Blog for January 8, 2017
It continues to be very cold. Each day it drops a half-inch
or two of snow and the temperature is 10-20 below zero (F) at night and then
gets up to 2-5 degrees above zero during the daytime. The good news is, the
days are getting a bit longer again but not so much that it is very noticeable,
- yet. We were spoiled last year, I suppose; we had several days of very cold
weather around Christmas time and then the weather became more moderate for the
rest of the winter. Not so this year, at least not so far and not for the
foreseeable future. We are not looking forward to next week when we will be
doing car inspections at several zone conferences around the mission.
The cold and snowy weather continues to contribute to the
total sliding accidents involving our missionaries. I can barely keep up with
the process of what it takes to get the cars back in service. In my last blog I
described this process. I currently have 15 or so open files, which represent
vehicles at various stages of the repair process. Unfortunately the worst of
all the accidents occurred this past Friday evening. Two of our missionaries
serving out in British Columbia hit a patch of black ice, began to fishtail
back and forth, and then slid into the path of an oncoming semi truck and
trailer. A head-on collision was narrowly avoided; the impact was with one of the trailers being pulled by the semi.
They escaped unharmed, at
least physically. They seem to be doing okay but I’m sure it was a very
frightening event which they will remember all their lives. The vehicle
involved is a Nissan Rogue. They were wearing seat belts and the front
compartment crumpled as designed and the curtain airbags deployed, which
undoubtedly saved the missionaries’ lives. The cabin compartment appears, at
least in the pictures, to have remained intact. Needless to say, the car is a
total loss. Kathy and I will be driving a replacement car out to them sometime
during the week. The cars serving in BC are all equipped with special
mountain-rated snow tires. The replacement car (one of our older cars waiting
to be sold) will be fitted with these special snow tires before we head to BC
with the car.
This past week was “transfer week”. Tuesday our new
missionaries arrived and we met with them for training. On Wednesday they met
their trainer companions and left for their first areas. On Thursday I again
drove all the missionaries being transferred to the south to Lethbridge, and
then returned the same day with the missionaries being transferred to the north
to Calgary. Since the departing missionaries had left the preceding week (left
a week early so they could get back in school), the rest of the week was less
involved then the typical transfer week.
Even before the accident in BC described above, we began
putting some emergency kits together for the BC missionaries, - this out of
concern for our BC missionaries who have greater risk of becoming stranded on
less traveled roads. These will contain blankets, jumper cables, flashlight,
extra batteries, folding shovel, and some chemical hand warmers. To the kit
they will add water and some non-perishable food. Since Kathy and I will be
heading to BC this week with the replacement car, I spent time at the office
yesterday (our P-day) finishing the kits so they will be ready to go. We had
planned to take them with us to the zone conferences but now they will get to
them even earlier.
This weekend was our Stake Conference. Kathy and I sang with
the stake choir. There was no visiting GA but the talks were wonderful. Our
Stake President is recovering from a couple of back-to-back heart attacks but
he was there and gave wonderful messages both in the Saturday evening and
Sunday sessions. He is such an impressive man, - so humble and patient and
kind. Also Kathy and I continued our Friday evening visits to the Calgary
Temple.
It has been an eventful week. We are grateful to have some
time to catch our breath, and we are so, so very grateful that our missionaries' lives were preserved.
Have a great week!
No comments:
Post a Comment