Baby, it's Cold Outside!

I just got the following picture in an e-mail. This is Agnese, my friend from Latvija. She is currently on a mission in Yekaterinburg, Russia. She e-mailed me and said it's negative 25 to negative 35 degrees. Fahrenheit, not Celsius. I do not envy her at all. The coldest it got while I was in Latvija was -25 F with 100% humidity. And trust me, humidity makes the cold even colder. It seeps into your bones. I remember spitting once and it froze before it hit the ground. I remember my eyelashes freezing, like Agnese's in this picture. I remember being so cold I honestly believed my toes would break off when I pulled my boots off at the end of the day. There was an elder I served with who went one day without wearing his earmuffs (he forgot them for some reason). When he got in a warm shower at the end of the day, he felt his ear "crack." The thing is, it literally cracked. I saw it with my own eyes. For a couple of weeks after that he had a crack from the top of his ear about 1 1/2 inch down. It eventually went away, but he said it was very painful. Once the wind was so strong, I held onto a pole, lifted my legs up, and the wind used my long coat to make me fly in the air. It was awesome. When I saw this picture, I just smiled. I do not miss that kind of cold.