Elliot's December 6 email

Here's the latest email from Elliot.  It's starting to look like winter in Oklahoma City, with a chance of snow tomorrow.  He talks about riding his bike in the cold, and with the possibility of snow, it reminded me of the famous picture of Andy Hampsten riding in heavy snow over the Passo di Gavia in the 1988 Giro d'Italia.  Hopefully that won't happen to Elliot!  Here's his email.

Hola!

So an odometer would actually be a really cool present to me. I bike so much daily and I've at times tried to total up just how far I ride, which is often around 20+. Now that its getting colder it's getting way harder to ride a bike though. Going to church at 7:45 in the morning with very chilly winds is a fairly painful experience, but I just gotta bundle up!

I'm still doing just fine out here. We put up a 4-foot Christmas tree up in our apartment, a very nice addition to the Christmas music, thank you very much! A lot of people here in Oklahoma already have their Christmas lights up, and it might snow tomorrow, so it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Next week we're even going caroling with some members of the branch, so that'll be awesome too. I might just go sing Christmas songs at every door I go up to from here on out. I figure maybe people will open the door and we can tell them a bit after we sing, because I hear that very few people will answer their doors in the winter. I'm really excited that I'll be able to call on Christmas! I'll let you know what the details will be closer to the 25th though. And this past Friday we had a Temple conference for our mission, so I was actually able to attend a session, which was very nice. It was so great to be able to kinda shed the worries and stresses of the mission for a while and enjoy the peace at the temple.

The work out in the Southwest side of OKC is going very well still. The two that I told you about with a baptismal date are still on for the first, and they even want us to make a trip with them to visit the temple! We've met some really interesting people this last week and even when I really don't know them at all or even when they don't care for us I'm often amazed by the love that I know God has for them, just a little bit of which I'm able to feel. I guess that's kinda like that "Compassion" talk, which is a very good one by the way. We had a very successful week, talked to a lot of people, and handed out a lot of Book of Mormons. The mission just gets better as you learn to forget about yourself and do work. I've had more fun too.

I hope everybody is happy and well and that you all enjoy Shaun's wedding! Say hey to everyone for me!

Love,

Elder Elliot Adair