Record-breaking snowfall

Wowsers! We've had a wild winter.  Two weeks ago we had 36 inches of snow in 24 hours.  The roads and the town were shut down completely, so we didn't open the Visitor's Center for a couple of days.  I have to admit it was kind of fun to be snowed in and just curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and a book.  All of the senior missionaries live on the same street so we had them come over one of those evenings and we played Mormon Family Feud.  It was a fun diversion and break from the routine.
Dean didn't think it was so fun digging out the car though.  He had to work for awhile, then rest for awhile, but it was impossible to keep ahead of the snow.

Last week we went into Scranton to do some apartment inspections for the young missionaries.  As we pulled up to the first apartment, we couldn't find a parking place on the street---there were lawn chairs placed all along the curb everywhere.  When we finally found a spot and asked the elders what that was all about, they said that people in the neighborhood had spent hours digging their cars out of the snow and they didn't want to come home and find that someone else had pulled into the spot that they worked so hard to clear, so they would just stick a chair out there in the street to hold their spot.  Ingenious!  Unless you're new to the neighborhood. 😊 

Doing apartment inspections in Honesdale.

We had a choice experience on one of our tours a few days ago.  I'll quote from my journal:
"Brother and Sister Pocock from Virginia brought a man in who was from Kenya.  His name was Jackson Ehaji and he had served seven years as a bishop there.  He was so thrilled to be here---to see where Joseph translated the Book of Mormon and received the priesthood." (We often invite guests to read a scripture from the Book of Mormon in the room where it was first translated by the prophet Joseph Smith.  Brother Ehaji knelt next to the translation table and read from book of Alma.  It was so touching to see his humility.) 
As the tour was wrapping up, "He said that he wished that his wife and five children could be here.  So he had tried to think of a way to share the experience with them.  He decided to buy a small bottle of olive oil and he asked for permission to consecrate it in the Joseph Smith home, so that he could take it back to Kenya to bless his family with it.  How sweet it was to watch Dean and these two brethren use their priesthood in this sacred place where the power to act in God's name was first returned to the earth!"

How blessed we are to be here!