letter 12-17-08

Dear Friends & Family
Wow can you believe it in just two days I will be half done with my mission. It has gone by so fast and I hear the second year goes by faster.
This week has been crazy. It has been -40 for most of the week so we haven't been able to even go out and do anything so it has been a very long and boring week. We had a pretty good snow fall so my comp and I went out on a snow shoveling crusade through the neighborhood. People thought we were nuts but it was good to get that much exercise. We then got a schnook and it has warmed up so we can go out now but it’s still pretty cold. There is a fair amount of snow on the ground and so it makes everything really pretty and I was so surprised but the Canadians’ up here have no clue how to drive in this kind of weather. It was crazy just today on our way to transfers we saw 8 cars off the road and they were bad but if you’re not being stupid it’s not too bad but oh well.
Well the work in the area is going great we hopefully will have three baptisms this transfer so I’m very excited about that and I’m sure my boy is too. I would have loved to get three in my first transfer. But we will have to keep working with them all and as we get closer with them I will let you know what is happening.
This mission is really weird with Christmas. They are treating it like any other regular day and so I haven't heard what is even going on if they are doing anything special or not and they have been telling us not to go to members on Christmas so its kind of sad but oh well I guess its just another day as a missionary. But I am looking forward to the packages though :) thanks.
Well I had better get going but I love you all so much. I hope you all have a great Christmas and remember that Christ is the reason we have this holiday.