SNOW

This week has been bitter cold.  The coldest was 5 degrees one morning, but mostly it was between 10 and 15 each morning this past week.  Then yesterday snow was predicted--and it cam right on time.  It was actually almost magical to watch those huge fluffy flakes come down at a rate of 5" of snow in just 4 hours.  We worked yesterday training our replacements and the photo below was us coming back from picking up some things from Walmart.  There were cars off the road or stalled in the road.  Yesterday one Elder lost his gas card in the snow and today another lost his phone...

 About our replacements.  Their names are Greg and Wendy Rose from Blackfoot, ID.  He just got released as the stake president after 9 years in the stake presidency and another 9 years as stake president.  They are really nice and we think they will do well.  The whole process of training seems just weird, though.  Corry thinks he will be done training and ready to head home by Thursday and I think I will not be done training until Saturday.  My trainee takes extensive notes (plus the 6 page instruction sheet I prepared) and his trainee has taken NONE.  I hope this all works out!

 The photo above is also us traveling home yesterday.  There were 3 heavy duty snow plows lined up side by side and slightly overlapping plowing the main road.  They do not even begin to plow until the snow is done falling.  Last night we must have got some rain because this morning it got up to 41 degrees and we basically had nothing but slush.  Church got delayed 3 hours and they just had Sacrament meeting.  So we got to say good bye once again.

When we arrived home to our little apartment this is what it looked like.  They plowed and cleared walks in the night so it is all good now.  

We are excited about tomorrow.  It is the very first conference of its kind in any mission.  We have been the beta test mission for I-pads with Facebook.  So tomorrow Elder Allen of the Mission Dept. and Elder David F. Evans of the 70's and head of the Missionary Dept. will be with us for a 5 hour training having to do with digital devices and proselyting.  Every missionary in our mission will be at the mission office building for this.  We will be busy before as Elder Jones is dispensing 3 cars to areas that have not previously had a car and I will be activating 6 phones for companionships whose phone has gone bad recently.  So no training for tomorrow...

As we commence the very last week of our mission we do so with very mixed feelings.  We have so loved this experience!  We are sad to bring it to a close, but look very much forward to enjoying our place as real grandparents to our 20 wonderful grandchildren.  Our testimonies have grown, we have made friends with senior couples that we will treasure the rest of our lives, and we have become very attached to some awesome missionaries who we hope to see in the future.