Letter

Dearest Family, May 27, 2011

Well, it has been quite an eventful week or two. Last week we did quite a lot of service, we went over to Ng’s and I helped him reinforce a banister post that was loose, then we spent the next two days installing his stair rail and a railing along the top of the stairs between the entry way and the living room. It is where we had taken out part of a wall earlier in the spring because he wanted to make his living room look larger. We got it in, and it looks really good, but still took two days to do it. Then I helped him figure out how to take the tires off his motorcycle so he could get them fixed. The back one had the cords showing through, and the front one was bald. It is a Honda Can-am, so it has all of this plastic around the tires and the Honda shop here wanted $175 to change them out, and he already has the new tires. I showed him how to get the plastic off, and we got the wheels off. (Shaft drive). He was going to have the tires changed at a tire shop, which was fine with me, but another friend of is from the Philippines went and got them from the tire shop and changed them himself. He said he had been changing them since he was a little kid because EVERYBODY rides motorbikes over there. Still took him about two hours to do them, so I was really glad he did. Then I put them back on for him, and took the trunk release out so he could fix it. Turns out he couldn’t buy a new cable for that year of bike, so he is building a new one out of a bicycle brake cable. I decided I’d let him.

Anyway, on Friday we went out to Tom Hirsch’s and helped him clear some of his land so that he can park some of his equipment out of site of the house. The trees here grow really close together, mostly lodge pole pine, but with a few birch here and there. The pines are about 1 ½” in diameter, but about 10-15’ tall. They grow like weeds. Anyway, we pulled a bunch of them up with his tractor that I fixed the week before. You just wrap a chain around them and pull them up like weeds, then drag them over to burn them. We had a fun bonfire and a good visit along with it. Some of them we cut up with the chainsaw because they were too long to burn and we didn’t want the fire to spread. We’re going to go out today and help him block up a bunch of wood for this winter. He’s about my age, but is really stove up from motorcycle and snowmobile wrecks and working hard logging for a good part of his life, but he’s really an awesome guy and a real strength to the branch here. We’ve really gotten to be good friends. Besides, he has a shop with lots of tools that he lets me borrow when I need them. I do wish he had a hoist, though! J

Saturday I worked at Ng’s again for awhile, plus we have been teaching lessons almost every night, or visiting with less-actives and investigators. We did lose Daniel this week, we were supposed to have a lesson with him last Tuesday, but when we went over his wife said he had been picked up for throwing water-balloons and was out after curfew for the second time, so he was in jail, but could we take him up his Book of Mormon. We went up and gave a Book of Mormon to the jailer, but they wouldn’t let us in because we haven’t filled out the necessary paperwork yet. Will do that this week. Anyway, because this was the second time he had broken curfew it looks like he’ll be there for 6-10 months. We’re going to try to continue to visit him, but can’t count him as an investigator anymore. But maybe we can count him as a “captive audience?” L

Then on Monday (our regular P-day) I helped our landlord, Mark, work on some of his stuff. First I helped him change the lower control arm on his 4-wheeler because he didn’t know how to change out the bushings, and the ball-joint had broken. Then I fixed the starter on his Ford diesel pickup. Then I helped him weld the catalytic converter back to the exhaust pipe on his motorhome. That turned into a major job, it’s a ’98 Ford with a V-10, so we pulled it up on the curb so we could crawl under it. We used a borrowed 110v wire-feed welder, but it wasn’t hot enough to flow good, and he had some crappy flux-core wire. Plus it kept blowing the breaker. Finally we gave up and went out to Toms and borrowed his acetylene torch set. It’s a monster, about 400 lbs, but the three of us rolled it up ramps into the back of Mark’s pickup and tied it in. We used it to fix the exhaust, which took about three hours because the stupid flux-core wire left pockets of glass from the flux everywhere, so by the time you got it hot enough for the metal to flow the glass out, it would burn a hole in the pipe. Finally got it done. Then we took Tom’s torch back out to him. Tom wasn’t there, so we backed the pickup up to the shop to unload it. I forgot Mark had wrecked his motorcycle the night before and hurt his shoulder so no strength there. I was on top, Mark on the bottom. With is bad shoulder he couldn’t hold it back, and I did OK by myself until it got to the steep part of the ramp, then it took off with me still trying to hold it back. I didn’t want to let go because I didn’t want it to run over Mark! Anyway, it hit the bottom of the ramp and stopped, but I didn’t. It launched me and I face-planted on the concrete floor! Got a nice shiner, a sore wrist and some bruises out of it, but am doing OK now. Everybody asks me how I got my shiner, and I just tell them it is a result of miss-communication. Mom said “Duck!” and I said, “Where?”

