Wild Minnesota

Hallo Familie,

     Well this week was pretty intense for us.  We stayed pretty busy traveling around and trying to find people to teach here in Bloomington.  We had the first Zone Conference on Tuesday and I messed up on my info with that last week.  Elder Mead's zone wasn't one of those ones.  He's in the Oakdale Zone and so I'll get to see him on Wednesday this week.  I'll be sure to tell him about Brady's exciting news but I'm sure that he's already heard.  We had a good time getting to see all the missionaries down here in the Minneapolis parts of the Twin Cities and go up to Duluth and see those Elders in Canada and the rest of them in the frozen north.  The drive up with all the trees and forestry was so pretty.  I saw a bunch of deer and stuff just right there in Duluth and when we were driving up we saw a wolf on the side of the road too.  Too bad it was dead, but that's road kill that I've never seen in Utah.  The Elders up in Thunder Bay said that they've seen like 4-5 wolves now and bear all over the place.  Minnesota is very unique because of the wildlife that is all around us.  Even here in the cities we see our fair share of coyotes, fox, deer, and bald eagles.  Duluth was a lot colder than down here though.  It was beautiful being able to come in on the freeway over the hill and just look out to see all across the city and Lake Superior.  It's a very beautiful city and the Elders are all doing great work in that zone.  We had to go up Thursday morning for some New Missionary Training we did with President Clements before Zone Conference on Friday and we headed home Saturday afternoon.  The training all went very well and we even got to do two exchanges with the Thunder Bay new missionaries while we were there.  A very busy time but very spiritually uplifting.  We got to teach a lesson Thursday while we were at lunch too.  After we got all the meetings set up with the logistics of it we went to eat at a really good Chinese restaurant downtown near the college campus and while we were there one of the students came up to sit with us and just started to ask a bunch of questions because he's trying to "find the truth for [himself]".  It was a great experience to explain how he was like Joseph Smith and teach him a brief restoration lesson all while sitting next to the wantons and soy sauce of the Beijing restaurant.  It's so cool how people are prepared in every place and situation that we go!  The morning we left we decided to go up to a look out tower and take some pictures.  It had been pretty cold with some snow storms the nights previous while we were out tracting and teach at about -15, but Saturday was freezing! haha It as about 9 am but as we were taking pictures the wind chill was about -40 degrees and made the Kodak moment very short lived. haha  You can see in the pictures that a smile was not going to happen from me haha.  It was a good Minnesota experience!

     I'm glad that everyone else seems to be doing well.  Sorry that there's not much more to report on from here.  I talked a lot about Duluth but things here in Bloomington are still going great!  haha  We are working on finding more people to teach an helping build the kingdom slowly but surely.  I hope all goes well with school and work for everyone this week.  Happy Birthday too Nick!  I can't wait to hear from you all again.

Love, Elder Craft