Snow Is Melting!

Hello family!

I'm excited to announce that the end of winter is finally in sight. Although it's definitely not over, we did get a bit of thawing and melting this weekend with temperatures in the 30s and 40s and it even rained this morning! Hallelujah!

I'm emailing today because we had zone conference yesterday, so they bumped our preparation day over. Zone conference was fantastic; it always does so much to uplift me and get me re-energized for the work. The focus this transfer is on effective teaching and teaching by the Spirit. I definitely have a lot of work to do, but I was really grateful for all the pointers we received. I was asked to do a musical number for zone conference, so I played an arrangement of "An Angel From On High". The Assistants to the President called and asked if I would play something last Friday night. They're always great about giving me lots of notice. In any case, I got permission to look online for music and to spend some time practicing. So it went all right.

The highlight of the week was definitely the baptism on Sunday. Everything went really well. Staci and Courtney, the girls we baptized, had a lot of support from family and branch members. Elder Valentine and his companion, Elder Turner, even made it up from Midland in time for the closing prayer. Staci and Courtney were really excited to have him there, so it was neat. It's been very rewarding to see them progress and learn so quickly. Elder Valentine and I knocked on their door and asked them if they would like to learn what their oldest sister had been taught and accepted on the very first day I served in the Oscoda branch.

I think that's about the long and the short of it. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Valentine's day filled with commercialistic romance and the stench of capitalistic sentimentality. (Speaking of which, thanks for the package!)

Love,
Elder Cloward