We lost another of our investigator families this week. We had a great lesson with them at the Branch President’s house last Thursday, but Pres. Little put quite a bit of pressure on them to come to church on Sunday. Since they don’t drive he said someone would pick them up. They were kind of reluctant, but he wouldn’t give up. Then he called them and on Sunday morning and said someone would be over. They didn’t answer the phone so he left a message. We tried to call them several times this week, and they didn’t answer or call back. We went to see them last night, and Justin told us that they wanted to decide for themselves, and didn’t want us to come back for awhile. We told him that would be fine, invited him to continue to read his Book of Mormon, and asked if we could call him in a week or two. I also told him that I would tell the other people not to call him anymore. We parted on friendly terms, but sometimes fellowshipping can get a little over-zealous. We fell really sad, because they were doing so well. Justin has quit smoking and they have been really receptive, but it was at a pretty sensitive time and just too soon to push.

We are looking forward to going out to dinner tonight for our 42^nd wedding anniversary. The Ng’s are going to take us out to a Salmon and Barbeque House here in town that is supposed to be really good. We would never go there on our own, as it’s really expensive, but they want to take us for helping them with the house. It will be fun, and Mom is excited to have their famous fish n’ chips! I’m going to see if they have good ribs!

Warren, we’re so excited about your research fellowship with ISU with the internship at INL! That should be an awesome experience that will open many doors to you. And I’m dang jealous that you are going to be working on hybrid auto research! Thank you so much for calling to tell us about it! It will be so nice to be able to get your degree without having to go deep in debt! Mom loved her Mother’s day present from you and Rachel, she loves getting the multiple little presents, and the notes with them were delightful!

Ed and Julie, I hope you guys aren’t floating away! From the news it looks like the river is still rising, but at least it hasn’t reached the highest level yet, and the cooler weather might help it slow down a little. Ed, your motorcycle sounds awesome! Those Kawasaki’s are great bikes, and should give you better mileage than even your Camry. Might be a little chilly in the mornings, though! Did you get it running yet? Mark was riding his Honda the other day and hit a little patch of sandy gravel on a curve and dumped it. Messed his shoulder up, bruised his hip, and really cracked his helmet. Probably would have killed him if he hadn’t been wearing it. I helped him fix the handle-bars and throttle on his bike Monday, but I haven’t seen him riding it again yet. His wife isn’t very excited about him having it in the first place, and really ticked now that he’s had his first accident. He hasn’t ridden a lot, you can tell.

Well, Mom thinks it’s time to go get breakfast, so I guess I’ll close. We love you all, and we love to hear from you.

Love, Dad and Mom.

Journal

May 15, 2011

Dear Family and Friends

It sometimes seems like time flies but I wonder what we have accomplished! The days and weeks go by so quickly, but it seems like sometimes I can’t remember what we do from one day to the next. I’ll try to fill you in on our days for the past couple of weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week we house-sitted for one of the members of the branch. They went down to Edmonton to pick up a load of stuff for food storage and provident living. It’s a 5-day round trip, but it is the closest place to a Bishop’s Storehouse and cannery, so they asked us if we’d watch their house and care for their animals. They live south of town about 15 miles, out in the middle of not much but beautiful forests and hills. Of course there was still some snow on the ground, but most of it has melted finally, and the weather was quite nice, up into the 40’s during the day, low 20’s at night. The outside water is still turned off because of the permafrost in the ground, so we had to carry water from the house down to the barn. It was beautiful and calm, very peaceful this time of year. They said that the bears might have come out of hibernation, and they were worried for their animals, but I guess it was too early as we didn’t see any. We did see a coyote and a fox, but the bears aren’t out yet. I guess they come out of hibernation and feed on the grass along the roads, but there isn’t any grass yet. I’d expect we’ll see some this week, as it’s beginning to feel more like spring everyday. It’s supposed to get up into the mid 50s this week, might even break 60 by Thursday or Friday. Anyway, we fed the llamas and the pony twice a day, also made sure they had water. The rest of the time we did some work around the farm, and did our missionary work during the afternoons and evenings. I did fix the hydraulics on the loader on his tractor that he uses to clean the sheds out. Also shoveled out the pony shed which reminded me of cleaning the barn when I was a kid growing up in Standish. It was very quiet and peaceful, but we missed our “stuff” so came to our apartment quite often to get teaching materials and eat when we were in town. They got back on Saturday night and we returned to our “cozy” apartment.

