Hey Family!!

       Sounds like everything is going great over there. Still not much snow though right? Not here either, but a whole lot of cold!!!! It really puts a damper on our finding efforts because once we get out of that car the wind just bites ya. Ha hopefully it can atleast get to -5 through this week. Other than that things are going great. Hopefully you got some of those P-day pictures that Elder Ragozzine took. That was a really fun day! It was pretty well planned out too so I think that everyone enjoyed it quite a bit. I got to see some of my old companions there and we just had a really good time. Some of them are trying to get me to go to Utah Valley and make our own Iowa des moines mission basketball team ha. It sounds like a good time but we will see.

        Well Amber is still set to get baptized this Saturday so we are very excited about that. Our zone has been struggling lately and I don't think that we had any baptisms in January so this should spark it up a little bit. We also set a date for this couple last night who aren't married and have some word of wisdom issues but we are out here to call the sinners to repentance:) It is a little ways away but they agreed to work towards it. My district has been having a hard time setting dates and even inviting people to be baptized so I gave a training on that last week and just talked about how inviting them to be baptized is central to our purpose and that there should be no hesistation with setting that date on the second lesson. Giving them a goal really can transform their hopes and desires into action so we need to do that. I think this cold weather does play a big part in that too though. Ha even with it being so cold people still don't let us in! We had exchanges with the Belle Plaine Elders last week out in Belle Plaine and it was pretty fun. Long drive and used a lot of miles but it was good. There is a senior couple out there who are hilarious and live right next door so they took care of us pretty well.

         We had interviews with President on Thursday and he was telling me how I am probably going to get transferred this next transfer since I have been here so long. It was weird when that finally hit me because I really have been here forever and it is going to be hard to leave this area. He said that he has gotten a couple of visas but not mine yet. He is amazing though and says how he is very glad to still have me be here to help out the mission. So I don't know what he is going to do with me for this next transfer. I know that the visa waiters that already got theirs are going to leave on February 10th so I've got until then to get my visa and leave on that transfer. So We'll see...

          So this week should be a pretty great week. We should have some lessons with a few potentials that we have found and turn them into investigators. One lady of a family that we found called and dropped us before we even taught them. I guess the Jehovas witnesses were going over there quite a bit and I think that she just got overwhelmed. Which really broke my heard because it was a great family and the Dad was going to come and play basketball with us and seemed extremely interested when we first sat down with them. I invited her to read the introduction of the Book of Mormon so hopefully she can feel the spirit that comes from reading the Book of Mormon. So that's what's going on lately. Probably some good finding this week so I'll have to break out the thermals;) Hope you all have a great week!!! Love youuuuu

Love, Elder Polatis

Great zone p-day playing crab soccer

playing chair soccer