Too short

So this week won't be exciting. Everywhere that we do email is closed so we had to go to a member’s house next door (we got permission; don't worry). I only have like ten minutes to email. I hope all is well. You will hear from me next week. We only have ten minutes a piece and have to email president. We also happen to be using the slowest computer in the world. It took like fifteen minutes to get on myldsmail. You will hear from me next week. I hope this will work since you heard from me yesterday! love you all so much and talk to you soon.

Best Christmas Present Ever!

We love Skype!

Goodbye Idaho "Legends" zone!

This is my 12/12/12 at 12:12 picture...The smile is weak, because I had a high fever and just got done throwing up all morning in this picture, ha-ha...the stress of all those 12's was two much for me.

Goodbye Idaho "legends" zone! I will be transferred to Mount Lewis Alpha in North Ogden to be serving as the district leader. (Right next to my greenie area!) I will be serving with a couple, or maybe one, visa waiter starting tomorrow.  I am not even really sure which companion I will have: Elder Jones, Elder Shumway, or Elder Bozarth...probably the latter, but I don't know yet. They are all headed to Spain except for Elder Jones; he is going to Argentina with Elder Ireland.

So this has been a different week. We have all three of us had the flu all week! We had had it the week before that, and it wasn't too bad. I woke up early on Wednesday and was feeling awful and went to zone study with a fever. I figured that Elder Masima wouldn't let a little sickness stop him, so we tracted in the 20 degree snow that day while I had a fever. It turns out I am just not as tough as Elder Masima; by Saturday we were all throwing up and had fevers. I pretty much slept on the bathroom floor all day Saturday. I kept feeling guilty for taking the "day off," but I wasn't enjoying myself at least. I am a little better now. Unfortunately we missed a couple lessons that night, but overall, it just made it an unproductive week this week. Luckily we are recovering.

It can really snow in Idaho! So we found a cool guy this week. We asked if he served a mission, and he said, “No, I was called to be a stake president when I was 19!” It was in 1950, but still it was pretty cool. He had some good stories to tell. So one thing I will miss about Idaho is how much people love the missionaries here. We were standing there in the church on Sunday waiting for our ward mission leader and there were a group of probably 8 to 10 year old kids standing about 30 feet away from us in the hallway. As we listened we could hear them daring each other to go and shake our hand, but they were all too scared, ha-ha. Eventually the teacher was brave enough to take the lead, and they all took turns meeting us and shaking our hands. We also had someone anonymously pay for us at Tapatio, Subway, and Chinese this week! So that is pretty cool.

That is EXACTLY what we wanted to hear

We pulled over in Soda Springs to play in the snow for just a few minutes.

Let it snow; let it snow! It looks like it will be a white Christmas this year. Everyone says that the amount there is right now is nothing, and we should expect a ton more. I personally think they're all talk, but I guess we will see. Driving in the snow for the first time has been quite the adventure, especially in a two wheel drive Malibu with completely worn down tires. The first day that it snowed really hard we drove 45 minutes up to Soda Springs. It was like 10 degrees up there. We turned into one house/driveway, and I kept sliding and came within probably two inches from hitting the mailbox before the car caught traction and turned. Pretty crazy. We looked at the tire marks, and it was soo so close; we got lucky. Then on the way back, it was nighttime and while crossing a bridge we started to slide out and almost hit the edge of the bridge (50 foot drop) like three times as we slid back and forth..but we didin't...so whoever is praying for us keep it coming! ha-ha. I don't get why they give the other missionaries up north trucks except for us. There are a lot of people in the hospital from wrecks; the roads are soo so slippery. WE will be careful though, sorry to scare you, Mom.

So we started working with the Ventura family this week. They are less active. We have been by just to see if they are home several times a week for about ten weeks and never found them at home (or never gotten hem to answer), but the ward wanted us to go by so we would always keep trying. So we went in and the mom was crying talking about how she needs to come back to church, and her kids (all older, 17, 18,20) don't want to go anymore. So we taught something and invited her back. They didn't come to church. I can't remember the excuse, but it wasn't a very good one. But the big change was her 18 and 20-year-old boys. We met them several times, and they were always kind of annoyed we were there and weren't at all helpful. But while we were there, I gave her oldest son a blessing, because his hemophilia has been pretty bad lately, I guess. So now the boys are really nice to us. We haven't had a follow up appointment; the mom has flaked out every time; but now her kids are nice to us. In fact they gave us a present after we left the first time...50 presliced pieces of American cheese, delicious.

The first member of his family...encouraging for my companions.

We have been very angry with Idaho this week. It has been raining all week! In December! We are mad that there still isn't any snow, This is a joke. It was 60 degrees outside yesterday, so I don't even get to use my jacket. Hopefully it will snow in the next couple weeks.

 So just something cool I was looking at this week. I kind of went down one day and broke down lesson 1 and studied just the first part. (Maybe I shouldn't do this, because it's like making my own doctrine, but I like thinking of things in a logical way.) Ok, so it says that the job of prophet is to teach the nature of god and teach the true gospel to get eternal life...that’s under the red box in 'prophets'. In 'dispensations' it says the two main distortions of apostasy are the nature of god and the gospel. The first two principles of lesson one are the two main restored "distortions" that we know of due to our modern day prophet. God is a loving father of flesh and bone who cries when we cry etc. The second heading being the gospel blesses families, hinting at the way to get eternal life, the second job of prophets. I just thought it was cool that it pointed it out that way in each section.

 So last p-day was awesome. We had a member bring us to Tapatio which is a really good Mexican restaurant in town, but it's expensive so we never go there. We were getting a haircut, and the uncle of half of our branch (he lives in Utah) met us and took us out to eat. While we were there, another member dropped 60 dollars on the table to pay for us, but we gave it back since there was already somebody else paying. Although my companions weren’t very happy I gave it back, ha-ha. Members are awesome. This guy (the uncle of all the Mexicans in our ward… who are all cousins) talked about how he was the first member of his family. They all thought he was crazy, but he did it anyway. Then he moved to the US (first one to do that, too), and once there, he got them all jobs and places to live in the US. They all ended up getting baptized here. He had to wait years though; it was encouraging for Elder Senn and Elder Ireland.