Dear Family,
It's great to hear from all of you and to see that everyone, especially Brady, is surviving. I'm so glad each week when I get to hear about all the great things going on. That's so crazy about Alec Stimpson and his mission call! Three FHS guys all from the soccer team out half a world away from home staying together. I think that that's so cool. September is going to come up quick on him. He's probably going to get there the same transfer that Scott goes home. Depending on when he goes in the MTC it would be pretty crazy to have them pass each other like that.
This week has been a really great week for us here. It was pretty wet but good. We have had it rain with some pretty heavy storms just about everyday this past week. The moisture is definitely a good thing for the state after such a mild winter. We've been meeting with some of those same investigators that I mentioned before and are starting to see good progress in some and continuing progress in others. We are excited for the things that are going to happen here. There are a couple new investigators that we have found and are trying to work closely with the ward in getting them to come to church. Our Ward Mission Leader is trying to plan a BBQ this weekend with some other young couples and families in their part of the ward to invite some of these investigators to, so they get more of an association with the church outside of us coming over to teach them. So things here are looking great as always! Is Brady's p-day on Tuesday in the MTC? I think that's when he wrote home last right?
Stake Conference for us was yesterday and it was a very good meeting. I got to see a bunch of the members from the Eden Prairie Ward and talk to them again about why I was all the sudden gone from the ward without a phone call or anything. It was really great to see and talk to them. It made me realize how amazing it is that you can grow so close to people in such a short amount of time. It was nice to have them wave and come over to talk to me. It always feels good when you can leave an impression on people to where you're not just another missionary from Utah haha.
I can not believe that this week is Mother's Day! That is so crazy! I'll try to call about 3 pm Minnesota time to hopefully catch all you in Utah at home and be able to get Nick and Tati. If that time doesn't work for you guys just email me what time will be best before Sunday and I'll check my email later this week and adjust the time to what works for you. Our day is looking pretty open and flexible for that day, so just let me know. I am excited to talk to you and President said that we can use they mission office to Skype from so we'll hook up our web cam and computer in here to the TV we have like we do for our meetings. So this should be the best set up I've had for a call yet. haha You'll get to see Elder Dalrymple too because his family has church until 4 and with only one camera we'll just have to wait and talk to his until after our dinner appointment at 5 that day. The mission Skype account username is ------------- that I'll be using, but if that name doesn't work it could be --------------- as the screen name. I think your is --------- if I remember correctly. Let me know if it's any different but I figure if all else fails I'll just call to confirm the name before we Skype that day. I'm excited to talk to you guys and hopefully it's a little less hectic and chaotic this time for you. It's too bad I won't get to talk to all of you, but just know I appreciate all the love and support that you guys give to me! I look forward to talking to you and hope that all is well.
Love, Elder Alex Craft
Showing posts with label Bloomington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bloomington. Show all posts
Monday, May 7, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
T-Wolves
Hey Everyone,
It's good to hear that you all made it through the challenges of the week. I hope that Brady can get this email or if I could just get his email address from you I could just send it to him. I'm guessing it's just ------------------ so if you could confirm or deny that for me so I could write him that'd be great. I don't think we're allowed to get on dearelder.com otherwise I would just write him that way. I'll bet it is pretty quiet around the house now. That's so exciting to think that Brady's out at the MTC now. I'm excited to hear all about his experiences and the great things that the Lord has in store for him, for me, and for our family.
It sounds everything has been busy still back at home and it has been the same for us here. We had a really busy week and a lot of great things that happened for us. The Lord has blessed us here with a lot is great people and we found some more new investigators that we are really excited to start working with. We got to do exchanges with the elders out in Eden Prairie and that helped contribute to some of the miracles that we've seen. It was great because they are great Elders serving out there and what makes it unique to some of the other exchanges we've had is that Elder Looye is from the Netherlands and Elder Leppanen, who's only been here a couple of weeks, is from Finland. It was really cool to talk to them about their experiences growing up and see the great excitement they have to be here serving in Minnesota. That's been one of the most fun things for me recent. Getting to go on exchanges at least every week with all these new missionaries and their trainers getting to see all the great, hard working Elders here. I'm sure all the sisters are phenomenal too we just don't do the exchanges with them so I don't have any cool experiences to share with them like the Elders haha.
So with Mother's Day in a couple weeks next week will be the last time we get to finalize times and stuff. I can't believe it's come to that time again already! The last 5 months went by quick! We meet at 11 am here for sacrament meeting and could try to call or Skype almost any time that day that works best for you. Just let me know and if I could get your account name for Skype if you want to do that that's be great too.
Like I said before things here have been going really well. It's exciting to hear that the family is all doing well and got to spend some time down here for Brady's farewell. That's so cool to hear about Tyler Cole and his mission over to North Carolina. I'll bet he's going to love it there! He might have to hook me up with some sweet UNC stuff ;). If you get a chance tell him I'm really excited and happy for him to go out and serve the people there. He's going to love it! It's cool to hear about all these guys going all over the world. I got a letter from Alic Taylor telling me about his call to the Dominican Republic, and when I got to see Elder Mead at the interview training meeting that we had last week we talked about some of these guys and their calls. It's cool to see the literal spreading of the gospel through all these guys around the globe.
We did get to go to the T-Wolves game like I had talked about last week and it was a lot of fun! It was also kind of weird to go and be in our p-day clothes around all those people at the same time. The game wasn't that great the wolves got destroyed by like 30 but it was great to see our investigator there and talk to him. He's such a great man that wasn't able to make it to church yesterday unfortunately because his PCA that went with him last week was in California. He's planning on coming next week and from our lesson we had with him this week things seemed to be going really well. We are very blessed here and are looking forward to another great week that we have planned ahead. It's going to be pretty busy with the 3 meetings we have scheduled this week but their shouldn't be too much for us as far as traveling goes. We have a Zone Leader Council Meeting tomorrow, New Missionary Training Meeting Wednesday, and then we'll be going up to the Anoka Stake Center for their interviews and training Thursday. It should be another great week and one that will most likely fly by as well. It's crazy to me how often it seems like I get a chance to talk to you because the weeks just go so quick!
I hope that everything goes great for all of you the rest of the week. I look forward to hearing from you again. Thanks for all the love and support!
Love, Elder Minnesota Craft
It's good to hear that you all made it through the challenges of the week. I hope that Brady can get this email or if I could just get his email address from you I could just send it to him. I'm guessing it's just ------------------ so if you could confirm or deny that for me so I could write him that'd be great. I don't think we're allowed to get on dearelder.com otherwise I would just write him that way. I'll bet it is pretty quiet around the house now. That's so exciting to think that Brady's out at the MTC now. I'm excited to hear all about his experiences and the great things that the Lord has in store for him, for me, and for our family.
It sounds everything has been busy still back at home and it has been the same for us here. We had a really busy week and a lot of great things that happened for us. The Lord has blessed us here with a lot is great people and we found some more new investigators that we are really excited to start working with. We got to do exchanges with the elders out in Eden Prairie and that helped contribute to some of the miracles that we've seen. It was great because they are great Elders serving out there and what makes it unique to some of the other exchanges we've had is that Elder Looye is from the Netherlands and Elder Leppanen, who's only been here a couple of weeks, is from Finland. It was really cool to talk to them about their experiences growing up and see the great excitement they have to be here serving in Minnesota. That's been one of the most fun things for me recent. Getting to go on exchanges at least every week with all these new missionaries and their trainers getting to see all the great, hard working Elders here. I'm sure all the sisters are phenomenal too we just don't do the exchanges with them so I don't have any cool experiences to share with them like the Elders haha.
So with Mother's Day in a couple weeks next week will be the last time we get to finalize times and stuff. I can't believe it's come to that time again already! The last 5 months went by quick! We meet at 11 am here for sacrament meeting and could try to call or Skype almost any time that day that works best for you. Just let me know and if I could get your account name for Skype if you want to do that that's be great too.
Like I said before things here have been going really well. It's exciting to hear that the family is all doing well and got to spend some time down here for Brady's farewell. That's so cool to hear about Tyler Cole and his mission over to North Carolina. I'll bet he's going to love it there! He might have to hook me up with some sweet UNC stuff ;). If you get a chance tell him I'm really excited and happy for him to go out and serve the people there. He's going to love it! It's cool to hear about all these guys going all over the world. I got a letter from Alic Taylor telling me about his call to the Dominican Republic, and when I got to see Elder Mead at the interview training meeting that we had last week we talked about some of these guys and their calls. It's cool to see the literal spreading of the gospel through all these guys around the globe.
We did get to go to the T-Wolves game like I had talked about last week and it was a lot of fun! It was also kind of weird to go and be in our p-day clothes around all those people at the same time. The game wasn't that great the wolves got destroyed by like 30 but it was great to see our investigator there and talk to him. He's such a great man that wasn't able to make it to church yesterday unfortunately because his PCA that went with him last week was in California. He's planning on coming next week and from our lesson we had with him this week things seemed to be going really well. We are very blessed here and are looking forward to another great week that we have planned ahead. It's going to be pretty busy with the 3 meetings we have scheduled this week but their shouldn't be too much for us as far as traveling goes. We have a Zone Leader Council Meeting tomorrow, New Missionary Training Meeting Wednesday, and then we'll be going up to the Anoka Stake Center for their interviews and training Thursday. It should be another great week and one that will most likely fly by as well. It's crazy to me how often it seems like I get a chance to talk to you because the weeks just go so quick!
I hope that everything goes great for all of you the rest of the week. I look forward to hearing from you again. Thanks for all the love and support!
Love, Elder Minnesota Craft
Monday, April 23, 2012
Welcome, Brady!
