Snow, Snow, and More Snow!!!

I thought I knew what extreme winter weather was but I just got an education today.  It is 1 degree out and we are supposed to get up to 13" inches <of snow> today and later this week we are supposed to get wind chills down to -20s.  Crazy cold but we will survive some how!  Apparently this is an arctic blast according to locals.  Basically it's were some really cold air comes down from the arctic and makes it really cold and makes it snow and the great lakes just amplify it. 

We were supposed to have transfers today but they cancelled them due to the winter weather.  But because Elder Wise is going home Wednesday he is having to drive down to Lansing today with another elder from Oscoda so they can go to the temple tomorrow.  I will be going on trade offs with the other Elder From Oscoda so pray that they will make it down there safely cause that is a 2 hour drive in good weather.  My new comp is Elder Eckersell.  Don't know any thing about him so I will email all about him next week.  I am picking him up tomorrow in Mt Pleasant.

We had a really cool miracle this week.  One of our friends Don was telling us that Elder Wise and I were the first missionaries to knock on his door.   All of his neighbors said that missionaries had knocked on their doors at least once a year for who knows how long, but some how some way Don hadn't had missionaries knock on his door.  And for some reason Elder Wise and I knocked on his door and he answered and let us right in.  Its been a long time in the making.  With Don we knocked on his door in early October and some how the lord has continually prepared him to hear our message! 

But it has been snowing since 9 the morning and we have a foot of snow and it is still coming down and supposed to keep coming down until midnight.

Too Cold To Be Alive!

On Wednesday we were in Saginaw for trade-offs and zone conference.  Both mornings we woke up to freezing rain.  It's honestly worse than a foot of snow because everything is iced over and you have zero traction, which is always quite the adventure.  The plus was that it was in the high 20's which felt amazing after it had been in the teens in West Branch!

While we were in Saginaw for trade-offs I saw a hobby shop and I talked Elder Duffin into going in and looking around.  It was a really lame hobby shop but I got to talk to the store clerk and he knew all about miny quad racing.  It was really fun talking to him.  I realized after talking to that I had forgotten so much about drones.  I couldn't remember the most basic things.  It reminded me that it has been 4 and a half months since I have done any of that stuff, but I gave the store clerk a pass along card and we went on our way!

On Friday we had to "car fast" because we were starting to run pretty low on miles and we still have to do quite a bit of driving before the end of the month. The good thing was that it was only the 3rd coldest day of the year so far, so we didn't freeze to death.  On Sunday we woke up to -2 and apparently it was too cold to go to church.  Don't ask me why they decided that.  The only thing we had to do on Sunday was to door knock so we went out door knocking in 1-3 degree weather.  By the time we were done, I had ice crystals on my eyelashes from my breath.

recreation of a picture

ice on my eye lashes

salt on the road not snow

food a member in Saginaw gave us 

the weather

It's Cold!

On Friday evening we had a bunch of formers to stop by and see how they were doing.  We, of course, had dinner from 5-6 before we left.  We had taco salad and used some ground beef that a member gave us.  But at our first stop by they let us in and we talked for a minute and then they said: "have you had dinner yet?"  We said, "yes but we could sit down and have a little"  trying to be polite.  Anyway, they didn't hear that we had already had dinner because they sat us down behind a big bowl of ravioli and a big old salad.  Fortunately, though somehow I ate it all and didn't die even though a couple of times I thought I was going to because I was so full.

We have to run the heater in our apartment so much because of how cold it is.  Because of that, the air can get really dry.  On Saturday morning it was especially bad so I put 2 giant pots of water on the stove on high and went upstairs to do companionship study.  When we got done and came back down it was like someone had showered and didn't turn on the fan.  The walls were running because there was so much moisture.  There were pools of water at the bottom of the windows.  To add to it when we opened the door to go outside it was like a steam machine.  The moment you opened the door steam just pored out of our apartment.  We learned our lesson to only boil a small pot and watch that pot while you are boiling it.

Crazy Michigan Weather

On Tuesday it snowed 4 inches, it was trade offs that day, and we didn't have any teaching appointments.  We ended up walking in the snow all day.  Fortunately, I got the chance to try out my new snow boots!  It gets crazier on Wednesday.  It got into the mid 40s and all the snow melted, then it got cold for a couple of days.  Today we woke up with 2 inches of snow.  I thought Utah had crazy weather!  Little did I know!

We wen't ice fishing last p-day.  We caught one small perch.  That was it but we sure had a good time out on the ice.  Mom don't worry, the ice was about 5 inches thick!  I also drilled my first hole in the ice by hand.  I thought it wouldn't be to hard but it took a lot of effort.  Probably didn't help that I'm an out of shape missionary.

On Wednesday we got a member referral on date for baptism.  She is from Colorado.  We have her on date for the 16th of February and if I had to guess she will probably make that date!

Besides that E.Wise has bean sick most of this week.  When we went outdoors knocking yesterday it did him in and we ended up having to call it a day at 8, rather than 9, but the extra hour of sleep last night was sure nice.

Christmas

Not a whole lot happened this week.  We had Christmas day which was a lot of fun!  On Christmas eve we had a candy cane eating contest and who ever lost had to do a 30 second snow angel with their shirt off and any way after eating a gross dollar store candy cane, I lost and had to do a 30 second snow angel in the snow without my shirt.  It was really cold and it just burned.  If I'm being honest my back was bright red afterwards but after the pain and suffering we took some Christmas pictures and watched Mr. Krugers Christmas and went to bed. 

Christmas day we called home from the Butlers and then the rest of the day we stopped by members and chatted.  We ended up having 2 dinner appointments, one with an older couple the Babcocks who didn't have any kids home so we both did each other a favor and another with the k's family.  But besides that not much happened!

Well its going to be a short email this week cause were going Ice fishing but next week.  I will have a nice and long email for y'all!