Breakup!

Good morning everybody. This is a beautiful, sunny day today, and it's 36 degrees. Elder Terry is sitting next to me in the driver's seat. The leaves are still not on the trees because there is still a lot of snow, but it's all melting. I think break up is finally here! Yeah!! Breakup is like it's own season here, where all the snow and ice break up and melt because there is so much of it. It's pretty dirty right now. They don't spray the roads with salt because it's too cold. Salt is apparently just not good enough, but they spray the roads with gravel so you have grip on the snow. So you are usually driving on snow all winter, which is why everybody gets winter tires. All missionaries get studded tires. There is still lots of snow in the snow banks on the side of the roads, but the roads are clear – for the most part. They are kind of wet too.

This week has been kind of busy. Not only have we been covering the two areas, but we also had to do some major cleaning. We ended up going on exchanges with one of the missionaries up here in our zone because he was sick, and caught a neural virus. You basically end up throwing up out of the blue with no warning – maybe like three seconds warning. Luckily this missionary was in the shower at the time, so he was able to make it to the toilet in those three seconds. But, 90% of the kids at Chugiak High School caught it. So they closed the high school down for a little bit. I also heard that 60% of Diamond High School caught it. There were kids throwing up in the middle of class and throwing up everywhere. This missionary also threw up everywhere in the morning – well probably just the toilet. So apparently a lot of people are getting sick, but this is Anchorage. It tends to happen. I have never been more sick than I have been in Anchorage (haha).

But, it's beautiful!, except for the roads. The mountains I'm looking at are snowy and white and wonderful. The ocean is very pretty. I've been taking a couple pictures there. We are actually going to be hiking Flat Top today most likely, which will be a neat experience. Hopefully it's not too cold, but I'm well suited for that.

Besides all the cleaning and craziness, one of our investigators is planning on getting baptized this weekend. He is going to get married after 4 yours. So that's pretty exciting. That will be the third marriage I have been a part of on my mission. He is going to get married on Wednesday. It's exciting. It is always kind of tough leading up to the baptism, but we will keep encouraging them to do their best and to have faith. He is a really awesome guy, and he knows the Book of Mormon is true. He knows the gospel is true.

We have been using family history a little bit. There are a couple of people who we offered to help with their family history. So we are working on that, and it's pretty exciting. It makes it a lot easier to get on good terms with the person using family history. It makes it easier to lead into talking about families and the plan of salvation and the gospel. So life is good, life is busy. I'm having fun in Anchorage. I actually wouldn't mind if I stayed here for the rest of my mission, but we'll find out in a week.

Holly duckies! My ducky video is too big. I was going to send it, but it's just too big. I will have to get it to everybody eventually. Lots of duckies here at the Anchorage library.

I think that is probably it for the highlights. It is really fun being a zone leader because people are always struggling, and we get to be the people that help them with their struggles. It's fun – good service.

Love, Elder Record