New Year!! 2015

2015!!!!! I don't quite believe it yet. I'm almost positive it is still 2014. Not really, but time is going too fast for me. It's starting to dawn on me that I will be coming home this year. I know I've still got a ways to go, but it felt a lot more real to me this week. Unfortunately, not too much to report this week. Michael is doing good, he still has a few struggles, but he is working towards the temple. We have not been able to meet with Ellie this week at all and she didn't come to church again which means her baptism will be pushed back again. We haven't found any new investigators yet, but we have some good potentials. The wards in this stake changed a couple months ago and so there are 8 wards instead of 5 now and everyone is still trying to get adjusted. I think it is starting to settle down a little bit now though and I think we will start to get some traction in the missionary department for the stake. New years eve we had a meeting with our zone from 6-9pm and then went home. Oh yes, last week we went sledding as a zone. It was pretty fun, most people were sore. Luckily I wasn't. No one got injured though so that was a plus. The CEO of Seagull Book lives in our area, and he actually isn't a member. His wife is and he's had missionaries over before, but he said we could stop back by and share a message with his family. His son goes to some church run school in Utah county and one of his assignments is to read the Book of Mormon and he wasn't doing it. So he reads it to his dad in the car on the way to school now. I think we may have broken the record for amount of cookies received from members. I stopped counting. I think we could supply the local bakery if we needed to haha. It came to the point where we started asking members if they wanted any cookies. The weather hasn't been too bad. Still cold, but not in the single digits anymore. The wind is the real culprit. It's going to take a lot of convincing to make me live in a cold climate area after the mission. We were talking with a family who has experienced 70-120 degrees below zero... I decided I can deal with 10 degrees. Things are well though. I can't believe I am almost at 16 months, and by the end of the transfer I will be at 17. Crazy. Well, have a great week everyone! Love you all!

-Elder McKinney