WEEK 20

Mele Kalikimaka! (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian.)

This week was a super long week, but it was a super good week and I enjoyed it. We have gotten a ton of snow and we may or may not have played in it. We even spent some time shoveling people's driveways. We went over to the Berniers and started shoveling their driveway, but Blaine didn't like that so he came out and helped us. Then later that night there was a bunch of snow again so we shoveled it again for him and he is one of those people that doesn't like getting help from people. Then we just went around and did some other people's that we were teaching. The only part I didn't like, well it was still pretty fun, was getting into our driveway with all the snow. We live on a hill so it took us about half an hour to get up it and we had to get a lot of speed and I had to push. We eventually got it and now it is plowed so it's fine now. It was also pretty cold, but the coldest was yesterday and when we left for church it was -40 with the windchill. So it wasn't too bad, but I think we have climatized to the cold or we just have good clothing because it hasn't been too bad at all. Well and we don't have to be outside that much with our car, but our car is never warm because by the time it starts warming up we are already where we were going.

We have been to the Berniers a lot this week and we even were able to watch 17 Miracles with them! I really love that movie and we are going to try and watch Ephraim's Rescue which goes with 17 Miracles. They came to church again and they always call it their church which is super cool because there are some people that get baptized and still call it your church. We went over for dinner on Sunday and they fed us some thick steaks... like they were huge. That was Elder Huntley's third time eating steak over there and only my first. But they are all totally getting baptized. I don't know if I will be here for it, but I know it will happen eventually.

We haven't seen Bernie or James that much this week, but they are still going strong. They come every week for all three hours and they are involved in class. James keeps saying how excited he is for his baptism and he just wants to go to the temple super bad. Last Sunday we told Bernie that she could go do baptisms for the dead and she told us she wanted to wait for James. We had a linger longer after church and we sat by them and they just always talk about their studies and how much they love the scriptures. It is so cool to see the change in them especially James.

On Thursday we did service at Connecting Connections and we were almost done cause we had to go soon, but then this guy showed up and he had some dressers he wanted to donate and that was exactly what we were looking for so we rode in his truck with him to his house to grab the key to his old house where the dressers were. While we were driving we were just talking to him and then he asked a few questions about the church and we were able to teach a lesson, but he was the pastor for the first covenant church so we were able to ask him some questions too. He was a super cool guy and when we got the dressers and dropped them off at the people who needed them we asked him if we could come by and talk to him some more and he said we could, but he is super busy so just call his church and we gave him our number too. So we are going to convert him and his church and the New Life United Pentecostal church. 

So I don't remember if I talked about this in my last email so if I did just pretend I didn't. Plus there is new stuff since last week... so we got this call from some missionaries in Rochester and they told us about a family that moved into our area and the guy was a member, but his wife wasn't and they were being taught in the past so we should go ever there. So we called him and set up an appointment with him. So we went over on Saturday and he let us in and they had two new puppies that were so adorable, but not as good as my puppies back home! So R****** used to have her own dog sled team and she is starting that up again so she got some puppies and will get more eventually I think. J**** works on hot rod cars and has had a bunch of cool cars and he also like guns and was showing us his guns and to be honest... they were pretty sick. He said they moved here for safety reasons and doesn't wasn't us to give their address or number to the members. I guess there were some people that messed with them and is going through court now. Anyways they told us that she wants to become a member and told us when they were available to meet and so we are going to start teaching her and set a date with her!

On Saturday we also saw William W. and he has always asked a lot questions when we are there and this time we were able to have more of a lesson than usual. He was asking questions like what you had to do to be baptized and things like that. He said he was coming to church but sadly he didn't. He will come eventually I think so we have high hopes for him! He just found out he has stage 2 lung cancer so we were able to talk to him about it a little and he was asking things like why we go through trials and things like that!

So we had a pretty crazy miracle this week. We went to the YMCA to try and get a gym membership and since we don't make any money we were trying to get a discounted membership and we went in and told them we were missionaries and we didn't make money and they had us fill out some stuff and then the next day we got this call from this guy that works there and he told us that him and his staff kind of talked it over and they decided since we do so much to help out the community that they were just going to give us a free six month membership and all we had to do was just tell them when we were leaving and stuff so now we are going to get to be swoldiers and it makes it a lot easier to work out since it is cold out and we can actually go running now!

So right now we are on our way to Cottage Grove to have a district p day and so I am typing this in the car on my IPad. We are going to be making gingerbread houses and playing board games haha so much fun! So I won't have as much time to email today! Anyways that's about it for this week! I will talk to y'all next week! 


Elder Bullock

-40 with windchill

Elder Huntley and I keeping warm

Ice crystals on the eyelashes

Elder Huntley's snow angel

Elder Bullock's snow angel