A Mighty Cavern and A Mighty Apostle

 As we close out our service here in Iron Mountain, we're happy to be able to look to do some things which will remain with us as memories of our experiences with the people we have met. This week included several examples as we visited with members, went underground and were a part of a fantastic all-mission meeting. A week ago Monday, on p-day with permission from the zone leaders, we arranged to take the members of our district into the bowels of the earth into the Iron Mountain iron mine in the small town of Vulcan, MI. After "suiting up" in yellow rain slickers and helmets our guide explained the operation of various pieces of mining equipment housed near the front of the mine. We saw the evolution of mining techniques from the early 1800s up and through the mid 1900s. It was then time to board the original, small, electric powered train on cars designed to carry miners to their work areas. We traveled over 1000 feet into the cold (average temperatures between 38 and 43 year round), dark interior of the mine. After walking an additional quarter of a mile we came to the second of two gigantic caverns that were dug into the earth some 400 feet under the surface. The caverns are all that remain of very rich iron ore deposits. Because of copious amounts of ground water (hence the slickers) the caverns have filled to stasis, one even included trout planted there at an earlier, forgotten time. To illustrate the magnitude of scale our guide informed us that, "the Empire State building, if placed on the floor of the water-filled cavern, would have only ten feet of it's top-most spire extending out of the underground lake".

Back row - Elder and Sister Johnson, Elders Pike, LeBaron, Simmons, Rudarmel, Sister and Elder Riley.
Front row - Elders Ripplinger and Christensen our District Leader.

 During the week we made some of our final Home and Visit Teaching visits before we leave to return home. These are the people of which we have grown most fond. It's a truism that a person grows to love those whom they serve and we have sincerely grown to love these people. We also had an excellent meeting with the Roche family. The father had some exciting information that should affect his employment in a positive way and Tyler is progressing a lot faster after his surgery than they hoped. He is in fact already in physical therapy. We began the process of preparing for the baptism of the young Carlson girl. She was interviewed by the District Leader on Sunday and we are finalizing the program. We postponed the baptism for two weeks so that her father would be prepared to perform it.

At the end of this dirt road lives the Relief Society President and her husband.
What an idyllic setting. If there is a heaven on earth this might be it.

 The end of the week brought us to a meeting to which we have been looking forward for most of this month. At our last interview with President Jones he hinted he was trying to arrange an all-mission meeting to take advantage of an Apostle who was scheduled to attend a six stake meeting of Priesthood leaders in Wisconsin. His hope and desire became a reality as we, "we" the entire mission, were invited to meet with Elder Dallin Oaks and four other of the Seventy last Saturday. You can just imagine the Spirit that was present. It was especially hard (a tender mercy as they saw it) for President and Sister Jones to be with all of their missionaries one last time before they were to leave in just two weeks. One of the new Seventies who attended was Elder Gifford Nielsen a former BYU quarterback who was recruited the same time as coach Edwards was hired (he was hired by then BYU President Oaks) and helped to turn BYU football into the great program it has become. Elder Nielsen, who was later drafted by the Houston (no mistake) Oilers and found great success as the sports anchor on a Houston TV station, was in our ward when we attended BYU. He was then a priest and was to be found every Sunday at the sacrament table. Here are some notable concepts from the meeting: Elder Funk, "Our biggest challenge is to align our wills with the desires of our hearts"; Elder Nielsen, "Missionaries are a prophetic priority" (prophets pray for us); Elder Clayton, "Bury your rebellious weapons" and finally Elder Oaks, referring to his completely bald head, "The noble and great always come out on top" amen. A blessed and unforgettable experience.

That is us next to Sister Jones in the red. Elder Oaks is to our left next to President Jones.

In three weeks we will be showering you with hugs and kisses,

Elder and Sister Johnson

Bonus material:

Here is a short video of the eastern shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Four Left, Still Trying to do Right

 Four weeks and counting…our many and continuing blessings.

