Postcard from Manistique                                  Aug 30, 2013

Hey Family,
This just about sums things up.  The Yoopers are a real hoot and its a bit difficult to describe some of the things up here.  We continue to have fun as we work hard. I hope this postcard will be enough to get you through the week so that you can enjoy your Labor Day weekend.  The bikes have been a real blessing, we even tracted all the way to Indian Lake.  Next we'll tract all of Thompson (a town South West of here). I'm not sure if you heard but the Church just surpassed 75,000 missionaries. This is such an exciting time.
Love
Elder Andrew Luymes

Hello family, friends, and puppies

Things have been going well for us. We are happy, healthy, and pressing forward in our labors. We had several dropped lessons this week, so we have no investigators with a baptismal date like we had hoped for. Some investigators weren't home, some were sick, and others have managed to disappear. None the less, we are still cheerful and keeping strong, knowing that not all is lost and that we will try harder this new week. We were able to occupy our extra time by helping out some members in constructing a cinder block wall, and helping a new family move into their home.

I got skills! Sledge Hammer skills!

 The G___ family is a young family of four and we were happy to help them settle into their small home. They will be a fine addition to our group, and will greatly help this group out as we prepare to become a branch.

On the topic of becoming a branch, we just found out that the new boarders have been approved but are not active yet. They will change/become active on September 14 when Stake Conference starts that Saturday and Sunday. We are so excited because we should become a branch on that date as well. This opens up the flood gates to so many more opportunities and the Holy Spirit will poor out on these faithful members as we grow together spiritually and in numbers. With a small number of great members and a growing list of potential baptisms, Elder Thompson and I are excited as ever. We are working very hard and preparing as many as we possibly can for baptism so that this future branch can continue to be strengthened by the blessing of the Lord.

We have two new investigators this week. R__ is a super great guy who owns an antique store. He has been reading the Book of Mormon ever since we gave him a copy; he has many questions for us and is very willing to learn more about the restoration. We have invited him to pray about the Book of Mormon and we feel confident that he will receive an answer. Ri___ is our second new investigator, he is an interesting guy. He smokes so much that he is extremely difficult to understand. But, he does want us to teach him a lot and he is interested in coming to church, he just has to wake up early enough.

As for the cinder block wall. A member here is trying to put a house up for sale, so he has asked for our help in building the wall. We had a good time mixing the cement and doing other related things. Until next week read Mosiah 2:41 :)

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and ^ahappy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are ^bblessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out ^cfaithful to the end they are received into ^dheaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

That's all folks.

Love

Elder Luymes

E.Thompson in our office with the garbage box.

 

 

The Primary children from East Pasadena Ward wrote letters and drew pictures to Andrew and this was his reply.  I'm not sure if he drew the pictures or if Elder Thompson is the artist.

 

Several have asked about sending gift cards to Andrew for fast food type establishments.  They have a Subway and a Hardees in town.  He travels two hours away to Marquette once a month for District meetings and to grocery shop at Wal-Mart and they occasionally eat at McDonalds there too.

Otherwise, Andrew is learning to cook and is interested in easy, simple chicken, ground beef, pasta, potato recipes that he can make on a budget.  The recipes that I’ve sent him are apparently “too complicated”. 

Mom Luymes J

Dear family and friends,                                                 

This was a good week for Elder Thompson and me. We didn’t have anything major or super exciting happen but we had a number of good lessons with some investigators and we plan on extending multiple invitations to be baptized this coming week.
 Just to list off a number of smaller items that dotted the week:
1) We dropped Dianne as planned. To our honest surprise she took it better than we expected. She still had some questions for us as to what this specifically means now that she has been dropped. We also told her that in the future if she felt ready to receive the lessons again that all she had to do was ask the missionaries. She asked our member present if he would continue to pick her up and he agreed, so Dianne was at church yesterday.

2) With our new bikes put together, working, and fully operational. We didn’t hesitate to put them to use. We road them everywhere and we have been able to reach a large number of new homes that have never been tracted and this is only the beginning, We have a small town named Thompson that is 7 miles away and we are going to start tracting down there this week, plus a number of other small clusters of homes that have not had a chance to hear the news of the Restored Gospel. It’s been really exciting and our thighs are starting to get used to it :)

Also, with the large box that my bike came in, we decided to keep it and use it as a trash box. We estimate that it will last us several months. By then, Elder Thompson and I could be long gone from Manistique, meaning that other future missionaries will have to deal with the issue of throwing it away.  

3) While we were at Dianne’s, doing service and dropping her, I managed to collect 83 Mosquito bites in two hours. 

4) One of our Investigators, Jonah, decided to make an emergency trip/move with his family to Florida because he got caught stealing from two of the members here and so now he is fleeing the Michigan Police. What he doesn’t know is that he has a $15,000 Warrant for his arrest in Florida. Anyway, we don’t think he's quite ready for the gospel. 

5) A family from the Marquette Ward is moving into our tiny town of Manistique later this week. We have met the Green family and are super excited to welcome them into our group and we look forward to seeing what they can contribute to the missionary effort and strengthening the group. They have two young boys, one is 3 and the other is only a few months old. Both the parents are teachers at the High school here. 

