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.

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   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!