ENJOYING THE MARITIMES

   With the frequent changes in temperature here, the roads in the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) have many chuck holes. An example of temperature variation is that two days ago the high was 15F and today it is 41F, and another big storm is predicted for this weekend. About a month ago – we hit a GRAND CANYON size chuck hole. It’s amazing that it didn’t blow the tire or at least mess up the alignment, but it did develop a slow leak and vibration. We took it to a tire store guessing the seal had broken and asked them to rebalance and reseal. Wrong – the rim was bent. Since it was alloy, they didn't have one in stock and needed to order a new one in.

   Years ago the kids gave Elder Holbrook a self-contained battery jump/tire pump for Christmas, and it has been a life saver. Every morning he went out to check the tire and often had to pump it up. Finally the rim came and he called to get an appointment. No return call, three days in a row. Then the service tech promised to call back in 10 minutes – didn’t happen. Elder Holbrook finally called the service manager. She wrote it up so when he went to get it installed, they took him right in. An hour later he drove home with a vibration and the next morning – the tire was low again. He called and had to wait a week for another appointment and went in and reminded them that it was the passenger front tire.

   “Are you sure?”

   “Yes.” 

   You guessed it, they had changed out the good rim. Luckily they had the old one still in the pile to be scrapped and they put it on and now it's smooth sailing.

   

     A few days after the last storm we noticed the snow piles along many streets had been "shaved" to the curb and so it has a flat vertical edge. Elder Holbrook snapped a picture of it on the street in front of the office today (you can see his shadow in the picture). It widens the area of cleared street. We're wondering if that's so when the next storm hits they can heap the new snow on top of the existing piles more easily. Although you can't really tell in this picture, the flat side goes quite a long distance, all the way to the next driveway coming out of the parking lot. We'd love to see what the machine that does it looks like.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

   The fourth Sunday of every month we speak in a branch in Newfoundland, rotating through the three different branches on the island. The flight there is just over an hour (or more, depending on which city we fly to), but it didn't take us that long this time. We did it from the comfort of our apartment via Skype. Someone told us about a nifty trick. Split the screen with Skype on one side and a word document with our talks on the other side. To them it appears we're talking right to them, even though we're reading the talk! Our version of a TelePrompter. Just like speaking in General Conference, only with a MUCH smaller audience (fewer than 30 people). And we're not apostles. And our talks aren't written up in the Ensign or quoted from for years to come, although we did quote from the Ensign and used lots of quotes. And after an hour we get to sit back and relax. And no traffic hassles when the meeting was over.

This is what our computer screen looked like

   We saw a beautiful sunrise from our balcony at 7:30 am this morning. What a great way to start the day!

   The days here are getting noticeably longer very quickly. We've even seen some pretty sunsets when we leave the office once in a while.

   This place is beautiful, even in the stark winter. We are so blessed to be able to serve the Lord again, this time a little closer to home. 

   We've found it interesting to see some investigators look and behave as though they're already members, while others take a while to make some changes. They're often ready to make the adjustments, but course corrections can take time. However, when someone feels the spark and is touched by the Spirit, the transformation can be amazing!

 

SNOW GNOMES

Okay, we might have bragged a little too much about the wonderful "winter" we've been having, but when the temperatures were in the 50s on Christmas Day, can you blame us for being pleased that Nova Scotia didn't get hit with a hard winter like last year? All good things must come to an end, especially when snow gnomes decide to get even with us for all our bragging.

A week ago an unexpected storm dropped about 8 inches. It's nothing by Salt Lake standards this year, but plenty of snow because it's very wet and dense. No light and fluffy here.

We found out we're responsible for keeping the snow cleared around our car. On days it snows we have to be out of the lot by 9:00 am so they can clear the rest of the area. Every morning Elder Holbrook has to scrape the windows and shovel the area around our car. We do miss our attached garage at home but have gained a great appreciation for the car's remote start. On the morning this picture was taken, the cars on either side of us were already gone.

Over the weekend we had a Nor'easter come through making last week's snow looks like a skiff. Rain turned to sleet, then freezing rain and all that got covered up by snow and then blown around for fun.

