Success and Miracles

Hey there family!

     This week was another great week for us here in the MMM!  We had a lot of success and miracles with 3 exchanges this week with some other new missionaries.  We had the one with the Eden Prairie Elders on Monday, Elder Lor and Elder Chappell that went really well.  We had one on Wednesday with the Cedar Lake Elders, Elder Olaveson from Rigby, ID is training Elder Pinsent from Nova Scotia and it was a lot of fun with them.  Because we only have the one van to drive around whenever teams like Cedar Lake come, who are on bikes, one of us ends up biking around for that day, so our area moves between a car and biking area depending on which one of us gets to ride that day or not haha.  Elder Olaveson and I got to ride around on the nice misty rainy day that we had Wednesday that took me back to my days in Shingle Creek riding through all the storms we had then.  Luckily for us it only snowed for part of the morning and the rest of it was just misty and raining for the day.  Our weather really hasn't been too bad here.  We have had it pretty dry so far except for the day that I got to spend biking around haha.  I'm expecting the weather may just hold off from the snow, down here in the cities at least because there's already a few inches in the areas up north, until after my group of missionaries goes home and then the cold will come haha.  I don't know if I mentioned this before or not but Elder Lewis, my MTC companion who is a Zone Leader in Lakeville now with one of the other Elders that was in our room at the MTC Elder Anderson,  extended and will be flying home with me to SLC so I'm not all by my lonesome self.  I think President needed him and didn't really want to have to replace both Zone Leaders at the transfer so now we came to Minnesota together and will be leaving at the same time too.  Our last exchange for last week was with the Apple Valley Elders, Elder Eggertsen who was Elder Anderson's companion in my MTC district and room who's training Elder Burt from Blackfoot, Idaho.  It was a lot of fun and the miracles keep rolling through with all these exchanges.  It can be challenging to try and plan things for all the exchanges that happen but it keeps us busy and blessings keep pouring down.  We have 3 , more this week and we are excited to see what the Lord has in store.

                This week we also have our monthly Zone Leader Council meeting tomorrow and will be spending most of our p-day today preparing our training and finalizing the agenda and presentation.  IT should be a really great meeting and things here in the mission will continue to pick up.  Our area is seeing a lot of great success.  Brother S (that's the actual spelling and not S like I did last week)
 is progressing very well along with the N family who he lives with.  Because Brother N had to work Brother S and Sister N came to the Fall Festival at the church with her two kids, J and J, and loved it.  The members loved meeting them and a lot of people introduced themselves to them  We found out the Brother S actually played volleyball on Liberia's national team and played in the All Africa games in Kenya while he was over there.  So the Elders Quorum invited him to play basketball with them early in the morning Saturday and we went to play with them.  He enjoyed it even though he's only ever played a couple of times in his life.  What was great though was as much fun as they had at the Festival and he did at basketball they both loved church even more!  Brother N couldn't make it because of work again but Brother S and Sister N felt very at home.  It was fast and testimony meeting and at the end they both talked about how much they loved hearing from all the different people.  Sister N said she really did feel like we were all Brothers and Sisters there and Brother S said to the Elders Quorum when he introduced himself that he has decided that he wants to join this church.  Brother N even though he couldn't come to any of those things is doing well.  We taught him at the mission home with President and Sister Clements last week and he committed to be baptized on Dec. 1st.  He's set on it and we are really excited about it too!  Now we are just working to keep the ward involved and help them all progress towards that day together.  We had an idea this morning that we could make a youth activity for all the kids to invite their friends to a volleyball clinic that Brother S can put on.  It'd be great to help him serve and get the youth to invite their friends to a very fun activity.  We'll be meeting with a member from the Young Men's presidency before their activities planning and Friday and see if we can get that going.  Brother S said he's ready and would love to play anytime!
   
                The Lord really is merciful and mindful of all of us!  I love seeing His hand day by day in all that we do and know that he is aware of individual needs for all of us and a part of all of our lives.  Thank you so much for all your love, prayers, and support.  I know that they are being answered and I am the grateful recipient of them.  I better get back to the reports that we need to finish, but I hope all goes well this week and to hear from you all again soon!