Life is different now when our evenings are not taken with Institute, FHE & temple because of the Holidays and the school break.  We don’t start back up till January 16^th, so it’s been a long break.  So, it has been a “different” couple of weeks.  There are realities of missions that sometimes we overlook when writing, but that happen.  Everything we write is like a snapshot in time.   It’s kind of like in movies and TV where people are having a “hard” conversation or an argument, then it just stops and moves to the next scene that could be minutes, hours, weeks or months later.  They don’t have to do the hard stuff after the encounter.  So, most of what we do here is really great, but I’m a person that is really hard on myself, and if I’m not “actively engaged” I tend to stress out, or feel guilty, or get really grumpy and be miserable to live with.   I’ve been like this pretty much my whole adult life.  I’m on medication, I’ve been to counseling, I’ve prayed, I’ve done pretty much every trick or emotional fix and I can’t seem to overcome it.  I can’t just chill.  So, these last couple of weeks, I’ve tried real hard to chill, calm down, and take it easy when there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on.

But it doesn’t work for me to just chill and take it easy.  And it spilled over last night.  I just had to go to bed.  For me it just gets really complex.  Anyway I’m better today and my great companion saw my needs and we went out tracting/inviting/finding this afternoon.  That made me feel better—like we are really doing something, and not just planning and stuff.

Working where I feel it is important, has given me a spiritual boost.  The first house we went to, I talked to the mother of two YSAs that we haven’t seen.  One was on a mission.  The other was at UAA, and is having a bit of a faith crisis.  He also is quite averse to change and he is still dealing with getting out of high school.  His mom said she would give the invitation to him and would bring him to Institute next week to the opening social and the first class to see if he can connect with someone there.  That is exactly what we are hoping for.   When you are a missionary, you see things like this as the Lord being in the details of our lives—they are tender mercies, like individualized miracles or blessings.  In this case, hopefully for him—that the timing is right and for us, that we interacted and came at the right time where there can be an intervention for the better. 

 

Also, it seems like all of my medical conditions—neuropathy, poor sleep, weight, facial skin conditions, and other miscellaneous sundry issues one has when they age, have all seem to gotten worse since we’ve come on our mission.  I guess it’s the opposition in all things situation going on. But what I’m seeing, is that I am dealing with them much better. If I only get 4 hours of interrupted sleep, I can still put in a full day and if it happens several days in a row, an afternoon nap works wonders.  (Yes, Senior missionaries can take naps!  And I don’t feel guilty 😊)   I guess its like the people of Alma whose burdens were not removed nor made lighter, but they were able to bear them much better.  That is a tender mercy or blessing that I am seeing. 

 

So, we have some great experiences, but in between times, there is a lot of things happening, some hard things, some fun things, & some just enlightening.  The study time we get is one of the things that I really want to take advantage of.  It’s nice to have so much time allocated for study.  We can watch videos, listen to podcasts, dive into the scriptures, study conference talks, study President Nelsons messages and whatever else.  I’m the same way with scripture study time, I can’t get enough time.  ☹  Even though it is scheduled time in the morning, so many things come up and blow the schedule and I have such a hard time getting back to it.  Same thing happens with exercise.  When it doesn’t happen, it just doesn’t happen.  (I don’t feel near as bad as when I can’t study.  I am just jealous of that time. And I don’t want it gone.

 

I wish our schedule was rigid, and in some ways it is, but we get interruptions and changes, but it’s just this good, better, best thing all the time.  For example, tomorrow we had scheduled an initiatory session at 11am.  Then we could meet with our Institute Director right after for our weekly meeting.  But we were notified of a zone activity on the young missionary’s PDay at 11am at the Institute building.  One of the things we do, is to interact with the missionaries as much as we can.  It is an opportunity to help lift them from where they stand.  We love being with them and they are just so great! There are a lot of sisters and they have had such a positive impact on the mission field and the work.  We love them all and are very impressed with them.    So, we changed our initiatory appt at the temple to 7pm, our Director meeting to 9:45am and so we will hit all three!  😊  Then we will have to exercise and study in the afternoon. (But we don’t because life happens)  So we don’t like get up at 6:30 am like the young ones do.  We are more like 8am or later if I’ve had a bad night.  I’m not a real morning guy, so the stuff that gets us going before noon is a little tough for me.  I have to just accept it, because I can’t change it.  (I’m a psychiatrist’s dream patient…he/she can just keep throwing out trite little phrases to make me calm and then charge me for it ☹)   

 

Here's another little miracle from Saturday.  Sister Cox went to a luncheon with the Mission President’s wife, Sister Larsen and the other senior sisters, because President Larsen was out of Alaska for training.  While she was gone, I cleaned the fridge (terrible smell coming from it—Cauliflower…not sure I can ever eat it again, haha) and downstairs bathroom and entry area.  We live in a townhouse condo and all of the living space is upstairs.  Downstairs is a spare bedroom and a ¾ bathroom.  That is my bathroom—the one upstairs is not big enough for the two of us, so I make the trek to the bottom floor.  And it’s freezing down there cause we don’t really heat it. So, I cleaned all of that, including the toilet and the shower—not just the sink-- and then opened the front door to see what the porch looked like.  I swept it off so I could put down some ice melt on a spot of ice still left.  There was some buildup of dirt in the corner and as I swept the very corner, I uncovered what looked like a ring.  I picked it up and it had flowers and things and looked like more than a cracker jack ring or some cheapo.  So, I brought it in and set it on our dresser.  Yesterday, Sunday, Carolee saw it and asked about it.  She looked and saw it was real and even had a diamond that I hadn’t noticed.  We thought it might be our neighbor’s since they are a young couple.  Carolee took it over but they weren’t home.  But tonight, they pulled into the garage the same time we did.  Carolee took it over, and it was her wedding band!  She had dropped it off their little balcony in front in September and were unable to find it.  She was very grateful.  Just another tender little miracle. 

Saturday after Carolee came back from her luncheon, we went and saw a local attraction:  Snowzilla!  It’s a real snowman that is like 30 feet tall and it’s all snow, not built around a frame.  Kinda wild, but cool in a way.  1^st time built in 10 years—enough snow this year. 

 

 

Speaking of which…we just keep adding on.  Not in huge storms, but 2-3-5-6” at a time and it just never melts. 88 inches so far, I absolutely love it.    It’s the most snow they’ve gotten since 1919 when they started keeping records.  Like last winter in Malad.  & I know I’m weird, but   I want it to just keep snowing.  I’m jealous of Malad this weekend is projecting 13-18 inches!  I wanna be in both places. 

 

And we had a visitor outside our window this week too, a moosen, eating branches from trees.  That is their total diet in the winter and they survive on it---amazing. 

We do enjoy getting with the other senior missionaries here.  We don’t all feel like besties, but there are a lot of them that we do.  We’ve planned a special adventure for my birthday that I am really excited about.  But that’ll be for next week.   Gary