Today was Sunday - a lovely day (if you don't consider the weather). There was a non-member girl and guy at church today. Don't know what they thought of a Fast & Testimony meeting but it was excellent. Most who participated were the guys - and they gave powerful testimonies. The Branch had a big temple trip yesterday, which was the subject of several testimonies. They did mostly family names so that was neat. They didn't need us to drive and had 9 Melchizedek priesthood holders going (they need 8) so we stayed home and worked on lessons and did laundry, etc. While researching for a lesson Gary found a great family history website showing those who migrated to the US on ships from England. Just go to mormonmigration.lib.byu.edu and put in your ancestor's name and see what comes up. For each ship and each trip across the ocean there are listings of mormon passengers, personal history accounts of the voyages, and cool information. We both found ancestors on the ship records and are anxious to spend more time on that site.

This is the winter bus stop next to the Institute. Sure is handy for our students. They can park in our lot, ride the bus to class, and ride it back for lunch on Munch & Mingle days. It was cold this week! One morning it was 6 degrees but with a wind chill of -11! Weird snow though. The two inches was so light we could have used a leaf blower on it -until it gets walked on and smashed down. Just as

Brenda finished shoveling the sidewalk by the main road,a girl walked past her and said "thanks for doing that". Unexpected thanks can really make your day! Last district meeting with this group (our Elders are the goofy ones in the back!). We love the Elders and the fabulous couple, Elder & Sister Ulrich. This week the training was on humility. Elder Tobler (dark haired in the front) is our

leader and did the training. Awesome job. They teach so simply but so powerfully with the spirit, that it is amazing. They include role playing as a teaching method - and it works!

We just wish we could figure out how to do what they do while teaching church history. Elder Magleby has been serving here at Ball State for 6 months and goes home on Tuesday. The good thing is we always get another great Elder.

It was a big week for Munch & Mingle. We had 14 on Tuesday and 16 on Friday. We had a non-member young man attend on Tuesday. Gary taught both lunch lessons this week and Brenda taught the Wed. & Thurs. night Institute lesson. Our Marion student is a convert of 2 years and nearly all the church history we teach is new to her. Last week we sent the lesson to her and she watched it on power point on her home computer (we didn't travel in the snow storm). She reported this week that she was very moved by the movie clip of the martyrdom of Joseph & Hyrum Smith - and could understand the meanness of the mob because of men in her family background that were similarly unkind. Our Thursday class did a "put these events in order" activity during the lesson on the church under the leadership of the twelve apostles in Nauvoo.