Dear Craft Family,
It is so great to hear that things went so well with Brady! I knew he would do great. I hope that the scriptures and advice that he asked for really helped in giving him a little more material to speak on. It sounds like he really didn't need it though. haha I can not believe it's actually time for him to go into the MTC! Time is flying by and I am just so excited for him! I wish I could have heard from him this morning to see how everything's going but I remember how chaotic those last few days can be haha. Brady is going to love it! The people, the language, and even more the Gospel and Our Father in Heaven and Savior who presented it to us. It is amazing to me thinking about what I thought I knew and appreciated before my mission about Jesus Christ and that His Gospel and Church meant to me. I know now that I really hadn't even begun to understand and feel the true magnitude of what I've been apart of my entire life. Now even though I try to immerse myself in it each and every day I still don't quite comprehend all there is about God's infinite love for us and the eternal sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, outlined and made manifest by the Plan of Salvation to all of mankind. I'm not entirely sure that I will ever understand and comprehend it all, but what I do know is that I don't have to know it all. As long as I continue to strengthen myself spiritually through the cleansing and enabling power of Christ's Atonement that comes from renewing and fulfilling my covenants that I can do better. That there is hope in a world that doesn't offer much of it. There are going to be times and there have been times that I have felt overwhelmed like there isn't much help for me or much more that I think I can do, but it's when we continue to press forward with faith through those times when we aren't certain how things will turn out that we can look back and see the Lord strengthen us and ease our burdens just like Alma and his people or with Lehi and Nephi when they were thrown into prison. That's why I have loved being able to learn from The Book of Mormon just how applicable those teachings are and the real perception check that the experiences of other people can give to me about my own problems and challenges. You will come to love the Book of Mormon, Brady, and the teachings of enabling power that Christ will give to us. You are going to need that throughout your whole mission in every phase of the work. Learn to love what you're going to do and realize that you have been anxiously waiting for the past few months to go to Germany but you have talked about and anticipated going on a mission to serve the Lord for the last probably 11 or so years. I say that because I know for me I didn't keep that vision and understanding when I first came out. I wasn't look forward to what I could learn and experience and what the Lord was trying to teach me. Once I realized that I had talked about and waited for 19 years to be out here and that I'd only have 2 years to be on this mission with rest of eternity to think about it I knew that I needed to live up every moment because it would never come again. The things that you learn Brady will be such an amazing blessing for you that I can't even begin to describe! I'm sure you've gotten a lot of advice along the same lines as this, but I know that if you go into this looking forward to every chance and take every opportunity placed before you you will be happy and return home with honor. It's hard work serving a mission and is unlike anything you have ever or will ever do and that's by design. If there wasn't and stretching and testing there ultimately could be no growth. Work hard but look for chance to laugh and have fun. That's one thing Elder Dalrymple and I do a lot of and it's the only way to survive. There is a positive to it all but sometimes it takes a little work and searching to find it. Obedience will be the key to you receiving these blessings and being happy, and just know that the Lord is going to bless you, just as he does all of us, for our best most earnest efforts. You success comes from your own inward effort and commitment and sometimes not so much of the outward results that are a consequence of it! I want you all to know how much and I love and appreciate all of you. I know that the family is ordained of God and that His marvelous plan enables us to return to live in His presence forever and to do it together. I know that The Book of Mormon is true. That the teachings in their will and do draw us closer to the Savior as we read from and apply it's teachings. I know that Joseph Smith was the Prophet to translate that and restore Christ's original church and kingdom to the Earth again. I know that this Church is headed by and lead by Jesus Christ through chosen prophets and apostles today and that their counsel will lead us to Christ even more. I love sharing this with other people each and everyday and know you will too Brady. Be excited about what's ahead for you. It's a big step but one that you will be forever grateful that you took. I love you Brady and I'm going to miss not seeing you for a little while but I know that there's not better place for us to be and no better time for us to be there than now! Good luck and I look forward to hearing from you as you enter the MTC this week. You are going to love it there! Once you get to good old Deutschland find Elder Chambers and give him a nice hello for me and my address so that guy can write me back haha. Let me know anything that I can do for you!
Even though a large majority of that if not almost all of it was directed to Brady I just want everyone else to know how much I love being out here! It's so good to hear that everyone had such a great time last week and that Dad took it easy on everyone Saturday ;) haha. I'm glad you made it through Minneapolis safely Nick. I was think of that Friday as we were over by the airport maybe 10 minutes away going to see some people. I don't know what you were talking about with cold though we've been in short sleeves all week haha. I'm hoping that means I'm somewhat acclimating to the colder weather. We'll see I guess.
We had a great week here with a couple investigators coming to church yesterday and the one we sat by really enjoyed it. He's an amazing man that is such a blessing to be able to know and work with. We are really excited about the progress he's making, along with most of our other investigators, and the amazing work going on here. That same guy we sat by is also taking us to a Timberwolves game this week. Their last one of the season, so we're pretty excited about that. We never thought it would get approved so we didn't even try asking President Clements if we could go. We were just talking to him about this guy a couple weeks ago and said he'd mentioned taking us to a game possibly and before we even finished the sentence President said, "well that'd be fine", so we were nonetheless shocked but super excited to go. Hopefully we get some good pictures that I can send to you.
With those people we did have come to church we are working really hard with them and like I said they are growing a lot in their testimonies. It's not going to be quick by any means but we are hoping to have some baptisms coming in the next month or so we're hopeful for what is happening here! The Lord is really blessing us and the ward is getting more and more excited so good things are happening and will be increasing here in Bloomington.
I can't believe that it's almost Mother's Day too! Man time really is just screaming by. I'm trying to figure out if Elder Dalrymple and I can just Skype at the mission office with the webcams that we have or if we'd need to do a member's house. I'm guessing a member's house but either way I'll need to get your username for sure. I think it was --------- but I can't remember for sure. That is if everyone wants to Skype. Just let me know next week.
Well I hope all goes well this next few days. Just know I love and appreciate all that you do for me. I pray for you always and feel your love and prayers with me. i can't wait to talk to you again!
Love, Elder (Minnesota) Craft-- I figure that's going to have to be me new signature with there being two Elder Crafts now haha :)
It is so great to hear that things went so well with Brady! I knew he would do great. I hope that the scriptures and advice that he asked for really helped in giving him a little more material to speak on. It sounds like he really didn't need it though. haha I can not believe it's actually time for him to go into the MTC! Time is flying by and I am just so excited for him! I wish I could have heard from him this morning to see how everything's going but I remember how chaotic those last few days can be haha. Brady is going to love it! The people, the language, and even more the Gospel and Our Father in Heaven and Savior who presented it to us. It is amazing to me thinking about what I thought I knew and appreciated before my mission about Jesus Christ and that His Gospel and Church meant to me. I know now that I really hadn't even begun to understand and feel the true magnitude of what I've been apart of my entire life. Now even though I try to immerse myself in it each and every day I still don't quite comprehend all there is about God's infinite love for us and the eternal sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, outlined and made manifest by the Plan of Salvation to all of mankind. I'm not entirely sure that I will ever understand and comprehend it all, but what I do know is that I don't have to know it all. As long as I continue to strengthen myself spiritually through the cleansing and enabling power of Christ's Atonement that comes from renewing and fulfilling my covenants that I can do better. That there is hope in a world that doesn't offer much of it. There are going to be times and there have been times that I have felt overwhelmed like there isn't much help for me or much more that I think I can do, but it's when we continue to press forward with faith through those times when we aren't certain how things will turn out that we can look back and see the Lord strengthen us and ease our burdens just like Alma and his people or with Lehi and Nephi when they were thrown into prison. That's why I have loved being able to learn from The Book of Mormon just how applicable those teachings are and the real perception check that the experiences of other people can give to me about my own problems and challenges. You will come to love the Book of Mormon, Brady, and the teachings of enabling power that Christ will give to us. You are going to need that throughout your whole mission in every phase of the work. Learn to love what you're going to do and realize that you have been anxiously waiting for the past few months to go to Germany but you have talked about and anticipated going on a mission to serve the Lord for the last probably 11 or so years. I say that because I know for me I didn't keep that vision and understanding when I first came out. I wasn't look forward to what I could learn and experience and what the Lord was trying to teach me. Once I realized that I had talked about and waited for 19 years to be out here and that I'd only have 2 years to be on this mission with rest of eternity to think about it I knew that I needed to live up every moment because it would never come again. The things that you learn Brady will be such an amazing blessing for you that I can't even begin to describe! I'm sure you've gotten a lot of advice along the same lines as this, but I know that if you go into this looking forward to every chance and take every opportunity placed before you you will be happy and return home with honor. It's hard work serving a mission and is unlike anything you have ever or will ever do and that's by design. If there wasn't and stretching and testing there ultimately could be no growth. Work hard but look for chance to laugh and have fun. That's one thing Elder Dalrymple and I do a lot of and it's the only way to survive. There is a positive to it all but sometimes it takes a little work and searching to find it. Obedience will be the key to you receiving these blessings and being happy, and just know that the Lord is going to bless you, just as he does all of us, for our best most earnest efforts. You success comes from your own inward effort and commitment and sometimes not so much of the outward results that are a consequence of it! I want you all to know how much and I love and appreciate all of you. I know that the family is ordained of God and that His marvelous plan enables us to return to live in His presence forever and to do it together. I know that The Book of Mormon is true. That the teachings in their will and do draw us closer to the Savior as we read from and apply it's teachings. I know that Joseph Smith was the Prophet to translate that and restore Christ's original church and kingdom to the Earth again. I know that this Church is headed by and lead by Jesus Christ through chosen prophets and apostles today and that their counsel will lead us to Christ even more. I love sharing this with other people each and everyday and know you will too Brady. Be excited about what's ahead for you. It's a big step but one that you will be forever grateful that you took. I love you Brady and I'm going to miss not seeing you for a little while but I know that there's not better place for us to be and no better time for us to be there than now! Good luck and I look forward to hearing from you as you enter the MTC this week. You are going to love it there! Once you get to good old Deutschland find Elder Chambers and give him a nice hello for me and my address so that guy can write me back haha. Let me know anything that I can do for you!
Even though a large majority of that if not almost all of it was directed to Brady I just want everyone else to know how much I love being out here! It's so good to hear that everyone had such a great time last week and that Dad took it easy on everyone Saturday ;) haha. I'm glad you made it through Minneapolis safely Nick. I was think of that Friday as we were over by the airport maybe 10 minutes away going to see some people. I don't know what you were talking about with cold though we've been in short sleeves all week haha. I'm hoping that means I'm somewhat acclimating to the colder weather. We'll see I guess.
We had a great week here with a couple investigators coming to church yesterday and the one we sat by really enjoyed it. He's an amazing man that is such a blessing to be able to know and work with. We are really excited about the progress he's making, along with most of our other investigators, and the amazing work going on here. That same guy we sat by is also taking us to a Timberwolves game this week. Their last one of the season, so we're pretty excited about that. We never thought it would get approved so we didn't even try asking President Clements if we could go. We were just talking to him about this guy a couple weeks ago and said he'd mentioned taking us to a game possibly and before we even finished the sentence President said, "well that'd be fine", so we were nonetheless shocked but super excited to go. Hopefully we get some good pictures that I can send to you.
