Feels like Spring

 

A cat sized squirrel 

It is now early March and it actually feels like spring here.  The temperature got up to about 70 deg. F yesterday.  The last few days we have been able to take our walks outside rather than walking through the nearly vacant Peru mall.  We had a big push in the mission yesterday to contact as many people outside as we could.  The mission calls it OYMing (Open Your Mouth). The best practice we found was talking to fishermen on the historical Illinois and Michigan Canal in La Salle.  When someone has a line in the water they are a captive audience.  We had great conversations with three fishermen.  We also talked to a number of others who were outside yesterday.  We do know that we will still get some more cold weather, but I think we survived our first winter in Illinois.  We do expect some snow overnight so we will probably be shoveling tomorrow. The bad news is that the end of winter brings the start of the main tornado season.  Tornados can happen any time of year, but they are most likely during March, April and May.  We did have an intense thunderstorm last night from the same system that caused a deadly tornado in Iowa.

 

Everything is going great here.  We spend some of our time visiting members, both the ones we know and the ones we don’t.  When we drop in on a member we haven’t met yet we are usually greeted with a big smile and a welcome into the home.  Although we have met and gotten to know many members, there is still a long list of members we need to still meet.  Many of the people we meet have very sad stories of tragedies and struggles in their lives.  All we can do is listen and assure them that Christ’s atonement covers all their pain and sorrow.  We do love all the members here and continue to pray for many of them individually.

 

On February 22^nd we participated in our first zone p-day activity.  Deanne was asked to teach the Elders and Sisters knitting and Dave taught them how to turn a wooden pen.  We also fed them Chicago dogs for lunch.  We love the young missionaries and admire their dedication to missionary work.

 

International events have taken a major turn for the worse.  Many people seem nervous with the uncertainty.  We have even seen an impact at the food bank as people seem to be stocking up for an emergency.  All we can do is fast and pray for the people in Ukraine.

 

We pray that all will be well for you and your families.

 

Love,

Elder and Sister Curtis

Major grain silo complex

Llama

We have no idea how this car got out on an island in this pond, but it has been there since we got here

Sister Curtis at the beginning of the historic I&M Canal in La Salle.  The canal was finished in 1848 and helped build Chicago.  Below La Salle the Illinois River was navigable.

Zone activity on Twosday, 2-22-22