Snow and New Missionaries

Good morning everybody. It is snowing and it's icy – well it's not snowing anymore, but it was, and it's icy and it's cold again. It has been a very different winter from last winter. Last winter was record snowfall. Now it's like snowfall, a mini break up (where all the ice and snow breaks up and melts). We have been having a bunch of those, so it's never a good idea to wash your car (haha) because it just gets dirty. Right now it's really white, but I'm guessing in a couple of weeks we will have another mini break up, and everything will melt. It's bizarre. Bizarre weather just seems to follow me my whole mission. When I was in Whitehorse, it was a rainier summer than they have ever seen in a long time. When I came to Anchorage, it was the snowiest winter they had ever had before. When I went to Fairbanks, it was an earlier winter than it had been in a long time. Fall started and went pretty quick. Finally I came back to Anchorage and there is all this warm winter stuff and mini break ups.

We are driving to the library right now to go email. I'm just enjoying looking at all the snow and trees and stuff.

Today all the new missionaries arrive. There are about fifteen of them, and there are only six leaving. Lots of people are training. In fact, our whole zone this next transfer will be training new missionaries, which is new (haha). Elder Terry and I will be the zone leaders, and the assistants to the presidents are in our zone as well. So, basically everybody except us will be training. There are two sister companionships in the zone, and they are both training. So, I am going to go on a lot of exchanges, and help missionaries and encourage them to do their best and set good goals.

I am excited because Elder Terry is a very good missionary. I really like him and have served around him a little bit. Elder Higley is going to Fairbanks to be one of the frozen chosen (haha). It's cold there. He is going to be in the sixth ward. It will be fun for him. He gets to go up and help some missionaries.

We had a meeting with Elder Christensen again – kind of the same stuff but a little more application to how the members can missionaries and assist in the work. We had a lot of service helping some people move out and in.

We had a two day long zone council leader meeting. It was forever, and me and my hyperness. I was struggling to sit still. What made it worse was they gave us all candy at one point (haha). So, that wasn't good. Anyway, regardless of my lack of focus, I still focused a lot. I was just moving around a lot while I did it (haha). We learned a lot of good things to help us prepare to help the missionaries for the next transfer, and prepare us for zone conference. Our zone conference will be on the 20th. We have our transfer meeting tomorrow at 1:00pm. It will be kind of fun with all these new missionaries coming. There are a couple that are 19 and 18. I think there is one 18 year old elder and a 19 year old sister. I don't know how many more. I just knew there was one of each.

We had a lot of people come to Church. That was exciting. There were a lot of people we were trying to get to come and help come. Some really wanted to, but were just nervous about new people. Some of them had work. The ones that were more nervous didn't come. We will keep encouraging them. There were some that had work keeping them away or were just without rides. We did get them to Church, and that was exciting to see. I think for the members it was like, “oh, we're doing missionary work and people are coming to Church.” Hopefully they will think, “oh, maybe we should do it too.” (haha) However, the ward has been doing really well. It's an awesome ward, and they are really good with missionary work. The ward council is growing and developing in a good way toward thinking about the needs of individuals more than administering programs. That is not the purpose of a ward council. The purpose is to council and help people. Our ward mission leader and the ward missionaries and us as a coordination group are getting more and more focused on inspiring the members of the ward to do missionary work. We are getting a lot of momentum going in the right direction. So I'm excited about that particularly, and we'll see if we can help people even more than before.

There is a less active member of our ward who got a call extended to them to be a Family History Consultant. We have been working with him and been helping him help us with family history. He gets excited about it and is taking it all in. He likes being active in that aspect.

There is a girl I've talked about before who is getting baptized on the 23rd. That will be good for her family. It will really bring the Spirit into their home, especially as they attend the baptism. Some of her family are not members of the Church, and it will be good for them to see what it's really like. I mean there is nothing negative about the Church, it's all positive – helping people become their best. Anybody can see it if they really look closely at how people react... well I guess more sore the teachings of the Church. There is nothing negative there. If people will pay attention they will see it. Occasionally you get members who don't follow the teachings, and people look at that and think, “oh, they do this.” No, some individuals do that, but the teachings of the Church are good and helps people become their best.

I know the Book of Mormon is true. I know that missionary work is fun (haha), and we can all do it. The Lord wants us to do it. I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I hope all of you are having a good time back in Utah. I don't want to leave (haha). Which is good because I have another six months. But, I'm kind of bummed that my mission is cut a week short because of the change in MTC times. Everybody is going home a week short, because it's two weeks instead of three weeks. I love you all, talk to you next week.

Love, Elder Record