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.

I have a new companion!!!

Elder Senn and I got a new companion! His name is Elder Ireland, and he is from Lincoln, CA. He is headed to Mendoza, Argentina which means he knows very well my friend from my MTC district as well as some of my uncles, friends in common in Lincoln, and even a couple people from Antelope. It is kind of cool to have that connection. He will probably be here for a while. Visa's take a while. He is a nice guy; I am happy to be with him. He has been a member a year, and he likes to sing. He wrestled all four years of high school. He has been dating a girl from Peru for four years who will graduate from BYU-Hawaii next year. He understands lots of Spanish, a little more than he speaks, but we will work with him and help him be as prepared as possible once his visa issue works out.  Go pay his parents a visit....neither of them are members of the LDS church, but his mom is taking the lessons!

So Ignacia...lots of news on her. I will start with district meeting. We talked about going back to basics: basic spirit sandwich, why we are there, and committing people to baptism. Our zone leaders told us they had prayed about a promise; they said if we updated our area books every night, we would each have a miracle baptism by the end of the transfer. We set three baptismal dates that day…well kind of. The first one was Ignacia. We had already been doing our area books everyday so the miracles came quick when we agreed to keep doing it. We taught a lesson to Igancia just about baptism and the answer to her prayer. She had kept her reading commitment and felt the Spirit testify of its truthfulness. She was convinced that’s exactly what it was. She used to live in Orem with her four kids. Her husband left her and her kids for another woman; this is pretty recent. She had very bad depression and wanted to leave her kids. In her head, she was convinced that leaving her kids would be better for them, because she just wasn't a good mom and didn't know what to do. So she left...and I don't know how far away...but at some point a voice told her to go back to her kids. The voice said that her kids wouldn't be better off without her, and that they needed her. Then the voice told her to move to Preston with her brother. That was about four weeks ago. She is getting baptized either this week or next.

Ok, so wipe those tears away, and I will tell you a little more about our other investigators.