I survived the Salt Lake City "blizzard"

Good morning everybody and Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, as you can tell by the subject. There was a blizzard here last night, supposedly anyway. It pretty much felt like a regular snow storm, but the weather services had been warning people about it for days so every house we went to had people telling us to be careful and to park our car and stay inside. We did end up having to ground the car, but it never snowed hard enough to where it felt like we had to hide inside. It did get pretty cold last night though and for the first time in my life, I had to chip ice off all the windows of our car. And "warm" the car up by leaving it on for about 15 minutes with the defrosters on at full heat blast. Definitely a far cry from the Arizona Thanksgiving, that is for sure. We sang "Prayer of Thanksgiving" last Sunday at the Taylorsville Utah Valley Park Stake and it had already snowed a good foot by that morning so the song seemed to be a little bit behind the times with "All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin." hahaha, I was thinking "too late". Trees and branches have been falling down all over the place because they all still have their leaves. Add all the weight of over a foot and a half of snow and lots of them came crashing down. Did a lot of damage to our landlord's trees, they used to be so beautiful and now all the big branches have been broken off and are scattererd throughout the yard. I have decided being moved to a new area right before Thanksgiving is not the best, I had so many options and offers in Riverton. Out here, my companion is kind of shy so we have only one offer and that is for 1, so the rest of the day we might just be sitting in the apartment. We aren't really supposed to knock on doors and disturb people's family gatherings and celebrations, but maybe we can set up more appointments or find something to do. As long as we can stay indoors most the day, we should be fine. Today and tomorrow there is a huge cold front, which is keeping temperatures down in the 20's and teens. Then back up to 40's again, Utah is so bipolar. Elder Noll and I have started to really exercise this week as we played sports on Monday and then shoveled all our landlord's snow today. There are drawbacks to having a huge driveway and lots of sidewalks is what I discovered.

I have been blessed to be placed in a really good area with lots of very nice people and a huge amount of potential. Elder Noll is willing to work hard and follow my lead, but I wear him out to easy I am afraid. He fell asleep a lot yesterday and has already done so again today. He tries his hardest, but I guess I am blessed with a lot more energy than most people. Working on calming it down a little bit so that he can stay focused and awake during lessons. My district is also amazing. All the missionaries are very obedient and are working hard in the Lord's work. All are excited to do the work and have the faith necessary to perform miracles in their areas. All are also happy and energetic and willing to give it everything they got. Much better than it could have been according to what President emailed me. I have Sister Wasden and Sister Johnson from Hawaii and Canada, respectfully. Elder Hernadez from Las Vegas and Elder Jolley from Seattle. Elder Jolley is a brand new missionary and Sister Wasden has only been out a transfer. Our entire district has only been out a short amount of time collectively on their missions. Elder and Sister Palmer are our senior missionaries and they are awesome and hard working as well. I had to do my first baptismal interview last week for a 10 year old girl. Thankfully, they give us "cheat" sheets for all the questions we have to ask and such things so it went very well. The Lord has truly blessed me with such great missionaries and such amazing opportunities. I don't know why He has given me so much responsibility, but I will do everything I can to live up to what He expects of me and pray as hard as possible for His help and guidance. That is the only way to ever do anything with His work anyway, with all of His help and Spirit.

As Thanksgiving approaches, a lot of talks and thoughts have been centered on gratitude and I always love that. I especially have enjoyed reading and re-reading President Monson's talk from last general conference. If we live grateful lives and have an "attitude of gratitude" then we will truly be as happy as we can ever be and become the type of people we truly want to be. I have been working on being much more grateful in my prayers and in expressing more gratitude for the infinite blessings the Lord has granted me. Also, worked on expressing it more to all those that we teach, work, and come in contact with. The difference it makes is astounding and has helped me to keep happy and going strong. Right now, I am working on sending out thank you cards to a bunch of people in my past area who truly watched after me and helped me in the Lord's work. There are so many people to thank though is what I am realizing and so much to be thankful for from every house and family. The list has gotten fairly long and comprehensive. But I really enjoying writing them and including my testimony and letting people know how much I truly appreciate them and their service towards me.