This week we have been teaching and doing missionary stuff. We are teaching four families right now, two of them are progressing, the other two we’re probably just planting seeds. We are still teaching the Brackenberries who have been living together for 28 years, and we told them they would have to get married so they could get baptized. Jeff wants to get married, but Margaret can’t see any reason to change the way things are. She said she doesn’t want to make any long-term commitments. They are taking care of two of their grandchildren, and their daughter who is 21 lives with them but doesn’t do much to take care of the kids. During one of our lessons, she brought her 2-year old in and dumped her on grandma and said, “take her, I don’t want to deal with her.” So she did. The grandma (Margaret) is 1^st Nation (Indian), and I guess that’s normal. Makes me glad for the stability of families back home! They have attended church a few times, and are quite interested in learning about the church. Jeff knows the church is true, but doesn’t want to commit to living the principles until he knows he can get baptized. Guess we’ll see how it goes.

Daniel is another person we have been teaching. He is living with a woman several years his senior, and they have three kids but don’t want to get married in case it “doesn’t work out.” They are also 1^st Nation. Jessica sat in on the first lesson we taught them and seemed quite receptive, but then they missed a couple of weeks (no-shows), and she lost interest. We have taught him a couple more times, but never know if he’s going to keep the appointments. He has no religious background, we have had to start with teaching him who Jesus is and how religion can improve his life. He wants to learn, though, so we’ve shown him some of the videos on the life of Christ and the restoration. He has been to church a few times but has missed the last few.

We are teaching another young couple, Justin and Megan Moore. It’s kind of interesting how we met them. One of the ward members told us he had someone we needed to teach named Daniel. ReNee couldn’t remember the name, so one week at church she asked the member for Justin’s phone number. Duncan (the member) kind of looked at her funny, then gave her the number for Justin. ReNee called the number and said, “Duncan gave us your name and said you might be interested in hearing about the church. When can we come over?” A long silence, then, “Uh, I guess that would be OK.” ReNee said, “How about next Tuesday at 7:00?” “O.K.” Turns out Duncan was talking about Daniel, not Justin, and Mom just got the names mixed up with someone else in the branch. We went and taught Justin and he was quite receptive, then we went back the next week and taught Megan too. They have two little girls, one 4 and one 18 months. We have been meeting with them each week, and they are reading the Book of Mormon. They really want a change in their lives, Justin drinks a lot, and both of them smoked. We taught them the word of wisdom, and they are both working on living it. They have both quite smoking, and I think Justin is trying to quit drinking. They are both in their 20s, and we love working with them. They are so humble and feel the spirit when we teach. We are still trying to get them to church, we hoped today, but they weren’t home so may have gone to her sisters for the weekend.

Our favorites are the Ng’s. They are the family we stayed with when we first moved up here and our apartment wasn’t ready. We have grown to love them and have done a lot of things with them. She isn’t a member, and he has been less-active for about 5 years. They are both attending church with us and we are also teaching his two kids from a previous marriage. Matt and Samantha are 12 and 11 respectively. Tim is working on becoming worthy to baptize them, as he is a Priest. We have had many great discussions with them, and enjoy their company. We helped them with some remodeling on their house, also some repairs on their cars and helped insulate and sheet his shop. We have kept our close friendship after we moved into our new apartment.