 We are still enjoying wonderful encounters with the Spirit as we visit with less-active members. This week we visited with a family that has received many blessings from the branch following our initial “chance” encounter with them. We prepared and gave a short lesson to the family on the Holy Ghost; then, when inviting the father to choose someone to say the closing prayer, his wife was insistent upon him praying. He struggled momentarily with his pride but began to pour his heart out to Heavenly Father. He gave thanks for and asked for continued blessings in his behalf and on behalf of the family. Rarely have we heard such a deeply moving prayer. Sister Johnson, upon our return to the car, said, “That was awesome!” In this case her exclamation was totally accurate in that we were struck with awe as to the love and kindness Heavenly Father is but waiting to shower down on His children. We are confident that the love and attention being demonstrated by the branch will bring this family back into full activity. We look forward to them becoming an eternal family.

 The Carlsons have firmed up a date for Akasha’s baptism. It will be held on the 22^nd of June. We are more confident than we have been that her father will be able to baptize her. In church on Sunday her mother was excited to tell us that Akasha had begun the process of requesting different family members to accept parts on her baptism program. This will be a major event in the lives of her family and extended family. We are confident of the attendance of other non-members and investigators as well.

 Those of you who know Sister Johnson well know how important it is to her to attach her personal, caring flair to any gift or project in which she gets involved. Many of you have seen the folded shirts she has used as small gift containers for something like Fathers Day (which, btw, she is doing here in the branch this coming Fathers Day). We added a pic of ones she made for missionaries at our last zone meeting. There is a cute twist.

Notice the shirt (blouse) on the right with the modified collar and pink "tie" she did for the sisters.

 Oh yeah I turned 71 on Saturday but no one else needs to know that ;) Here are some pictures:

My present wrapped in standard issue missionary wrapping "paper".

Here it is. The best present ever! My sweetheart knew it would be nearly impossible to get a
complete 1965 Corvette home so she started with something that could be easily
transported...a flag emblem for the fender of the above mentioned car.
I'm hoping she has the rest for me when I get home.

In it to the end and we mean the very end*,

Elder and Sister Johnson

*Those with ears, let him hear (Mark 4:9)

Outcelts, Copper and THE "Gay" Bar

 We enjoyed a different kind of week, which included appointments being re-scheduled, illness-caused cancelations plus our focus is ever so slightly changing back to those things we must begin to think about upon our arrival back home. What things you ask? Things like doctor and dentist visits, what did our house really look like and will we be able to recognize our grandchildren? 

 We were, however, able to spend some productive time with a local judge and his wife, the Outcelts, who we met at one of the Mormon Next Door presentations. She is a very inquisitive and knowledgeable person. They invited us to have lunch with them at their picturesque cabin by a lake. It will be a cherished memory. We think he even eventually enjoyed our visit because, it seems in the beginning, it was her desire and her desire only that we stop by. She serves on the Marinette (WI) County Library Board so much of our discussion centered on that. We peppered our conversation with some talk of religion but we are confident it was our examples and spirits that interested them the most. In our estimation these two are most definitely, at this point of their existence, terrestrial quality individuals (also taking part in the first resurrection) who, in many ways, were examples to us. We will stay in touch.

 On Saturday we concluded our missionary apartment inspections by visiting the apartment in Houghton.  It looked only slightly different than when we first saw it. All of the missionaries we have met seem very conscientious about their apartments and cars. This visit to Houghton got us to thinking and we realized we have been assigned, without ever moving, to the following districts: 1^st Escanaba under Elder Harper, 2^nd Houghton under Elders Calder, Bryer and then Fergo, 3^rd Marquette under Elder Horne and finally 4^th Iron Mountain under Elder Trout and currently Elder Christensen. All great young men with outstanding leadership qualities with albeit different styles. We are interested to see what changes, if any, happen at our “last” transfer. 

