New Nature Worry

Hi Everyone again,
I forgot to tell you about a new land development here that has some of the sisters alarmed.  We developed a big split across the road about 8" wide now that goes up the side of the mountain.  They filled it up, but it opened again.  They were calling it a ground slump.  It is wherte a mass of land slips and shifts from the top, then upswells at the bottom.  This has gone on for a couple of weeks now.  There are also sink holes appearing in the area.  One house was evacuated.  It is affecting about a 4 mile area.  The latest is that they found an old man-hold and it is full of water and evidentally filling from somewhere and washing down the mountain.  Guess we'll see what happens there.  On the other side of town from us.
Thats all.
Mom

Thoughts on Life

Dear Family,

I haven’t written for a long time and I apologize. Life is so “the same.” There is little to write. Dad shovels snow, fixes tires, chops wood (I carry wood). I watch him work or visit with the sisters. I am getting really good at visiting. I think that fills a need. When people live alone, they get lonely, they don’t get to reminisce, or talk, or just have a good sounding board. So I think they enjoy the visits, and I certainly do. Sometimes one just needs to talk. Men don’t seem to have this need so much. Weird. I do genealogy, prepare lessons for Relief Society, bake cookies for people and try not to eat them before I get them given away. Pretty much I keep house, wash, and cook (which I still dislike by the way). Everyone loves dad. They will really miss him when he leaves. A couple of the sisters call and love to visit with him when he answers the phone. The little branch here definitely needs our “youth?” It is a blessing to be able to work hard, and the sisters have really needed some help this winter which is worse than normal.

We had a fun relief society enrichment meeting last week. We did Yoga for seniors, soaked our feet in minty Epson salts, exfoliated them, creamed them, and it felt lovely; then we had a lecture on personal hygiene, and lunch. We only had six of us there but we had a good time. It reminded me of having a pretty spell at home. One lady wants me to do yoga for the senior citizen center. I hope the lady calls me; it would be fun.

Last week we were literally snowed in for a couple of days. When it snows here, once it begins, it just keeps on steadily all day. We got around 4 feet of new snow. It can lay down 1-2 inches of snow an hour. This week we shoveled everyone out just before we got wind and rain. Wind has blown all day at about 60 mph. One hundred foot trees are swaying 5 feet to either side of their trunks giving a 10 foot swipe. I keep checking to see if any have broken off. This has to be the only place where you check for fallen trees or bear scat when you go outside. It rains like it snows—buckets of it all day. The nice thing is it is warmer, and it has melted 2-3 feet of snow, so now I can see out my window a little better. When the temperature drops, all this water will freeze, and it will be icy and slick. We will have to wear our snow tires (things that attach to your shoes with studs in them to keep you from falling down). We probably have another couple of months of winter. People say when the snow melts, it is a real mess for awhile. I will probably have to break down and get some water boots. Many people here wear those green boots we call pipe-moving boots. They have some that are slightly better looking at Wal-Mart that are black rubber with colored polka-dots or flowers for the ladies. (of course, you have to get to a Wal-mart in Juneau or Whitehorse ) At first, I thought these boots must be for kids, but guess not. I am afraid my long skirts will be rather water soaked, but I don’t want to shorten them for one wet spring. My Merrill boots are ok but are heavy, and I probably don’t want them to be so warm.

We finally saw some moose. Here again animals are larger than the same species at home. (can’t find my moose pictures—I think I didn’t have my camera) These were along the road, but I understand sometimes they come right into town. The snow has been so deep that it is causing them to move down.

Now I am feeling inclined to talk about the birds here. The Tlingit Native Americans in this area have totems of the Eagle, Raven, fish, and Bears primarily. In Whitehorse, they had the Raven, and the Wolf. Anyway, the ravens are almost as fun to watch as the eagles. They are huge and love to play in the wind gusts. They also come in flocks to peck around the parking lot by the store. I caught some of them at the service station. They hardly move when you drive through them.

Eagles are always wonderful. It makes me feel so awesome to catch them on camera. There is something special about actually taking the picture yourself. I love this eagle who is warming his wings in the sun. It is almost like the eagles pose for their pictures. They also roost in the tops on the trees and never in the pine trees. They like to be in the open areas. Maybe it is because they need the space for their wings to land. The eagles always seem to roost in the same spots and the same trees. Many times there will be 4 or more eagles in the same tree. I have a few pictures of eagles in flight, but they are hard to catch.

We recently found four swans that seem to have forgotten to migrate. They are simply beautiful. There are also huge seagulls, a different variety than the ones we have. Buzzards are cool. Here again the nature here is just so beautiful I can hardly get enough of it.

Here in Haines, there is only one main road, so people say, “ Just go out the road.” I thought that was so dumb until I realized that there is literally only one main road. If you go “out “the road, it isn’t hard to find most places. They will say, “He lives at 35 mile.” And you know it is just out the road. When it snows though it is a bit difficult to find the mile markers, let alone the little lane openings that have been plowed. Oh they have a new term here “the burm.” The burm is where piles of snow are in front of your drive way or along the side of the road that the snow plow has plowed up. We hate the burm because we always have to shovel it away for everyone to get out of their drives.