With those people we did have come to church we are working really hard with them and like I said they are growing a lot in their testimonies. It's not going to be quick by any means but we are hoping to have some baptisms coming in the next month or so we're hopeful for what is happening here! The Lord is really blessing us and the ward is getting more and more excited so good things are happening and will be increasing here in Bloomington.
I can't believe that it's almost Mother's Day too! Man time really is just screaming by. I'm trying to figure out if Elder Dalrymple and I can just Skype at the mission office with the webcams that we have or if we'd need to do a member's house. I'm guessing a member's house but either way I'll need to get your username for sure. I think it was --------- but I can't remember for sure. That is if everyone wants to Skype. Just let me know next week.
Well I hope all goes well this next few days. Just know I love and appreciate all that you do for me. I pray for you always and feel your love and prayers with me. i can't wait to talk to you again!
Love, Elder (Minnesota) Craft-- I figure that's going to have to be me new signature with there being two Elder Crafts now haha :)
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
I'm So Popular!
Hello Crafts!
Sorry that I wasn't able to write to you yesterday and that I don't have much time to respond today. I appreciate so much all the emails, love, and support from all of you! Yesterday was I think the first or second time of my whole mission that I got an email from every single one of you. Seven emails makes it a pretty good day and one that's busy with responses. haha Hopefully I can answer all your questions too.
This week was pretty crazy with the transfer and different training meetings all going on. We unfortunately didn't have as much success in the proselyting effort but the meetings all ran fairly smoothly, so that was a blessing. We have a lot of good appointments set this week and are looking forward to a big improvement from last week. We have some new people we were able to find from our Area Book that used to investigate a few years ago but were dropped for no apparent reason. It's s family of 4 that seem really promising and one we're excited to teach again. We also are having a lesson tonight with a woman who came to church Sunday because she works at a group home and the guys she had to come help was blessing the sacrament. I'm not really sure what disability he has but it was great to see him do that. It reminded me of Colton Smith and how willing, able, and excited he is to do anything that he can to use the priesthood he's been given. It was a really cool experience. We talked to this lady after and she told us she's not a member and was wondering what was different about out church. So with President Clements standing there we set up the appointment to teach her at the mission home tonight. We're pretty excited and hoping it all goes well.
Things here are going so great and the Lord is really blessing us! The weather has been a little different more recently. We were sweating Sunday night with 75 degrees and 70-80% humidity and then yesterday morning we woke up with it snowing! It was a real shock but hopefully the weather keeps improving like it has been today haha.
I'm so excited for Brady and looking forward to hearing how it goes this weekend! It's crazy it's already time but such an exciting change too. I hope everyone is able to make it and have a great time. You'll have to tell all the family hello for me.
Like I said sorry that this is so short, but I hope that all is well and I can talk to you soon. Thanks for all you guys do! You're the best!
Love, Elder Alex Craft
Sorry that I wasn't able to write to you yesterday and that I don't have much time to respond today. I appreciate so much all the emails, love, and support from all of you! Yesterday was I think the first or second time of my whole mission that I got an email from every single one of you. Seven emails makes it a pretty good day and one that's busy with responses. haha Hopefully I can answer all your questions too.
This week was pretty crazy with the transfer and different training meetings all going on. We unfortunately didn't have as much success in the proselyting effort but the meetings all ran fairly smoothly, so that was a blessing. We have a lot of good appointments set this week and are looking forward to a big improvement from last week. We have some new people we were able to find from our Area Book that used to investigate a few years ago but were dropped for no apparent reason. It's s family of 4 that seem really promising and one we're excited to teach again. We also are having a lesson tonight with a woman who came to church Sunday because she works at a group home and the guys she had to come help was blessing the sacrament. I'm not really sure what disability he has but it was great to see him do that. It reminded me of Colton Smith and how willing, able, and excited he is to do anything that he can to use the priesthood he's been given. It was a really cool experience. We talked to this lady after and she told us she's not a member and was wondering what was different about out church. So with President Clements standing there we set up the appointment to teach her at the mission home tonight. We're pretty excited and hoping it all goes well.
Things here are going so great and the Lord is really blessing us! The weather has been a little different more recently. We were sweating Sunday night with 75 degrees and 70-80% humidity and then yesterday morning we woke up with it snowing! It was a real shock but hopefully the weather keeps improving like it has been today haha.
I'm so excited for Brady and looking forward to hearing how it goes this weekend! It's crazy it's already time but such an exciting change too. I hope everyone is able to make it and have a great time. You'll have to tell all the family hello for me.
Like I said sorry that this is so short, but I hope that all is well and I can talk to you soon. Thanks for all you guys do! You're the best!
Love, Elder Alex Craft
Monday, April 9, 2012
Easter Was Fantastic!
Dear Family,
How's everything out in good old Utah? Easter for us here in Bloomington was fantastic! It sounds like you all had an amazingly beautifully Spring Day just like us. We had an amazing Sacrament Meeting with a lot of musical numbers and great talks on the Atonement. We have recently been studying over the last month with a bunch of different talks and scriptures about the Atonement as a mission like I said last week, and it is so amazing to me how infinite that is! It is the greatest blessing I know in my life to have the Atonement and the hope that that brings to all our lives. We had a chance to discuss this in our Gospel Principles class yesterday and when we all started to share our definition of the Atonement and what that means to us I talked about that same principle of hope that is universal to all because of the love of Christ. In one of the talks I recently read by Elder Holland he talked about the hope that we all have because the tomb was empty for Christ that it will one day be empty for us as well. That is a concept I had heard all growing up and believe in but one that I never really thought about in that context. We have an investigator now working to get baptized who is disabled with a disease called LS or something like that. It's similar to Lou Gehrig's Disease and is a very frustrating thing for him to have to deal with on a day to day basis, but the love and hope that the doctrine of the Atonement and resurrection will bring into his life will literally change his whole outlook on his situation and essentially change his life. It's so amazing to me hos central that doctrine is to all the other things we teach in the church and what we do as missionaries. It's no wonder that that one event is the meridian of all time for all of human history. I am so thankful for that hope that it brings into my life!
This week has been so great for us by way of investigators too. We have been in the building process combining our two areas still, but we have recently found a lot of great potential investigators and are working with some great people who we are excited to see progress. We had a few of them show up to church yesterday and they really enjoyed the meetings. It's crazy to think it's another transfer gone, but we are looking forward to what can happen here in the next few weeks and are also hoping that this transfer doesn't fly by like this last one.
I'm glad that some of you got to meet the Youngs and that my package made it home. Sorry it took so long to get to you, Brady and Camie, but when the chance to save some money by hand delivering it came up I waited a couple days to send it that way. I'm glad that you liked it so much. It was almost as great as what Nick sent to me. Once I get a chance I'll have to take a picture to send so you can see it. haha
Sorry there's not much else to write about, but it was so great to hear from all of you! I love you and pray for you always. Thanks for all your love and support! I look forward to hearing from you again.
Love, Elder Craft
How's everything out in good old Utah? Easter for us here in Bloomington was fantastic! It sounds like you all had an amazingly beautifully Spring Day just like us. We had an amazing Sacrament Meeting with a lot of musical numbers and great talks on the Atonement. We have recently been studying over the last month with a bunch of different talks and scriptures about the Atonement as a mission like I said last week, and it is so amazing to me how infinite that is! It is the greatest blessing I know in my life to have the Atonement and the hope that that brings to all our lives. We had a chance to discuss this in our Gospel Principles class yesterday and when we all started to share our definition of the Atonement and what that means to us I talked about that same principle of hope that is universal to all because of the love of Christ. In one of the talks I recently read by Elder Holland he talked about the hope that we all have because the tomb was empty for Christ that it will one day be empty for us as well. That is a concept I had heard all growing up and believe in but one that I never really thought about in that context. We have an investigator now working to get baptized who is disabled with a disease called LS or something like that. It's similar to Lou Gehrig's Disease and is a very frustrating thing for him to have to deal with on a day to day basis, but the love and hope that the doctrine of the Atonement and resurrection will bring into his life will literally change his whole outlook on his situation and essentially change his life. It's so amazing to me hos central that doctrine is to all the other things we teach in the church and what we do as missionaries. It's no wonder that that one event is the meridian of all time for all of human history. I am so thankful for that hope that it brings into my life!
This week has been so great for us by way of investigators too. We have been in the building process combining our two areas still, but we have recently found a lot of great potential investigators and are working with some great people who we are excited to see progress. We had a few of them show up to church yesterday and they really enjoyed the meetings. It's crazy to think it's another transfer gone, but we are looking forward to what can happen here in the next few weeks and are also hoping that this transfer doesn't fly by like this last one.
I'm glad that some of you got to meet the Youngs and that my package made it home. Sorry it took so long to get to you, Brady and Camie, but when the chance to save some money by hand delivering it came up I waited a couple days to send it that way. I'm glad that you liked it so much. It was almost as great as what Nick sent to me. Once I get a chance I'll have to take a picture to send so you can see it. haha
Sorry there's not much else to write about, but it was so great to hear from all of you! I love you and pray for you always. Thanks for all your love and support! I look forward to hearing from you again.
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, March 26, 2012
Just a Quick "Hello"
Dear Craft Family,
Sorry that there's not a lot of time or things to talk about this week. We've been staying super busy and I cannot believe how the time is flying! Elder Dalrymple and I were talking about this yesterday that transfer calls are already 2 weeks from today. We just can't believe it! We are having so much fun and loving all the people that we have to work with here and the things that we get to do.
We are at an interesting point here in this area trying to build up with what we have in our teaching pool and trying to find new people to add to it. There are a lot of good people and like I said before a wide variety of area to work in, so we know that there are people here ready to hear the gospel and come to Christ but we are trying to figure out what the best way to find them is. Whether it's starting over and building the teaching pool new or trying to work with those that we have. Nothing too big or exciting to report as of yet, but great things will start to come and that's what we're looking forward to seeing here.
In other not so exciting news the weather here has been pretty amazing. We've had our Spring start off very warm and mild with some crazy thunderstorms last week. This week we are scheduled to have storms and rain all week which is always fun. Especially if I get to ride my bike through it like last year haha.
