It's cold!!! It's cold!!!

January 7, 2013

Wow this last week was frigid (from a biking point of view). Not nearly as cold as it has been in Utah, but it has been in the low teens to the mid 20's all week. It doesn't seem that bad but when you add a wind chill on your bike it’s just cold. I've had to use my super thick gloves a couple of times and I'm always in thermals.

On the bright side a lot of people have been more willing to let us in after seeing a couple of missionary popsicles show up at their door. I do a pretty good job of keeping warm. My policy is always keeping my hands warm, and the rest falls into place. Elder Fischer is a slow biker, so to elevate my heart rate I'll put on the brakes and pedal to add resistance. It keeps me warm. I thought it was funny because I was the only one who was predicting a frigid winter in the summer. But everyone kept saying "the farmer’s Almanac says it will be a warm mild winter." So much for the farmer’s almanac!

There are still massive ice patches on the road from the snowstorm that took place weeks ago. And everyone told me the snow melts after a day or two in winter in Denver. But I was prepared for cold weather. Everywhere except my face. It’s a lot warmer today; I'd say it's almost 50 degrees now. I wonder how cold it has been in the cabin - probably not that cold because of the inversion.

Anyway, in other news I saw a small miracle yesterday. A member told us to knock on the door of a less active family who hadn't been to church in six years. (I could only imagine what the family would have to say...) We knocked on the door, and she let us in. We had our beginning pleasantries and we asked them about why they hadn't been to church. First was the usual, "it just started to be hard because my husband got a job on Sunday," but we dug a little deeper and found out she had been offended by a past relief society president who she said looked down on her because she was a convert. She didn't like how members looked down on converts. So I told her simply that we are all children of God, and thereby are heirs to the blessings of God's kingdom, so God commands us to treat each other with equal amounts of respect regardless of the earthly position we hold. Then I told her that God restored the church so that we could be taught to live the principles of the gospel. The church is here for us to strengthen our personal relationship with God. We are not here for the church. I also said that our role as missionaries is to invite people to live the principles of the gospel, and the church is a vehicle for us to be able to do that. Essentially I said being a member of the church is meaningless unless you live the principles of the gospel. It really touched her and she agreed to have us over again. Well that's my report :)

Elder Bringhurst