New Years lessons from Mahana and snow in Portland

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Hey!
As indicated by the emojis (imagine a sunshine, snowflake and wind emoji's here.  They wouldn't copy from Paul's iPad), we had quite a variation in weather this
week. I saw sunshine for three days straight, then the next day it
snowed! Granted, it only snowed about an inch and a half, but
literally the entire city shut down! It was pretty hilarious, after an
inch had fallen we got calls from both bishops telling church was
cancelled and a call from the vehicle coordinator telling us to stay
in all day. We were also told to stay in all day today ha but that
makes more sense because it rained last night and now the entire city
of Portland is frozen over.

We had a good New Year's Eve. We had dinner with a member of Rocky
Butte ward and then went to the mau'ka loa's for our second dinner (we
had two dinners every day this week because neither ward was willing
to give up their room on the dinner calendar haha), which was soo good
and really humbling. They are such a charitable family; they literally
spent ALL day cooking 13 full dishes for just us three missionaries.
When I get home, I really want to remember and apply in my own life
the charity I've seen from the members out here.  After dinner we
taught a really spiritual lesson to our investigator Surona and then
we were told to go in for the night so we watched the 20-minute
version of Jonny Lingo on LDS.org and went to bed early ha.

Unfortunately Scott evaded us yet again, this time with the
flu. He'll get there, it's just a matter of time. Also our Swahili and
Portuguese Book of Mormons came in the mail and the Kabales were
really grateful for those.

The Johnny Lingo story, as simple and outdated as it may be, really
got me thinking this week. What really changed Mahanah is that Jonny
Lingo not only saw the potential for her to be an eight cow wife, but
he also treated her like one… always. She first had to be bought for an
eight cow price. Then Jonny married her, that's serious commitment!
Then she had to be told and reminded for "many months" that she was an
eight cow wife. Eventually she became an eight cow wife because
that's all she identified with.

I think the exact same thing applies with setting goals, especially
for a new year. It's almost a universal inside joke that New Years
resolutions rarely last more than a few weeks. Why? I think most of us
change our expectations for what we can achieve without ever mentally
readdressing the goal as already ours, just simply in need of
sustained energy and, of course, time. Our mission President is the best
at this. Every time he sees us he tells us we're the best missionaries
in the world. Obviously we're not, but we try dang hard to be because
the standard has been set.

Love you guys! Have a great week

 Snow in Portland

This dog is much bigger than it looks!