Senior missionary work is much different than the young missionaries. Our time is much less structured, and for quite awhile we felt like we weren’t sure what we were supposed to do. We still don’t, but after talking to other senior couples it sounds like it’s more normal. We get up in the morning and exercise, clean our apartment, eat, then study for several hours. We do service for people, and usually teach two or three lessons in the evenings. Nearly everyone works, so we don’t get to visit much during the afternoons, but sometimes we do. We have been trying to visit all of the members of the branch, but it’s hard to find them home, and many of them aren’t very receptive. I have taught seminary a few mornings, and we clean the church on Friday mornings. I don’t know who’s supposed to do it, but it went several weeks without getting done, so I got a key from the branch president and have been doing it. When we went this week someone had done it already, but we vacuumed a few places they had missed, and cleaned all of the kids handprints off the glass of the front doors.

Tonight we had a fireside at the church, and watched “Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration,” a film that recently showed at the Legacy theater in Salt Lake. We had a good turnout and refreshments afterwards. There were a few non-members there, but none of our investigators made it. Tonight was also one of the NHL playoffs, and up here hockey is about the same as the Final Four in basketball in the US. We will try to follow up with the ones that came, though.

Well, I guess I’d better go for now. The weather today was beautiful, got up to 55F today, supposed to be even warmer tomorrow. Trees are starting to get leaf buds on them, some places the grass is showing through hints of green. I think it’s going to be really pretty here this summer. There are hundreds of lakes around, several large ones as big as Palisades within 15 min. of town. Several people have offered to take us fishing as soon as the ice is off the lakes. Will have to find out what an out-of-state license costs! I hear that a 5-lb fish is considered normal, and that they throw the little ones back. It will be fun trying.

Hope you are all doing well. We love you and miss you. The gospel is true in the Yukon! We are grateful for our good health, the opportunity to be here, and truly appreciate the support of our family and friends.

Love, Dad and Mom.

PS: Zach -- Congratulations on your graduation! We are proud of you! We love you! Do what you can do to prepare for your mission, and we’ll make up the difference. It is the one thing you can do in your life that will change your life for eternity, and bring eternity to the lives of everyone you touch! I am so grateful for my missionary experience when I was your age. The Lord will provide a way for His children to serve if they prepare themselves spiritually and have the desire to serve. Great blessings come to those that are allowed to help! We need the blessings! Plan on it!

Troy-- Great to visit with you on the phone. We’re excited to hear about your new house! It sounds like it will be awesome, and look forward to getting to help you work on it when we get home in 2013! You’ll love the extra space, and the kids will have a ball on 4 acres! Maybe we’ll come build a little cabin on one corner and spend our winters there!

Shaun – I can’t believe you sold your green van for that much! That’s AWESOME! What are you driving now? Did you find a motorcycle yet? I told Warren you were probably going to come get the pickup if you can afford gas for it. Gas here just went up again, it’s now $5.65/gallon. You just bite the bullet and keep driving! Glad you still love flying!

Julie – Awesome that you got a job in Menan! That’s still closer than IF, and it should have the small-school closeness and fewer of the large-district politics! (I hope!) That’s a beautiful area out there.

Warren – Hope you are able to get Sarah’s car going. Hope her broken hand is doing OK. Probably better not to try towing her bicycle with the 4-wheeler again! J Thanks so much for fixing the furnace!

Kiley – Thanks for the fun pictures of the kids! We really miss them, and it’s so fun to see how they are growing! Hope the new business is growing, it always takes awhile to get started up, but you guys are amazing!

Sarah—Awesome pictures of the prom dress! (And of course the beautiful blonde cheerleader in it!) How fun to have Amber and Kelli there to help you get ready. I hope you really had a fun date.

Teresa—Awesome to hear about your challenges in Arizona, but love your sense of humor! What a gift it is to be able to laugh about life’s trials! Hope your knee surgery is healing well, and that you’re recovering from your trip to Utah under the stress of Dave’s grandfather’s death. I’m sure they appreciated your ability to organize and manage things. They have really had their trials! Glad you got your kitchen cabinets in before you got your knee done!

Amber—Hope Elaine is doing OK. We really felt terrible to hear about it. They have really had their mountains to climb this year, too! What with both Kent and Elaine’s surgeries, then to find out about the tumor! How tenuous our health is, and how fast our lives can change! Be sure to give them our love and tell them they are in our prayers.