you're always sticking up for nephi!

It's snowing pretty good right now. It's not sticking to the roads or anything but it's plenty to have a decent snowball fight. And to keep everything white. Our dreams of a white Christmas could happen just yet.

Walking to the church this morning
to watch more Animated Scriptures.

So this week was kinda weird. First off I finally used my bike for the first time on my mission. Every second Wednesday is a "car fast" where we can't use the car until 6, and because we had an appointment already scheduled in Waverly we decided to bike out there ourselves. I have not ridden a bike in a long time. There wasn't too many cars on the back roads which was fine but man alive I haven't used those muscles in a while. Plus the bike seat on my bike is seriously the shape and size of a paper airplane so I had some other pains too. Not to complain too much but it wasn't the best morning. Still pretty sore. And it was cold. It's actually been cold all week. The last day or two warmed up a little to give us rain but now it's back to the 32-37 range during the day. Not frigid but cold enough for how wet it is.

We did a lot of service this week. We raked the leaves that I mentioned on Tuesday. The first lawn was just covered in pine needles which are not easy to pick up and put into bags. There was a mountain of 26 bags by the time we were done. The the second lawn wasn't as bad cause the lady had these MASSIVE plastic bags that could probably fit a whole family, so we just shoved the piles right into it. Awesome. And Scott was there to help. Then on Saturday we were "hired" to put roofing on one of the members' deck covering thing that he built. It was cold but not too cold, until the rain came and the temperature dropped. We did all the tar, tar paper, and shingle stuff that day and did most of the shingle stuff in the freezing rain. It was kinda fun though to be on the roof and we really helped out a lot cause the member wanted it done before the rainy weekend and if we weren't there it would've just been him and his brother in law (who's also in the branch). So they were grateful. So grateful that they gave us Christmas presents last night, which included a slider grill that we are excited to use. They pretty much love us.

If there's any one thing we accomplished this week it was gaining a lot of trust with the members. I don't know how we suddenly did it but I think we've done it. We were asked if we wanted to go to Jamestown on a p-day yesterday and we enthusiastically said yes, so I'll probably be a little late to e-mails next week. Like around 4 or 5 EST. But it's okay cause I'll be going to Jamestown! Huzzah! Plus we got a lot more sign-ups for the dinner calendar so I think we did something good.

What else. Charles the baseball investigator as mom calls him is back in Norfolk until further notice. We won't see him for a while but I think we'll talk to the missionaries there about going and seeing him. He said he did some "moping around" after his last sickness so he's in a recovery stage spiritually. He's getting there though. One day. He'll be baptized.

Friday was the branch Christmas party. Free food and a white elephant thing. We gave both of our gifts away cause kids have a way of asking missionaries for things knowing we can't say no. It's alright though.

Hm. That's about all. I might do another tape for a Christmas present. Present spoiled, sorry. I'm doing fine out here, nothing to worry about. The mission's been good to me so far. I found out someone we started teaching in Waynesboro got baptized which is cool.

That's all!

-Elder Parker