Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, I know it was two days ago but I didn't get to wish it to you on Saturday so I am today:) How was your Valentine's Day? Ours was snowy and very cold it probably snowed another two feet and it has been about negative ten for the last couple of days! YIKES! Thanks for the Valentine's Day box and letters! It means a lot :) it is good to hear that you guys are staying busy with church and projects:) Enjoy the warm weather and use it to go outside, do some service, or take a walk (like you guys are doing). Remember that if you are all trying to become more Christlike then you will be able to work together as a family better. Think about two attributes of Christ that you would like to better emulate and then just focus on those this week and let me know how that goes:) You guys are awesome!!!:).... I have had a few spiritual experiences that I will explain later in the email but I have been learning a lot of different things in my studies! Right now I'm focusing on the end of Alma and Helamen leading up to the coming of Christ because It talks about how they dealt with the wars, political affairs, church, wickedness, right before the coming of Christ because that is the exact time period that we are in now. I've learned a lot about Moroni using his military and political power while still relying on the lord. And how to deal with people who do not want to rely on the lord! I don't know how to explain it but I'm learning a lot:) I am also reading PMG a ton and Jesus the Christ. It has been another crazy week full of adventures, teaching, death, service, snow, crying, happiness, meetings. You name it, it happened haha. I'm going to try my best with the time I have, to explain a couple of things that have happened this week! If you have questions about specifics let me know. Elder Willis almost got kissed in the Alzheimer's unit! Some lady was up dancing to the fourties music they were playing there, and then as Elder Willis is talking to another old man he gets attacked from behind and this lady had her lips puckered and everything it was the best:) As we were driving by Oliver street I felt that we should go back the original flower shop we had walked by before. We stopped by the flower shop again and she finally let us do service in the back! It has been really fun:) Since it was V-day she needed lots of help with her hundreds of flowers. So for the three days before V-day we would strip the roses of all there bottom leaves and thorns using pocket knives then cut the bottoms, make the formulas for powder that you put in the flower's water. We also cleaned a ton. The shop where she is located is a hundred years old and she still has the original old English deed! But I can't even begin to count how many roses we did, and both our hands hurt a lot because of how many times we got stabbed! As we would do this we would talk with her about her religious beliefs and what she needed in her life. She said "I have a friend that thinks that God is a part of everything we do in life and that it all happens for a reason. But I'm not so sure about that." And then she proceeds to say "it is the weirdest thing though all the time I have people like you come in and ask me if I need help and I can't explain it." Both Elder Willis and I looked at each other because we know why.:) It just goes to show that the lord is aware of everyone and that he wants us to be successful and happy. We are going to go back and ask her how business was because the blizzard was so bad people might not have wanted to come out and by flowers:/ We had Interviews with president and a meeting where president said that there is a moment on your mission (and in life) when you will give up all your "weapons of rebellion"(referring to the Anti-nephi-lehis) and totally submit our will to the lord! We then taught the APs the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We killed it. We got valentines from S.L. it was gluten free noodles and some chocolates! It snowed a ton on V-day Elder Willis and I woke up did our studies and went out and SPREAD THE LOVE( surfer voice) to the people of North Tonawanda! We went to the H family for dinner they are a cutest little old couple they seem like something you would see in an old tv show, Brother H is an organist and has tuned pianos and organs all his life. They told us the story of how their little girl was playing in the snow one day in an igloo and it fell right on top of her and she ended up suffocating when she was eight. But all the amazing experiences it brought to their lives; including one where their primary president at the time said " I had a dream about your little girl the other night." "She came to me and said that she needed to say goodbye, that she talked to my dad, the bishop and their neighbor (all of whom had recently passed away) and she said she was very busy doing a lot of work but that she said but most of all I spend lots of time with Jesus. And then said goodbye and left." While Sister H. told this story, cute old brother H. sniffled and cried about his little girl that he lost so long ago. Yes I cried happy/sad tears that night. And to make emotional matters worse! Mom and Dad one of your piano wedding songs came on from Elder Willis's CD came on. And that was only the beginning of my 'old people'and 'phases of life' crying that night. LISTEN TO THIS..... Brother G is a legend up here in NT. he was the sports announcer for the buffalo bills, he fought in WWII, he was the public announcer, a world class barbershop quartet member, everyone knows him, has lead the lds music for the church for about fifty years but finally became an actual member about twenty years ago. He turned 90 last week and is the most mentally smart and social old person I've ever met! He is my favorite. So the H thought that we should go sing to him because he is world famous you know? And that he needed a blessing because he had a little cold. So we called him after our dinner appointment and he said that he was just crawled into bed and that he would love a blessing but that we could stop by tomorrow. I told him to have a great night and to get some rest. Anyway the next day (Sunday) I get about ten phone calls in the afternoon telling us that he HAD DIED in his sleep last night one week after he turned 90! I WAS THE LAST PERSON TO TALK TO HIM IN THIS LIFE! All I could do was laugh and then cry..just a little, because it's truly humbling to see what really matters in life and how choices affect whether or not we are calm about leaving this life or whether we will wonder if we gave it everything we had. We still had church yesterday even though it was freezing cold. President Francis told everyone to stay in doors but our zone was like two degrees warmer (still in the negatives) so we were still allowed to go to church. We had a modified sacrament meeting where Brother S gave an improvised talk on the gathering of Israel and we had like half the ward there. Last night the L had invited us over for a family get together party, and we had an awesome discussion with several of the men about religion and basically taught a discussion right there over spaghetti and Pepsi haha it was so awesome. All these grown men looked like little kids asking 19 year olds questions about life, the scriptures, and what steps they need to take next. (We have appointments with two of them this week, I'm so pumped) But after that we had another dinner with Brother G who is a recent convert and lives upstairs from us he is great:) so yes I had three meals last night. Some last minute stuff is that missions are AWESOME! And hard. Soggy rice and broccoli is the way to go, we gave lots of blessings this week, Christ is the way, I'm burying my funky socks, companionship wrestling happens everyday, we need to start running but it's just SO COLD, my back sometimes feels like it's going to break when we shovel, cars are a blessing, snow is fun haha LIVE EVERY MOMENT LIKE ITS YOUR LAST! LOVE YOU! Elder Crowley