February 10, 2014

Hello family,

We got about 7 inches of snow here over the past three days. Thursday is when it started and continued on Friday. Saturday we got freezing rain which was really cold and wet. Luckily, President Morby told us to stay inside and that nobody could drive their cars. He said that if you don't have an appointment then stay inside. If you do, then walk. On Sunday there was some sun for a couple hours so it started melting, but president said that nobody was even allowed to leave their apartment on Sunday. So that was fun. It's crazy to see how an entire city can just shut down. Someone said that there is only like one snow plow for the entire Portland metro area. That's how rare the snow is here. A member in our ward said that they haven't had snow this bad since 2008. In Utah this would not have been a problem, but here it was a big problem. I am grateful for snow plows.

Meanwhile my companion is from Houston, Texas and so the snow was unfamiliar to him. I helped him make his first snowman ever. We got it pretty big. I taught him all about snow and what you can do with it. He was pretty stoked about it.

You're probably wondering what we did inside for 3 days straight. Well, this week we got iPads. I have mixed feelings about them. I have to try even harder now not to get distracted by it and to make sure I use it for its purpose. One thing that we did while we were stuck inside is transfer our entire area book over to the iPad. Every teaching appointment and investigator and less active. It made my brain hurt and made me super restless. I am glad it's done now though.

Our iPads are now our planners, so we don't have carry those around anymore, which I am not very excited about. I loved having a hard copy of my planner. I could doodle, take random notes of information we get, and plan a lot better with it. Now that it's electronic it's a lot more formal planning. 

O yeah, church was cancelled because of the snow. That was weird as a missionary. It means that our baptism date has to be pushed back due to lack of church attendance. Also one of our less actives was planning to come to church this week and that didn't happen. Next week though will be good.

I thought the other day about the people that came to this mission with me were kind of like the start of the hastening. The kick off to this whole thing started with the age change. I was in the MTC for that. The start of my mission was the start of the hastening. I have been in Oregon to see it all unfold from the start up until now where the work has changed and we now have iPads. Maybe when I am done with my mission the Lords work will be done. The second coming perhaps? Lol...just kidding. I feel lucky to be part of this huge change from start to finish. What are some things in your life that you have seen unfold from start to finish? And how have you seen the Lords hand in that?

We taught some lessons during the first part of the week and they went well. Our investigator had us over to help him clean his music studio and then we had a lesson about Christ. He has investigated before and so he knows that we believe god was once a man like you and me. He asked us if god has a different savior other than Jesus Christ. We talked about that for a while.

Another lesson that we had was with a man named Gene. We found him last Sunday. The bishop actually knew about him and his family, so he gave us some information. He is a super nice guy that wants to get back to church and change his life. I am hoping that his family will want to come with him. One thing that I have seen since being out here, is that this is a very family oriented church. I remember one comment that a less active guy in my first area said. He stated right after a ward conference meeting for couples that "it's very hard to be single in this church." And that's true, it would be hard to be single in this church. Especially if you are over about 35 or so. God has set up his church to revolve around families, even though everyone is a child of god. Kinda weird how that works.

Another thing that happened this week is a lesson with a man named Anthony that loves to study religion and the history of it. We talked with him and were able share part of the restoration. He thought it was interesting and then he talked about how our message related to a bunch of different religions throughout history and how ours has little parts of each of them. That was pretty cool to hear from a non member. It's true though, that this church contains the fullness of the gospel, not just bits and pieces.

My companion made this Vietnamese soup stuff called pho. It's weird. It has rice noodles with spices.

I have a stomach flu today, so that's fun. Sorta. I'll get over it though...eventually. I think it's from being inside so much this week.

I love you all,

Elder Udy