There are, you know, snowplows

Hey, it's, as always, great to hear from you guys!

Wow. That's a lot of snow, especially for Oregon! I imagine things'll probably be closed for a little while longer... It's been fairly snowy in Colorado, but I don't think it's been as bad as it is in Oregon, esp. because there are, you know, snowplows :). Sounds pretty crazy.

I wouldn't say it's "tiring" to teach in Spanish, because mostly I haven't been doing a ton of teaching. My companion has mostly been covering that, and I've been putting in a few remarks--not to say that I haven't been teaching or anything, but I haven't been as active a participant in lessons as I was in English wards. I feel a little bit like I'm in training again, but it's obviously different in several ways. I feel like I should be able to get out of the like less-teaching shell within the next couple weeks, and then things should be pretty normal.

It was super cool to go to Church in Spanish! I can understand ~90% of what's being said, so the difference is mostly just cultural. One bizarre thing: We have like "backwards" church, where we have Priesthood/RS first, then Sunday School, and then Sacrament Meeting last. Probably Sacrament meeting was the most different--There were only two talks: one from a member of the ward, and one translated one from a high councilor. The first one went way long--it was the first time in a long time that I've seen a bishopric member get up to tell the speaker to wrap it up, and it also included a lot more um audience participation than any talk I've ever seen before. So that was kind of awesome.

This week has been pretty great! We've been able to teach a lot--more lessons in this week than I've taught my whole mission--I think we taught a total of 22 discussions. We mostly met with a lot of less active members, recent converts, and active members, but we also had the opportunity to teach a couple of investigators, one of which is a four-person family, who've committed to be baptized soon, which was really cool. We also did a lot of finding work, trying to find more people to teach. We mostly went through a bunch of former investigators and potential investigators, trying to set up times this week to meet with them. We had some success with that, and should have a lot of investigator lessons this week, which should be great.

It's been nice to be in a car--we've been able to get in between appointments and activities a lot quicker than we ever were on bikes, which is nice. The heating is also a big plus--when you step out of the car and you can feel your eyebrows freezing, it really makes you grateful to have the car :).

We've been doing some service too, at two different places. One is a thrift store called ARC, and the other place is this retirement home place, where we get together with a bunch of other missionaries and sing hymns and old songs (e.g. bicycle built for two) that I think are intended to remind the people of their childhoods or something like that.

All in all, it's been a pretty great week. The apartment is pretty tiny, but it works, and we don't spend too much time in it, anyways. The members have been super great to work with, and things are just going well.

I love you all. Thanks so much for the email, and the pictures, and the love.

Here's a picture that explains a reason I'm very happy for a car.

Love,

Peter