16 February 2015

Things have been settling into some sort of a routine. There are still some funky things that pop up, such as the picture I am about to send, but it's generally about the same every day. Normally, I get up early, then have loads of time to do nothing before my companion gets up. I've read a load of scriptures in that null time in the morning, so I guess it works out. Things have been fin, though. Our mission had another baptism on Saturday that I got to go to, and that was good. I started jogging again, too. Or more accurately, Elder Wilding wanted to go jogging, and I though it would be fun. I was wrong. Even still, we do it somewhat regularly. We've been doing loads of service, too. I heard of a fun opportunity that Wilding had before I came in-fixing the bottom of a pool. At that same house, but unfortunately not at the same time, we took out a microwave that had been bolted to the wall in a way that some Russian repairmen couldn't figure out but took us about five minutes. We also had zone conference. It's a lot like general conference, but it's six consecutive hours of sitting and listening. We learned some good stuff, like better tracting approaches and all that, but it still took forever. 

One of the members we had dinner with was a very interesting guy. He was a conspiracy theorist who thought that Nehemiah was a liar, and that all religions sprang from Judaism around 100 ad when people wanted to start practicing the law of consecration, which led to state formed religions in a long process. We had quite a long discussion about that. On Valentine's Day, we got to make our own pizzas at a members house. None of us were any good at rolling out the dough, so all of the pizzas were abstractly shaped oblong blobs. They tasted good though. 

I've been having a good time out, though. We're going on exchanges on Wednesday, and that'll be fun. I'm partnering up with Elder Johnson, a biker missionary. It'll be something new to try. 

Today, when we had absolutely nothing to do, we decided to go out to Omars, a bird store that was recommended to us by a member. We didn't end up getting any, partly because of mission rules, and partly because the birds all had price tags ending in more zeros than I wanted to think about. The place was set up like a petting zoo-rows of hanging perches with wood chip trays underneath. They had a pretty good selection of exotic birds. 

How are things going back home? Over here, it occasionally breaks 90, and is almost constantly sunny. The annoying thing about using iPads is that I can't plug in my camera chip in to them to send pictures, and the cases they gave us don't have camera holes. It's a pain to take them out every time you want a picture. I still took a few though, which I will include. What's your new job like?

Have fun in the snow!