And Here Are the Pictures

Picture 1: The famous weathervane of Montague, Michigan. Largest in the world!


Picture 8: 2 handsome young elders and one big, cold lake! (To our right is the White Lake channel, emptying into Lake Michigan)


Picture 10: Country Dairy. Yum!

30 degrees with a slight breeze

Hello Family!

Things are going well in Hart. We had a good week of work and four new investigators (one investigator was in church yesterday). Tracting here has yielded more return appointments than I'm used to, but as of yet, none of those have actually gone through. That's just part of missionary life.

So, I may be getting to drive again. I talked to Elder Davis, our vehicle coordinator, and he said I would be getting driving privileges back on May 1st. Only, last Thursday, Elder Arroyo did some nice damage to our bumper and lower grill by scraping it along another car. So ... I may, yet again, be postponing my suspension from driving privileges. :)

I'm really excited for spring to get into full swing. This is a very agricultural area with lots of orchards - I'm excited for all the cherry trees to blossom! And I'm even more excited for fresh cherries (although I'll have to wait a while for those ...).

I'm sending along a few pictures. Hopefully they'll actually go through this week.

Okay. Just kidding. Turns out the computers at this library won't let you save anything on the computer. So you'll have to wait. But there are some cool pictures of Elder Arroyo and me at Lake Michigan (our Branch President took the scenic route on our way to an appointment yesterday), the largest weathervane in the whole wide world (!), and me with two girls and a snake.

Love you all,
Elder Cloward

I Heart Hart

Dear Family,

Hi! So, I've decided that President Jones must love me a lot. Because he's sent me to the best areas in the mission, by far. Petoskey, a.k.a. Paradise, Oscoda, and now Hart. The Hart branch is just bigger than the Oscoda branch, although our area is just smaller. They're really missionary-minded with lots of recent converts and everyone is so awesome! For instance, we have dinner EVERY night this week and, well, they're just all really great. I'm very excited to work here.

One unfortunate thing about the area is that we have no currently progressing investigators. We have one man, whom I haven't yet met, who is an 'eternal investigator' but other than that we don't have anyone at all to teach. They had a baptism two weeks ago, though. It just means we've got a lot of finding work to do. Thank goodness it's been warmer!

Elder Arroyo, my companion, is pretty neat. He's from Colorado Springs, he's trained in Capoeira (a really neat Brazilian martial art), and he's Puerto Rican, hence the hispanic last name, although he doesn't speak Spanish. Which is unfortunate, since there are a lot of hispanics in this area. As a result, I've taken up reading El Libro de Mormon in my spare time. I'm slowly working my way through all the crazy past and future tenses and all the little words it repeats over and over again that I haven't managed to completely understand (for instance 'he' and 'lo' and 'ya'). But it's kind of fun and I actually understand it pretty easily. Reading it, that is. I don't think I'll ever be able to speak Spanish learning this way. C'est la vie.

Oh, and guess what! I'm going to a chiropractor today and I'm really excited because my back has been killing me. One of the brothers in our branch is a chiropractor and is willing to give us free back adjustments every preparation day, so we're going to drive up to Hart later. We actually live in Shelby, a small town about 5 miles south of Hart.

The elders here have been doing a lot of service at Shelby High. Two former wrestlers served here together two transfers ago and helped coach the Shelby High wrestling team. Anyway, we're continuing with the track team because they need the help. Unfortunately, I'm the one with running "experience". I'm sure they'll realize how limited my cross-country experience was as soon as I do any running. Oh well. I'm the coach - I don't have to be good at running :P.

Sorry the pictures didn't come through last week. I would send them this week but I didn't bring my camera to the library.

Love you all honey bunches of oats! (with strawberries)
Elder Cloward

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Hello, Hello!

After a beautiful week with highs in the 40s and 50s, we had a nice snow & ice storm last night that left a good 3 or 4 inches on the ground and half an inch of ice on our car. We had some good fun scraping it off this morning before heading over to the library to email. I sure do love March. (That's only a little sarcastic. I actually do like it. At least it's not February.)

I'm being transferred! That's not the exciting news, since I already knew it was going to happen, but now I know where to - Hart.
View Larger Map I don't know much about it, but when President Jones called on Friday he said it's a lot like the Oscoda area - a small town in a rural farming community. It's on the other side of the state, so I'll get to see Lake Michigan again, which will be nice. And I'm a little farther downstate, so maybe I'll earn a couple extra degrees. I can definitely feel the difference between 32 and 28 (which I believe is the current difference in temperature - we call into a toll-free weather number).

