New President

Hello Everybody!  haha

     Thank you so much for all the support and letters from everyone this week!  I really love and appreciate it.

     That's so awesome that you were able to meet the Howells, Mom and Dad.  They are amazing people!  It's funny about Sister Howell how Mom had mentioned she was emotional but just kept on through it because that's exactly how her trainings would go.  Tears or no tears she always had something great to say and teach us and it always came through haha.  It was definitely sad to see them go, but after meeting President and Sister Clements this week I agree with what President Howell said, "things are only going to get better".  President Clements is so great!  He's so great and has that same genuine care and love that President Howell did.  He has a good sense of humor as well.  We have our interviews with him this week, so I'm excited to get to know him even better.  Sister Clements is super nice too and I'm looking forward to the next little while that we have to spend here in this part of the Lord's vineyard working together. 

     That's so crazy about Mitch!  I couldn't believe when I read the Philippines and then to have it be the exact same mission as Brady.  That's incredible!  That's so weird to think that Mitch will be leaving on his mission after I've been out for over a year!  That's so crazy!  He's probably hating the fact that his birthday's so late.  Brady could in all reality have his call about the same time that Mitch leaves.    

     Sounds like things back home are as exciting as ever for everyone.  Brady and Natalie sound like they're having fun on those adventures of theirs.  Is Natalie going to be up in Idaho until the baby's born?

     As far as here in the grand old MMM things are going to amazing!!  Elder Haupt has faith like you wouldn't believe.  Our faith and the hard work we're putting in have definitely been manifest in the miracles of the past week.  Yesterday when we had to call in the numbers for the week we realized that we had almost doubled the amount of lessons from last week (that's not really so impressive because we didn't do so good at all last week haha).  The real miracle was that we were able to pick up 7 new investigators because of those lessons we had been teaching!  The Lord is preparing people all around us and this week we were priveleged enough to work hard, talk to everyone, and find them!  We are always looking for those humble people to teach and they are either in humble circumstances or compelled to be humble by some other way, and down in "The Hood" is where the humble people are.  I have a testimony of contacting and working down in North Minneapolis (just before 8:30-9 pm though jk haha).  Those people down there are always wanting to hear about Jesus and willing and wanting to pray with us!  It's great!  That's where most of our new investigators came from.  Even though it's the Southern part of our area the extra miles on the bike just build character haha.  Being able to see these people grow in their faith of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice make it all worth it.  Now we just have to figure out how to get all these humble people without cars to church and we'll be good haha.  We can only carry so many on our handlebars jk ;).  We've set a goal this week of teaching at least 20 lessons and I know the Lord will provide those people to teach and the appointments we have with all these new people to be solid.  We got close last week and I've done it before in Menomonie so Elder Haupt and I are going to be working like it all depends on us and praying like it all depends on the Lord!

     Kind of as a side note to answer your question Dad yes I am still the District Leader and Training at the same time.  It's great!  I love these Elders in my district.  Elder Haupt and Elder Turner both came out together and Elder Bennett just finished as a trainee and moved into the position as trainer.  It's pretty funny now being the "oldest" missionary in the district.  If you take all the other Elders time out in the field and combine it I've still been out longer.  I never thought I'd be able to say that haha.  We joke about that all the time.
     Well I hope that all of you are still doing well and having a great time wherever you're at haha.  I love and miss you all!  I'm praying for you always and can't wait to hear from you again!

Love, Elder Craft