Big Gus, Sister Cox and IM Branch 8.0

 We had a good week. We have received an assignment to Home and Visit Teach some members that live in the outlying part of the branch where we do the bulk of our work. We were able to catch most of them home for brief visits. In one family in particular where the husband and the grown son are both non-members, we had a very friendly conversation with them. We feel there may be an opportunity to teach them the missionary lessons, so we have plans to visit with them again soon. Another inactive family we met for the first time is a racially mixed couple who were married about 3 years ago by the Branch President after the husband was baptized. They are a delightful couple and we look forward to doing everything we can to bring them into activity. We have been told the husband doesn’t read well so we will make full use of the audio/visual resources the church has developed.

 After our zone training meeting which, because of Labor Day, was changed to Thursday this past week, we stopped at "The Yooper Tourist Trap". It is located in Ishpeming, MI, about 2/3 of the way to Marquette where we have our weekly meeting. It actually had some decent and some really silly souvenirs. The prices are reasonable so family...you may get some touristy stuff for Christmas this year. The grounds are covered with interesting Yooper carvings, contraptions and concoctions. One of which Big Gus a 23 foot V8 powered chainsaw, is in the Guinness Book as the largest working chainsaw.

CHAINSAW!!!

There are some real artists here in Yooperland.

 Further on down the road we stopped and visited with the most northern member of the branch, Sister Lavon Cox, a snowbird, who spends her winters in Tucson, AZ. Sister Cox lives at the end of three different dirt roads each becoming progressively narrower and less traveled. Just before we arrived at her beautiful cabin in a totally idyllic spot overlooking a small lake, we startled a Great Blue Heron and then crossed over a culvert that beavers keep filling with branches and mud so as to increase the level of a pond fed by a small stream where they would like to live. She had stories of numerous bears she and her family have seen and startled over the previous years at the cabin.

That would be Sister Cox in the middle.

 The son of the “former” First Counselor in the branch has taken to enthusiastically reading the Large Print Book of Mormon we obtained for him. A bout with an eye infection only slowed him for a couple of days. He is pleased with the “sense” it is making having only read it as a youth and then only superficially. We are also directing him to the spirit the book can bring into his life. The Book of Mormon does have power to convince and convert. We fully expect it will be his focus for a transition back into activity. He was in 1st Nephi so we read with him some of the great revelations from, and prophecies given to Nephi. He was excited and is praying for understanding and the spirit. Our other “Less Active”, Dennis Klingman, has been attending church religiously (pun intended) so we are not considering him Less Active anymore. He needs a calling, which may happen soon.

 On Sunday the Branch Presidency was changed. The new president is Les Nishida from the Green Bay 1st ward. He will be traveling to here on Sundays and Wednesdays. His Bishop has offered to let President and Sister Nishida use their nearby cabin whenever they need to stay over. We have offered to help in anyway we can. He and his wife were first called as service missionaries to serve up to 24 months and then he was called to be the Branch President. We are hopeful that as this change is fully implemented one of the benefits will be to have callings made in a timelier manner. Sister Johnson and I have both been feeling that a change of some type was imminent. Lately I have been feeling  impressed that the new President would be coming from outside the branch. Pres Krehbiel (stake) was firm as he explained this was an interim calling and he fully expected the Lord to identify the next President over the next few months. We must and will do all we can to help build up the branch while we are still here and able.

Feeling a little anxious,

Elder and Sister Johnson