I'm Cold!

A comforting photo sent to Mom

Hello hello!!

It's a little chilly over here to say the least... my phone is saying its -26 right now and will just be getting colder and colder and colder. I can now say that I am experiencing an Iowa winter. I dont know exactly how cold we'll get but it's looking like with windchill we'll top off around -50 or so. Call me Kayden. Best part about this week is that we have transfers on Thursday, where it's going to be a nice balmy high of 6, and then by Saturday it'll be back up to 45 degrees. Thanks Iowa. Should be a fun one but for now, the mission is grounded in our apartments until Transfer day cause it's just so cold.

But what a week we've had! We had a full week in our area so we went to town and saw a lot of awesome miracles along the way. The most amazing of those was our man Jose. The YSA Elders received Jose as a media referral but passed him off to us cause he has a wife and a little baby girl. So not quite YSA material... Jose met with them on Saturday and walked on in to church on Sunday. I sat with him throughout sacrament meeting and before was able to just chat with him on how he found the church and desire to learn more. He started explaining about his family, a young wife and a brand new 2 week old baby girl, their first. He said he knew he had to grow closer to God to be able to fully comprehend and be grateful for all the blessings that He has given him, especially his new family. And get this. It was during this time of reflection when he was on YouTube AND THE RESTORATION MOVIE CAME ON. Just randomly played up next. He watched it all and immediately requested a BoM and missionaries to come over. WHAT?! As I was talking with him my jaw was literally hanging open then he said, "yeah the story of Joseph Smith and everything that went on is amazing. You can't make that stuff up. It's of God. More people need to know about it." At this point my jaw was on the floor. Music to our ears. We're excited to work with him and his wife now! He is born and raised in the states and his wife is from El Salvador and speaks 50/50 Spanish and English so if they choose English or my homies in the Spanish branch, they will be in great hands!

Last week, we also picked back up a former person that was being taught, his name is Robert. And let me tell you, can this man talk up a storm. He's in his late 70's so it makes sense to be that way. Just a phone call with him to set up an appointment takes 20 mintues. During lessons, its hilarious because most of the time he is 100% agreeing with you, but is trying to argue the point just made. It drives us nuts cause he goes on the random tangents but he is actually super doctrinally sound so the function of the church and the things we talk about just makes sense to him. He just throws a couple curveballs in there that just make the same point and bam. Onto the next point. He knows his Bible front to back so it was a good time to pull out the quad and go from verse to verse with him to back up the church. He makes it out to church on Sunday, talking everyone's ears off, and just enjoying the environment. You could tell that he really enjoyed it. As I walked him out, we had our quickest but most powerful conversation. It was only 10 minutes long, standing out in the freezing cold, but Robert said he knew what he had to do and that he'll be looking forward to next time. In essence at least. All I know was that my ears were about to fall off by the time I got back in.

Things are looking mighty fine here. I hope you're all ditching school/work as much as possible to go ski. Get some turns in for me!

Mucho love.

Elder C

This photo was sent by Elder Straight in Guatemala, he titled it
Scott Making Transfer Calls #prayforscooter