Last Minute Transfer

Hey hey hey!!

Well, I for sure had a little change in the last week! So transfers were last Thursday, and like I said, Elder Hansen came down and Elder Tueller left up to Buffalo MN. Friday, I got a call from President, and he said he wanted to make a change, and that he wanted me to transfer up to Virginia MN! It definitely caught everyone by surprise, but I was willing! So I packed up my bags, and I went over on Saturday night. My new NEW companion is Elder Rush.

Elder Rush is from Mesa! He lived over by Red Mountain High School. He is way cool; we get along really well, two Mesa dudes. This will be another exiting transfer, just cause I think I connect with Elder Rush more than I connected with elder Tueller. So up here in Virginia, the population is about 8 to 9000 some-odd people. Fairly small town. We also cover Ely, Bawibik, Hibbing, Midway, Evelith and maybe one more small town. Our area is huge!

The ward is really great, fairly small, but there are a few families that feed the missionaries at least once a week, and are always willing to drive us wherever we need to go.

So we went tracting in downtown Virginia one day, and for goodness sakes, there were 19 bars!!! And we started talking to this old lady, and she turned out to be pretty bitter. She told us, "Freeze! Go freeze somewhere else, just freeze entirely! ... nonsense..." It made me smile, but oh well, some are just set in their ways. We went over to this one guy’s house that's in the ward, and he has a 2600 dollar guitar that I just got to mess around with!!!! Oh my gosh, it was such a nice guitar.... I'd never spend that much on one though.

Lets see, there aren't a ton of solid people we can go and see in Virginia like I could in Duluth... but apparently a lot of people work in the mines outside of town and those are closing down in a month, and so there are going to be a lot of people out of jobs. I'm hoping there will be a lot of humbled people to go and talk to...

My new mission goal is to wake up everyday and say "I'm going to do better than I did yesterday," and have in mind what to work on when I step out the door. I can also honestly say that I am much more prone to just work. I'm not as lazy as I once was. If I get a moment, I sometimes find myself cleaning the apartment or occasionally reciting scriptures. (I should do more study in those moments, but it's a working progress!)

So David is going to Cali, eh?! That is pretty dang sweet!!! He definitely got his wish for weather and a language! I can't wait to get that letter from him! Ah man, I'm sure he'll make a great missionary, I know he has A LOT of creative juices to bring to the mission field. I can't wait to hear about how he applies them to his missionary work!!

Other than that, our apartment has a bench AND a treadmill, which I was very exited about! I'm getting all a-squishy! Also, we talked to this lady that talked to us for like an hour, but she was investigating Judaism. She believed in God, but she was just fascinated with all the Hebrew language, and the numbers and symbols and traditions, and it immediately made me think about those people who "looked past the mark." I agree, all that stuff is very interesting, but it doesn't get us to heaven. We might stop by and try to teach her later, who knows, anything could happen!

That's all I can really remember... I didn't bring my journal with me. We met some nice people, and some cranky people. Oh! And in the scriptures, I took a blank copy and am underlining all the references to Jesus. I've found that it is very hard to decipher between God and Jesus in the scriptures with all the Lords and Gods and such. So if you have advice that can help me out with that, that'd be very appreciated!!

That's the skinny on Elder Brooks and Rush, and you should have gotten my memory card by now!!!

ELDER LOGAN BROOKS