 After inspecting the Elder's apartment and truck we took one last opportunity to take in the beauty of the Keweenaw peninsula along with the local flavor. What follows are some pics:

Native copper that, in solution, percolated into cracks and fissures in the rock and gradually
precipitated into these interesting shapes. In this part of the world was found great deposits
of this pure copper. I was noticing the "coincidence" of this happening around the time
electric power was rapidly expanding across the continent and copper was an
essential metal for the wires that carried that power. A placard stated that
this one large sheet weighed approx. 850 pounds.

If you take time to read the placard in this picture you will find that these are Petosky stones; the Michigan
state stone. This and many other displays, including the copper above, were in the Seaman Mineral
Museum on the campus of Michigan Tech in Houghton. All we can say is, "if you are into
rocks this is the place you absolutely need to see".

The day was murky and cloudy but none the less beautiful. This photo does not do the muted tones justice.
This is the same Lake Superior but this time we are on the Eastern side of the Keweenaw peninsula. We
went from here into the clouds driving through misty, winding, hilly roads. All we could think
about, after the obvious beauty, was, "where is our Corvette when we needed it?"

On our way we drove through the town of Gay Michigan. Gay was a thriving mill town in the late 1800 and
early 1900s. It is right on the shore and was named after one of the Mill's Vice Presidents. One time
boosting 1500 inhabits, competition closed mill. The schools and the railroad shut down and
even the Post Office left. There are now fewer that 100 residents in Gay and the sur-
rounding area, but fortunately we still have what may be the original Gay bar. 

 Sunday there were 51 people attending church. The Elders had two different investigator families there. What a blessing to have been here long enough to see such growth.

Elder and Sister Johnson

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

Work Continues and A Crazy Bear

 We enjoyed another busy week. We were able to teach and visit our regular families.  In addition we taught our first lesson to the Roche family. Because of some previous negative experiences with the members of the church, where they previously lived in Utah, they were cautious and a little reluctant to agree to a lesson. We made it short and interesting. All of the children and mom and dad were waiting for us and in their places and attentive. The Lord blessed us with a good spirit so we proceeded to share a video that featured a flash mob of youth in front of the Salt Lake Temple singing and dancing to:

 “I Know Who I Am”. 

 The children are aged 16, 13 and 11 so we shared the news about the changes in the ages for missionary service. (They have been away from the church for a while.) They had some questions that we answered. Overall it was a good introduction to us and for them a re-introduction to the church. We reminded them of the importance of doing the basics to keep our families safe in this perilous time and the promised blessings that will come when they comply. We now have set a time each week to bring them a message. We hope and expect that over time they will want to come back into full activity.

 The Roche family, Dennis Klingman and the Carlson family live in the small community of Crystal Falls the county seat of Iron County along with 8 to 10 other LDS families and individuals. We have been blessed to be instruments to help bring these and other families in this area back into activity. In fact, little Akasha attended church yesterday with her mother and grandmother for the second week in a row. She is nine and we have a baptism date for the 8^th of June. If she doesn’t make that date it will be the following week. We are grateful and blessed to be involved. An interesting side story is the possibility that Dennis will marry a fantastic LDS woman he met on an LDS Singles site. She has been visiting him here and seems like a great match. If that happens she will be here with him at least for a year of two, which will greatly help the branch. If missionaries are ever assigned to this area, which is about 30 miles from Iron Mountain, we will have a few individuals who will need to be taught and now we have the fellowshippers as well. Although we don’t know many of the details, we have been told that this area (Iron County) is where the first converts to the church in the Upper Peninsula were found and baptized.

 This was our last pasty making week; what a blessing it has been to help these stalwart people with this monthly effort. They expressed over and over their sadness with our leaving. We don’t think it is entirely because of our work, which will have to be replaced, but also because we have become friends. 

The final pasty of the day, mission and perhaps...life.

