I have survived long enough to greet you from the -20 degree weather with windchill here in happy New England! Yeah. It's been a winter to beat all winters. We've seemed to have a blizzard every other day! I've never seen anything like this. I thought the snow was deep the FIRST time. I'll definitely be sending more pictures!
My week was unpredictable and very scattered, due to all the storms. :) I'll give you some of the highlights!
We drove to Franklin to meet with Elder Hansen, the Senior missionary over Real Life Answers, the website. Not sure if I've mentioned that to you. Our mission also started a fabulous website! You should check it out! reallifeanswers.org. He gave us basic training on how we can help keep the site going in our free time. See those cool sliders at the top, advertising the different articles you could read? I did that part! :) It's kind of fun. Don't worry, I'm fixing the one where the words are directly over her face. :)
We took the trip out to Foxboro again to supervise more voice recordings for video translation! This time, though, it wasn't for Haitian Creole translation, it was for Portuguese translation! Sister Couto was so happy! The man we got for the job has this beautiful, rich voice. He did a wonderful job. Soon all of the Portuguese speakers who watch the PVC videos will hear it in their own language! More hearts will be touched!
Despite not having a legitimate ward, and therefore no dinner calendar, we were fed three times this week!!!! All of those times were so much fun! The Dowlings, my old friends from the Weston 2nd Ward, fed us one night. I love them! :) And it was neat to share a message again. Those planned opportunities come few and far inbetween for us now.
The one and only Kevin LaBarge took us and the Weston Sisters out to breakfast! :D Great crowd to be with. It's really neat to catch up with him, not to mention the food was delicious.
And ANOTHER night we were spoiled enough to go to that amazing Brazilian restaurant again with the Vails, the Assistants to the President, and the Weston 1st Elders. That place is to die for. And it's fun to explain why a bunch of clean-cut people of varied ages and genders all had name-tags, skirts and/or suits in the insane snow. The Brazilian waiter looked and us and said flatly that they have a policy that you can't speak of politics, religion, or soccer in the restaurant. Hahaha!!!
Okay, so we HAD some great plans for the weekend. Really. Church tours and baptisms and trainings and firesides. . . you name it! EVERYTHING CANCELLED. Due to "Neptune", the blizzard of the weekend. I told you about how we get "red-dotted" and can't use our cars. . . well, we got "purple-dotted". Sister Packard made it up, because that's the color our face would turn if we walked around in that cold. "Purple-dotted" means you can't leave the apartment. We were "purple-dotted" for a good 40 hours or so. Saturday night until this morning. Even now, we are strongly cautioned. We're all bundled up nice and cozy!!! But the snow came a-tumbling down, and honestly, I can't even imagine the cities. They have nowhere else to PUT this kind of snow.
So yesterday morning I compiled a to-do list and braced myself for a very un-Sabbath-like Sabbath. I was making my way through the list when we got a call from the Sheltons, a senior couple just down the block! We were given permission to walk down. We were joined by the Johnsons (yes, from our home ward!) and all of us had a nice little sacrament meeting together! It's amazing how you can feel the Spirit no matter what your circumstances. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I can still say I haven't missed a day of church on my mission.
Well, while I was subjected to the confines of our small apartment I got a lot of little things done. Caught up in my journal and organized and whatnot. And this morning, we took some fantastic pictures about 10 feet away from our back door, in the deep, deep snow!!!! Unfortunately I couldn't get all the way down because the snow compacted beneath my boots, but you get the idea. If I was all the way down I'd be up to my armpits!
Enjoy the photos!!!! (I'll send a couple more in another email.) Love you all!!!!
Love,
Sister Merkley
MBM PVC Missionary
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