Of ice storms and scary back roads.

Ice storms. Yeah, they're fun. Lots of very cold rain and slippery roads. Mix that with a healthy dose of thunder and lightning and you have yourself a proper show! Unless you are the missionary who has to stand outside to back up the car you drive in. Then you just want to get back in the automotive vehicular device.

Our apartment complex.

Ice encrusted bushes.

Most of our investigators have become very difficult to contact. So we have done what every good missionary does in times of difficulty; go and find new ones! I don't know how he does it, but Elder Clason has a ninja-like knack for finding new people to teach. For instance last week we found 11, and the one before that 14.  We aren't giving up hope on the oldies, but we are seriously going cray-cray (slang for crazy) finding people.

We are now teaching some random family that just moved in with one investigator. He is soooo cool. He's about as down to earth as it can get
Just a quick question that he made me think though: does God pay more attention to your prayers when you start cussing in them? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Just another he is so awesome.

One family has basically dropped off of the map as well, but they live so far away it is highly impractical for us to go visit them in person. Vehicle miles and all that. Missionaries are only allowed so many per month, so we try to keep it as low as we can in case we go over. Going over means your next week is bike week. Which apparently sucks majorly, but I'm kinda excited for it. We have it starting wednesday. Or at least i was excited until the world decided to turn into an iceskating rink.

D**** and his family are being particularly hard to get a hold of as well. They did just buy a whole bunch of furniture they are trying to assemble and he did just get a new job, but still.... we're a little put out about that.

N**** is back from court. We still aren't entirely sure what the ruling was on that, but the point is she isn't behind bars right now. So good thing there. Bad news is she took whatever when down in there really badly, and is now trying to use her anti-anxiety prescription to help her get over a severe depression. Luckily both ward members and her family is on top of things and nobody is allowing her to be home alone. Ever.  E.Clason and I go over every night for about 20 minutes to pray and read the scriptures with her. I think it's helping, but this is one heck of a challenge that the Lord is putting her through. I hope she can make it through.

C*** is doing better. He was evicted from his appartement, but the church pulled through for him and has found him a temp-residence and a job with a ward member. He's not really progressing though, so we're a little worried about him. Hopefully once he gets all of this sorted out he'll get moving again.

We found some new awesome peeps this past two week. One of them isn't really a new find, but we just started teaching him, and he's a pretty sweet guy. He is just one example of how frank and open guys can be around missionaries. We went to teach him one time and the first thing he tells us after we sit down is "Guys, I've been sinning." We almost asked him what he had done, but then we realized we didn't really need to: he was as high as a kite. Needless to say that discussion on the BoM was very interesting, but even more impressively was that he remembered most of what we had talked about the next time we went to go see him. We starting teaching his mother last week as well, and she's very different from Him. She's studied the bible very closely and feels like she's still missing something. Good for us she's willing to give the Mormon Missionaries a shot to see if what they say is it.

Another cool experience we had was just this last saturday. We were walking down one of the back roads looking for people to try and set return appointments with. The city/town proper has been tracted out, so back roads it is for us. One of our finding strategies is to ask ourselves if a road or driveway would be scary to walk down in the dark/ever. If the answer is yes we walk down it. Thus all the crazy awesome people we find. This family we found isn't crazy (that we can tell yet; you never know), just awesome. We knocked on their door and a white guy answered. He wasn't wild looking, and he didn't reek of smoke and alcohol either, which was kinda cool. The only difference was he looked tall enough to be a NBA star. He asked us what we wanted and we said that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and hoped to leave a prayer with him and his family. He told us perhaps it wasn't a good time because the house was a mess and his wife wasn't dressed yet. That was a bit of a bummer for us, but we said ok and started trying to get a return appointment. Clear in the back of the house (it was an actual house. #bonus) his wife called out and asked what church we were from. Usually when people do that it's because they are either about to chew us out for satan-worshipers, slam the door on our face, or try to bible-bash with us. So we were a little hesitant when we said "The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints". Suprisingly, she told us not to move because she had wanted to talk with us for a long time. She ran to the door, apparently getting dressed first, and proceeded to ask us for a return appointment. That never happens. Ever. So awesome sauce, we are going to go talk to them tomorrow. Mostly because we aren't going to risk driving there today.

Splits was great. I was surprised at how well it went. Basically every door got shut in our face, and all but C***'s appointment fell through, but I was totally cheerful the entire time. my companion was Elder W. Obviously that's not his full last name, but it is so awesomely German that I can neither write nor pronounce it properly. (Elder Clason just fell over backwards in a wheel chair. Don't ask; I don't know either. lol) He's a super quiet guy, and so i was in charge in basically everything. You'd think that this would be bad, but I've been in a supporting role for so long it was kinda nice for a change. We also had a bunch of cool experiences during it about giving some members blessings. I found that giving three back to back can really wear you out, but it's a good worn-out feeling.

I hope all's good back home. Talk to y'all later!

Elder Jayden Barker