especially since Elder Williams is a Utah fan and rubbed it in lots.

Anyways, I like Oscoda, or at least I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to work more and harder than I have thus far. I love you all and I hope things are going well.

Love,Elder Cloward