The people here in Taylorsville are a much more humble people, but not nearly as outgoing or loving as Riverton and Draper, at least not right away in the first week. No one seems to trust me or want to talk about the gospel or anything for that matter - all want to stay working hard and don't seem to find joy in the work that they do. All seem to be just "existing" rather than "living" if that makes any sense. It makes a huge difference in the missionary work and the missionary spirit in the two stakes that we cover. We are trying to work on gaining more trust from members and uplifting their moods. Helping them to understand that the gospel and life are not something only to be endured, but to be ENJOYED! We pray for people's hearts to change and for them to be happy. I know the Lord will help us know what to do and what we can say. We will work as hard as we can and do everything possible to help people to feel the Spirit and to change. But I can understand why there has not been much missionary work. Church this Sunday was much harder because instead of being happy, enjoyable, and fun - the mood was somber, downtrodden, depressed, and dull. If one didn't have a strong testimony of the church, it would be very hard to want to go to an environment like that every week.

That being said, we have 5 people on date for baptism currently. All have been touched by the Spirit and have that strong testimony and are excited for their baptisms. All have been filled with the light the gospel brings. We should be having 3 baptisms in the next week from people who know that the church is true. We also managed to pick up a new investigator this week. His name is George Alan and he comes from a very rough life. He has tatoos all over his body and has been involved in numerous motorcycle gangs and always hung out with such crowds as those people attract. Then his wife died (who was VERY less active) and evil spirit started to haunt his house and his life (why I have people with crazy situations like this every time, I don't know. Every other missionary I talk to never has people have evil spirit, visions, dreams, or the like. Just normal people, whereas the ones the Lord has me teach all have very special and individual experiences.) The stake president, who lives down the street, had the prompting to go visit with George and as soon as he walked in the house, he casted out evil spirits and offered a blessing on the home. The difference was immediate and George was truly touched and humbled. So then the stake president had us visit him and he cried the entire time that we shared the message of the Restoration with him. He didn't yet want to commit to baptism or anything (says he needs to take things slower from changing from heavy biker to church goer) but the Spirit was so strong! He was very honest and open and wanted to learn. He had been truly prepared by the Lord to receive the gospel at this time. The only other person I have seen that was more prepared was Jose Flores, so we are very excited to be teaching George and have given a lot of thanks to the Lord for him. Also, he offers the most sincere and heartfelt prayers, people invesigating the church have a knack for doing that. Always makes me feel like I can't pray at all because of the strong Spirit that is always present in their prayers and their great faith in God's answers to their prayers. Much stronger faith than I see in normal church members. I feel the same way Ammon and his brothers did when they were teaching the Lamanites - they didn't have to fight the people to accept the word, but they accepted every word and doctrine that Ammon taught and believed. Same with the people we are teaching here. It is an awesome experience.

Thank you so much for forwarding me Jake's email. It was great to read about his experiences and to see the differences and the similarities of the Lord's work in different parts of the earth. Also, gave me a lot of new ideas that I think we will try out this week in the work that we do and the contacts that we make. Thanks also for all the letters and emails from various people, I appreciate it so much! It is the best to hear how everyone is doing and to be updated on how things are going. I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving this week and to take the time this week in prayer to thank the Lord for our innumerable blessings. Also, as President Monson put it to thank all those that deserve our gratitude the most but that we take the most for granted. Ponder who those people are and let them know that you care and the difference that you have made. I am thankful that God has given me such wonderful family and friends who have helped me to live the gospel and to stay on the path. I am thankful for caring people in my life that have led and guided me and provided for me. I am thankful for how you have all influenced my life and helped me to change for the better. I am thankful for our saviour Jesus Christ and for a Heavenly Father that loves us and gives us everything that we need to return to Him again.

Much love and prayers,
Elder Ryan Leroy Hughes