Snow!

Well, not exactly. At least not here. But there were reports of snow just north of us in Tennessee. And it did get down to freezing as can be seen from the frost on our car.  It is fortunate that the cold and the wet didn't hit at the same time or the area would be buried in snow.

This was transfer week with three departing missionaries and six new arrivals. There is not a lot for us to talk about as we mostly prepared to help coordinate temple trips for the next few weeks and we started working with Bessemer Ward.  We did go to a Mission Leadership Council meeting just south of Birmingham on Friday, the day of the frost, and these are pictures of the church parking lot.  It seems to be an unusually wet winter this year.

There was one exciting episode when Karen thought someone was trying to open our back door at 3:30 AM Saturday morning. It turned out to be a cat that has been hanging around and is big enough to reach the door handle. Apparently this cat thinks she lives here. We are running an experiment to see if the application of a broom to a cat will discourage it from trying to open the door in the middle of the night.

We learned two important lessons from this experience. The first is that thinking someone is trying to break into your home is not a good way to wake up in the middle of the night and will inhibit further sleep. The second is that cats really don't like to have brooms applied to them, in fact, they rather resent it. The only open questions now are the number of broom applications that may be required to train a cat and if that is even possible.

The work here is progressing well. The ABM missionary miracle that we want to share is pretty special and has been edited slightly for the blog:

We have been working with a guy named Johnny.  He has a very rough background. Missionaries in the past have met with him and they gave him Books of Mormon, but Johnny's wife does not like us so she would throw them away. We were not having it :) So with the help of faithful prayers, her heart was softened. We were able to bless them and their home but she was still getting after Johnny which was so sad because I have never met someone who loves the Book of Mormon as much as this man! So on Tuesday we asked Johnny if he'd meet us at McDonalds so we could share a message with him and he accepted. We met him there and he had Michelle with him. We were so excited! We sit down and Johnny explains to us that he wants us to tell her why the Book of Mormon is so amazing. So we teach the restoration and introduce the Book of Mormon and this whole time Johnny is testifying and it is SO powerful. Towards the end she looks at us and says "You girls have really enlightened me about the Book of Mormon". WHAT A MIRACLE! Now they call us their girls. It has been so amazing! I know this happened because the spirit spoke to us what Michelle needed. The spirit has been a vital role is this family's conversion.

Johnny opened up to us last night about why we mean so much to him. The first time we stopped by we were not planning on stopping. We kept walking past his house to get to our next appointment, but we both stopped and both said we needed to knock. Thank goodness we did because right when we knocked Johnny was about to take his life. He had pills in hand when he heard a knock on the door. He now calls us his Angels.