Northern Vermont next to Canada

We drove eight hours to a new location.  Live in a town and village next to a lake where we will be experiencing lake snows, nice winds off the lake and big winter chills!!  It is already biting.  The missionaries before us told me to get spikes for the bottom of my shoes because the ice under the snow is deadly.  I have tall rubber boots that they left to wear in the extremely wet snow.  We are going to be out in the weather everyday, knocking on doors.

The Vermont Maple Syrup is even better than Maine's Maple Syrup.  It's the only sugar I use.  I'm learning how to cook with it and love it tons.  We know what a Maple Syrup Farm looks like.  It's a gravity process.  This area is mostly dairy farming with large fields of corn and grass for cattle and huge barns.

Our branch area is large and takes us close to Canada.  Our cell phones keep using towers in Canada and giving us extra $15 roaming charges.  Hope to visit the Montreal Quebec Temple soon.

We live in a much newer house.  It was build in 1900.  We actually have light switches.  We also have heat, hot water radiators, which work real well.  The last house only had light bulbs with pull cords in the middle of the ceiling.

Last Week in ME

We are really being pushed to finish up in Maine.  We visited over 100 inactive families plus the regular active families in about 25 different villages. We moved 23 records of people we verified moved.  We wrote letters to find change of addresses.  Teaching 6 new investigators.  Are you tired yet, we are!! They really need couples in the mission field.  New England people are careful and cautious, it takes them a long time to make any commitment.  We love the maple syrup.  It is good on everything.  The fall colors are excellent.  The weather has been nice.  It is not very cold.  We spend most of our day driving between villages on bumpy narrow roads and count ourselves lucky if we have pavement.  The wild turkeys are ugly.  The deer are bigger than what I have seen other places.  Addresses don't exist.  Turn at the junction of this road and then over the hill next to the pink barn.  Past the school down the road on the right for a piece and left at the lake.  We haven't seen any moose or bear yet, but are told they come out at night and we hate driving the narrow roads in the woods at night.  We get lost a lot and then experience miracles.

We are being transferred to our own branch where we get to knock on doors!!  We are the only missionaries in a little larger area than here.  Vermont here we come, ready or not!!

Busy in October

The Fall colors are beautiful here.  The field is ready for the harvest-look at the statue on top of the Capitol Building in Augusta.  The joke here is that the native American Woman is Sister Moroni.

Spirit Felt in ME

We have been doing a lot of traveling.  Meeting wonderful people.  Taught three discussions yesterday.  Tremendous spiritual experience.

Can't believe all the water here.  Rain and also the largest lake East of the Mississippi- Moosehead Lake!  Beautiful!!! Where other people have their own swimming pools, the folks around here have their own lakes.  Small little lakes in backyards everywhere! Quite a project wandering small country dirt roads lined with trees trying to find people.

We are in charge of a stake day of service for the poor and the needy in this area.  Unemployment here about 60%, so lots of poor and needy.  We have 27 more contacts to make this week, and I'm cub scout leader.  We need to be cloned!

Today we had are first district meeting, quite a drive to and from, but found people in Lincoln and Milo.  I've lost count of all the small villages we have been to this week.

Spiritual Week One: MTC

The MTC has been an excellent experience.  We highly recommend it!  We have never searched the scriptures and studied this much in so short a time.  One of our most memorable moments was Tuesday evening before the evening meeting when the youth entered the hall.  They told us Monday that we were here with 2,500 young men and women between the age of 19 & 21.  Our group was 22 couples and one single sister.  Wednesday another 450 arrived.  We just checked out of the MTC.  If you're in the area, Elaine, my sister is giving us a going away party tonight.  Come crash the party.  We would love to say good by.   We leave for the mission field early, early, in the morning.

Mission Photo

We started a blog to communicate with family and friends about our mission. We pray this will be the simplest way to stay connected with our loved ones.