Christmas

This week was pretty fun! We had a super different week with it being Christmas and all! On Monday we went snow shoeing for our P-day activity and It was super fun. There are a ton of snowmobile paths here so we just explore those. We taught a ton of lessons on the first couple days of the week and we also did a fair bit of knocking on doors. It was cold. It was super hard to find people though because everyone and their dog is in Winnipeg. People here go to Winnipeg like every weekend. they treat it like a trip to Calgary for us from Lethbridge. Only Problem is that it is 8 hours both ways. I seriously know people who have gone to Winnipeg for a haircut. They are crazy!

Christmas Eve was a super interesting day! We had a really good district meeting over Skype. It is always fun to "see" other missionaries because it doesn't happen much here in the North. After District meeting we spent like the whole day preparing for a community dinner. It is put on by some less active members of the branch. They put it on every year and they get over 200 people come. It has a bit of a bad rep for being just a "homeless dinner" but they are very clear that you don't need to be homeless to come. It is for anyone who doesn't have a Christmas dinner. they get a lot of single guys who work in the mine who couldn't go home for the Holidays. What we did on Christmas eve was shop. Missionaries always get the money jobs because I guess people don't think we will steal anything. We were given over $500 and a huge grocery list and we just went hard in Wal-Mart and Safeway. the turkeys, ham and potatoes were all donated but we had to buy like 35 pounds of carrots and a bunch of other stuff and every time we dropped off what we had they thought of something else they needed so we would go back to the store. It was really fun actually. That night we were told to stop Proselyting at 5:00 so we spent the evening at the Hinds house and had some fun! 

Christmas day was the highlight of the week (as it should be). We were told we could sleep in until 9:00 but I was up at 7:00 anyway. Not because of excitement just because my body is used to being up at 6:30 every single day. We opened the presents and all that! It was really fun! Thanks to all who wished me Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to you too! (and happy new year which may be more appropriate now). We then hustled over to the church to talk to our families. We got a whopping 45 minutes to talk. It was way too short! It was really good to see them. A Christmas miracle happened too! I sent a package last week sometime and the guy at the post office said "don't expect it to be there until after Dec 29". It got there on Christmas eve. We talked for what felt like 5 minutes then hung up. After that we volunteered at the community dinner and I washed more dishes than I ever had before in my whole life. My hands were totally raw at the end. It was Great! That night we spent at the Basallos, a family in the branch and watched the movie "Home". It was a funny cartoon. (President Craig gave us permission to watch one G-rated Disney movie with a member. he specified further that Star wars at the theatre wasn't allowed. good thing there is no real theatre here so the temptation wasn't too strong). 

On boxing day our car wouldn't start because we didn't plug it in. We walked a lot that day and it was -35ish. Fun times. Our car still won't start but it isn't the battery so it is at a dealership right now. Our poor truck haha. On Sunday I talked in Sacrament and also ended up teaching adult Sunday School with no time to prepare. Thank goodness for members that will contribute to discussions and Mormon messages. Pam was able to make it even though it is freezing cold! transfer calls come on Saturday and I am possible out of Thompson but hopefully not! 

Love you all! Elder Stewart

Every missionary in the mission has been asked to make something like this as their profile picture on Facebook.  This is his new profile.