Monday, November 1, 2010

November 1, 2010

Dear Home,

The process of Emailing seems to be suffering some technical difficulties today, hence why I'm so late at getting to all of you. I would've been online at about 12 pm today, but at that time, the missionary Email website was down. =( So I thought "Oh, well. Inconvenient. Another delay. Some holidays cause that, so it won't be /completely/ unheard of if I wasn't able to Email until tomorrow." So we went shopping. Some very wonderful members in this ward fed us dinner last night, and gave us some of the leftover desert, including a delicious cake and some fantastic ice cream topping. All we needed was some ice cream, and the delicious desert could be re-created. As soon as we finished shopping, we saw that we had missed a call. Other missionaries had found out that the website was back up and running. Good news, right? Except that our ice cream was going to melt. =( So we had some missionaries take us back to our apartment so we could freeze our ice cream. We also found out, from these very missionaries, that there was a library with internet access close to our apartment, so we checked it out. That was about two or three hours ago. At that time, the computers were all busy, and we were presented with an option. Either one of us could Email right then and the other two could Email an hour later, or we could all Email at the same time at 5. I voted for Emailing at the same time. Besides, we wanted to go to Walmart anyway, and this way, we would have time. So, we booked the computers for 5, hopped on a bus, bought a few things at Walmart, had lunch at an in-store McDonalds and bussed back, arriving in plenty of time to browse through bookshelves before our Emailing time.

But here's the bad news, we have an appointment coming up in a little less than an hour, so we might have to cut Emailing short. The good news is that I only have one major piece of news to report anyway: Snow.

Remember last week when I told you that we got the first rainfall? That night, we got the first snowfall, and it continued for a day or two after that. Our balcony was literally covered in snow! We had enough of it to consider making a snowman. =) But as soon as the snow stopped, the sun came out. Now what do we have on our balcony? A completely bare, completely dry wooden floor, and a misshapen, shrinking by the hour, leaning snow stalagmite. Not fun. But the snow will fall again, and "Elder Snowbarts" will have another chance to grow.

In other news, we're finally getting to make a difference for some people in our area. =) The people we're seeing tonight are some members we've met before. The senior missionaries told us about them. They were in the same Singles Ward until they got married, then they came to the Ward we're in right now, but had hard time fitting in and making friends. Eventually, they just stopped coming. We swung by and visited with them, talking with them about whatever they wanted to talk about (mostly their cats), and just basically tried to get to know them a little better. Then yesterday, to our surprise, they came to church and asked us to come back to their home again. I look forward to seeing them tonight. They're really a great couple. They each have an excellent sense of humor. I hope we can get them coming to church regularly and making friends. It would be so good for them. =) I'm excited to keep working with them.

Oh, that reminds me. =/ Transfers are coming up in about two weeks. It'll be sad to see our tri-panionship get broken up, but I'm definitely glad I was able to serve in this group, even for just a month and a half. Elder Sheffield and Elder Hall are both wonderful missionaries and great friends. We have plans to keep in touch after our missions. This is going to be a good, long friendship. =) The strange thing is, the two of them both live in Utah, rather close to each other, in fact, so they'll be able to visit each other as Elder Sheffield attends college in Elder Hall's hometown. My consolation prize is that the internet can allow me to send letters hundreds of miles, straight to their computers, in the blink of an eye, for free, exactly like what I'm doing right now. =) I am so glad that someone invented Email. It makes our lives SO much easier!

But anyhow, I've got to go or we might miss our bus, and I DON'T want to be late to our appointment with those members. So, I hope you all have a good week and enjoy eating your Halloween candy (we certainly will)!

That reminds me. My Mom asked me what I want for Christmas. Those (what are they called? My Grab? Hand Grabbers? My... Coal? Or was it Hot-something? I'll check when I get back to the apartment.) Those hand-warmer thingies were the best. =) I've still got lots of them and I haven't needed them yet, but once it starts getting really cold, I'll start using them again, and I don't think I have quite enough to make it all the way through the winter. Other than that, edible things and ties are high on the list of things I like.

Out of time. I love you!

Love, your not-freezing-yet missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts

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