Sorry this is a really lame and short email. We had a good training this week from President Clements with a couple other zones kind of like a mini zone conference, so that was fun. We didn't have to do any training for that meeting really just the logistics of it. Even though there's not too much happening to talk about for us here right now this weekend was an amazing one for the mission with what has to be a record high of 27 baptisms just this past Saturday and Sunday. That means we'll end with 45 baptisms! For only 4 weekends that's a great month of people coming unto Christ. So even though we haven't been doing the best most recently in that regard the mission is doing fantastic and it's s great time to be serving here in the MMM! :)
I love and miss all of you! Thank you for all your support and all that you do for me! You're the greatest and I can't wait to hear from you again!
Love, Elder Craft
Sorry that there's not a lot of time or things to talk about this week. We've been staying super busy and I cannot believe how the time is flying! Elder Dalrymple and I were talking about this yesterday that transfer calls are already 2 weeks from today. We just can't believe it! We are having so much fun and loving all the people that we have to work with here and the things that we get to do.
We are at an interesting point here in this area trying to build up with what we have in our teaching pool and trying to find new people to add to it. There are a lot of good people and like I said before a wide variety of area to work in, so we know that there are people here ready to hear the gospel and come to Christ but we are trying to figure out what the best way to find them is. Whether it's starting over and building the teaching pool new or trying to work with those that we have. Nothing too big or exciting to report as of yet, but great things will start to come and that's what we're looking forward to seeing here.
In other not so exciting news the weather here has been pretty amazing. We've had our Spring start off very warm and mild with some crazy thunderstorms last week. This week we are scheduled to have storms and rain all week which is always fun. Especially if I get to ride my bike through it like last year haha.
Sorry this is a really lame and short email. We had a good training this week from President Clements with a couple other zones kind of like a mini zone conference, so that was fun. We didn't have to do any training for that meeting really just the logistics of it. Even though there's not too much happening to talk about for us here right now this weekend was an amazing one for the mission with what has to be a record high of 27 baptisms just this past Saturday and Sunday. That means we'll end with 45 baptisms! For only 4 weekends that's a great month of people coming unto Christ. So even though we haven't been doing the best most recently in that regard the mission is doing fantastic and it's s great time to be serving here in the MMM! :)
I love and miss all of you! Thank you for all your support and all that you do for me! You're the greatest and I can't wait to hear from you again!
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, March 19, 2012
Great Weather and Work
Hello family,
This week for us here seemed to just scream by! I can't believe that it's Monday again! We had a really great week staying busy trying to get in contact and teach all those people that we have since we combined areas in the ward. We were able to teach a little more this week and have a Part Member family that we're working with that have some great potential! The husband is not a member but has been coming for a little while now with his wife and their two kids because she's a primary teacher for the 4 year old class. There kids are pretty crazy sometimes but so stinkin cute. They have a little 4 year old daughter and 1 year old son that keep them pretty busy for our lessons and keep us entertained. haha It's a really great experience to be working with them and some of the other really amazing people that we have. The one cool thing that I love about this area is the crazy diversity that we cover here. We can go from the West side of the ward with part of Eden Prairie in it, and then get over into the East side by the Mall of America with the city of Richfield and get a similar experience to that of Shingle Creek. haha It's nice to have that broad spectrum and knowing that I've had experiences at both ends of it with some of my different areas. That's one of the great things about my mission that I've come to realize I took for granted at the very beginning was just the amount and variety of different people I get to meet and talk to. It's a really cool experience that you can't really have anywhere else.
The weather here has been completely unbelievable! We have been in the 70 degree plus range for the past 4 days! Everyone that we talk to here is amazed and most of the native Minnesotans have never seen anything like this. I got to experience one of the most brutal winters in the state's history and one of the most mild. We don't have any snow left and from what I've been hearing it doesn't seem like there's any more that we can expect for at least the next little while. Sounds like Utah has had some pretty nice weather too. Probably not as nice as what some people have down in Miami right now but pretty good considering. haha
I am so excited about Memphis Rose! That's so exciting I'll get to meet to new little nieces and listen to Brandt talk now! A lot of big exciting changes all around, but for what I hear it all seems to be going great!
We had a meeting last week for all the new missionaries that just came in 2 weeks ago. I couldn't believe that ti's already been that long! We did some training for about an hour of it and had a great time. I think that I had mentioned before that we now go on exchanges with all the new missionaries and their trainers within the first transfer, so that kept us pretty busy doing 2 of those last week as well. The new missionaries we got are so awesome and are really a benefit to have in this mission. The next group is coming on April 11th so we're looking forward to finish up exchanges with all the current ones and getting to know the new group coming in shortly. One of the trainers in the mission now is one that came out in June with my old companion Elder Haupt. His name is Elder Checketts and we worked together for the day of their exchange. Come to find out he played soccer for Woods Cross and Nike Rush so we played each other in high school and for club. He also knows Josh Miles from my La Roca team, and with the last name like Checketts just as I expected his uncle is the one who owns Real Salt Lake. He said he's going to take me to some games when he gets home from his mission. It was pretty sweet to make all of those connections working with him for one day haha.
Sorry there's not much else to report on as far as investigators and proselyting for this week. We're working hard to increase and change that. I haven't seen Elder Mead recently but I know he and his companion in Cottage Grove are tearing it up. It's exciting to see all the good work that they're doing. We had our monthly Mission President's fireside last night in the mission home and got to hear the testimonies of a Nepalese guy that's a convert from North St. Paul and Jordan and Scooter N. from the Eden Prairie Ward. It was so great for us as the missionaries and all the investigators there to hear their amazing testimonies. It was great to see those 2 guys again too!
I think that's about all for this week. I can't wait to hear how everyone's doing next week. Hopefully it doesn't sneak up as fast on us as this last one. haha I love and pray for you always. Thanks for all your love and support!
Love, Elder Craft
This week for us here seemed to just scream by! I can't believe that it's Monday again! We had a really great week staying busy trying to get in contact and teach all those people that we have since we combined areas in the ward. We were able to teach a little more this week and have a Part Member family that we're working with that have some great potential! The husband is not a member but has been coming for a little while now with his wife and their two kids because she's a primary teacher for the 4 year old class. There kids are pretty crazy sometimes but so stinkin cute. They have a little 4 year old daughter and 1 year old son that keep them pretty busy for our lessons and keep us entertained. haha It's a really great experience to be working with them and some of the other really amazing people that we have. The one cool thing that I love about this area is the crazy diversity that we cover here. We can go from the West side of the ward with part of Eden Prairie in it, and then get over into the East side by the Mall of America with the city of Richfield and get a similar experience to that of Shingle Creek. haha It's nice to have that broad spectrum and knowing that I've had experiences at both ends of it with some of my different areas. That's one of the great things about my mission that I've come to realize I took for granted at the very beginning was just the amount and variety of different people I get to meet and talk to. It's a really cool experience that you can't really have anywhere else.
The weather here has been completely unbelievable! We have been in the 70 degree plus range for the past 4 days! Everyone that we talk to here is amazed and most of the native Minnesotans have never seen anything like this. I got to experience one of the most brutal winters in the state's history and one of the most mild. We don't have any snow left and from what I've been hearing it doesn't seem like there's any more that we can expect for at least the next little while. Sounds like Utah has had some pretty nice weather too. Probably not as nice as what some people have down in Miami right now but pretty good considering. haha
I am so excited about Memphis Rose! That's so exciting I'll get to meet to new little nieces and listen to Brandt talk now! A lot of big exciting changes all around, but for what I hear it all seems to be going great!
We had a meeting last week for all the new missionaries that just came in 2 weeks ago. I couldn't believe that ti's already been that long! We did some training for about an hour of it and had a great time. I think that I had mentioned before that we now go on exchanges with all the new missionaries and their trainers within the first transfer, so that kept us pretty busy doing 2 of those last week as well. The new missionaries we got are so awesome and are really a benefit to have in this mission. The next group is coming on April 11th so we're looking forward to finish up exchanges with all the current ones and getting to know the new group coming in shortly. One of the trainers in the mission now is one that came out in June with my old companion Elder Haupt. His name is Elder Checketts and we worked together for the day of their exchange. Come to find out he played soccer for Woods Cross and Nike Rush so we played each other in high school and for club. He also knows Josh Miles from my La Roca team, and with the last name like Checketts just as I expected his uncle is the one who owns Real Salt Lake. He said he's going to take me to some games when he gets home from his mission. It was pretty sweet to make all of those connections working with him for one day haha.
Sorry there's not much else to report on as far as investigators and proselyting for this week. We're working hard to increase and change that. I haven't seen Elder Mead recently but I know he and his companion in Cottage Grove are tearing it up. It's exciting to see all the good work that they're doing. We had our monthly Mission President's fireside last night in the mission home and got to hear the testimonies of a Nepalese guy that's a convert from North St. Paul and Jordan and Scooter N. from the Eden Prairie Ward. It was so great for us as the missionaries and all the investigators there to hear their amazing testimonies. It was great to see those 2 guys again too!
I think that's about all for this week. I can't wait to hear how everyone's doing next week. Hopefully it doesn't sneak up as fast on us as this last one. haha I love and pray for you always. Thanks for all your love and support!
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, March 12, 2012
Crazy Week
Hey Family,
It sounds like everyone had a crazy week just like us. Well ok maybe not too crazy but it seems like it did fly by for everyone else too! It's so crazy to us here how fast time has already seemed too fly by! This week was a particularly hectic one for us! I know I seem to say almost every week that "this week was crazy", but for this week we had a lot of stuff come up on us. Crazy stuff that we couldn't really predict happen within the mission along with still trying to coordinate our 2 areas into the ward so we can be more effective teaching everyone that we have to teach. There's so much potential here and we are working with some really awesome people! It's great to have Elder Dalrymple here with me. We are working really hard and trying to find time to sleep between it all haha. I don't know if I told you already that Elder Dalrymple started his mission here on the East side of the ward? That's another great thing with him being here; he knows most of the people in the ward and a lot of the people that the East Elders were working with are the ones that he taught at the beginning of his mission. I guess in a sense that's a good and bad thing. Good because he knows him and they remember him, but bad because they haven't really gone that far in 18 months. We are excited like I said for the success that we are looking forward to and expecting here.
We had that visit with the missionary department and had a great night out teaching with Brother Lusvardi, who I remembered spoke at the MTC while I was there on a Sunday night. It was kind of cool to talk to him about the talk he gave and that I got to listen to. We had some great training on Wednesday from he and Elder Woodruff. Those days that they were here seemed to be the craziest for our week. Not only the things that we had to do and challenges that came up,but the weather was crazy too. The good crazy though, so you don't have to worry Mom haha. It was sun shining and 50's the whole time and on Saturday it was up at 60-65 degrees all day! We could hardly believe it! No complaints from me though. If Spring's coming early rather than late like last year I won't be too downtrodden haha. It's so crazy that it's General Conference already in 3 weeks! We are looking forward to that!
