Hello all,

Today's guest blogger is Alan:

Howdy! For those of you who are not linguists, that is Texan for Aloha. Now, let's all try again.

Howdy!

(your reply here)

The following is a small series showing our house:


Here we are in February, early or late doesn't really matter, or even late March too. All month long the house looked like this. The drift of snow by the front door looks just like the drift of snow on the roof, and the back yard, and the whole neighborhood.

The snow here is very small flakes, and very dry, because it is so cold. In Feb the temperature hovered right around -20 C. About 2 weeks ago, things started to get warm during the day, and we had 2 days last week when the temp stayed north of zero all day and all night. Spring and summer were on the way! Hooray! And the house looked like this:

Notice you can see some grass-ish growth. See how it is not white? Things are looking up! Last Sunday, after church, we stopped by the new bridge construction by the river. (see below) It is still frozen, but you can see the hills and trees are almost free of snow. As a matter of fact, it was so nice all week that Michelle started to plant some pots on the porches, and the backyard is thawed to a depth of about 14 inches. We know that because that is how deep I sunk when I went in the back yard to check on a leaky hose bib. As a matter of fact, today was the predicted day the river would break up and we would see water flow in the river again. We were so excited when we went to bed last night.

So this morning we wake up to this:

More snow. Now we think the thing to do will be to plant the whole garden is things like cauliflower, Easter lillies, and other white things. Then we can pretend that all winter the yard is in bloom. Just kidding. A guy asked me this morning if I enjoyed summer. I said yes,and I was glad i did not put away my winter clothes yet.

Actually we really enjoyed General Conference a few weeks back, and Ward Conference last week. We met the Stake Presidency, and the Pres and the 1st Councilor both know Jacob and have worked with him at service projects. (he used to serve in 2 areas in this Stake) They each told us how hard of a worker he is, in both missionary work, and in service projects. That was nice to hear. The Pres actually said he really liked how Jacob not only approached the work, but how he could get others to join the work too.

The 1st Councilor is named Van Bruggen. His son served in our Ward in Concord a few years back. We got to catch up on how the son is, (married and with one baby now), and we shared some experiences we had when his son was a missionary. Small world, eh?

Speaking of small, Did you know that Dave and Lanette have a niece that just got married? Did you know she married the son of a former missionary companion of mine? Did you know that the groom was also a missionary companion of Ricky Score?

Here is one more, One of the Bishopric here served in Mexico City East a few years back.

Work is really good. We are getting ready to work round the clock during a 2 week maintenance shut down at one of the plants. We are hiring anyone with "two feet and a heart beat". That is the Fort McMurray battle cry. We have trouble finding people to fill the positions we need to do the work. The pay is good here, but the work is hard, so many people come to town to get rich quick, find out they still have to work (and work hard at that), and then leave because they are only interested in the $$. The money alone is not enough to keep people here. In Ward Conference the Bishop said people come to Fort McMurray thinking they are here for the money. They are not. They are here because the Lord brought them here for a purpose, just like he brought Lehi and his family from Jerusalem to the promised land for a wise purpose. WOW. I had not thought about it in those terms. Now, if I just knew what it is.

The Stake President also said something very profound. The Lord asks us to do simple things, not easy things. The Lord know us and he knows what we need to do to return to him. The path is simple. The path is straight. We are the ones that keep wandering off the path and getting lost in the bushes. Just like our children wander off and get into things. hmmmm.

Well, We have to go now. Off to the next activity. We love you all, and think about you often. We remember all the great things we did there in Concord, and we look forward to seeing you again in the near future.

Hugs and Kisses,

Alan and Michelle