Pre-Thanksgiving storm drops one foot of snow...

Beautiful Autumn Leaves...

Also beautiful Winter Snow...

So the snow is officially here to stay and won't be leaving until May. So, rather than hate it, I'm loving it.  I throw at least 1 snowball at my companion every day! There are also chunks of ice on the ground and as we are walking sometimes we try and kick it in between their legs to make a goal and if they score you have to do 5 push ups when you get home. :) Elder Sholer's been doing a lot of push ups!

Anyways,
Monday the 24th- Besides emailing all of you folks, we had a nerf war at the church where we turned all the lights off in the gym and ran around shooting each other. It reminded me of how much I don't want to have to do that for real, like the military does... That night we went to a member's home and the 13 year old boy there kept telling these terrible jokes about dead babies. That's apparently what all the kids do now is tell dead baby jokes....

Chef's at work...

Moose chili...  bet you never had that before!!

Tuesday- We helped out at the Johnson Hall, we got to decorate their little Christmas Tree which got me excited for the Christmas Season. It was funny because we decorated it before Thanksgiving....  That night we had dinner at a Less-Actives home who was going to host an annual pie night on the night before Thanksgiving so we helped her and the family bake pies.

Wednesday- This was the day the huge snow storm came. It started at 12 PM and didn't stop until 12 AM. The snow just kept coming and coming and coming. It was the really wet and sticky snow, which is perfect for snowballs. Because of the storm all of our plans got cancelled and the pie night never happened. Our cars were grounded and we couldn't leave our apartment because our Ward Mission Leader told us to stay indoors. So we were with the Augusta Elders in our apartment for the night. That was like a sleepover haha. It was fun. We went outside and shoveled even though we weren't supposed to....

Thursday- THANKSGIVING DAY! The day started at Bishops where we had a fairly small Thanksgiving dinner. It's the first time there were no left overs. After that it was about 4 pm and Elder Sholer and I had nothing to do and no one to see. We were a bit confused because we didn't know where to go and at this point in the day I was starting to get thoughts of how this is going to be the worst Thanksgiving ever. So Elder Sholer and I said a prayer asking for guidance in who to see. We came up with stopping by a Nonmember family , The Peters, that we helped move/not move a week ago. We walked on over there and they invited us in and they had just gotten home and were about to have their Thanksgiving dinner so we were able to have it with them. This was a really good dinner, and there were left overs haha. We then talked to them and they invited us to their small farm in South Gardiner the next day.

Friday- We went with the Peters to their small farm that had a 600 pound pig named Miss Piggy and 2 alpacas and 2 sheep and 10 piglets.  It was fun feeding the animals and breaking the ice on top of the well to get water for the animals. We trudged through snow a foot and a half deep and helped get his truck unstuck. We went back to their house and had lunch with them then had a Bible study on Genesis because they are very Christian and wanted us to read with them. They told us as we were about to finish the Bible study that they had prayed to the Lord asking for guidance and for some way to learn more about Him. And they said we came by a couple days after to help... Some people might say that's a coincidence, but I totally think otherwise.

Come here, Alpaca!

Sooooeeeeee!

Boy, they sure eat like pigs....

Saturday- We helped the Cotnoir family in our ward out with wood and we cut and split and stacked and hauled their wood for 3 hours and finished all that they had. There was snow all over the place and that just made things harder and more difficult which is why it took 3 hours. Then we weekly planned which is always fun! Then we had dinner at the Dawbins. They made us breakfast for dinner and it was so good. I love when people ask what you haven't had in forever because I always know what to say. We watched the new Church produced Christmas video called "He is the Gift."  It was really well made and I encourage anyone reading this to check it out if you haven't already seen it. http://www.mormon.org/christmas?CID=51064

Sunday- The roads were covered in a thin sheet of ice which made it impossible to drive in a straight line, so our Bishop cancelled church. I was going to speak at church and it got cancelled so that kind of stunk... We had invited the Peters to church and they were looking forward to coming. We immediately remembered that we didn't have their phone number so we walked out on the ice, practically ice skated to their house and told them church was cancelled. They are awesome and by the time we got there they had already called the church and already got the info that church was cancelled. So we stayed at their house for a little bit and read more out of the Bible because it was to dangerous for us to go outside to the frozen wasteland. Rusty, the dad gave us a ride home and I asked him if he had ever read the Book of Mormon and he said no and accepted one to read. I told him to read the introduction because that will explain almost anything and answers all of the Frequently Asked Questions for first time readers. After that we went to the Tarbox's for dinner and by this time the roads were unfrozen. They told us that they will be moving right after Christmas and that really put a damper on the day because they are such an awesome family!  I'm going to miss them. They will be moving to Grenora, North Dakota.

That's the week I had. I am grateful for all we were able to do and everyone we were able to help. On December 3rd we are having interviews with our mission president and then on the 6th we are having our ward Christmas Party. We have invited tons of nonmembers to it so we hope the turnout goes well. Thanks for all the pictures you sent me! I always enjoy seeing pictures. Stay warm out there in San Diego! (That's not too hard to do...)

All Smiles 

Elder Dahlberg