Sorry there's not much else to talk about this week. We are having a great time and working hard while we do it! Thanks for all you guys do for me. All your effort in writing to and supporting me. I really do appreciate it. Your love and support means so much to me. Thanks for the prayers too. I look forward to talking to you next week.
Love, Elder Craft
It sounds like everyone had a crazy week just like us. Well ok maybe not too crazy but it seems like it did fly by for everyone else too! It's so crazy to us here how fast time has already seemed too fly by! This week was a particularly hectic one for us! I know I seem to say almost every week that "this week was crazy", but for this week we had a lot of stuff come up on us. Crazy stuff that we couldn't really predict happen within the mission along with still trying to coordinate our 2 areas into the ward so we can be more effective teaching everyone that we have to teach. There's so much potential here and we are working with some really awesome people! It's great to have Elder Dalrymple here with me. We are working really hard and trying to find time to sleep between it all haha. I don't know if I told you already that Elder Dalrymple started his mission here on the East side of the ward? That's another great thing with him being here; he knows most of the people in the ward and a lot of the people that the East Elders were working with are the ones that he taught at the beginning of his mission. I guess in a sense that's a good and bad thing. Good because he knows him and they remember him, but bad because they haven't really gone that far in 18 months. We are excited like I said for the success that we are looking forward to and expecting here.
We had that visit with the missionary department and had a great night out teaching with Brother Lusvardi, who I remembered spoke at the MTC while I was there on a Sunday night. It was kind of cool to talk to him about the talk he gave and that I got to listen to. We had some great training on Wednesday from he and Elder Woodruff. Those days that they were here seemed to be the craziest for our week. Not only the things that we had to do and challenges that came up,but the weather was crazy too. The good crazy though, so you don't have to worry Mom haha. It was sun shining and 50's the whole time and on Saturday it was up at 60-65 degrees all day! We could hardly believe it! No complaints from me though. If Spring's coming early rather than late like last year I won't be too downtrodden haha. It's so crazy that it's General Conference already in 3 weeks! We are looking forward to that!
Sorry there's not much else to talk about this week. We are having a great time and working hard while we do it! Thanks for all you guys do for me. All your effort in writing to and supporting me. I really do appreciate it. Your love and support means so much to me. Thanks for the prayers too. I look forward to talking to you next week.
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, March 5, 2012
Downsizing
Dear Crafts,
This week was kind of a crazy one for us too. But that's kind of typical for missionary work. Talking to any random stranger you can, if you're lucky going into their house, and explaining to them how Christ loves them and has shown His love through a Prophet and modern revelation all with a book of scripture that they can just read to feel a difference in their life. It all sounds pretty nuts if I put it that way, but that's why I love it. Sometimes I find myself losing focus of what we really are here to do and how miraculous it really if that it ever works. The Lord definitely guides this work and it's so awesome being a part of it!
The weather sounds like good old typical Utah for us. haha Here in Minnesota it's been pretty nuts too. Last week like I mentioned we were planning for tranfers and getting all that finalized, but that's when we found out about the storm coming right for us. It was suppose to hit Tuesday afternoon and continue through Wednesday evening bringing 18 inches of snow and freezing ice with it. It would have been sweet with a ton of service opportunities as a missionary, but not so fun for everyone else. The bad part was the timing of it all too because our transfer day at the mission home is usually Wednesday morning into the afternoon and we go to take the departing missionaries and pick up the arriving ones at the airport all in that time. It's a crazy schedule with good weather, so this storm was going to throw a realy wrench in our plans. President decided to err on the safe side and postpone transfers until Thursday to avoid everyone trying to travel in that storm. It did come on Tuesday but it wasn't anything too bad. Wednesday morning when we woke up to take the 10 departing missionaries that'd spent the night in our apartment to breakfast at the mission home before the airport we saw the nice coat of nice on eveything that had formed with a couple new inches of snow. Needless to say I drove the big 12 passenger van full of missionaries with the cargo trailer full of their luggage to the airport as cautiously as I could. Good news is that I, as well as the 10 departing and 16 arriving missionaries, survived the roads and storm over those two days that only brought a few inches of snow and ice that has since melted down and mostly away. Despite moving the transfer to Thursday to avoid the problem with the storm we had another challenge come up Tuesday morning in the form of a funeral on Thursday at the chapel right next to the mission home and the family wanting to keep it private and dignified with no missionaries allowed during the 5-6 event. So we worked like crazy to move the transfer location now along with the time up to the Minneapolis Stake Center in Crystal so we could have the transfer and meetings for the trainers and trainees there as well. It seemed do go off without too many problems. It was an interesting experience for me and Elder Dalrymple taking those 10 missionaries to the airport to go home. They were all laughing and joking all on Tuesday and Wednesday morning even until we pulled up at the airport. Almost immediately you could see everyone's expression change. It got really quiet and all of them looked white and nervous. It was a crazy experience to see reality hit with them of actually going home, and when Elder Dalrymple and I were talking about it after it's definitely something I'm not looking forward to. haha Along with all the crazy coordination and logistics of transfers the Elders that used to cover the East Bloomington area, the other half of our ward, got transferred out so that we now cover the entire ward. It was funny at church yesterday to see people's reaction when the ward went from 5 missionaries last week to 2 this week. It's going to be a lot more work, but that also means a lot more teaching. We need to build a model area for the mission and that's what we're hoping to do with new and more people to teach and a larger area. When Elder Zwick of the 70 came on mission tour in October he changed up our exchanges so that we no longer do them with Zone Leaders, but now we bring all new missionaries and their trainers here to Bloomington for a day to work and train with us here. That's another reason we have to make a model area because of all the exchanges we'll be doing. We're going to have 8 new missionaries and their trainers coming on exchanges here within the next 6 weeks. It's going to be awesome! We got some really great missionaries that are going to build the mission so much.
We also have a cool experience this week of having two members from the missionary department Brother Lusvardi and Brother Woodruff come out to do some training with President to all the District Leaders and Zone Leaders on Thursday. We also get to have Brother Lusvardi come joint teaching with us all Tuesday night. I'm not going to lie I'm kind of nervous but pumped at the same time. It's going to be sweet I just hope that all our appointments we've been trying to stack for that night go through. haha
With all of that going on this week there hasn't been much else to report on. haha That's too bad to hear about some of the health struggles you guys are having, but I'll be praying for you. I appreciate all your love and support that you guys give to me! I look forward to talking to you all again soon!
Love, Elder Craft
This week was kind of a crazy one for us too. But that's kind of typical for missionary work. Talking to any random stranger you can, if you're lucky going into their house, and explaining to them how Christ loves them and has shown His love through a Prophet and modern revelation all with a book of scripture that they can just read to feel a difference in their life. It all sounds pretty nuts if I put it that way, but that's why I love it. Sometimes I find myself losing focus of what we really are here to do and how miraculous it really if that it ever works. The Lord definitely guides this work and it's so awesome being a part of it!
The weather sounds like good old typical Utah for us. haha Here in Minnesota it's been pretty nuts too. Last week like I mentioned we were planning for tranfers and getting all that finalized, but that's when we found out about the storm coming right for us. It was suppose to hit Tuesday afternoon and continue through Wednesday evening bringing 18 inches of snow and freezing ice with it. It would have been sweet with a ton of service opportunities as a missionary, but not so fun for everyone else. The bad part was the timing of it all too because our transfer day at the mission home is usually Wednesday morning into the afternoon and we go to take the departing missionaries and pick up the arriving ones at the airport all in that time. It's a crazy schedule with good weather, so this storm was going to throw a realy wrench in our plans. President decided to err on the safe side and postpone transfers until Thursday to avoid everyone trying to travel in that storm. It did come on Tuesday but it wasn't anything too bad. Wednesday morning when we woke up to take the 10 departing missionaries that'd spent the night in our apartment to breakfast at the mission home before the airport we saw the nice coat of nice on eveything that had formed with a couple new inches of snow. Needless to say I drove the big 12 passenger van full of missionaries with the cargo trailer full of their luggage to the airport as cautiously as I could. Good news is that I, as well as the 10 departing and 16 arriving missionaries, survived the roads and storm over those two days that only brought a few inches of snow and ice that has since melted down and mostly away. Despite moving the transfer to Thursday to avoid the problem with the storm we had another challenge come up Tuesday morning in the form of a funeral on Thursday at the chapel right next to the mission home and the family wanting to keep it private and dignified with no missionaries allowed during the 5-6 event. So we worked like crazy to move the transfer location now along with the time up to the Minneapolis Stake Center in Crystal so we could have the transfer and meetings for the trainers and trainees there as well. It seemed do go off without too many problems. It was an interesting experience for me and Elder Dalrymple taking those 10 missionaries to the airport to go home. They were all laughing and joking all on Tuesday and Wednesday morning even until we pulled up at the airport. Almost immediately you could see everyone's expression change. It got really quiet and all of them looked white and nervous. It was a crazy experience to see reality hit with them of actually going home, and when Elder Dalrymple and I were talking about it after it's definitely something I'm not looking forward to. haha Along with all the crazy coordination and logistics of transfers the Elders that used to cover the East Bloomington area, the other half of our ward, got transferred out so that we now cover the entire ward. It was funny at church yesterday to see people's reaction when the ward went from 5 missionaries last week to 2 this week. It's going to be a lot more work, but that also means a lot more teaching. We need to build a model area for the mission and that's what we're hoping to do with new and more people to teach and a larger area. When Elder Zwick of the 70 came on mission tour in October he changed up our exchanges so that we no longer do them with Zone Leaders, but now we bring all new missionaries and their trainers here to Bloomington for a day to work and train with us here. That's another reason we have to make a model area because of all the exchanges we'll be doing. We're going to have 8 new missionaries and their trainers coming on exchanges here within the next 6 weeks. It's going to be awesome! We got some really great missionaries that are going to build the mission so much.