 The mission changes, for the better, every aspect of your interactions with your “eternal siblings”. That is the wisdom of the first bullet point in the “How to Begin Teaching” section of Preach my Gospel where it is explains we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and, because of that, may we call you Brother and Sister.

Feeling grateful,

Brother and Sister “aka” Elder and Sister Johnson

Recent News Item. This occurred in our branch boundaries.

Black bear attacks man

May 16, 2013

The Daily News

        

By LISA M. REED

Staff Writer

TOWN OF SILVER CLIFF, Wis. - Marinette County Sheriff's deputies and Silver Cliff Rescue were called to a residence on Finch Lane Wednesday for a black bear that had attacked a man.

According to the incident report, the complainant advised dispatch at 1:25 p.m. that the bear had bitten her husband and was still circling the house and wouldn't leave.

Upon arrival, Marinette County Deputy Daniel Beauchamp saw what appeared to be a juvenile bear in the driveway near the house. A man in the cabin window pointed at the bear questioning if this was the bear that attacked him and he said yes.

Beauchamp then exited his squad with his shotgun while the black bear walked around the passenger side of the squad car.

Beauchamp got in position for a safe shot and waited for the bear to show himself.

The bear came around the front passenger side of the squad car and was shot by the deputy with one round of "OO" buck, which killed the bear.

Dispatch was advised that it was safe for rescue to come.

Gerre Ninnemann and his wife, Marie, were inside the cabin. Gere had bite marks from his belt line up to the back of his head along with cuts and scratches.

Marie administered first aid.

The incident report indicates that Gerre said he heard his dog barking and then saw the bear going after his dog. He called his dog back then tried to run into the house, but the bear ran him down from behind the took him to the ground and started biting and clawing his back.

Gerre was able to get up and made it to the corner of the cabin when the bear caught him again and attacked him.

Marie said she grabbed a gun from the basement and some shells and her husband told her to shoot.

She said she never shot a gun before and didn't know how to load it.

She said she hit the bear over the head trying to get it away from her husband.

The bear let go and Gerre was able to get the shotgun from Marie and use it as a stick trying to poke the bear and keep it away from them as they backtracked into the cabin.

The bear continued to circle the cabin and looked in every window as it walked around the cabin and would not leave the property.

Gerre was then taken by Silver Cliff Rescue to Bay Area Medical Center for treatment. His condition is unknown.

Conservation Warden Tim Werner arrived and assisted in the investigation.

He kept the bear so that is could be checked in Madison, Wis. for possible rabies.

Lisa M. Reed's e-mail address is lreed@ironmountaindailynews.com.

Last Zone Conference and Mothers Day

 We so enjoyed meeting last Friday at Zone Conference with President and Sister Jones and the missionaries. Since this was our last Zone Conference we were asked to bear our testimonies. Our first Zone Conference and sharing our "arriving" testimonies seems like such a short time ago. As usually happens we gained new insights and developed adjusted plans to help with those in our teaching pool. This time it was using Alma 32 to re-commit an investigator or less-active member or ourselves. If there is something in our life we want to change to bring it closer in harmony to God's commandments, the designated test is to demonstrate our faith by "simply" keeping, with honor and exactness, the commandment that is troubling us and see if expected blessings follow.  The expected blessings will follow because God is a God of truth and cannot lie. See Alma 32 and John 7:17. (We had used Alma 32 in the early part of our mission but not with such clarity or effectiveness) We are definitely looking forward to the all-mission meeting on June 15 when we will be instructed by five General Authorities including, we have heard, an Apostle. If there is one thing we will miss the most about the mission it will be these awesome spirit-drenched meetings.

