Can you believe I've been in Ohio for a month now?? My 2 month mark is in 7 days or so... Crazy how time is flying! We're expecting snow this week - so it's getting cold. None of this 80F I hear in California... Not fair! I don't really have much to share that is any different from my previous emails, so instead I will share 10 facts concerning Ohio/my mission that none of you probably know...
1. In Ohio (or at least Toledo) the Christmas season starts in mid-November. Apparently they don't believe in Thanksgiving here.
2. In November, every night is a scary movie. Due to daylight savings, it's dark by 6pm. And due to Lake Erie, by 7pm the fog literally rolls in and covers Toledo. They say that once the snow starts falling the fog will go away. I don't know if I'm happy or sad about this.
3. Ohio and London would get along great - everyone is constantly holding a cigarette.
4. The shower in our apartment... The saying "lefty loosey, righty tighty" doesn't apply for the hot and cold water fossetts. I forget this. Every. Morning.
5. Ohioans seem to think that Little Caesars is the best thing since sliced bread. Oh my heck.
6. There is no such thing as a four-way intersection here. Only five, six, and seven-way intersections.
7. If you live in Ohio, you either cheer for Ohio State or Michigan... They play in two weeks. If I am not careful in who I side with, I may not live to see December.
8. When we are teaching a lesson and the tv that is on behind us suddenly shows a commercial for Harry Potter 7, my neck suddenly gets a kink in it that forces me to watch it......I swear!
9. If you say you're from California, people start laughing and walk away, shaking their heads, mutterings to themselves "He's not gonna to make it [this winter]..."
10. The Book of Mormon changes lives.
I will close with an excerpt from Elder Orson F. Whitney (1855-1931) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, found in Spencer W. Kimball's "Faith Precedes the Miracle":
No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God...and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.
I love and miss you all. I think about you all often and enjoy the many letters I have been receiving. I will try my best to write you back, but have patience - I'm busy! I love this gospel. I am so grateful for the Savior's infinite Atonement. The Book of Mormon is a wonderful book and we are so blessed to live in this last dispensation where so many truths and keys have been restored to the earth! God lives! Jesus is the Christ! "Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself? Behold, I testify unto you that I do know that these things whereof I have spoken are true. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety? Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true..." (Alma 5:45-46).
Love, Elder David Dransfield
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