Happy New Year!

Hey all,

Hope you all had a Happy New Year. We went over to the Pitre's home for New Year for lunch with them, and that was a blast. They are super awesome. We also played pishnoush with them, it's this super fun game where you flick your pishnut at your color and try to get all of yours in first. Brother Pitre is insanely good. He schooled all of us fast, and then we started playing partners. Elder Smith and I almost beat him and his son, who just stopped by while we were there. I think we have a picture of that, so I'll try to send you it when I get back to the apartment. 

Not going to lie, some 40 degree weather would be really nice right now. It has been bitter over the last few days. Because it's so cold (it's been -20's C, I think that's like -2 F) we are only supposed to be outdoors for 20 minutes at a time. However, we are still outdoors a lot. Whenever we are out finding, we try to ask people if we can come in to speak with them, and it's been working really well. Normally, people are nice enough to let us in, which, a) restarts the timer for how long we can be out, and b) people listen a lot more, and we teach a lot more to people when we are actually in their homes. 

There's not much in the updates business right now. It's been pretty crazy for most people, for the holiday season, so we haven't met with most of our gators. We did find one guy who's pretty awesome, his name's Gary, he's super humble, came to church with us and wants to keep learning. We're working with him to be baptized for February 17th, so hoping that goes through!

There's not a lot of food that different then the US. I think the biggest differences are Poutine and Donair. Poutine is fries, cheese curds and hot gravy all together, its really really good. The cheese curds get all melty, and it's really awesome. Donair is actually illegal in the US, I actually have no idea what's in it. All I know is that it is a meat blend, and its a lot like kebabs. But instead of having different layers of lamb that you stack, it's one big, tasty tube. Then they shave off bits, put some donair sauce with it, tomato, lettuce, onions, pretty much a kebab. There's also this thing called a Plois (I think that's how you spell it) which is kinda like a mix between a pancake and a crepe. They are pretty good. I recommend lots of butter! Those are probably the biggest differences, but they also have different chip flavors, all dressed, and ketchup, and Reese's peanut butter cups are spelled Reese peanut butter cups. Go figure. Here I was thinking they'd just have maple syrup chips. 

       

On p-days, we buy our Groceries at Walmart, then we normally go to Mardens, a surplus store in Madawaska that has some good stuff. For instance, they have a set of high top converse that are only 20 bucks, instead of like 50, or whatever the normal price is. I mean, I couldn't wear them for two years, but what a bargain. then we normally change it up after that. We used to go play sports at the Caribou building with the Elders and Sisters, but we aren't allowed to gather in groups with more than 6 missionaries, so that kinda spoiled that. We've played games, or gone shopping, it kinda just depended on what we wanted to do. We are probably going to try to see some of the cool things here, like go check out the catholic cathedral here. Before, Elder Boardman and Legault had done all that, so they never wanted to do that. 

Anyway, love you all. It was awesome being able to talk to you on skype. Don't think it made me homesick, but it did make me appreciate all of you much more. I really lucked out with the best family in the world. 

Elder Marsh