Dear Family,
Sorry that this is so late but this week has been one eventful one for us here. I had mentioned that wedo exchanges with the new missionaries and their trainers in Bloomington within their 2 transfers of being trained and this week has been one full of those. We try to schedule them with teams that are further out around events and meetings they'll be coming to the cities for. THat's the main reason why this week has so many because of the New Missionary Training Meeting that we had on Tuesday, so we had teams coming from 2 and 3 hours away and had to schedule their exchanges all in a row so that we could get to them without delaying it too long or making them make an unnecessary trip out of their area later in the month. This Monday to Tuesday we went with the Elders from Fairmont, MN. Elder Sande is thr trainer and a convert of a little over 2 years from Washington state and his companion is Elder Meguro from Japan. We were with them Monday night until the NMT meeting on Tuesday morning. Then after all or training and things we had to do in the meeting we had an exchange with the Mankato, MN Elders. Elder Waite is the trainer from Logandale and Overton, Nevada. Dad might know where that is because Elder Waite told me all about Hawthorne! He's been there and to Walker Lake a lot before and told me all about what isn't there haha. I thought that was cool that he could tell me all about Dad's little hometown which I now want to go check out sometime. His trainee is Elder Hall from Draper. On Wednesday after lunch they went to drive back down to Mankato before the Chippewa Falls, WI Elders came in until this morning. Elder Worwood is the trainer from Ferron, UT and his new missionary Elder Allen is from Sun Tan Valley, AZ. It was great to have a chance to work with all these Elders and see the great faith that new missionaries bring to the mission. It was a lot of fun seeing all the miracles that came and as a result of all these missionaries helping to work in our area we have found 20 new future investigators this week which should really keep up busy and help the work to pick up. Last night Elder Worwood and I found a few potentials in this really nice and really fancy town home complex in Eden Prairie that has a bunch of the Vikings players that live there. One of the guys that we talked to said that he sees Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin driving around in there all the time and that Nate Osiata, the guy who used to play for the U and is now the Vikings fullback, lives there. So that was kind of a cool adventure. I'll let you know when I find one of those guys or you can look on ESPN or something to hear them announce the new celestial help that the Vikings team seems to be getting ;) haha JK. Coming up tomorrow until Saturday afternoon we'll have the Blaine, MN Elders coming. Elder Sargeant is the trainer from Springville, UT and Elder Manoa is from Hayward CA. That should be another fun and exciting exchange too. These exchanges have a lot of planning and work that can go into them but are one of my favorite parts about this assignment here. I missed not getting to work with all the new missionaries when I spent my summer vacation over in the Lake Nokomis Ward. Speaking of that since you asked Dad it was kind of hard to leave all the good things that were progressing and the fun Elder Neeley and I were having, but because I didn't go far I still get to see some of those people and talk to the Elders working over there.
It's been kind of fun coming back to an old area too and talking with all the members again and visiting other people that I taught. So I didn't tell you much about Elder Clancy when I got here but he is from Lawrence, Mass. He graduated the year before I did but went to BYU-I for a year before his mission. He came out to Minnesota about four months after me. He's a pretty goofy guy and it's been fun to serve with him. I knew of him just from seeing him around in the mission. He's very smart and creative. We get along really well and are hoping for great things to come here in the near future. He actually has a twin brother who is serving in the SLC Family History Center Mission who goes home in mid-December.
The weather here has been typical Minnesota which equals out to bipolar. Something that I'm used to from living in Utah. We have had some really nice days in the upper 60's and one in the lower 30's too over the past few weeks. The leaves have been falling really quickly the last couple of weeks and we're all hoping Winter holds off for a little bit longer. I think secretly I want this Winter to just be awful so that I can experience some of it and have something to talk about because the last one was so mild. We'll see what happens here in the next couple of weeks.
The Saints Unified Voices (SUV) choir and Gladys Knight were awesome last week! The presentation was so good and the message they conveyed I think touched a lot of people. I definitely loved it and would highly recommend inviting and taking people to that if it ever comes around in Utah haha. It was sweet to hear some of the Gospel songs that they sang and the renditions of the hymns that were sung. The best was all the people with a Baptist of Pentecostal back round that just stood up or put their hands in the air "praising" and saying some good heartfelt "amen" to different things they sang or talked about. It was just all around awesome and something that I really loved. It was a little bit of a later night because of the length of the 8:30 show too and due to the fact that we had to help tear down and clean up. It was cool though because I got to meet her husband and talk to him for a minute and say hi to Gladys Knight while I was helping clean the stuff up in the church.
From what Mom told me though it sounds like the Primary program was just about as eventful as the presentation that I got to see though haha. That's too bad for the poor kids that were sick but exciting about Mom's new calling! That's going to be a lot of fun for you! Does that mean you just get to go visit a lot more of the Primaries around and go talk with the Presidents? I assume from what I've known seen and come to understand with the structure of The Church that that's some part of it. I'm really excited for you but sorry that you have to leave your little entourage of fans in the Sunbeam class. At least you'll still get to see them every once in awhile.
I think that's about it for the updates from me here and all the adventures that we've been on in the great state of Minnesota. haha I hope that all is well and that I can hear from you again soon!
Love, Elder Alex Craft
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