Week 11, Alaska, Fairbanks

Dear friends and family and other people too I guess maybe 

It's certainly a winter wonderland outside right now. Everything's
covered in snow, it's 20 degrees, and it's dark. We get about 7 1/2
hours of sunlight a day, but we lose about 7 minutes a day, soon it'll
be 10. So we don't have much daylight left and it's rapidly
decreasing. The snow started again on Thursday and it hasn't really
stopped since. The snow is awful here. It's too dry and cold for it to
lack well, so you can't make snowballs with it. It's basically white
dust falling from the sky. Driving is fun on it because it blows every
which way. I like driving in the snow. Sometimes I turn the traction
control off, and rally car it around sharp corners. The Jeep sucks,
but at least it power slides well. As for the cold, well it's just
getting colder. It's not supposed to go above freezing too often in
the next week, and then not at all after that.

As for the week, it was pretty good. It wasn't super eventful though.
We taught a couple lessons, tracted in the snow, had a lot of generic
Chinese food, and tried really hard. Everyone gets really grumpy
around 6 30 because it's dark and cold at that point, so our
effectiveness goes down. And during the day we teach so many single
moms, because everyone else is working. So our teaching pool is
struggling, but that means we just have to work harder at finding.
Especially through members. Our investigators are all still good, plus
we picked up a new guy named Henry. He's a boss, literally and
figuratively. Jennifer, Karla, and Lorinda are all doing good, they're
just busy so we can't teach them as often as we like. 

Elder Jesperson and I are speaking in church next Sunday. I'm also
singing. They figured out that I've sung in church before, and now
they're working me for it. We're speaking about missionary work
because next week our Ward is starting a 40 day fast for missionary
work. We also just got a new Ward mission leader (Brother Gottard)
which is great because now we have a Ward mission leader who is
excited. We're getting an assistant Ward mission leader next week too,
so it's awesome. The Ward is super excited about missionary work, and
that's really helpful because everything slows down in the winter, so
if we can get referals we can keep teaching people instead of tracting
at -40.

Halloween was pretty terrible. We couldn't tract or anything so we
went around trying to visit people, but literally no one answered
their door. Then we had to go in at 7. And we couldn't even hand out
candy. So it was kinda dumpy. But the trunk or treat on Thursday was
fun. The Bishop dressed as Napolean Dynamite. He's 50, but his costume
was perfect. It was so great. 

So yeah, that's the week. I'm now 1/8th done with the mission, and
it's gone by crazy fast. What the heck is this? 

 Love, 

Elder Miller