Pictured Rocks, Germfask and The Bridge

 Where do the weeks go? It seems as though we were just doing this blog last week...oh yeah we were. We enjoyed another full week. With visits to the families we usually teach and a special trip to Manistique and Germfask (a town whose name was chosen by combining the first letters of the founding family's last names). Also at the beginning of the week the car's odometer hit 150,000 miles.

So when we bought the car October of 2006 it had 40,000 miles on
the odometer. When we left for our mission in August of 2011
 it read 100,000 miles. You don't have to join the Navy
to see the world... just go on a mission.

 This week we were blessed to be able to show and explain to Akasha just how to stand and what to do when she is baptized in June. It’s great that her father is preparing to baptize her. At a recent visit he shared how he hadn’t “chewed” in more than two weeks. (we didn’t even know he had that problem) The Branch Presidency has made several visits to the family and Akasha and her mother have been attending church as well. That same day we were able to revive our reading in the Book of Mormon with Rich Matson. He had been having some hard times and had not been “in the mood” to read. When we do get the opportunity to read with members there is an undeniable spirit present brought by those inspired words. It looks as though Rich won’t be back to full activity before we leave for home but, by any measure and with the Lord’s help, he has made real progress in his life. We invited the recent newly arrived member couple to our home for lunch after which we went to the branch clerk’s office to teach them how to handle various phases of home and visit teaching reporting and management. They are our replacements for our branch secretarial assignments. They will do well. They each have a strong and varied background of church service. It is “interesting” to us that they have arrived in the branch just in time to take over these important callings. Sometimes the Lord’s ways are not so mysterious but are pretty obvious. Bob Peters, with our help, has become even more involved with family search. We hope this interest will be the key to unlock his desire to become a member. After sharing some insights we received at our latest district meeting we invited him to once again to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost before our departure. He asked for our departure date and said, this time with a little more sincerity, “I’ll think about it”. We will muster all of the faith we can in his behalf.

 On Saturday we were in Manistique to inspect the elders apartment. It was well kept and befitting the Lord’s representatives. They were baptizing, later that day, two children of a less active family they found in Manistique. Perhaps this was the reason the Lord wanted elders in this city. We have all heard plenty of stories about how the one child, choosing to become a member of the church, became the head of a large righteous posterity. We always think of Elder Nelson’s Book of Mormon story. Goodness and blessings come to those who covenant with the Lord the same way that evil and covenant breaking people are visited with problems and pain unto the “third and fourth” generations. After our visit with the elders we went to Munising to catch an afternoon cruise that explores the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore reserve. It was COLD (there was still snow and ice on some of the north facing exposures) but it was well worth the cost. The geology was spectacular. 

As you can see the cruise passes by 100 foot sandstone cliffs that bear bright colors from seepages
 of iron, copper and other minerals through the various sandstone formations.

There are also arches and caves worn into the formations through the action wind and waves.

Sunday morning we attended church in Germfask. What a pleasant, faithful and spiritual little branch. We were put to work right away. I was asked to bless the sacrament and later when it became apparent that no one had prepared a priesthood lesson, I got to do that as well. Sister Johnson was able to share a supporting video from her iPad when the Relief Society lesson went way short. About half of the members in attendance are living in Manistique; the remaining actually live in the adjacent mission and stake. 

Yes that is it, the whole Germfask building. Chapel to your right, classrooms to your left
and a "kitchen", restrooms and custodian closet straight in as you enter. There
may be other smaller meeting places but we were told that this is
the smallest building built and maintained by the church.

One reason we wanted to attend was to assess how the branch accessed the meeting feed from the Marquette ward and how they integrate the feed into their local meetings. It was a good week to observe in that there were confirmations to be performed at both meetings. The branch presidency here in Iron Mountain is giving serious thought to doing something similar for the branch members living in Iron County.

After church, which by the way lasts just two hours, we decided to complete one other item on our bucket list. We drove another hour plus, saw the Mackinac bridge and crossed over it to lower Michigan. 

The third longest suspension bridge. It was the longest in the world for 30 years until 1998 when two others were built.
That is lower Michigan on the other side. People in the U.P. call the people who live there trolls
because they "live under the bridge",

The bridge terminates in Mackinaw city in lower Michigan and since it was the Memorial day week-end it was very crowded with some kind of celebration in progress. For some reason there must have been a dozen shops selling fudge. We were good and didn't buy any...this time

All in all another eventful, spiritual week,

Elder and Sister Johnson