Settling In

Dear Crafts,

     I almost feel like after that story Dad sent me and what I heard about the game from members at church yesterday that we all need to take a moment of silence for all those grieving cougar fans out there. . . . HAHA!!! That's so funny!  I was glad to hear about that.  Especially since Elder White's a BYU fan haha.

     Back on the subject of missionary work. Things in Eden Prairie are going well.  Elder White and I get along great and are working really hard to try and build up the teaching pool here.  It's taking a little time but there's amazing potential and people here.  We just have to get and work to find them.  This ward is great and really missionary minded.  We're blessed to be serving in a ward like this.  Hopefully we will have more exciting things to report on for next week.

     The Bishop gave us the opportunity to bare our testimonies and for me to stand
and introduce myself yesterday.  It was good to kind of make an appearance and share our testimonies with the whole ward and show them we're here to work.  There an uncanny amount of people that came up to me after with question about people I know that live in Hooper.  One member, Sister Ward, is the great aunt of Braxton Willie and then as Mom got to find out Sister Neilson, who we had dinner with last Sunday, grew up right across the street from Blakeley Charlesworth's mom.  So that was weird when they asked where I was from and said they knew someone out near Hooper.  The world within the church really is very small.  Especially here where everyone seems to be from Utah or knows someone from there haha.

     That's great Kevin did so well yesterday.  That is kind of early to have his farewell but with Stacie coming home now too it makes sense.  Lots of crazy things going on back in Hooper.  It's too bad that Brady make it and then that you missed Elder Dillon Pilcher speak on the amazing MMM.  Hopefully you'll get to talk to him soon about it.  Maybe they'll have him speak again haha.  The Assistants  were asking me about "this Elder coming out from Hooper next transfer".  It's so cool to think about where he'll be trained and who will train him.  I'm excited to find out!  He's going to love it.  Especially since the temperature just dropped like 20 degrees this last week.  Winter's just around the corner.  Time to build some character haha.

     That's so exciting for you Kat and Tom!  I wish I could be there to support you, but I'm just glad to know that it's still going through.  I know we weren't sure if all the documentation would be ready for awhile so I've just been praying for you, and those prayers were answered.  Just know that I'll be thinking about you guys tomorrow!  I can't wait to see the pictures.  I'm sure it's going to be great with what I've heard about it!

     So I'm hoping today to attach some pictures from Shingle Creek for you and I'll probably print some to send as well. There's only a couple from here that I could put on and one is of the Temple of Ekenkar!  The people at this church are completely insane!!  The one and only "Temple of Ek"  is here in Chanhassen and it's their world headquarters.  These people in the simplest terms I can describe it are just nuts!  They believe in basically everything which means they believe in nothing.  They're not Christian and they read from a book that their leaders wrote in 1965 as their scripture known as the Seriyat.  They're know for their spiritual exercises that they do.  They chant to word "HU"  over and over and over.  They call it a spiritual exercise that each member does everyday for up to 20 minutes.  They do it to soothe and they chant to word "HU" because "it's the sacred, ancient name for God and the vibrations you feel on your throat as you do it are because it's sacred".  I want you guys to try it just take a nice deep breathe. . and chant "HU" in a nice soothing voice for 20 seconds while touching your index and middle finger to the side of your throat and repeat as need for up to 20 minutes.  Their claim is that it's a "love song to God that will soothe both of you and bring you closer to Him".  When they meet to "worship"  they all do this chant as a group and it's called a "HU Song" .  They're led by their "Temple Masters"  and their "prophet" as they referred to him is "The Ek Master".  The best part is that I'm not even having to make up any of these names or titles and I was told all of this by one of the followers when we tracted into him.  You could probably Google it to find out more.  I can't even tell it all that well over an email.  There were plenty of things we came up with after talking to him about the Grinch hating the "HU"s and their "HU song" that's why he stole Christmas.  We're just waiting for a rapper to now come out with the name "Master EK".  I can totally see it haha.  They're really nice people just a little on the blasphemous, apostasy side of things haha.  I'll just have to remember to tell that story in person. haha

     Well I hope that everyone is doing well and I can't wait to hear from you all again.  I love and appreciate all that you do for me and I hope to have more stories about investigators and the true Gospel of our Heavenly Father and maybe not so much about the Ekites next week haha.

Love, Elder Craft