My new companion will be Elder Arroyo. I don't know much about him - he came out with Elder Sodenkamp, so he's been a missionary for 4 1/2 months, and he knows capoiera, which I'm sure I spelled incorrectly, but it's a Brazilian martial art. I was hoping President Jones would put me with a more experienced missionary than myself, since I've been with a young companion for 3 out of 4 transfers (Elder Valentine was more experienced than me but not by much). Oh well. I guess I'll just have to keep learning by trial and error. What am I saying? Who says I can't learn from someone with less experience? I'm rambling at this point. So, anyway ...

I'm really going to miss Oscoda. A lot more than I thought I would. (That's no slight on Oscoda; I merely mean that I did not expect to become so attached to any place or people). I keep thinking, somewhat over-sentimentally, of a scripture in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 18:30 - "yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer". Substitue 'Oscoda' for 'Mormon' and that's about how I feel about it. :) I've learned and grown so much here and there are so many good people I have come to love. I'll miss them terribly.

Well, that's about the long of it. I hope things are well with you and I love you all bunches!

Elder Cloward

Turns out it was just "January Thaw"

Hi family!

It's been colder than cold again here. It's currently about 5 degrees but the weather-number we call promised it'll get up to 12 today! Apparently, the couple days of 30s and 40s we had were just a part of the "January Thaw", which was running late, I guess. People promise us it'll start warming up soon - probably mid-April. :)

Church was great yesterday, although our two recent converts were out of town and still unable to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I talked to them on the phone last night, though, and they promised they'd be there next week, especially since it will be my last Sunday in Oscoda. We had our Branch Conference yesterday, so we had a lot of good instruction from the Midland Stake leaders. The Stake President talked about the story of Christ walking on the water and His gentle chastisement of Peter really stuck out to me: "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" I guess he could have been saying it to me.


Not a whole lot of excitement this week. We had trade-offs with the West Branch-Houghton lake Elders again, which was fun. I got to know Elders Buck and Darley a bit better. We walked past the beach so they could see it nice and frozen. I've included a couple pictures.
The Elder on the ice-bubble is Elder Buck.

We received a report from President Jones (via email) today on the results of our "30 in February" quest. We had 26 baptisms last month, just shy of our goal, but a significant improvement over previous years. He's asked us to push for a new goal of 35 in April, which should be good.

I'm excited for transfer calls this Friday so I'll know where I'll be going. I'm glad things are going well for you.

Love you all,
Elder Cloward

Crepes are Delicious

Hi! It turns out my reports of melting snow came a little too soon. We got about 5-6 inches on Saturday and it's been too cold to melt yet. I think it's supposed to get a bit warmer by the middle of the week. We'll see. In any case, they canceled church because of the snow. Elder Sodenkamp and I received permission from the Branch President to take the Sacrament in our apartment, which was nice. Still, we would have rather had church, since we have two newly-baptized members of the church who still have not received the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

President and Sister Jones spent a little time with us on Friday to inspect our apartment and have interviews. We passed our inspection! All except for the old rusty bike without wheels sitting on our balcony. We have to get rid of it. I thought it was rather picturesque ...

But, anyhoodles, interviews were great - President Jones has a way of making me feel like a good missionary, a feeling which normally lasts at least 20 minutes before I once again realize that I still have no idea what I'm doing :). President reaffirmed my assumption that I will be transferred the second week of March. I'll be really sad to leave Oscoda because I've really grown to love this branch, but I'm excited for new opportunities and new people. Thankfully, President also said he needs to have me getting some more experience so I'll be ready to train and lead later. Which, I assume means I won't be training or leading next transfer! I don't think I'd mind being a trainer, but I don't really look forward to opportunities in leadership, so it's nice to know I've got a little time before I have to deal with that.

Elder Sodenkamp made crepes for me this week, which I thought I should mention because they were delicious! He taught me to spread jelly on them and roll them (I've only ever had them folded over with fruit in the middle). And I taught him that Nutella is amazing.

And that's the whole barrel of monkeys. Well, actually, I suppose it's not. But, really, all of the monkeys are pretty much the same, so I figure I don't need to tell you about all of them :). The work continues to go forward and I'm doing my best to follow President's and the Lord's counsel to act for myself and not be acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2) by changing what I have power to change (mostly just myself) and letting the Lord worry about the rest.

I love you all,
Elder Cloward

Whoosh!

Super quick email this week!

Sunday was a little disappointing because we didn't have any investigators in church, nor were our newly baptized members able to come for their confirmations so we'll have those next week. Things come up, I guess.

Our car's currently in the body shop, so we're doing LOTS of walking again. At least temperatures are sticking in the 20s. It could definitely be worse.

I did a lot of cleaning yesterday because we're having an apartment inspection this Friday! We also have interviews with President Jones, which I always look forward to.

And pictures:

1 - Mr. Peanut, a cute little dog a member owns.


2 - Yep, I'm in Oscoda! Love the mitt.



3 and 4(the picture up top) - Iargo Springs. Just about the prettiest spot in Michigan.

Love y'all,
Elder Cloward