Another email from Pickle

HEY! I'm glad you liked the pictures, I guess I'll try to get more with me in them. It has been literally freezing the past week.... I guess we've had record snow and low temperatures for grand juntion! I guess the temp got down to -11 at one point... I thnk irvines record cold is like 50 or something haha It's been kinda crazy trying to get around with it all. A lot of the streets we ride on are side and back streets so they dont get plowed and the snow eventually turns into ice, which makes it almost impossible to ride on... my companion learned the hard way hahaha We were on our way to an appointment (...late) and I was riding pretty fast so i got pretty far ahead of him, and after a while I looked back and he was just walking his bike down the street. I thought oh he's probably just playing it safe, but then he leaned his bike against a fence and started taking off his jackett.... at this point I was what the heck man we're late lets go! So I started yelling from down the sstreet to see what he was doing, but he wasn't even responding and he was leaning over a little. so I started walking over there and as I got closer I could see that the snow around him was just covered in blood... then I was like oh crap. So I started running over to him and as I got there our bishop and his family just happened to be driving by and pulled over and helped us... its was nuts! there was also another member who was meeting with us to teach a lesson and he showed up too to help out. My comp had slipped on some ice and went face first into the ice, and cut his chin open. I could tell right away he would need stitches cause it was pretty deep haha he's scared of needles though so when we went to the urgent care he was a little freaked out, but he toughed it out and got 5 stitches inside and 11 on the outside. Looking back on it now it was pretty hilarious, but we were definitely being watched over when we had a member and the bishop and his family all pull up to help him out. but anyways... we're being very careful haha. I'm just getting over being sick and now elder green is stitched up, but we're hanging in there. one week left in the transfer, and we're looking to finish strong! There is some good that comes out of biking in the cold too though. we were riding home at like 9:30 one night and got stopped by a bunch of diifferent people. they were all amazed that we would be crazy enough to ride around in 0 degree weather in the middle of the night hasha I was a little amazed we were doing it too haha anyways I'm glad to hear that everyones doing well back home and you're all getting ready for christmas too. we have lights up in our place and a little tree too haha and thats so cool about JT too. I remember that litle guy haha he was awesome! I might need some more letter/writing stuff here pretty soon. I love and miss you all so much! Let me know how everything is going and merr christmas! Love Elder Austin