We also have a cool experience this week of having two members from the missionary department Brother Lusvardi and Brother Woodruff come out to do some training with President to all the District Leaders and Zone Leaders on Thursday. We also get to have Brother Lusvardi come joint teaching with us all Tuesday night. I'm not going to lie I'm kind of nervous but pumped at the same time. It's going to be sweet I just hope that all our appointments we've been trying to stack for that night go through. haha
With all of that going on this week there hasn't been much else to report on. haha That's too bad to hear about some of the health struggles you guys are having, but I'll be praying for you. I appreciate all your love and support that you guys give to me! I look forward to talking to you all again soon!
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, February 27, 2012
Mmmm, Chocolate!
Dear Everyone,
This week has been amazing! Sorry there won't be much time to report today in the midst of transfers. We've been doing calls this morning, so I'm finding some time to write in our shifts of calling the teams haha. We had some meetings with President Clements this week just about transfers and other things that we needed to get done. So this last week and the next few days are going to be a little hectic. No matter what happens though I know that my hand won't be cold because of the package of hand warmers you all sent me. Thank you so much for that package! It means a lot that you guys were thinking of me and my hands. I really appreciate all your love and support you constantly give to me! Beside the transfer stuff we had a really good proselyting week. We were able to pick up 5 new investigator. There's a couple new people that have family members that are members of the church we are working with now and are really excited about. We found an amazing new family of 3 tracting this last week that we were able to go back and teach. The night that we tracted into them the father was super nice to us and the son was actually watching a cartoon of the miracles of Christ's life on TV. They are basically members of the church already haha. They have Greg Olsen's painting of the Savior with the child on his lap and that one of Christ you told me about, Mom, and sent me those stamps of from when you were in primary framed and hanging on their walls. They were some of the nicest people I've met and been able to teach. They called us the 3 wise men when we showed up and had bought us each a package of Lindor chocolates! Something all you chocolate fans can appreciate and understand how awesome they are just for that fact alone. haha ;) We're really excited to teach them and expect some great things to happen here in our ward.
Transfers are today for the whole mission, but Elder Crepeau and Elder Lo got their transfer calls on Friday. Elder Crepeau is going back to central Minneapolis Spanish and Elder Lo is going to the Minneapolis Hmong area for the last 2 transfers of my mission. It's sad that they are leaving. We had such a great transfer together and were constantly laughing. It's hard to believe that it's already been a whole transfer almost here with them. We weren't sure who my new companion would be, but President called him on Friday and we picked him up last night. His name is Elder Dalrymple from Orem, Ut. He's been serving in Lakeville as a Zone Leader for the past few transfers. He played basketball for Snow College back in Utah so he's probably my only other companion that I've had that can dunk or touch the rim even. He's a great missionary that I'm really excited to work with! Even though we don't have Zone Conferences this transfer we have a bunch of specialized trainings we'll need to do. Normally in this ward we are the West missionaries that cover the West half of the ward, and there's a set of missionaries that cover the East part. Pretty self explanatory I know, but the reason I say that is because this transfer President has decided to close East Bloomington so Elder Dalrymple and I will cover the whole ward now. It's going to be a lot more to cover and a lot more work but that will bring a lot more success and a lot more of the miracles that we've seen. There's going to be a lot of exciting things happening here and I'm excited to be apart of it all. We have 10 missionaries going home and 17 coming in all on Wednesday that we get to pick up and drop off. In the group of 17 there's 8 new Sisters coming out. It should be a lot of fun haha.
Sorry there's not much more to say. I hope all is well. Just know that I love and pray for you always. Thanks for all that you do for me!
Love, Elder Craft
This week has been amazing! Sorry there won't be much time to report today in the midst of transfers. We've been doing calls this morning, so I'm finding some time to write in our shifts of calling the teams haha. We had some meetings with President Clements this week just about transfers and other things that we needed to get done. So this last week and the next few days are going to be a little hectic. No matter what happens though I know that my hand won't be cold because of the package of hand warmers you all sent me. Thank you so much for that package! It means a lot that you guys were thinking of me and my hands. I really appreciate all your love and support you constantly give to me! Beside the transfer stuff we had a really good proselyting week. We were able to pick up 5 new investigator. There's a couple new people that have family members that are members of the church we are working with now and are really excited about. We found an amazing new family of 3 tracting this last week that we were able to go back and teach. The night that we tracted into them the father was super nice to us and the son was actually watching a cartoon of the miracles of Christ's life on TV. They are basically members of the church already haha. They have Greg Olsen's painting of the Savior with the child on his lap and that one of Christ you told me about, Mom, and sent me those stamps of from when you were in primary framed and hanging on their walls. They were some of the nicest people I've met and been able to teach. They called us the 3 wise men when we showed up and had bought us each a package of Lindor chocolates! Something all you chocolate fans can appreciate and understand how awesome they are just for that fact alone. haha ;) We're really excited to teach them and expect some great things to happen here in our ward.
Transfers are today for the whole mission, but Elder Crepeau and Elder Lo got their transfer calls on Friday. Elder Crepeau is going back to central Minneapolis Spanish and Elder Lo is going to the Minneapolis Hmong area for the last 2 transfers of my mission. It's sad that they are leaving. We had such a great transfer together and were constantly laughing. It's hard to believe that it's already been a whole transfer almost here with them. We weren't sure who my new companion would be, but President called him on Friday and we picked him up last night. His name is Elder Dalrymple from Orem, Ut. He's been serving in Lakeville as a Zone Leader for the past few transfers. He played basketball for Snow College back in Utah so he's probably my only other companion that I've had that can dunk or touch the rim even. He's a great missionary that I'm really excited to work with! Even though we don't have Zone Conferences this transfer we have a bunch of specialized trainings we'll need to do. Normally in this ward we are the West missionaries that cover the West half of the ward, and there's a set of missionaries that cover the East part. Pretty self explanatory I know, but the reason I say that is because this transfer President has decided to close East Bloomington so Elder Dalrymple and I will cover the whole ward now. It's going to be a lot more to cover and a lot more work but that will bring a lot more success and a lot more of the miracles that we've seen. There's going to be a lot of exciting things happening here and I'm excited to be apart of it all. We have 10 missionaries going home and 17 coming in all on Wednesday that we get to pick up and drop off. In the group of 17 there's 8 new Sisters coming out. It should be a lot of fun haha.
Sorry there's not much more to say. I hope all is well. Just know that I love and pray for you always. Thanks for all that you do for me!
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, February 20, 2012
Hello, My Name is Muaj Hmoo
Dear Family,
Sorry this might not be very long today. It's fun to see that most of us got a P-Day today haha. Luckily for me we email in the office so it wasn't closed. The challenge is just doing it in between the other things that we have to get done.
This last week was the last of the Zone Conferences, and they all went really well. I got to see Elder Mead finally and he's doing well. He has a great companion that is really going to help him and they're both working hard. I didn't get to tell him about Brady because like I figured his parents had told him already. He was pretty excited though.
Elder Lo, Elder Crepeau and I have been working really hard trying to teach people and find new ones to teach. We had the chance to go teach a less active Hmong family that Elder Lo knows from when they lived in his first area in St. Paul going to the Hmong Branch over there. It was great. The wife, T., but she just goes by her American name T., made us some great food, and she along with her husband, T. X., aka B. haha, gave me a Hmong name. All the missionaries here that are American but speak Hmong get a Hmong name. It's tradition for their culture I guess, so they gave me the name Muaj Hmoo. I would type how to pronounce it but I don't really know how haha it means Lucky or to have luck I guess and is a really great name that people really. B. and T. said that if they have a son that's what they're going to name him. So that was a really cool experience, but the spirit of the lesson in there was amazing! These two were super strong in the branch while they were going, but gave into the family pressure and conformed to go to their Dad's church now even though they still know the Church is true. Elder Crepeau and I basically did the most talking because Elder Lo has been over and taught them so much he wasn't sure what the next step was for them. Elder Crepeau and I got to talk about the pioneers in our families that were converts like them and how we are here now because of them. Elder Crepeau talked about his dad who joined the church when he was 22 and I talked about Grandma and Grandpa Craft specifically with them. There was such a powerful experience with an amazing spirit as we testified about the blessings of their faith and diligence and that even though it's not easy for them it wasn't easy for our relatives either, but that the blessings of it have effected us even until now. It was so cool and something that I think really blessed them. They committed to come to church next week and Elder Lo said that's the most progress they've made in a long time. It was so amazing and I really grew to love them just from the spirit that we felt there.
Tonight for the last two hours of P-Day we have a cool dinner scheduled with the Clements where Elder Lo is going to teach all of us to make egg rolls. We're pretty excited and so are the Clements. It should be pretty good haha.
I'm excited to hear how the temple prep class is going to go for Brady tonight. He's lucky to have Brother C. so close by and such a great friend that he's willing to do that. It's going to be great for him, but even with my time in a temple prep type class with Brother J. it still didn't really prepare me fully for what it would be like because I don't think anything really can haha. He's going to love it and I'm sure he'll learn all he needs to tonight.
Well I hope that all is well for everyone else! Thanks for all the pictures Dad. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all your love and support. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you again! Sorry no pictures this week.
Love, Elder Craft
Sorry this might not be very long today. It's fun to see that most of us got a P-Day today haha. Luckily for me we email in the office so it wasn't closed. The challenge is just doing it in between the other things that we have to get done.
This last week was the last of the Zone Conferences, and they all went really well. I got to see Elder Mead finally and he's doing well. He has a great companion that is really going to help him and they're both working hard. I didn't get to tell him about Brady because like I figured his parents had told him already. He was pretty excited though.
Elder Lo, Elder Crepeau and I have been working really hard trying to teach people and find new ones to teach. We had the chance to go teach a less active Hmong family that Elder Lo knows from when they lived in his first area in St. Paul going to the Hmong Branch over there. It was great. The wife, T., but she just goes by her American name T., made us some great food, and she along with her husband, T. X., aka B. haha, gave me a Hmong name. All the missionaries here that are American but speak Hmong get a Hmong name. It's tradition for their culture I guess, so they gave me the name Muaj Hmoo. I would type how to pronounce it but I don't really know how haha it means Lucky or to have luck I guess and is a really great name that people really. B. and T. said that if they have a son that's what they're going to name him. So that was a really cool experience, but the spirit of the lesson in there was amazing! These two were super strong in the branch while they were going, but gave into the family pressure and conformed to go to their Dad's church now even though they still know the Church is true. Elder Crepeau and I basically did the most talking because Elder Lo has been over and taught them so much he wasn't sure what the next step was for them. Elder Crepeau and I got to talk about the pioneers in our families that were converts like them and how we are here now because of them. Elder Crepeau talked about his dad who joined the church when he was 22 and I talked about Grandma and Grandpa Craft specifically with them. There was such a powerful experience with an amazing spirit as we testified about the blessings of their faith and diligence and that even though it's not easy for them it wasn't easy for our relatives either, but that the blessings of it have effected us even until now. It was so cool and something that I think really blessed them. They committed to come to church next week and Elder Lo said that's the most progress they've made in a long time. It was so amazing and I really grew to love them just from the spirit that we felt there.
