Monday, May 2, 2011

Happy May Day (a day late)

I forgot my planner at the apartment with all my little notes and things to write about, so this will probably be pretty scattered. I am sure you will forgive me.

Friday it was over 70 degrees! And then Sunday morning it snowed, bringing everything back into reality. No 9-foot tall snowman this time. It's nice out now though.

I want to thank the Griffiths for their card they sent a couple of weeks ago. I had never heard of home-teachers while someone was on a mission, but I like the sound of that! I will try to get something off to them sometime.

Oh, I need to tell you about my epic adventure to the "Gentile Bear Man of Emo". So I think I told you about the crazy bear stories and bear sightings going on, so here is one for the ages: Seeing as I have not seen a bear, I was all hyped up to go to this Bear Preserve and some wild bear. Well, we drove the hour to the Reserve and....no bears. Are you kidding me? No bears. The guy said that he was surprised that he had only seen a few, and that they should be coming out of hibernation soon. Psh. He was crazy--he believes the Bible and God and Christ but will not call himself a Christian because he claims it is an improper title or something. Lots of really weird stuff. But, he DOES feed bears donuts by his mouth. Interesting. I thought the whole trip was kind of funny, but there was a very bright spot to the trip: I FINALLY saw a new Charger. Oh, they are pretty cars. AND, I saw a Mercedes SLS AMG cruising Fort Frances of all places! What the?! I know what I saw, and it was white and really nice. They look ugly in pictures, but pretty in person. Speaking of cars, I am the driver in our companionship, and I am loving it. So that all about bears and cars, you probably want to hear about my new companion.

Well, his name is still Elder Bodily, and though I miss Elder Morris a lot, Elder Bodily is a great one. He is a farmboy and a great worker, so humble, and so determined! Just the kind of missionary I like to serve with: a good worker. We have a lot of things planned to help accelerate the area, it should be good. He and I will do really well together.

The past couple of weeks I have felt like I am much more missionary-minded. I have made a conscious effort to be more energetic about the work, and that has helped me a bunch. I am still sincere, just much more outgoing in every way. I find that I am more involved in the work and more passionate about it--I mean, for goodness sakes, I had a dream 2 nights ago that I was sharing my testimony at church. ONLY MISSIONARIES HAVE DREAMS LIKE THAT, sheesh. If I had told myself 9 months ago I would have dreams like that I probably would have thought I would be on something...nope, just the Gospel. Now that I have been completely and utterly immersed in the Gospel for a while, I can see changes in my outlook on life, throughout the day, about my own salvation and others...I guess I just view the world in a more positive light. I can seriously understand why RMs are so weird after they eat, sleep and dream the gospel, ha.

International Falls still has a special excitement about it. We are beginning to teach more people, they just won't come to church. So frustrating! Ridiculous. Please pray that our investigators will come to church. Those Sunday mornings...they are the most stressful times that missionaries have. Ugh. Its the waiting game, and its terrible. But I signed up for it, right?

Next Sunday is a special Sunday for mothers everywhere, especially missionary-mothers. So Mom and Dad, Elder Craig Cutler will be making contact with you sometime this week about trying to setup Skype. I gave him my name, so you may have to use my (MY former laptop perhaps) laptop to do Skype. Just open the Skype program and search for a Craig Cutler from Shelley, Idaho if he has not already searched you out. Hopefully all will work out and we should be able to Skype about 8pm my time, so about 6 your time. I can only do it at night because I have church twice and then supper at 5 my time. It we can do 8 my time, I can get in about an hour's worth or two of work beforehand. If that does not work and you need to call earlier, call me about 7 or so (my time, 2 hours ahead). I expect that you will not abuse my phone number, but just to call if Skype does not work out, so here it is: xxx-xxx-xxxx. (Sorry, edited out by Dad) I love you all so much, just remember that the best part of the Gospel is that its all true. AND that happiness will come as we learn of it and strive to live it to the absolute best of our abilities.

Elder Galbraith


PS--Elder Morris and I built a squirrel bridge for a red squirrel that is always running around in the field by our apartment. He finally started using the bridge and comes and eats some peanuts we leave for him. His name is Little Red. He is the best, and his presence spices up the area. He came up that ladder 16 times between 7 and 8:30 Sunday morning. Sheesh. And there will be a picture of a place in Warroad that has something like 50 classic muscle cars, and it wasn't open when we passed through, so I just snapped a picture of inside...oh wow...and there is a picture of the Bear Man in Emo...

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