Dear Family,
Well, being in the mission field is definitely different!! Even the second time around. Oh well, I'm trying to enjoy it because I know NEXT year it will be different...if you know what I mean! I sound like broken record, but we got hit with a couple more snow storms. Too bad we don't get paid for all the snow shoveling we do. We do plenty! Good thing I enjoy it!!
Last Tuesday we woke up at 5:45 to get ready and then head to our Christmas Zone Conference. It was a great day! We had training the first half of the conference, the members made us a big turkey dinner, then the second half of the conference was the really fun part! Many people performed talents, and then at the end, a few of us surprised everyone with the Haka. Elders Tusa, Thurnot, Erickson, Collett and myself all did the Ka Mate Haka. We wore lava lavas over our missionary clothes and it was a blast. A lot of the missionaries had never seen anything like that before, so many got scared and absolutely shocked. It felt great to finally get that adrenaline again from doing the haka with "my boys."
Then we had a white elephant exchange which was a lot of fun. I ended up with a photo collage of Elder Davidson...which worked out perfect since I was his trainer! It was great to see so many missionaries that I know, and to be together for awhile. The last part of the conference was very spiritual and I felt an incredible comfort come over me. As people testified that we have loved ones "cheering us on" on both sides of the veil, the Spirit really touched me. I miss Denz so much...it's very hard this Christmas season, more-so than last year...so this really helped.
And we got slammed by another storm on Wednesday...so Thursday we did a lot of snow shovelling for members and just random people. It's difficult to find people when the weather is SO bad, but we did manage a bit. There is one older man that we found and have picked up as an investigator. Had dinner with the Gallant's and he taught me how to make his "famous" taco shell recipe from scratch!!
On Friday we met an interesting guy who had some very strange concepts of God. Later we had a potluck dinner at the Meister's home and after that we dropped by the Adam's and caught them as they were preparing for a party. We were able to meet a guy there who plays rugby and coaches the high school team. We had a good talk and hopefully we'll be able to meet more later on. And another storm came in Friday night!!
Saturday we made good use of all the snow from the storm and made a big snowman!! Since it's harder to find people during the winter here, we have to be a little more creative in how we go about this. Soooo, we made a seven foot snowman right on the side of a main road. The pictures tell the rest of the story.
It was pretty fun and loads of people have seen it throughout the day. Later we visited with some people and then in the evening went out caroling with some of the other missionaries to some older ladies.
And Sunday we woke up to ANOTHER winter storm! We went to the church early to shovel everything out. Church was only held for 1 hour due to the weather and there were a couple more cars that slid off the road coming out of the parking lot (like happened a couple of weeks ago!) However, in church we got a "shout out" from President Meister about our snowman we built! Cool!!
The Summerside Branch all pitched in and brough things for us missionares for Christmas, and we ended up getting about 4 massive bags full of food and other things. It was a major blessing because we were basically out of food. After church we tried to make another snowman, but it wasn't sticky enough since it had been snowing all day. But we had a big turkey dinner with an investigator family the sisters are teaching, which was really nice! It was a fun night and we were able to be out of the snow!
Well, I'm REALLY looking forward to Christmas Day...because that means I'll be able to Skype with the family!! See you soon!!! Literally!!!
Love,
Elder Hunt
No comments:
Post a Comment