Tonight for the last two hours of P-Day we have a cool dinner scheduled with the Clements where Elder Lo is going to teach all of us to make egg rolls. We're pretty excited and so are the Clements. It should be pretty good haha.
I'm excited to hear how the temple prep class is going to go for Brady tonight. He's lucky to have Brother C. so close by and such a great friend that he's willing to do that. It's going to be great for him, but even with my time in a temple prep type class with Brother J. it still didn't really prepare me fully for what it would be like because I don't think anything really can haha. He's going to love it and I'm sure he'll learn all he needs to tonight.
Well I hope that all is well for everyone else! Thanks for all the pictures Dad. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all your love and support. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you again! Sorry no pictures this week.
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, February 13, 2012
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
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
Monday, February 6, 2012
A Lot of Travelling
Dear Craft Family,
I'm sorry to hear about some of the health issues and stress you guys are battling. You're a bunch of champs the way you handle it though. I'll keep praying for you all.
This week was a very good week for us here. We traveled down to Roshester and had the Zone Conference down there on Thursday. It went really well and the training was great. It's a smaller Zone down there with only 8 companionships. It was fun for me to e down right near where I served in Kasson. Even though I never was assigned to serve in the city of Rochester that's where my companions and I would have to go each P-Day to do our emailing and shopping because there wasn't much 20 minutes West out in Kasson haha. So I got to be the one to give directions and navigate us around there. Tomorrow we have the Minneapolis, Anoka, and Lakeville combined Zone Conference meeting right here in Bloomington at our church building next to the mission home and mission office. I'm pretty excited to see everyone there including Elder Mead. Because it's 3 zones there's going to be about 65 missionaries which should be a lot of fun. We have to spend most of the morning and afternoon preparing and setting up over at the church. Then later this week we head up to Duluth 3 hours north for their Zone Conference on Thursday. My MTC companion Elder Lewis is one of the Zone Leaders up there with his companion Elder Watkins (hopefully that answers your question Kat ;)). It's always fun for me to talk to and see missionaries I've served around. Now with this new assignment it's making it fun getting to know all the missionaries here in the MMM. Hopefully I'll have some cool pictures from up North to send to you next week.
Speaking of pictures those ones I asked for, Dad, should be in a top drawer of my dresser on the right hand side of my closet. Hopefully you can find them, but if not don't worry about it. I know you're studying a lot so don't take a lot of time looking for them. I did get that joke you sent me from Grandma too. You can tell her that it was funny and definitely missionary appropriate haha.
I'm sorry for Brady to hear that Adam Vinitari wasn't there to beat the Giants this year. That's what happens when the one player that's won all their Superbowls for them isn't there to do it again. haha Jk Brady. . . but not really. Last night we were in lessons and stuff with a couple members who weren't watching the Superbowl so it wasn't nearly as excited as what I'm sure it was for some of you. That sad the circumstances for why you're in Idaho, Mom, but fun that you get to see all the family. Since you're still up there and will be when you read this give them all my love and tell them I'm praying for them often. It's good to hear they're all doing relatively well.
That's cool to hear that you get to start a new pilot program at the MTC. 6 weeks in the MTC though?! That's going to be the most intense German speaking, German learning time for you! That's why I'm saying study the doctrine now cause there's no way you can in there haha.
I heard that a certain sister of mine is supposedly all decked out in Super man gear today. I hope the belt worked out for her, and now if I get a chance to play basketball in between setting up at the church today I can wear my Superman shirt I got sent and we'll be twinners. LIke the Minnesota Twins! haha Kinda lame I know but it's what I have to work with haha.
Sorry there's not much more to report on from here. We're working hard staying busy and loving every minute of it! I hope that everyone does great with their academic and health skills and diagnosis tests this week. I love and will continue to pray for all of you! Thanks for all your love and support.
Love, Elder Craft
I'm sorry to hear about some of the health issues and stress you guys are battling. You're a bunch of champs the way you handle it though. I'll keep praying for you all.
This week was a very good week for us here. We traveled down to Roshester and had the Zone Conference down there on Thursday. It went really well and the training was great. It's a smaller Zone down there with only 8 companionships. It was fun for me to e down right near where I served in Kasson. Even though I never was assigned to serve in the city of Rochester that's where my companions and I would have to go each P-Day to do our emailing and shopping because there wasn't much 20 minutes West out in Kasson haha. So I got to be the one to give directions and navigate us around there. Tomorrow we have the Minneapolis, Anoka, and Lakeville combined Zone Conference meeting right here in Bloomington at our church building next to the mission home and mission office. I'm pretty excited to see everyone there including Elder Mead. Because it's 3 zones there's going to be about 65 missionaries which should be a lot of fun. We have to spend most of the morning and afternoon preparing and setting up over at the church. Then later this week we head up to Duluth 3 hours north for their Zone Conference on Thursday. My MTC companion Elder Lewis is one of the Zone Leaders up there with his companion Elder Watkins (hopefully that answers your question Kat ;)). It's always fun for me to talk to and see missionaries I've served around. Now with this new assignment it's making it fun getting to know all the missionaries here in the MMM. Hopefully I'll have some cool pictures from up North to send to you next week.
Speaking of pictures those ones I asked for, Dad, should be in a top drawer of my dresser on the right hand side of my closet. Hopefully you can find them, but if not don't worry about it. I know you're studying a lot so don't take a lot of time looking for them. I did get that joke you sent me from Grandma too. You can tell her that it was funny and definitely missionary appropriate haha.
I'm sorry for Brady to hear that Adam Vinitari wasn't there to beat the Giants this year. That's what happens when the one player that's won all their Superbowls for them isn't there to do it again. haha Jk Brady. . . but not really. Last night we were in lessons and stuff with a couple members who weren't watching the Superbowl so it wasn't nearly as excited as what I'm sure it was for some of you. That sad the circumstances for why you're in Idaho, Mom, but fun that you get to see all the family. Since you're still up there and will be when you read this give them all my love and tell them I'm praying for them often. It's good to hear they're all doing relatively well.
That's cool to hear that you get to start a new pilot program at the MTC. 6 weeks in the MTC though?! That's going to be the most intense German speaking, German learning time for you! That's why I'm saying study the doctrine now cause there's no way you can in there haha.
I heard that a certain sister of mine is supposedly all decked out in Super man gear today. I hope the belt worked out for her, and now if I get a chance to play basketball in between setting up at the church today I can wear my Superman shirt I got sent and we'll be twinners. LIke the Minnesota Twins! haha Kinda lame I know but it's what I have to work with haha.
Sorry there's not much more to report on from here. We're working hard staying busy and loving every minute of it! I hope that everyone does great with their academic and health skills and diagnosis tests this week. I love and will continue to pray for all of you! Thanks for all your love and support.
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, January 30, 2012
Busy, Busy, Busy . . .
Dear Mom, Dad, and Family,
Sorry that this is a little later than normal. We aren't really having a P-Day today because we have to get ready for ZLC (Zone Leader Council) tomorrow and the Zone Conference in Rochester this week. Things here have been pretty busy, but nothing too overwhelming. We have a few different people that we're working with in our area, but it's just been a lot of scheduling conflicts that haven't allowed us to set any real appointments. We did have a really great week though with some really good lessons and experiences. We had a referral for a lady to go see in the Richfield part of our area and hadn't been able to see her the day after we got it, so last night we had all our appointments and back up plans kind of fall through on us and decided it would be best to go try her out. When we got there it turns out that she lives there with her boyfriend and 3 kids along with her friend and her friend's son. Her friend is the one that we talked to when we showed up and she was inside too. They invited us in out of the cold and talked to us for a minute. Come to find out that her friend is Hmong and she is Hispanic. We couldn't believe the chances of that that the missionaries that come to teach them would be one Hmong speaker, one Spanish speaker, and me the white English guy haha. Luckily for me they both speak Hmong and Spanish but were raised here in Minnesota and speak great English. It was pretty cool to here Elder Lo talking to her friend and Elder Crepeau talking to her and having there own little conversations in two different languages haha. We taught them in English however last night and this morning we went back to teach them again. They're so cool to be able to teach and want to believe that it's true is what they told us today. It's amazing to see the people that are placed in our path at the time that they are!
So far I haven't gotten to meet all the missionaries and travel all over the mission. We did a couple trainings in St. Paul and one back up in the Shingle Creek area with President Clements. With Zone Conferences this week and next I'll get the chance too see a lot more of the mission and the missionaries though.
I'm sure that Brady has heard enough about mission prep from everyone, but seeing as I am the one on the mission right now I think it's my place to give it to him haha. I just wanted to tell you be sure to ask any questions you have about what to buy or do in preparing. My advice of reading PMG, as backed up by Mom and Dad still stands. haha I also wanted to just tell you about a sweet scripture that I thought you would like and to read and if you want to be unique put on your plaque. It's in Omni 1:26. Maybe you already know it, but it's one that I really like and hadn't really read much before.
It sounds like everyone back at home is busy as usual but doing well. I'm so glad to hear it. Sorry that there isn't much more to say. I hope that you all are doing great and that I'll get to talk to you again soon.
Love, Elder Craft
Sorry that this is a little later than normal. We aren't really having a P-Day today because we have to get ready for ZLC (Zone Leader Council) tomorrow and the Zone Conference in Rochester this week. Things here have been pretty busy, but nothing too overwhelming. We have a few different people that we're working with in our area, but it's just been a lot of scheduling conflicts that haven't allowed us to set any real appointments. We did have a really great week though with some really good lessons and experiences. We had a referral for a lady to go see in the Richfield part of our area and hadn't been able to see her the day after we got it, so last night we had all our appointments and back up plans kind of fall through on us and decided it would be best to go try her out. When we got there it turns out that she lives there with her boyfriend and 3 kids along with her friend and her friend's son. Her friend is the one that we talked to when we showed up and she was inside too. They invited us in out of the cold and talked to us for a minute. Come to find out that her friend is Hmong and she is Hispanic. We couldn't believe the chances of that that the missionaries that come to teach them would be one Hmong speaker, one Spanish speaker, and me the white English guy haha. Luckily for me they both speak Hmong and Spanish but were raised here in Minnesota and speak great English. It was pretty cool to here Elder Lo talking to her friend and Elder Crepeau talking to her and having there own little conversations in two different languages haha. We taught them in English however last night and this morning we went back to teach them again. They're so cool to be able to teach and want to believe that it's true is what they told us today. It's amazing to see the people that are placed in our path at the time that they are!
