I worked every night this week which was too much for me. Tuesday I was the conductor on the train. There was snow predicted to start falling around 10 PM. The signs on the freeway all said to beware of winter conditions after 10. The news was saying we would get 1-2 inches in the valley so between that and the fact it wasn't going to start coming down until 10 I wasn't too worried. At 8:45 we sent the other train home. Both of the driver- Kauriana and the conductor Cyd live in Provo so we wanted to give them a head start getting home. We pulled up to Smoot hall exactly at 9 PM. It had just started sleeting. I walked inside to put away our radio and Trent the Santa that night was there and wanted me to sit on his lap for a picture. Eric the elf took it for us. I then put my vest and radio away and walked back outside. It was coming down pretty good but not terribly. When I got to my car the windows were covered in snow and I had forgotten to bring my ice scraper so I was using my sleeve to get the wet snow off. It was coming down so fast that I couldn't get it off fast enough before it was covered again. A nice older man I work with named George came to my rescue and told me to get in and he would remove the snow. I should have known that it was going to be bad when I couldn't see the ramp to get out of our parking lot. I was supposed to meet John down at the train barn to put away the Betsy Jane- it takes two people but when I got there he had discovered the Jupiter was not in the barn so he didn't need my help and told me to go home. I called Jeff and told him that the snow was coming down pretty hard and that I thought I might take State Street to be safe but he told me that I should just go get on the freeway and that it would be better. The plows get there quicker. So I started making my way there. You could not see any of the three lanes on Foothill. Cars were sliding all over the place. We were all going 15-20 miles/hour. The closer I got to the freeway the worse it got. I am not very familiar with any of the side streets and they were all covered in thick snow so I didn't want to try to go down one and get stuck so I got on the I=215. There is construction for part of it and they had the lanes narrowed down to one lane. I think this helped because you could just follow the tracks of the driver in front of you and we all stayed in the one lane. After the construction ended it got a bit worse. I seriously considered getting off and going to Kim's house to sleep but when I got to her exit I could not see it and there was more than a foot of snow mounded up on the side of the road blocking all the exits. I had to stay on and keep going. I decided to get off at Redwood. There were cars stalled in the middle of the road that we had to dodge. Normally I would have gotten out to help but UHP says to never get out and help someone on the freeway and to call them for help instead. Also I knew if I stopped I would get totally stuck and then I would be in the way too. I finally made it to Redwood. My car fishtailed the whole way down the ramp. It took a long time to get through the light because it was so backed up. Redwood is normally three lanes in each direction but you could not see the lanes so people were just making two lanes. I tried my best to stay in the tracks of the car in front of me. I was white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way and crying I was so scared. I again thought about going to Tom and Sharon's but I figured I had come that far that I might as well go home. When I got to 11400 S the right hand turn lane was blocked by a mound of snow so I was going to go up to the light and then turn but when I got to the light and started to brake I started to slide. I tried steering into the slide and pumping my brakes but I wasn't stopping. There was a truck in front of me at the light so I had to make a split second decision to either hit the truck- I wasn't going fast or try to cross the mound of snow and get in the turn lane. I chose the turn lane and by the grace of God I made it up and over and into the lane. From there I kept inching my way up to 3200 West praying the whole way that the lights would stay green so I would not have to stop and get stuck. The light at 3200 turned red and it's on a slight hill so I did get stuck a little and it took me a bit to get the car going. I learned that most new cars have traction control buttons that help to stabilize your tires in slick conditions but if you ever get stuck it works against you and you should turn it off in that situation. I'll do that next time. I got home to find Jeff and Ethan shoveling thankfully so that I could get into the garage. When I got home I had several missed texts from my supervisors making sure I got home so I started texting John and asking about everyone else. So many of the employees live far away like Ogden, Provo, Tooele. It was almost midnight by the time the last person got home. It took me two hours. I was so so traumatized by that point. I could barely sleep. The next day I was suppose to work again but luckily the roads were too bad for the train to drive so John took my shift at the gate for me. I was supposed to do three fieldtrips that week too but only ended up doing one because the other two cancelled. We ended up getting at least a foot of snow. UHP responded to more than 160 accidents that night. I praise God for helping me make it home.
We went and picked out our new ornaments for 2021. Jeff chose a nativity scene. Ethan a blue solider, Whitney a medical person and I chose a squirrel to represent the joke all summer that if you find a squirrel in a trap you can either take it to Jim or you can bring it to "Amanda's Home for Wayward Squirrels" ha ha.
