Dear Family, August 8, 2010
It is great that dad received my card. That is good. Elyria is alright. A whole lot less abandoned building than Ashtabula. The only time we bike is to Oberlin. There is a bike path that goes from Elyria to Oberlin and it is 7 miles so 14 miles round trip. We only get a total of 1100 miles per month which is really small but we try our best to stay under. Elder Leake is alright has worse road rage than I do. He is a phoenix driver. They drive faster and more aggressive down there. Elder Leaks driving privileges were suspended for 45 days so he has to put up with my slow driving skills. To give you a general idea of our area that we cover ( I have a vague idea too) we cover Elyria, Oberlin, Grafton, Lagrange, and Wellington. So yes more cities to cover. We are trying to figure out how to visit Lagrange and Wellington and Grafton because they are too long to bike ( and get work done) and it is too far to drive because it destroys our miles. For example our miles were reset in the beginning of August and we went to Grafton or Lagrange I cannot remember but to took 70 miles in one day and by the end of the week we went a little over 200 miles. It is tough. The ward boundaries cover those cities mentioned so there is only one ward. Of course it is small and most of the members, not all, but most of the members are old. Since they are old and there are no kids under the age of 4 there is no nursery. Elyria ward is the only ward I know of that doesn't have a nursery which caused some problems. The reason why it caused problems was because a nonmember a couple of weeks ago found the church online and talked with the online missionaries in the MTC. She came to Church. Her name is Mandy Butcher and is a single mom with two kids Cloey and Corrie. Both children are under the age of 3. So no nursery meant that Mandy and her two daughters had to spend the last two hours of church in primary. The primary president was not happy with us missionaries for doing this at the last minuet. Which bothered us because we knew this at the last minuet.The Elyria ward had experience some bad missionaries in the past and the members have grown cold towards the missionaries. Whenever something goes wrong they find a way to blame the missionaries. It is hard but Elder Leake and I are working on building trust which I hear will take years to develop. Otherwise we only have one other investigator coming to church but it is hard teaching him. His name is Kevin and he is sick or sleeping when we stop by. Anyway, the work must go on. I am glad everything is going well, for the most part, for you guys. I hope your week goes well and hope to hear from you soon.
Love
Elder Behrmann
