Eyelashicles

Well, let's see... It snowed on Tuesday and Elder Tueller and I went and knocked doors in it, it was actually pretty enjoyable!! It was in the high twenties, so not CRAZY cold, but cold enough. So the next day, Wednesday, when we woke up, Elder Tueller looked outside the window and said "uh-oh" to a clear blue sky. I figured out why he said that when we went to shovel someones driveway!! The standing temperature was 0 degrees and with the windchill it was easily 10-15 below. It wasn't as bad as I thought, I was bundled up pretty nicely. I wore my thermals, then my pajama pants over those, then my shirt and suit, and a long sleeve sweater and my huge coat over that. I wore a beanie on me head, with earmuffs, then that neck up thing you gave me and my heavy duty gloves. So we were out shoveling someones driveway, and it was cold enough to where my eyes would occasionally water and it would freeze on my eyelashes!! I loved breathing the cold air though. By the way, the gloves weren't as warm as I thought they were going to be... I don't know, maybe my skin is still adjusting, getting thicker, or whatever.

Well here in Minnesota, everyone and their dog smokes, and EVERYONE has at least one dog... most dogs are friendly though, so no worries there. As far as potential investigators, we seem to be having trouble getting some too. The only solid investigator we have, her name is Barri Love. She's this sweet black lady that is trying to quit smoking. She has investigated the church for a long time and wants to get baptized, now she needs to just quit smoking. I mean, she only smokes one or two cigarettes a day, so hopefully that's an easy break.

Most of our work involves visiting referrals which we only get a couple a week, or trying to reactivate less-actives, and then tracting around their houses. We knocked on one guys house and he said to get off his porch or he would call the cops on us. I just laughed (not out loud) cause that is not really a threat. The police can't do anything! I did think it would be funny if the cops that would have showed up were LDS though. We also talked to one guy and right after we were done talking to him, I turned around and slipped on the ice and fell straight on my back!! I swear it looked like a slip in a movie. I was fine though.

Some people try to semi bash with us but we are pretty good at dodging that. I mean, the point is not to prove their religion false, it's to make them think, begin to question things. One guy, his name was Todd, we went over to his house and were going to teach him about the Book of Mormon. The second question out of his mouth was, "What day do you worship the sabbath?" Todd is a seventh day avenist, and they are firm believers that the Sabbath is on Saturday, the "7th" day. So we answered his questions and really tried to teach him, but he wouldn't focus on anything we taught him. He was always going off on different subjects. FINALLY, we got him to commit to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it. So we left from Todd's house, and I kid you not, he called about five minutes later and was wondering why we were dressed in suits and tried to prove that the way we dressed was wrong. We solved the issue and then throughout the day he called us twelve times, and left nine messages each getting worse. He started telling us that "God" was telling him that the Book was filth and stuff and we were all blasphemers and all that good stuff. It really left a bad taste in my mouth, but I felt bad because he was just so deceived... My heart goes out to him, although I didn't like anything he said. Other than that, we have had a lot of appointments falling through... but there's nothing we can do about it.

My companion Elder Tueller is really cool. He has been out for one year and six months, and I swear he looks EXACTLY like the character "Icabod Crane" on the cartoon version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He is a little corky with his smile, but he's a good guy, a hard worker and a good example, and we get along just fine. We stay with two other Elders, Elder Anderson, who is a HUGE "Trekkie" (star trek fan), and Elder Murdoch, who is just different all around. We have some fun though, some good times.

Random things... are there Mangos in AZ?? cause I'm buying mangos up here and they are DELICIOUS!!! Oh and I'd like mom to send some recipes up, I'd like to practice cooking/baking. But keep in mind that we only have an hour to eat...

Let me know if anyone has any questions, I like questions! Send my love to everybody.

LOGAN BROOKS