So far I haven't gotten to meet all the missionaries and travel all over the mission. We did a couple trainings in St. Paul and one back up in the Shingle Creek area with President Clements. With Zone Conferences this week and next I'll get the chance too see a lot more of the mission and the missionaries though.
I'm sure that Brady has heard enough about mission prep from everyone, but seeing as I am the one on the mission right now I think it's my place to give it to him haha. I just wanted to tell you be sure to ask any questions you have about what to buy or do in preparing. My advice of reading PMG, as backed up by Mom and Dad still stands. haha I also wanted to just tell you about a sweet scripture that I thought you would like and to read and if you want to be unique put on your plaque. It's in Omni 1:26. Maybe you already know it, but it's one that I really like and hadn't really read much before.
It sounds like everyone back at home is busy as usual but doing well. I'm so glad to hear it. Sorry that there isn't much more to say. I hope that you all are doing great and that I'll get to talk to you again soon.
Love, Elder Craft
Monday, January 23, 2012
Letter to Brady
Dear Craft Family,
Es freut mich dass Brady zu Deutshland im April gehen!! Ich hoffe er kannt Elder Chambers sehen order habt ihm fuer seiner mitarbeiter!!! (Don't try and put that in Google Translator or something because it will probably come out with something way different that what I meant to say in my broken 5 year old German haha). Man Brady that is so awesome!! I am so super pumped for you! From what I hear, because you're right everyone and their mother knows someone that served a mission somewhere in Germany, it's going to be legit! The ward mission leader in the Eden Prairie ward served there along with 4-5 other members of the ward. I've known at least one person in every area that has served there. President Clements was in Switzerland but it's basically the same sort of area haha. I'll bet the Chambers were way pumped. I told Elder Mead at transfers Wednesday that you should have gotten your call that day, so he'll be excited to hear it too. I'm way excited for you to learn how to speak and then help tutor me while I try to continue to learn it. My guess was way off though for somewhere in South America. haha When you talk to Herr Jackson tell him I said Hi. Wouldn't it be crazy if Elder Chambers got to train you or was your Zone Leader? That'd be so cool. April 4th's going to come up quick! You can get your passport picture at the Post Office in Ogden just by the Newgate Mall. That's where I got mine. I'm telling you right now read the scriptures, study your Preach My Gospel, and learn the Doctrines of the Gospel while you can because you are not going to have the time or means to be able to do that in the MTC trying to learn a foreign language in 9 weeks. You might want to start drinking carbonated water too cause that's all the people give you for water over there. haha That's one of the first things Elder Chambers told me in the MTC when I saw him drinking it is that he had to try and get used to it. It really isn't that bad though. I'm just pumped for all the experiences and joy that you're going to get. Not only out of just going to Germany, but going to teach the Gospel to all our brothers and sisters there. It's going to be one of the most joyful experiences of your life, and the most difficult. Just remember that because it's not going to be easy but it's going to be worth it. I can promise you that.
I guess I should have just started that off Dear Brady and Craft Family haha. This week for me was awesome! It flew by! We were really busy getting all the things taken care of for transfers and then actually doing the transfers themselves. Picking up the new missionaries was a lot of fun. Elder Lo, President and Sister Clements, and me all went to the airport to get them and then to the U of M campus (known as Dinkytown) near downtown Minneapolis to do some street contacting. Elder Frasure went with me from Pocatello, ID and loved it. We had a great time together. We got some food, took some pictures to send to their families, and did the training meetings we had to before the day was over. There were only 3 missionaries that came this transfer so nothing too crazy at all. Two of them, Elder Frasure and Elder Ouimette, had to spend the night with us at our apartment so we could take them to the Greyhound station in the morning because they got transferred up to Thunder Bay Canada to be trained. We haven't gone up there yet Mom. The closest we'll get is to Duluth for their Zone Conference in a couple of weeks. Unless President asks us to we don't really have a reason to head up there. Next transfer might not be as quiet. We're expected to get 17 new missionaries, so that should be a lot of fun. I'm working hard trying to learn all the ins and outs of who's where serving with who and everything else I need to know about the mission. It's a ton of fun and we're working hard to meet with our investigators as well. Many of them weren't able to meet with us this week, but we get to spend a lot of time proselyting this week and are confident we should be able to teach many of them.
This last Saturday was J.'s baptism out in Eden Prairie. He's the 16 year old I was working with out there and he is so awesome! I didn't get to go because it was too far away, but I called him and talked to him Saturday before it all went down and he was super excited. President Clements went out for the baptism and said it was a great service with a lot of people there to support him. When I talked to J. I told him I might not be able to be there for the baptism, but I look forward to hearing about when he gets the priesthood, when he goes through the temple and is sealed to his Dad and Sister, when he gets his mission call, and all the other things throughout his life. I'm so excited for that guy and the great things he's going to continue to do throughout his life. It's so amazing to me the people I am blessed with being able to work with and grow to love while I'm here in Minnesota. Having the opportunity to watch people change their lives and see the spirit work within them like it did with J. is something I couldn't or wouldn't experience anywhere else. Like I had mentioned to Brady it's one of the hardest things I have ever done but also the most rewarding. The Lord knows and expects our sacrifice, but in return he gives us more than we could ever work for.
Well sorry there's not much more to report on from here. I'm glad my package and my brick made it safe and sound haha. I did get my new card thanks Mom. It sounds like I pretty good exciting week for you. I'm glad to hear all is well and hope to talk to you all again soon. I love you and appreciate all that you do for me! Auf Wiedersehen!
Love, Elder Craft
Es freut mich dass Brady zu Deutshland im April gehen!! Ich hoffe er kannt Elder Chambers sehen order habt ihm fuer seiner mitarbeiter!!! (Don't try and put that in Google Translator or something because it will probably come out with something way different that what I meant to say in my broken 5 year old German haha). Man Brady that is so awesome!! I am so super pumped for you! From what I hear, because you're right everyone and their mother knows someone that served a mission somewhere in Germany, it's going to be legit! The ward mission leader in the Eden Prairie ward served there along with 4-5 other members of the ward. I've known at least one person in every area that has served there. President Clements was in Switzerland but it's basically the same sort of area haha. I'll bet the Chambers were way pumped. I told Elder Mead at transfers Wednesday that you should have gotten your call that day, so he'll be excited to hear it too. I'm way excited for you to learn how to speak and then help tutor me while I try to continue to learn it. My guess was way off though for somewhere in South America. haha When you talk to Herr Jackson tell him I said Hi. Wouldn't it be crazy if Elder Chambers got to train you or was your Zone Leader? That'd be so cool. April 4th's going to come up quick! You can get your passport picture at the Post Office in Ogden just by the Newgate Mall. That's where I got mine. I'm telling you right now read the scriptures, study your Preach My Gospel, and learn the Doctrines of the Gospel while you can because you are not going to have the time or means to be able to do that in the MTC trying to learn a foreign language in 9 weeks. You might want to start drinking carbonated water too cause that's all the people give you for water over there. haha That's one of the first things Elder Chambers told me in the MTC when I saw him drinking it is that he had to try and get used to it. It really isn't that bad though. I'm just pumped for all the experiences and joy that you're going to get. Not only out of just going to Germany, but going to teach the Gospel to all our brothers and sisters there. It's going to be one of the most joyful experiences of your life, and the most difficult. Just remember that because it's not going to be easy but it's going to be worth it. I can promise you that.
I guess I should have just started that off Dear Brady and Craft Family haha. This week for me was awesome! It flew by! We were really busy getting all the things taken care of for transfers and then actually doing the transfers themselves. Picking up the new missionaries was a lot of fun. Elder Lo, President and Sister Clements, and me all went to the airport to get them and then to the U of M campus (known as Dinkytown) near downtown Minneapolis to do some street contacting. Elder Frasure went with me from Pocatello, ID and loved it. We had a great time together. We got some food, took some pictures to send to their families, and did the training meetings we had to before the day was over. There were only 3 missionaries that came this transfer so nothing too crazy at all. Two of them, Elder Frasure and Elder Ouimette, had to spend the night with us at our apartment so we could take them to the Greyhound station in the morning because they got transferred up to Thunder Bay Canada to be trained. We haven't gone up there yet Mom. The closest we'll get is to Duluth for their Zone Conference in a couple of weeks. Unless President asks us to we don't really have a reason to head up there. Next transfer might not be as quiet. We're expected to get 17 new missionaries, so that should be a lot of fun. I'm working hard trying to learn all the ins and outs of who's where serving with who and everything else I need to know about the mission. It's a ton of fun and we're working hard to meet with our investigators as well. Many of them weren't able to meet with us this week, but we get to spend a lot of time proselyting this week and are confident we should be able to teach many of them.
This last Saturday was J.'s baptism out in Eden Prairie. He's the 16 year old I was working with out there and he is so awesome! I didn't get to go because it was too far away, but I called him and talked to him Saturday before it all went down and he was super excited. President Clements went out for the baptism and said it was a great service with a lot of people there to support him. When I talked to J. I told him I might not be able to be there for the baptism, but I look forward to hearing about when he gets the priesthood, when he goes through the temple and is sealed to his Dad and Sister, when he gets his mission call, and all the other things throughout his life. I'm so excited for that guy and the great things he's going to continue to do throughout his life. It's so amazing to me the people I am blessed with being able to work with and grow to love while I'm here in Minnesota. Having the opportunity to watch people change their lives and see the spirit work within them like it did with J. is something I couldn't or wouldn't experience anywhere else. Like I had mentioned to Brady it's one of the hardest things I have ever done but also the most rewarding. The Lord knows and expects our sacrifice, but in return he gives us more than we could ever work for.
Well sorry there's not much more to report on from here. I'm glad my package and my brick made it safe and sound haha. I did get my new card thanks Mom. It sounds like I pretty good exciting week for you. I'm glad to hear all is well and hope to talk to you all again soon. I love you and appreciate all that you do for me! Auf Wiedersehen!
Love, Elder Craft
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