Friday night was a first here - a mission call opening! One of our students, Aram, received his mission call that day and decided to have the "grand opening" here at the Institute! Aram's married sister and husband in Idaho participated via skype and they and a whole room full of people watched. Aram will be the second missionary to leave from here in January! (His Dad is an Economics Professor here at Ball State and knows Kevin!)

This was transfer week. Our Elder Munguia, who has been here at Ball State and in the YSA Branch since the last week of May (nearly 6 months) was transfered. He will be an assistant to the president now so we will still see him occasionally. Great young man! The president puts excellent missionaries on three college campuses. On the day before transfers Brenda played a bit of ping pong with the Elders and some of the students after our Munch & Mingle. She beat our resident champ but couldn't beat the Elders! They didn't know she could play and it surprised them! We had 11 come for lunch that day for Taco Tuesday and we had 12 on Friday for spaghetti and garlic bread. Another first that day - we ran out of food! and had to cook more pasta for the late comers. We have been taking turns teaching the Church History Institute class - Gary teaching the Missouri lessons and Brenda the Kirtland lessons. On Thursday night our CES Supervisor from Indianapolis came to visit. Brenda taught the Glorious Days in Kirtland about the calling of the twelve apostles and the seventy, the first hymn book, and ending with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple and the visitations in the temple a week later by Jesus Christ, Moses, Elias, and Elijah. Brenda loved reading Joseph Smith's History of the Church about these events. It takes days to prepare lessons as we find and insert videos into our power point slides and trim them to show just the right pieces. We think of discussion questions to involve the class. We agonize over whether to present in the order of the manual or in chronological order - and how to trim 3-hour lessons into 70 minutes. After a run-through on the TV we sometimes have to re-load a video clip in lesser quality so it will play.

Our mornings have sometimes been below freezing - kind of cool for walking but we wear layers. Now that the leaves have dropped we can see things we didn't notice before! This statue sits in a little park near the city hall. The Indian brave is playing his flute to attract an Indian maiden. There are a number of beautiful Indian statues around Muncie to honor the Indians that first settled this area. Saturday Gary worked on lessons and Brenda worked - cleaning and doing laundry (hand washing anything that can't take the beating this washer gives the clothes!). The Mormon Channel was a delight to listen to while working. We heard some great talks and good music. Shopped for office supplies and Institute food and rushed back for the Elders to teach here - and their contact had cancelled on them! We attended the Why I Believe fireside Sunday evening and heard from one of our Marion students who has been a member for just two years. Things are going well. We express our love for you and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!