Week 16, Alaska, Fairbanks

People of the universe, 

    Well we had a warm spell (it got up to 30, holy cow), but now it's
back to -10. We got record breaking snow fall though, which has been
fun. We have several feet outside right now, which is pretty cool.
Since there's no wind here the snow just piles up on everything. The
trees are completely white and there's 6 inches of snow on the
telephone wires, which is funny. If I stay in Fairbanks it will
definitely be a white Christmas. The problem is, transfers are on the
15th, so I could get sent to a new area 10 days before Christmas. If I
don't get transferred I'll be in Fairbanks till February. That'll be
six months up here. 

     This week was crazy. Monday I went to the doctor. Tuesday I had a
procedure done at the hospital. They sedated me and apparently I was
hilarious, but Elder Reading didn't video it, so there's no proof. I
don't remember much sadly. I had to take the rest of the day to
recover, and at dinner that night the struggle was real when I tried
to deliver the spiritual thought. Elder Reading laughed at me. 

     Wednesday was full of service. We got to deliver Thanksgiving packages
to people which was fun. I got the Jeep stuck, because the Jeep is the
worst car ever and there was like 3 feet of snow that day, in a ditch
and we had to Jerry-rig a pulley system to pull it out. We called the
zone leaders and there was a super nice guy named Walter who helped
us. We carry snow shovels around with us now. 

     Thanksgiving is not exciting as a missionary. Nobody wants you to come
to there house, so we just tried visiting a lot of members. We also
shoveled a lot of driveways and got stuck again. And we were fasting
because it was our day for the 40 day fast. Then we had dinner at 5
with the Stiths. Sister Stith is a caterer. It was the best turkey
I've ever had. It was so moist it just fell apart. Normally turkey is
dry, but it wasn't. And they had my favorite kind of cranberries! Yay
canned fruits. Their son was there and he served his mission in
Portland from 09-11 and he served in Dayton and McMinnville, so we
talked about home a lot. It was a good day. There wasn't a turkey bowl
for our ward, but 3rd ward had tackle football, so that was fun. It
was a good day. 

     Friday and Saturday were super uneventful, but Sunday was sweet.
President Robinson was up in Fairbanks for interviews so we hung out
with him for awhile. Then we had correlation meeting, which is always
fun because Brother Goddard is awesome. He's who we'll have dinner
with on Christmas and we'll Skype at his house, if I'm still here. If
I'm somewhere else I have no idea. Then we had our very first lesson
of the week with Karla which was fun. She's really cool, and she's
basically a dry Mormon so that's nice. 

     We also borrowed Axis and Allies from a member and we play it at
nights sometimes. Never start a land war in Asia. It doesn't go well.
Now we're listening to Christmas music and I'm sitting next to a fire
place. Woah. Christmas for days. People go all out with lights up
here. It's pretty cool. 

     In 5 days I'll be 1/6 done with my mission. That's so crazy to me.
Time flies when you're having fun I suppose. Peace out noobs.

Elder Miller

The Ashcrafts cat is just as fat and lazy as Izzy (our cat is Izzy)

We found some seriously large icicles. Then we hurt each other with them.