One snowy week

Hey everyone!

Talk about a blizzard! It has been said by various sources that this is either the 5th or 3rd worst storm to hit the Chicago area ever! It was quite the experience let me tell you. This week was scheduled as a regular transfer week and we were supposed to have our transfers on wednesday morning. Well President Doll decided due to the storm that we should not have transfers on wednesday but instead on thursday. As such today is our P-Day instead of yesterday (fyi neither of us is getting transferred, I'm still in Rogers Park with Elder Aguila). We were also told not to drive around between 4:00pm on tuesday to 4:00 pm wednesday. Well the storm began to hit at about 1:30 and got steadily worse. Elder Aguila and I were outside knocking doors when we started getting hit by the wind really bad and decided that because of us already being sick, we should probably head indoors. We went out for a few appointments that night, and our last appointment got over at 9:00. Usually we can easily get from that house to ours in 15 minutes using the Red Line. As we approached the Red Line stop, we heard over the speakers the announcement that no trains would be running for an unspecified amount of time. So we walked. For an hour. In the storm. It was AWESOME! Luckily both of us were well-equipped to handle the long walk. I took a video! It's really cool, I'll send it home on my next SD card. As we were walking we had a few chances to help others. We had barely started the long trek as we saw a taxi driver trying to drive out into the road and get out of there. We stopped and it took us a good 10 minutes but we eventually got him out of there. We never talked to him, just got behind his car and started pushing. It felt nice to be able to give him service knowing that he will never know who were the two young men that helped him out. Later as we approached our house another car was similarly stuck in an unplowed side road. We and two others helped him get out onto the main road and out to safety. As we got home, both of our eyelashes and eyebrows were frozen and we each were covered in snow. No frostbite nor hypothermia, but a lot of fun. There were winds so strong that they pushed me from the middle of a road all the way to the sidewalk. It was nuts.

Yesterday morning it was still wild and crazy until about noon when it all abated. When we finally felt ok to leave, outside had kind of a post-apocalyptic feeling. The few streets that were plowed had no cars on them and people were just walking in the streets looking bewildered. The great thing about this storm has been the countless acts of service that we've all seen. It has really brought Chicago together as a community. Everyone has the feeling of, "Well I could help you or watch you struggle by yourself, so I'd be a jerk if I didn't help you." It's pretty amazing seeing how it's brought the best out of people.

Ok storm news aside, this week has been interesting. We have an investigator who is on baptismal date for February 26. His name is Oscar Versanez. He is really ready and is really excited to be getting baptized. Also, we have some really great referrals that we are teaching. We are teaching a lot of young people. They seem really interested and take a lot of hands-on approach to the gospel, as opposed to many of the people who simply sit and listen to us. Some new investigators we have are named Julio and Cesar and the two of them are the kids of a less-active member. The two of them are 14 and 13 and we are hoping they will soon be on baptismal date. Also, the sister of my recent converts Flor and Alma, named Mareli, is taking the lessons and wants to begin coming regularly to church. We're very excited about the pick-up in pace in our area and we want to see major improvements. We have a new mission-wide goal of one baptism per companionship per month and we are excited because it looks like we will complete with that in february and again in march.

Well hey, I should head out, we have quite a few things going on tonight.

I love you all very much and hope to hear good things from you.

Much Love,

Elder J. Green