6) We accomplished an all-time high of 10 lessons this week. Although this number is small when compared to most other missionaries, this is the highest for both me and Elder Thompson. 

That’s it for this week, we continue to be blessed and feel your love and prayers for us. Thank You. 

Love

Elder Luymes

 

Dear Family and friends,                                                 August 12, 2013

This week (and the start of a new transfer) has been filled with sad news and great news.

First off, I am still with Elder Thompson in Manistique - this is all good news.

The sad news is that Josie dropped us by text message Monday night. This was so unexpected and saddening to our hearts that we literally rolled on the floor complaining and whining for over an hour. We didn't know what to do and we felt lost and so sad because we had such high hopes for her, she was very excepting in our lessons, she was reading the Book of Mormon and she had even agreed to a baptismal date, we really were sad and we thought this week was going to be a total bummer because of the sad news.

But on Tuesday (the day after Josie dropped us) we got 4 new investigators!!!!!!!! It was a thrill and all four have had previous contact with the missionaries and all are very open with us and interested in the message of the Restored gospel.

But then it gets better: on Friday we ate dinner with an investigator of ours and by chance, he invited his friends over and they agreed to listen to the lesson and make a return appointment, this put us at 8 new investigators in one week (8 is our monthly average and we got 8 in one week!!!)

Now for some sad news regarding our special Miss Dianne, who, has a baptismal date for August 31st. She met with the Bishop from the Marquette ward and after an intense 20 minute discussion. The Bishop called us in to talk with us and he said she is mentally ill and that we will have to drop her on our next lesson. We knew that she was sick and that she was causing some problems with the members in our group. She had been causing us some problems as well but we didn't want to drop her because we felt that she had the right intentions for wanting to be baptized. It’s all one big mess but essentially Dianne is being dropped on Wednesday.

Now for the last bit of good news -- introducing Mike, our 9th new investigator for the week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mike has already read the Book of Mormon, he wants to come to church, and he wants us to meet with him and have the lessons.

With 9 new investigators in one week, we were able to get more than one fourth of all the new investigators in the entire Green Bay Zone. Although none of the credit goes to us because Elder Thompson and I haven't done anything differently, it was all God blessing us for our long and hard work. Miracles truly are happening right before our eyes and it’s so exciting!

Until next week, Love

Elder Luymes



Official Yooper Mud Truck -- The Hillbilly Deluxe
aka "Hypnotic Hydroponics"

 

First and foremost for this weekly update: Elder Thompson and I have decided to introduce bikes into our area. We have so few miles and so many potentials plus a boarder change coming up that will give us 1/3 of the entire U.P. Mom and Dad: please take my bike to a shop and get it tuned, then send my bike, helmet, bike lights, my seat pouch, and my bike lock. All of it ASAP please. Elder Thompson and I are both hoping/planning on having our bikes in hand on August 14th. So please send it prior to that date so that we can progress in the Lords work. Thank you.

I have an Address correction: my correct address is:

Elder Luymes

207 1/2 S. Cedar St. Apt 2

Manistique, MI 49854-1425

I am not getting transferred this week so feel free to send letters.

This week was very exciting and filled with miracles. Our progressing investigator Josie agreed to an August 31 baptism with a special request to be baptized in a lake!!! On Friday we met Mike, he is an x-convict who came across the Book of Mormon while in prison. He has read nearly the entire book and knows that it is true. He has a very demanding work schedule so we weren’t able to set up an appointment with him but he asked for our number and said that he was happy to have the discussions with us. We hope he commits to a baptism for either August 31 or early September. Then on Saturday we met Heather, she is a mother of 4 and is a member of the church but hasn’t been active for many years. She wants to come back to church and she wants her eligible children to be baptized. She too asked for our number and invited us to come on over when ever so that we could begin having the discussions with her children and non-member boyfriend. Then on Sunday we got a special request from a dropped investigator asking us to come over to his house. When we did and talked with him he said he was interested in getting back into things and having the discussions. He has a very serious smoking problem but he has shown true interest in us and so we have high hope for him. As you can tell from these four examples, God is blessing us each and every day. And with so many strong potential baptisms we may need a new building and a promotion from group to branch.

A funny thing happened on Sunday. One of our members gives us food every Sunday, so we always leave it in the fridge until we leave and then we put the food in the car. But we left the food in the church building and we were the ones who locked the building. Well... we don’t have a key to the building anymore and now we don’t have Sunday dinner. So we spent an hour trying to break into the church building just because we wanted the food that bad, and also because we were out of food at our apartment. so our Sunday dinner consisted of: the last two hotdogs, the last two tortillas, the last two slices of lunch ham, the last four eggs, and hot sauce, ranch dressing, BBQ sauce, spaghetti sauce, and rice. Yum! We eat five star in the U.P.!

That’s all folks!!! Until next time from Yooperville.

Elder Luymes

Marquette District Rocks!

Yooper Bars made by the Sayklly Family in our "Twig".