February 10

Elder Palmer is leaving. So is Elder White, district-leader Rhodes' companion. He will be getting a companion fresh out of the MTC, which will be good, because he's a great missionary.

My new companion will be Elder Davis. He was serving in Cadillac, & he's been out for a little over a year. I hear he's a good Elder. It'll be exciting to show him around Saginaw.

Other Big news is that Jennifer Cottenham got baptized Saturday! She has been waiting a while to become a member, and now she's happy to finally be a part of the ward officially.

During the baptismal service Jennifer the whole time kept telling me how nervous she was. I got a little nervous too because she asked me to give a talk on baptism. I had only a short time to prepare the talk, so it was alright. Jennifer told me it was awesome, "I knew I picked the right person" she said.

To our surprise# we had another snowy day this wed. We decided to shovel people's driveways again. We helped a less-active, his friend, an 3 investigators, & some random guy. It helps when we have the other 2 Elders with us. That random guy we saw was spinning his tires trying to get his car into his driveway. Some people think that if they keep their foot on the gas long enough, they'll  somehow gain traction. Anyway, we helped shovel him out, & he was able to barely make his car up his driveway.

That same day we were driving down a road when Elder Rhodes told me to pull over. There was a man who fell in front of his house. When we got closer we could tell that he was probably in his late 50's. There was a puddle of bloody snow at the bottom of his door-steps. He had very slowly crawled out towards the sidewalk. We tried talking to him but he wouldn't respond to anything we said. We decided to call 911. They told us they'd get someone down there. His eye was swollen so bad it pressed up against his glasses. His jeans & gloves were wet & cold. The paramedics got him on a stretcher & drove him to the hospital. He started talking to them, and tried to tell him to leave him at his doorstep His leg was broken. He couldn't think strait, we're sure he had a pretty severe concussion. We were happy we could save someones live though.

This week we went back to the hood. There was a couple of crazy people we met. Sometimes we get people who like to preach to us. One guy was talking to Elder Palmer, he said he was Muslim, and came from Africa. Elder Palmer said, "That's cool, I wouldn't guessed you were from Africa." "What do I look like to you?" "uh, I..." "What do I look like to you!?" "You look African-American." "Thank you." & closed the door before we could say another word.

Then we met some guy in his 80's on the doorstep who invited us in and then practically gave his lives story while talking about what he thought about Gods nature. He's so confused. We ended up staying with him for half hour before we had to cut him off & tell him we had to go. We were 25 minutes late to our dinner appointment.

That night, & the night after we had biscuits & gravy. Elder Palmer's favorite.

We had a lot of people show up for Jennifer's confirmation Sunday, it was great to see a lot of less active members show up that sacrament meeting.

It's good to hear from you I hope you all have a great week

Love,

Elder Candland