Inside looking out through the drifts--the window in the Primary room at church

The back of the church. The snow under the eaves was blown off the roof and is not from a snow blower.

We saw these next three scenes on our way to church.

Yes, that's a bobcat clearing the public sidewalk! When there's too much for it to push out of the way, it scoops and dumps piles of snow off to the side and then continues burrowing again. We've commented on how well they keep the walkways clear, and now we know how they do it. We've seen lots of bobcats clearing walks, small lots, and even some driveways. Wonder what the bobcat-to-population ration is here. It's gotta be pretty high!

Sister Holbrook has enjoyed her "corner office"--she gets to watch people and cars go by. That is, until last week when they piled the plowed snow from the parking lot almost to her window.

By Friday it had compacted quite a bit from the weight of the heavy snow, but after the weekend weather there was more snow piled higher and deeper on Monday morning! We're guessing after the second storm the snow is at least 10 feet high and roughly 20 feet at the base. This is her view out the side window now:

There are snow flurries almost every day, and another storm is predicted for this weekend. Winter has definitely hit. They keep the roads plowed so we're not having trouble getting around. It's so nice to be "stuck" in the office!

We found out that December is usually fairly warm and winter doesn't hit until after the first of the year. Now they tell us, after we taunted those crazy snow gnomes.

Through all of this, we're glad we have the warmth of the gospel in our lives. We are so blessed to be able to serve again in a different place and in a different way. The Lord has placed us among some people with strong testimonies and others who are just learning about our Savior. Both strengthen us.

Visa Waiters

No pictures this week because our camera finally gave up on us after 12 years. We have a new one now, but no pictures yet.

Apparently all our bragging to people back home about our warm winter here brought on the wrath of the snow gnomes. Temperatures were in the 50s for Christmas, and two days later they dipped to 15 and the next week a big storm blew in, dropping lots of snow (but not as much as Salt Lake a few weeks ago). It's warmed up again a little, but we've learned our lesson and won't taunt those vengeful gnomes again.

Last week was crazy busy. In addition to end-of-the-year stuff, we had a double transfer (regular transfers and then some issues arose between when transfers were announced on Sunday and when they took place on Thursday, and that made for some last minutes changes so we had to redo a lot of things), and 13 incoming missionaries, plus the aforementioned snowstorm caused problems. The new missionaries were supposed to arrive on two flights on Tuesday night, but because of the storm, they ended up on 5 flights over the next 3 days, zigzagging across the continent, the last one arriving Friday morning on a redeye. We had been looking forward to a day off on January 1 with the office closed for the holiday, but we put in a full day and then some. Can you think of a better way to ring in the new year than serving the Lord?


Originally we had only expected four new missionaries, but there have been problems with visas and passport renewals, so nine of the new missionaries were given to us with only a few weeks' notice. Surprisingly, the missionaries with the problems are all (native) Canadian citizens going to missions in the States, hence they need to go to a mission in Canada until their visas come through. The issues aren't due to procrastination--it's taking the State Department a lot longer to issue visas right now for some reason. The missionary with the expiring passport has been out a while and started working on getting a new passport more than 6 months ago! He was here for about a week when he was told it had finally gone through. With travel time and waiting for his ticket back, it pulled him away from his mission for over two weeks. The other 9 visa waiter missionaries are fresh out of the MTC and will get yoinked out of our mission when their visas come through. President Pratt wisely put them all in threesomes which will minimize disruptions, but we still faced the issue of not having enough beds. We ended up ordering air beds (really nice 14" air mattresses) for about a third of what regular beds cost. They will take up very little storage space when the visa waiters leave, and will be useful in the future when missionaries travel and stay overnight with other missionaries, like for zone conferences or doing splits.

We're kind of hoping the desks in the office will get really messy in the next few weeks so when the visas come in they'll get lost in the shuffle. We'd love to keep these visa waiter missionaries--they're great!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Busy, busy week, so this week's post is just a short lament.

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I didn't become a better person. 

Happy New Year!