Looking Back and Moving Forward

I was looking at a few pictures that were on the computer today mostly from my mission and was just thinking of all of the fun times that I had with some of the people in them. Like this one was back in May of 2008 we got a big snow storm that went right through Winnipeg and for a first time, since I got there, it was a wet snow my companion Elder Jonithan Kirkland was from Arizona and had never made a real snowman so he wanted to make one we talked to one of the families that we where teaching, Wendy and Brain, and they let us come over and together we made one of the biggest snowmen that I have ever made I think that it was about 6'6" you can't really tell with me standing there because I am standing on a high spot on the ground. I think that was the funnest times that I had there I think that we all enjoyed making that thing I can't even remember what we said the name was or even if we gave it a name I just remember all of us tyring to lift just the middle part, man that thing was I would say about 200 lbs it took both me and Elder Kirkland to get that up on top of it.

So as missionaries we had a challenge that if we went to Fudruckers someone would get the 1lb burger (that is the weight cooked without condiments) this time we all got it and for the most part we all got fries to go with it, and they do not hold back on the fries at all, we all finished the fries and 4 of the 5 elders finished the burgers, and yes I did finish it and the fries but I was full for the rest of the day. It was funny to see some of us didn't really think of how big it really was so we got just about everything on them, and then there where the ones that knew exactly what it was that they were doing so they didn't get anything extra on it. We had a few contests going for them all, most stuff on the burger, fastest ate, and the one who puked first (that one was after and really only one person was competing in that)

Alright so I also get the question a lot of how cold it was and well this will show you...this is what I looked like when I went out side in the winter (that is in the months of December to February, and yes the snow does go up to my knees here in this picture also if I remember right that night what I was standing in was about -38 C.) As for the outfit the hat, or toque, was the most important, I had the rabbit skin hat that kept me really warm in those cold months next the scarf was a must have if not you took in one breath and you where dieing because it hurt so much. Now for the coat that thing was my best friend during the winter and under that is about 3 more layers of cloths, the gloves I would always have 2 pairs on, and then the slacks, we couldn't have snow pants so underneath I would have long johns and a pair of fleas PJ bottoms and that really kept me warm and the wind off my legs. The last thing that you don't see is my boots, a must have for anyone that is walking in the snow.



Now I always thought that some things that we did as Americans where crazy but I think that this one takes the cake. But then when you are over 400 miles from really much of anything I would think that some people would find a way to get more enjoyment out of the things that they do have up there. This was found in my second area, we where in a outlining city called Thompson and as part of the area we had everything up north of that witch included a place called Gillam that was about 300 Km away from Thompson witch was 800 Km north of Winnipeg. That out of all of my areas was I think the funnest I don't know if it was the fact that I was hundreds of miles away from really anyone or just that it was so small that everyone knew who we where or even just being able to do just about everything that the leaders got to do but for ourselves. I don't know I really liked it and I was lucky enough that I got to be here for the summer because the winters in Thompson are just brutal from what I have heard about it.





So, over all I had a lot of fun companions but this guy here was one of the funnest, Elder Kirkland, he would always make something that seemed really bad at first to something that was fun. And he always seemed to give things names, for example the rubber band ball there on his shoulder we called him James (it got its name from the portion of the city that we where in, St. James) he also had this nasty sausage that he called Strauss (we lived on the corner of Strauss and Strauss, so the name of the area was called Strauss) I think that by the time that we separated James got to be about 8lbs and from what I understand is that he is a lot bigger now.






As for Moving forward things are going good I have justabout half of what I need to pay for my next semester of school, so that is nice to know that I will beable to take care of that, I have also paid back the last student loan that I took out so I am verry happy about that one not having to worry about that debt that I had. but I still do not know what I should go into at school, and to get into any of the programs that I want to check out you need to be in the major so that makes it just a little harder to try and see if that is what I want to do, but just so that you all know I am thinking about things that I could do and planning to fit all of those things in.