Received Monday December 16, 2013

QUESTIONS:

Did you get one more Christmas package this week?

yes. I have one "wait" package and one that I opened where there was 2 wrapped presents inside.

 

I sent you a Christmas card last week too, so get your punny hat on and be ready!!

I'll be waiting!

 

How was the Yankee Candle store last week? Buy anything? Smell stuff? How many missionaries went?

it was decently fun, something different. A lot of goofy stuff in there. I smelled many things, many of which I did not think smelled good! the worst was a bacon scented candle. It smelled like bacon, but was way strong and kind of barfalicious

 

Any trouble with driving in the snow....ice?

When we were driving out to district meeting (a 50 mile trek, I think that's the farthest anyone drives for DM) I was a snowy, icing day. Somewhere along the drive the GPS guided us along some more rugged smaller roads. I tried to drive quite slowly to be careful, but along one point I hit the brakes too hard/at the wrong time while I was turning and the car slid and bumped a tree! I was only going about 10 mph, but it still left a small dent above the back tire on the passenger side. later that day I called the vehicle coordinator and left a message telling him about it. Haven't heard back yet. on that same ride, when I was driving even more exceedingly careful, there was a bend coming up in front of us and we saw a car coming towards us totally spin out and into a snow bank. They were going really fast around the turn, someone kind of not thinking I guess. We were maybe 20 yards away, glad we weren't closer. They did a full 360 before stopping. We stopped and asked if we could do anything to help, but there was nothing we could do. It was a 20 something year old lady.

How has Elder Wright felt this week? Have you needed to do any more procedures on him?

he's good. No more problems

 

How was Caroling with the youth on Saturday? What songs did you sing?

it was fun. We just went 1 one nursing home. Our investigator did come. we sang probably 7 or so songs. "here comes Santa Clause" We wish you a merry christmas" "silent night" "oh holy night" (which we stopped halfway through because it was too hard. we had words but no music). We some some other classics too and also "Feliez Navidad" which was fun. I told the people in charge we should have sung You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

 

What are your plans for today?

a member got us some YMCA passes and we went and worked out there after our studies, which was fun. Should keep us from getting fat like Coco. Elder Wright is also going to get his hair cut. We're going to wash the car. Not sure if we're even going to do any shopping because we've been given a ton of food, which is nice.

 

Just curious, how are your shoes holding up? How do they work in the snow?

doing great. I have those nice snow boots I wear a lot here in the winter snowy season.

 

Quinn says that if you wear the ear muffs, you do not need a beanie hat. Do you agree? Do you also have a beanie hat?

today I'm wearing neither. I think I have a beanie hat, but I never wear it. I thought about it yesterday, but didn't. It's not as cold here as Idaho though. My companion has some really big ear muffs which I think are superior than my smaller ones. I sometimes have been wearing my scarf and sometimes the ear muffs. I wear a sent of small gloves and a bigger kind of leathery ones too, but my fingers still get cold if we're out for a while. I still have a passel of those handwarmers though I ought to use.

We had a bit of a snowstorm the past couple days. It started coming down pretty hard saturday, and we went of home a couple hours early, then sunday (yesterday) church was cancelled! we did a lot of shoveling around our apartment complex to try and be useful, and then after things got plowed we went out and tried to see if there were any members or anybody that could use any help. we were in regular people cloths all day. We went to go see one of our investigators, but he didn't need any help. I knew there was an inactive member who lived in an apartment next door, who we tried to meet with in the past (with E Gallagher, she told us about 5 or 6 times yes, but try another day until finally we just told her to call us when she was ready) but she didn't need any help either, but then we had a really good conversation with another neighbor there. I guess she met with the missionaries a year or so ago and even came to church a few times, but things kind of crumbled after a missionary threatened to punch her husband for some reason. we were able to make a better impression, and she said when we next went over to teach the neighbor to give her door a knock and she if she was there! I guess her Dad joined the church when he was older and everyone saw it made a big difference in his life. She said he wasn't too likeable beforehand but he made a lot of great changes when he made the church. He's past away now, but his good example of changing to closer to god, and happier ( that's called repenting) still has a deep impression on her daughter and her family. Here's hoping things turn out well.

this Wednesday is our big missionary Christmas thing. We get to go to the temple, then there's a devotion and each zone does skits and etc.

This week we did a big meeting over a program called webex. Kind of like a big skype/google hangout. All the leadership people were a part of it. he's going to start doing that every tuesday! different days for different people (one tuesday for everyone, then all leadership, then trainers, then ZL's) President mostly just talked about roles of leadership and things that need to be improved on (that's called a rebuke!)

Also, we've been hearing for a while missionaries are going to be getting Ipads/tablets sometimes soon, maybe in December/January. We'll see what really happens.

That's all for now!!