 We had a wonderful Mothers Day meeting. It was made even more so by the attendance of the less-active mother and her 9-year-old daughter we have been teaching. The girl is getting more and more excited about being baptized. Our intention still remains to do it on the 8^th of June. Because of some of her father’s medical concerns, we may have to postpone a week or so. We would like him to be the one who does the baptism. The Mothers Day tradition at the Branch is for the men to prepare and serve a fantastic meal with all of the trimmings. A recently activated member baked 12 loaves of bread and our Elders Quorum President baked three pies and made a jello...you get the idea. Tables are covered in fancy white paper. China, metal cutlery and glass glasses are used and the women, after Relief Society, are escorted one by one to their chairs. Then the men completely clean up after, including washing all of the dishes. Hmmmmm maybe that's why our attendance was so good.

We served nearly 50 people on Mothers Day including at least three investigators. 

Sister Johnson's Mothers Day gift. They are pretty pink Geraniums
which is a Native American word for "stinky flower".
An oxymoron in any language.

 We are pleased the mission president is going to try and replace us here in Iron Mountain. (I know, some of you are thinking we are impossible to replace...not so) It may not happen to coincide with our leaving so the mission will maintain the place until a new missionary couple arrives. This branch will surely benefit from further care, a different point of view on things and a couple with a completely different skill set. The Lord knows whom he wants and is preparing them. We also know all this will happen in the Lord’s time. We are counting down the weeks, only because there is much still to do and we want to make sure we can get as much accomplished as possible.

The adventure continues,

Elder and Sister Johnson

Bye Bye Ice Hello Crazy

  Seasons here in the U.P. are rapidly changing. We have had two recent days with the temperatures approaching 80 degrees. As you will see from the following pics everything is getting crazy especially the indecent cow.

Still frozen Lake Antoine just two weeks ago. Today it was clear of ice. One of the locals was
explaining to us that as the ice thaws, the ice gets more watery, and it will all of a
sudden just turn over and sink to the bottom of the lake.

Another result of the warm weather. This is the Menominee River at 13.1 feet above flood stage.
This is the path in the parking lot of a church in Niagara that leads down to a pier that
 is usually on the river. In the past we have posted pictures taken with us standing
out on that pier. The white stuff on the river is not ice but Indian Soap (?)
It's formed when the river crashes over a damn just upstream from here.

We pass this collection of  dubious art each week as we return home from District Meeting.
The Elders wanted pictures so while obliging them we took a few
pictures of our own. This is U.P. humor at its finest.

 Anticipating our release, yesterday the branch leaders called two new assistants one each for Sister Johnson and me. It is of course a good thing to be able to provide training to this couple and yes they are married the same as Sister Johnson and I. Also we are pretty sure we don’t like these long drawn out releases any better than the brief ones we are used to where one Sunday you’re a primary teacher and the next Sunday you are in leadership.  The couple is very active and moved into the branch a just two months ago. Coincidence…I think not. We will have a few weeks to get them prepared for their new secretarial assignments.

 Our teaching pool is changing. We are dropping ones who are now active and adding some less-active people we have encountered. We’ve mentioned the Roche family before. Last week the father said he would like to get his boys (11 and 13) baptized. The baptisms wouldn’t take place for a few more months until the one boy is able to go into the water following his recent surgeries. This family lives in Crystal Falls and is surrounded by good fellowshipping families. We have heard the rumors that there may be some consideration to send a pair of missionaries to Crystal Falls which is some 30 miles from Iron Mountain. There are approximately 12,000 people living in Iron County of which Crystal Falls is the county seat. “When” it happens it will be a big boost to that part of the branch. The missionaries have set two baptismal dates this past week. We have set one to take place in June on my birthday. The branch is responding with more and more missionary awareness and it is great to see. Leaving missionaries in Iron Mountain (Sisters?), opening Crystal Falls and replacing us with new senior missionaries would remind me of my first mission in Germany when the Lord saturated the continent. Like today, those were exciting times.

 Our minds are filled with thoughts of how we can continue to be effective these remaining weeks. We’ve concluded to just keep on doing more of the things that have brought the Lord’s blessings to this branch. That is all He expects. It is all about serving His children, our brothers and sisters.

Happy to serve,

Elder and Sister Johnson