Week 39...9 Months & We Dodged a Mother Nature Bullet

March 3, 2014
 

     Well, no need to worry…as you see you are getting your beloved email in your inbox.  I'm sure you are thrilled.  We dodged a BIG Mother Nature bullet last night and today.  They downgraded the winter storm yesterday and said we would only get a trace to a couple of inches of snow instead of the original 6 to 10 inches they predicted.  I (along with the rest of Lititz) am just as thankful as you are that it did not snow much and it all stayed south of PA in Maryland.  We seriously have not seen any lawn not covered in snow since the end of January.  I am ready for spring!!!  Hopefully, we can survive the freezing (lows close to 0 again) cold for the next few days and I can make it through this week and then maybe we’ll be done with the snow and cold.  On average Lititz gets about 25 inches of snow and we’ve received about 60 inches this winter. 

     Yes, it is crazy that I have been out 9 months this week and that I went through the temple a year ago.  Before you know it will be June 5th and it will be hump day.

1. How are the effects of transfers on your district/zone?  Have you met the new sisters & ZL's etc?  How are things with you and Elder B?  Yes, I have met everyone.  We met everyone at DM on Thursday.  They are all super nice.  I ended up going on exchange with the new ZL the day after transfers so I got to know him a little bit.  His name is Elder D  and he’s from California.  I knew him a little before he came here because he was in the Harrisburg zone when I was there.  I would talk to him at zone meetings/activities.  The new sister in our district (in the other ward) was in my district in Camp Hill so I knew her before too.   Her name is Sis. J.  Lastly, the new sister in our ward is Sis. M.  She has been out about 6 months and is from Modesto, California.  Her last area was in the Pittsburgh side of the mission.  Things are going well with me and Elder B.  This transfer we are really trying to focus on being unified and trying to help each other out.  So overall things are good with both of us. 
2. What are the highs/lows this week?  This week was a pretty good week.  Unfortunately, we have been doing a lot of finding because investigator leads seem to be falling apart.  We went from having 6 investigators to 2 investigators and one has been having a lot of health problems so he keeps on cancelling with us.  Hopefully we can start finding people and teaching them again.  The cold wintery weather does not really help the situation.  A high, like I said before, was on Wednesday I got to go on exchange with the ZL.  It was with the new ZL and we stayed in my area which was good.  We played pool with Claude and we found this guy tracting but we have not been able to meet with him since.  That leads me into a low.  Unfortunately, we are going to have to call it quits with Claude.  No, he did not die.  But when I was on exchange with the ZL he was hip on the idea of playing pool for service.  He said that Elder B and I should ponder whether it is an effective act of service for missionaries.  So Elder B and I did think about it and talked about it.  We even called President to ask him and he said that is more like hanging out with Claude and we can probably find a better use of our time.  The mission is really stressing effective missionary service.  So the low is…unfortunately we have to quit our pool time with Claude.  It is great service if you’re not a missionary, Claude really likes it.  However, it does not fit the requirements for mission standards.  Basically it is just considered hanging out with him for a few hours.  So no more Claude, no Bueno L  We have not broken the news to him yet.  I hope he doesn’t take it too hard and is not too sad but I kind of am.  Oh well.  Another high is we have been doing a lot of stuff with the members this week and using them well.  We did not have tons of dinners signed up for this week.   However, we happened to be visiting with members around dinner time so a lot of times we picked up random meals because we happened to be at peoples’ houses right as they were going to eat.  So that works I guess, less food making for us :)  Another high was on Saturday we took a recently reactivated guy to the stake family history center and helped him do some family history.  It was fun trying to help him do some family history. 
3. How was the weather this week?  It was pretty good until the weekend hit.  It has been sort of cold but the sun has been shining and we’ve had blue sky.  This week looks like it is going to be really cold for the next few days (until Thursday).  How is the weather there?
4. Is it freezing cold again?  Right now it is, but it looks like it is going to warm back up here by the end of the week to the mid 40’s. 
5. Last week on Monday I read that there was an apartment fire in Lititz.  When I clicked on the story it said the address was 47 Pennwick Terrace.  Did you have a fire in your complex last Monday around 7 am?  Uh, yes that is like one complex over from where we are and across the street.  We saw all of the fire engines and stuff at the fire.  So yes, it was right by us and we saw it all.  I didn’t see any flames I just saw the aftermath.  It does not look like there was a lot of outside damage so it must have been all interior stuff. 
6. What are 5 positive things from this week?  1) Well as you know daylight savings is this weekend which is good and that will bring us more daylight.  Right now it is getting light right around 6:20 am and getting dark around 6:15ish pm.  You know me, I take after you and we love our long days of daylight.  2) We ended up with lots of meals this week even though they were not signed up.  3) Also, not getting a boat load of snow was great.  4)  Also, we had a less active at church yesterday. 
7. How are things with the investigators? 
1. Sorry you had to put things on the back burner with D & TP, any new news with them?  No, we are just leaving them alone for right now. 
2. What about your Wisconsin referral?  What's his name?  His name is  M.  We have been texting him trying to get an appointment set up and he keeps saying it is not a good time. He says he will let us know when a good time is.  So I don't know what is going on.  Soon we are going to stop by his house and see what’s up and see if we can get something set up with him. 
3. Kenya couple?  Well they sort of have dropped us.  They are both crazy busy with work.  They are trying to buy a car for her and also they are trying to save money to go to Africa.  At least they are still reading the BOM.  They said we could stop by sometimes and answer questions they have because they have lots of questions.  We just won’t be doing sit down formal lessons with them right now. 
4. 11 year old boy?  Things are going well with him.  We were finally able to have a sit down lesson with him last night.  Before we were just having short little visits seeing how he was doing and trying to set up times to meet with him.
5. I family?  They are doing well and we were finally able to meet with them last week again and have a good lesson with them.  Unfortunately, they cancelled for tonight so it will be next week before we see them again. At our lesson we talked about choices and whether or not you are going to choose to follow Satan or Christ.  We talked about building a Christ centered home like it talks about Helaman 5: 12. 
8. Any upcoming mission meetings/trainings?  Zone conference is coming up here in a couple of weeks.  It could be the last one that President Topham does. 
9. Are you and Elder B doing anything in the talent show?  Right now Elder B wants to Yo Yo.  He is pretty good at that.  Currently, I’m not doing anything.  But they have not had sign ups yet so we will see what happens. 
10. Is the snow melting at all? No, not really you can sort of see the edges of the lawn and parts of the middle of the lawn but there is pretty much snow all over still. 
11. Do you need anything?  No, not at the moment. 
12. Can we pray for anything?  Please pray that we can continue to find new people.
13. How are the meals?  Are you being fed?  They are hit and miss, we didn't do super great this week but we are at least being fed. 
14. What members would you miss the most if you left Lititz?  Sister W since she is always feeding us.  Really, I would probably miss the entire ward because they are all awesome. 
15. What have you been doing for service lately?  What about your service in Manheim?  Well we were playing pool with Claude but that tanked.  Also in Manheim we have been painting the stairway in a stairwell. 

Well there is my wonderful week.  Hope you enjoyed it.  BTW, I loved hearing the about the “3 small males” and the garbage can.  Those boys are a hoot.  Tell Lori I’m sorry to hear about Elle, that is one crazy story.  Hope she gets better soon.

Love,

Elder Muir