Week 60 We Survived the Storm

Well...I survived Winter Storm Jonas! I've never seen so much snow in my life...it is crazy out there! Luckily, it provided us an opportunity to do a lot of snow shoveling...if you can consider that lucky! :)

This is Elders Cleere & Penrod from the
Braddock Heights Ward digging out cars yesterday.

(This is NOT Chandler's door,  just a picture someone posted on FB)
Biggest snow storm on record in Baltimore.
 29.2"-smashed the old record of 26.8" set in 2003

On Wednesday, a few days before the storm, there was a little bit of snow and ice and as we were heading back to the apartment that night, there was an intersection where none of the cars could even get up the hill. So we got to pull over to the side and went out and pushed cars up the hill! Every time we would get a car up there, we would run back down and the people in the car would say "Thank you so much! I was thinking you'd be too tired to help me after all of that!" It actually became super fun! We had to avoid slipping, but we were able to push these cars out of the ice and snow. As we were pushing one of the cars, another car pulled over and a guy got out and helped us. After we had gotten the car up the hill, he turned to us and then all of a sudden looked surprised and said "Elders! How are you?" It turned out that he was the Stake Patriarch's son! He has been inactive at church for quite some time now, but explained to us that he was grateful to have seen us doing service for those around us. It was crazy that he had driven past at the perfect moment. After we had finished with the cars, we walked back to our car and met a Russian lady on the way! She was very nice and we got her information for the Sisters to visit her!

Another miracle happened right before the storm. We took President Christiansen's generator in the mission truck and went looking for a place to get it fixed before the storm...but couldn't find anything. So we called this random number we found for a small engine repair shop...well they couldn't fix it either but somehow the person we were talking to gave us a number for a guy named Fred running a shop out of his garage..we were a little bit unsure, but we drove over to check it out. We pulled up, and sure enough there was a guy named Fred working on small engines..and he only had one arm! He agreed to fix the generator and seemed super nice, so we left the generator with him...within a few hours he had it fixed! We went over to pay him, and started talking to him about the church. He told us that 20 years ago he was involved in a huge plane crash, and that was why he only had one arm. 70% of his body had third degree burns...yet he survived, and has an amazing story. He invited us to come back once the storm was over, so we are hoping to go teach him this week!

We are still hoping and praying that Francis will have his baptism on Saturday! The storm kind of got in our way because we were going to have 2 lessons with him during the weekend! But we are praying that everything will work out before he heads off to Nigeria for the month.

Photo taken by Scott Meushaw

This entire weekend was tough because of the weather, but we got the opportunity to go over to the Selby's house last night! We ate dinner with them, had a lesson, and played games! It was like a Family Home Evening kind of thing. I love their family! We have so much fun together and it has been so great to get to know their family. Still unsure of an exact date for Sydney's baptism, but it will be soon!

Transfers are this week! I'll be staying in Ellicott City with Elder Lawrence. This will be the longest I've ever been with one companion, but we get along super well so I'm not worried! I'm excited for another transfer! Tomorrow we get to pick up the new missionaries from the airport, one of my favorite moments of the transfer! 

Thank you for all the support! Love you!

- Elder Leavitt