JOHNSON IN WISCONSIN

Not much to say this week. Life is up and down. The work has been very stressful lately and Madera is not getting baptized for a while until she takes its seriously. John is doing real well and he is going to pray about getting baptized. I think he is going to and that would make me so happy, considering i tracted into him at the beginning of July and ive seen him progress so much since we started teaching him. Uh, U.P. is fun and lots of people to teach right now and were hoping to get a few of them to start coming to church. Hopefully ill have more to say next week. Till then, chow.

I came close to death, or at least major head trauma. On saturday we were tracting on this street next to a highway and a forrest and this deer came out of the forrest and almost got hit by a car so it darted across the street and was headed right for me. I ran twords the house and screamed and it ran into the nieghboors yard and ran into their fence. I was afraid of getting a hoof to the face. Only in the U.P. Life is well. We reset our baptsim date with Madera for sep 10th although she missed chucrh yesterday. grrr. She needs to come the next three weeks for it to happen. We were blessed with three new invstigators last week from tracting and contacting old media referrals. I have been praying for a few more people to increase our teaching pool and the lord answered my prayers this week. Its noce to have many different people to visit and teach. I began learning the guitar yesterday. Ron, one of our investigators has been offering me free lessons the last few weeks so i finally took him up on it. We are now gonna combine guitar lessons with our teaching appointments. My fingers are kinda sore today but i have learned 5 chords already. 9 1/2 months down already. Its amazing how time flies when your having fun!

Elder Peltier is now home and Elder Smethurst is home too in a way. He is my new companion and he was trained up here over a year ago. He has been out for 19 months and is a 6-2 250 lb blonde canadian with glasses from Edmonton. He is pretty funny and a happy fellow. We get along and its nice that he has already served here before so i dont have to convert him to the area. Transfers was fun. We had to go down to Green Bay and along the woay i got to stop and see one of the greatest spotrs landmarks in the world: Lambeau Field, the home of the Green Bay Packers. It was sweet. On saturday we went deep out into the woods with the elders quorum to gather firewood for the winter. The winters here are brutal and they stockpile forewood now for it. The work is ok although it could be better. Some of our investigators arent progressing as much as we would like. Even the people who want to get baptized arent doing what they need to for it to happen and its very discouraging. I wanna see people get baptized and recieve the blessings of the gospel but they have to make that choice. I do my part of teaching the gospel, encouraging and supporotring but ultimately it comes down to them. i cant decide for them. Its like the phrase "you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink" Thats what is happening at the moment. They are at the water, now i gotta be patient till they drink. It will happen though. And if not, ive done what i can. I still love the work, even though its very difficult. Marquette is awesome. Lovin every minute up here. Later eh!!

Summer in Marquette is flying by. Another new month already. Its so beautiful up here. Elder Peltier and i go down to a lakefront park almost every night for dinner and play catch with a baseball. Were getting noticed to cuz we stand out wearing suits with baseball gloves. Weve taught some people down there. Its so nice on Lake Superior. I really love water. The great lakes are nice. Transfers are this week. Elder Peltier goes home and ill be getting a new companion. Ill find out who tomorrow night. I likely will be going senior companion and ive got a great feel for the work here. Three people were teaching are so close to baptism they just need to overcome some hurdles, like coming to church and living the law of chastity and word of wisdom. So ive got wuite the task for this upcoming transfer. Summertime is awesome. It may not last too much longer up here in the U.P. Ill enjoy it while its here for sure.