The rest of the days I went to work the roads were great thankfully. The sunsets at work are always so amazing. The last night I worked was Saturday. I was doing dancing with Arza, Jonah and Breanne. We had been doing it in the social hall all week but Cliff thought we might get 1200 guests that night so he switched it to the pavilion which is completely outside. All week I had been bringing a big bag of winter clothes with me so that I had lots of layers to put on in case it was cold but this night I didn't bring it when I knew I would be inside. Boy did I regret that! Tate took me and Breanne to the costume closet and gave us both a cape to wear over out clothes to help. I had two pairs of leggings and two shirts under my dress and my coat so for the most part my body stayed warm it was just my toes and my hands that got super numb and painful. I had gloves but not my heavy ones and I was only wearing my pioneer boots with wool socks. We have toe warmers at work but my pair didn't do anything. We also had a big propane heater we could stand by but we were so busy that I didn't get to stand by it too much and had to be out helping. It was only 23 degrees. It was murderous but I had to keep a positive attitude until I got home so that I could give the guests a good experience. My toes finally thawed out when I was almost home. All night I kept getting woken up to the Virginia Reel song playing in my ears and the smell of the heater in my nose. I definitely would not have made it as a pioneer.
The Stake Presidency wives went to lunch again. This time Kami couldn't come because her family has Covid. We tried a new place called Sunday's Best by the South Towne Mall. It was so so darling. The décor is so cute and pink and navy and gold. The food was amazing. I had the strawberry ricotta pancakes with lemon curd. I already love these ladies so much!
Cassidy Brooks gave all of us a gift to make tortilla soup with. It included her recipe and a bottle of Trader Joes chile lime seasoning. I had the kids make it Saturday night. It was SO good. I might just always make tortilla soup this way.
We checked out the new Five Below store near us to get our white elephant gifts for Malia's party next week. I loved it. There were so many cute and fun things.
None of these things are what we ended up buying- I just kept putting things in my cart ha ha.
On Sunday our ward choir sang the same songs we had sung at the devotional. They asked me to sing alto because two of the alto people were going to be gone. I can sing alto but I wasn't as familiar with that part so I had a hard time finding my note. At the end all the other ladies were telling each other how well they did and then they looked at me and said nothing ha ha. I felt pretty dumb and discouraged that I had even tried to sing but then when I was telling Debbie Miller(The Stake President's wife) how I felt told told me that Janice Kapp Perry, who I think is one of the best song writers there is, use to sing in the Tabernacle Choir. She never had the best voice but was told that every choir needs strong voices and voices that blend into the background. I guess that's the voice I have. I don't think I have a bad voice- I know I don't but it's just not really been used for singing for a long time so it is weak. Maybe I will swallow my pride and keep going to choir and try to improve. I did get a ton of compliments on how I looked so that made me feel good. It was also Emily Song's homecoming. She is one of Ashtyn's friends that lives in our ward. Her mom Grace is my good friend. She served in the Tacoma Washington and Busan Korea missions. She even got to serve in the ward she grew up in in Korea. After church we went to their house to have yummy Korean food.
Sunday night we made gingerbread houses. We finally got smart this year and used hot glue to put them together. That was way easier and saved the frosting to be used for decorating.
Ashtyn's Letter:
Olá!!! Tudo bem? This week has been insanely busy! sweet sweet Sis. Hammond left me and it was so bittersweet:') it is stinking hard to send companions home but it hit me hard when I realized I'm the next one😶 but with her leaving we were running all over the place to try to meet with people and say goodbye. I was so nervous this whole week wondering who my new companion was going to be. We had kind of a weird situation where there is still 2 weeks left in the transfer so no one knew what was going. The night before Hammond left we stayed with the Sisters in Benfica and it was so fun! After that we went to the temple to drop sister Hammond off and I got picked up by my new comps, Sister Grow and Briggs! It was such a relief because I already knew them and our areas are really close! So for these next two weeks I'm staying in Oeiras and we will be covering both of our teaching areas!
Not too many things to update in my area because it's been a little hard to work in it since I'm in a completely different area. But we did have some awesome lessons and miracles here in Oeiras! On Sunday we went over to visit some less active members and their daughter and two granddaughters were there. We shared a real quick message since they were preparing lunch and at the end of the lesson the daughter asked how she can get her daughters baptized!! It was amazing because we found out they live in my area! And apparently Sister Grow and Briggs have tried to bring up baptism before but the daughter has never showed interest!
Other cool little story. We went over to this girl's house to give an english class and state our purpose. We didn't even end up doing the English class and taught the restoration and it was so powerful! The spirit was so strong and the girl and her mom were listening so intently to our message! We left them with book of Mormons and they were all looking through them before we left!
Other fun things: we went to a concert this week with professional violinist Jenny Oaks Baker and her family and it was amazing! We had some fun member meals here, they get fed here way more! Also this week is Christmas and being a missionary during the Christmas season is amazing! The savior was born and he lives. Don't forget that he is the reason we can be happy and feel peace and be forgiven.
"Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room to let him in"
Merry Christmas!!
-sister Shaw
