Fish stories - part 2

Wow. Sounds like you will be in Idaho in no-time. I agree that it sounds like the right thing to do, but you know that I will always tease you about moving to Idaho...Idaho? Seriously?!

Things have been pretty mellow this week. Only a few brief stories with dumb rotweillers and trying my first Jones Soda. All in all, kind of a trying week because our baptismal date Nick found out that putting his divorce papers through will take a lot longer than he originally thought (and cost more $), so he won't be getting baptized this weekend, but is still planning on getting baptized sometime in the near future when his divorce papers come through and we can get him married to his current partner. We had to drop our other baptismal dates because both do not want to meet anymore. No motivation for one, and one would only look up anti-material and not give the real stuff a chance. THAT was frustrating. What can I do? I know that I did all that I could do. I would say that our biggest news this week has come through working with a less-active family. I seem to have a knack for less-actives, don't I? Well this family moved here from northern Alberta and was active before, but did not feel comfortable coming to church here for whatever reason, but is excited to come to church now. It is a single mom, Brandy, and her 13 year-old Royce and his baby sister Michaela. They all came to church and Royce invited 2 friends his age who loved it and we taught them and one of them, Cody, really opened up. Cody really asked sincere questions. I mean, how many 14 year-olds ask if God and Jesus are the same person? Not many. If you know of any others, let me know. So we have started teaching them and taught the Great Apostasy using 2 games: one was called Pictionary telephone, and the other was using an empty Jones bottle and smashing it. Good stuff, and they liked it.

We have really been trying to gain the trust of the members here because the last set of elders here really turned the members off of missionary work. On Sunday there were 3 people who said they really trusted us, which was a huge relief. Now, about those referrals...

Things are coming slowly but surely. The past few weeks I have not been as bold with people as I should have been, but I got that in check!

So I finished the New Testament from start to finish a week or so ago and read through most of Kings to get familiar with more of the history of the Old Testament. I remember watching those animated scripture stories. Those things helped! But I am finding that the stories straight from the Bible are pretty ruthless at times. I am picking Acts apart and looking at details of things. Pretty interesting. I am chugging through the Book of Mormon again and am finishing Helaman and the people are in the pride-cycle again. It seems so easy to identify the pride-cycle when it is written like that. While walking through Wal-Mart to buy groceries I really don't think that nowadays is too far behind--extremely prideful and very promiscuous. We constantly have to evaluate ourselves and our spiritual health, and missionaries are definitely no exception! The world can VERY easily suck people in and not spit them out. Be careful!

This morning we went to a few car dealerships in town. The Hyundai dealer didn't have the V8 Genesis--ridiculous. The Chrysler dealer didn't have any new Chargers--big letdown. BUT, the Ford dealer had the new 2012 Boss 302 Mustang. Oh, oh! So good! So pretty. A great way to kick p-day off. Anything new and exciting from the rest of the automotive world? Is there supposed to be a Bronco coming out? Elder O'Driscoll has a 69 Bronco back home and keeps telling me about it. Just curious.

So I had a dream that Ichiro was traded to the A's. It was terrible.

Love you all, please keep me in your prayers.

Elder Galbraith

PS--I included some fishing pictures from last week. We mainly fished off a member's dock, but there is one of us right next to a bridge on the Lake of the Woods. I love the Lake of the Woods!

The first fish was a real fighter...it was only 4 inches long. The next few were medium sized perch, and then I caught a northern pike! I was really excited because I caught the biggest fish of the day. We fished off a member's dock and my companion's first cast off landed him a walleye. Very first cast ! He was catching perch like crazy after that and I could not catch anything for a long time, until that 4 incher...Elder O'Driscoll would just set his pole down on the dock to help me with something and he would walk back to his pole after he helped me and would pull up his fishing pole and a fish! Ridiculous! Things really started getting rolling for me after the big Mr. 4 inch and it was a great experience. Fishing was fun, but probably not something I will take up like golf. I have to limit my expensive hobbies you know! We fished for about 2 1/2 hours and had a blast.