Happy 2013! Officially.

My family and friends!

This week was pretty cool. We went on another two exchanges so that kept us busy, New Years Eve, etc. Allow me to expound further!

So New Years Eve was totally boring haha. Sad but true. As a missionary it just isn't the same! Unless I can go outside and bang pots and pans like we did at the Johnson's every year, I just don't feel the same. Plus we can't really do that as missionaries :) So I caught up in my journal, wrote letters, and looked for Waldo! I'll explain in a second. But yeah I made it until like 11:15pm and then crashed. But I set an alarm on the phone to wake me up at 11:59! So I rung in the new year and then fell back asleep haha. So we pass around a dinner calendar every week in church, and we had a Chuck Norris one last year that was a pretty big hit, so we knew we had to one up that. While we walked through the mall on Monday we found a "Where's Waldo" calendar! I can't tell you how excited we both were! So anyways we of course bought it immediately and I've been spending a good chunk of time every night looking for Waldo and all his little friends on the calendar. I'm pretty psyched. We're worried it'll be more of a distraction at church though. So far so good! I just spent a paragraph talking about my dinner calendar haha.

Hey yeah I got Gramma's package! That thing was legit. I especially enjoyed the newspaper articles! I was in heaven haha Gramma you know me too well!

So this warm weather thing has stuck around another week. I haven't seen colder that -9 really, and right now it's right around freezing. It's crazy! But it's supposed to drop back down this week. But I'd be okay if that was a lie.

Transfers were today, and Elder Coe and I are safe! We'll be together another 6 weeks at least. I'm really trying to push for him to be the next Assistant to El Presidente, so if that works he'll be gone by next transfer :) Elder Coe's sweet though we get along really well.

We went on exchanges with the Fort Saskatchewan elders, and I went with Elder Hunsaker in Fort Skat. We had a lot of fun he's sweet! On Saturday we went with this member out to Thorhild, a random little town in the middle of nowhere, where he'd bought a ton of wood. The guy he'd bought it from told him he'd have to mob across his huge field to get to it, and there was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground. It was a 2-wheel drive F150, and he just put chains on the back and then attached a trailer too. We got like 10 feet and stopped haha. So Elder Hunsaker and I got out and stood on the tailpipe, which gave him a little bit more weight on the back tires, and we spent about an hour and a half gunning it forward, backing up, gunning it forward, backing up, etc. Finally we threw in the towel haha and drove the 30 minutes back to Fort Skat. It was fun! Haha.

We also went on exchanges in Sherwood Park and I brought Elder Taylor to Millcreek. It was the first time in 6 months I stayed in my area for an exchange! I've always been the new guy in an area so I always left. But not this time! It was a good test of my knowledge haha. We didn't do anything too exciting though, but things are finally starting to pick up in the area again! Most of the members are back in town so we've been able to set up a bunch of appointments which is awesome. I've never really seen the ward at full strength so it'll be a fun transfer!

Well I think that about wraps up my week.... You guys enjoy your week and I'll talk to you next week!


Love you guys!

Elder Read