New in Town

Have you seen the movie?  It is a fairly predictable movie in which Renee Zellweger plays a high powered business exec who is transfered to New Ulm, MN. 

By the time I finally watched this movie with some friends over the summer in Phoenix, I had already lived in MN for the majority of a year.  It was long enough to be able to assure my friends that although the personalities, folksiness, and accents of the characters were greatly exaggerated, the weather was dead on.   Through their laughter over thinking of me while they were enjoying 75 degree days in January, they warned me that I had not yet been in rural MN.  

They are right.  There is another similarity.  You see the other thing I remember about the somewhat forgettable movie was that there was a group of women who opened their lives up and welcomed the new comer with open arms.

That has been what I have found in my time in Southwestern Minnesota.  The people here are more than happy to welcome me in and share their lives with me.  

Just as it was the supporting characters of the movie that made the movie worth watching, it is the supporting members of the congregations and communities here that make Minnesota worth living in.  So although I am not sure I would recommend seeing the movie, New In Town, I do highly recommend living in Southwestern Minnesota.