Well I think that is about all I have to say for now. We sure love to hear from you and know how your life is going. Hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Love you tons, Mom

Journal Entry

Dec. 10, 2011

Dear Family and friends,

We too are really missing our kids. We've been out almost a year and still have a year to go. What were we thinking! If the next year goes as fast as this one has, we'll still be home in no time at all. I can't believe how fast the weeks and months fly by! We have also talked about how sad it would be if our kids got so used to being without us they won't care when we get home, and they will be so involved with their friends and family they won't have time for us. We want to visit them in the spring after we get home on our way to Florida for our "Old Family" reunion! I think it will be really fun! Of course, we're not thinking about that right now, but will be next year at this time!

We do have time to reflect and read quite a lot, though we have been pretty busy this past week with a funeral on Friday, (the guy who was flown south, died of an aneurysm) getting the church ready for meetings on Saturday, conducting and holding meetings on Sunday (The branch president is still gone for a couple of more weeks), then spending Monday and Tuesday sawing up and splitting a second tree that blew down in the parking lot of the church. We hauled it over to a widow's house that heats with wood and now between this one and the one last month she has enough wood for the winter. She really appreciates it. I hope they are about done blowing over, though. When I was young it didn't take three days afterwards to recover! We had to split them all with a maul and wedges and it still feels like work! Then we stacked it on her porch so it will be out of the snow.

Wednesday we did the family history center in the morning, visited in the afternoon, and in the evening I helped teach the community woodworking class at the high school that I've been doing. Next week is the last night, but they asked if I could help again starting in January. It has given us a great opportunity to get to know fanatics. We have the blessing of our mission president to do so. Of course I'm doing it as community service and not getting paid for it. The guy I teach with (the official teacher) attends the Baha’i church with his wife, and the other shop teacher doesn't go to church, but we found out his wife who lives in Montana is a member. She came to visit him for Thanksgiving, and we picked her up for church. She is a recent convert, and will be moving up next fall. We asked Darwin if he'd like to learn about what is wife believes and he said he's not ready yet, but will let us know when he is. Anyway, Thursday was our “P” day for washing, shopping and cleaning the house with Family History in the evening again, yesterday we helped a lady work out some problems with her home loan and insurance company, today we went to 33 mile with a young couple for hamburgers (the only place in the area for good ones), then came home and helped decorate the Christmas tree over at the church, then went and watched the “Snow Dragon” in the Community Christmas Parade. Also visited some less actives and made arrangements to pick them up for church tomorrow. So goes our weeks!

The weather here changes from month to month. Today's paper said we got 11 feet (135.8") topping the previous November record of 68". On December first it turned warmer and windy, thus the trees blowing down, as well as power lines. Weather has been into the 40s, we've also gotten about 10" of rain, so the snow level has dropped to about 18", and most of the roads are nearly clear. I'm really glad, I've been getting really tired of blowing the walks clear of snow every day, often with 2' of new snow. Today was cooler, about 32F, but crystal clear and sunny. The sun rises about 8:45, goes down by 3:15, but hey, any little bit helps! At noon it was barely above the mountains on the Southern horizon, goes down fast. When it does cool off in the evenings the roads get really slick, but at least we don't have to shovel it! We are warm and cozy in our little cottage, we have baseboard heaters heated by water from the church. Like heated floors, baseboards take a long time to respond, so we pretty much set it and leave it the same all the time. Sometimes it feels a little cool when it's windy, when it's nice it's a little warm, but we're definitely not complaining! The church system is heated with oil which is really expensive, but electricity is even more so, and they don't have natural gas available here. Many people spend $600-1200/month just for heating oil. We're really glad it's included with our cabin!

We are planning our branch Christmas party tomorrow; we'll have a dinner at the church, play a couple of games, and exchange "white elephant" gifts. The people seem to really like doing things, even though they are older. We changed it from next Saturday to Friday so one of the part member-less-active families could come, but the dad got a new job so he can't come anyway. His wife and two youngsters will be there. We are really hoping to teach him as we get to know him better. He works as a mechanic in a garage, but works half days Saturday and all day Sundays. Maybe pretty soon he can trade some weeks with others who work there.

Some of our dear friends from Whitehorse called and want us to come have Christmas dinner with them. We'd really love to, but can't unless President Lehman gets back from Washington and is feeling well enough to do without us. We won't know for another week or so. If all goes well, they should be back on the 20th or 21st. I hate to be gone the first week he gets back. We're still trying to find out what the Sunday schedule is for New Years this year. Is New Years Day going to also be Fast Sunday? What are they planning over there?

Well, I guess I'd better be going. I still need to do the paper program for church tomorrow; it's our primary program for our one kid in primary. He just turned 11 two weeks ago, so unless we get some more kids coming next year we'll have to cancel primary and start up a young men's program!

Hope things are going well for you. Did you have a good Thanksgiving? What are you doing for Christmas? We have loved getting family letters from some of you, especially with the pictures!

Love, Elder & Sister Powell

More Snow :)

We got another 2 feet of snow last night.  It brings our November total to 133".  Right now it's raining, we hope it stays warm enough so it doesn't snow more tonight!  I spent four hours shoveling and plowing this morning, then this afternoon the snow slid off the roof.  I'm attaching a couple of pictures of our "partly cloudy."

Hope it's better tomorrow as we leave for Juneau!   Love ya.  Dad.

Troy & Emma’s Having a New Baby

    How exciting!  You'll love this little girl just as much!  Have you told the others yet?  You really ought to tell Warren and Rachel.  It is so much more fun to share your experiences, especially Rachel with her first one.  Remember how exciting everything was with Emma when she was expecting Taya?  (I know, that was a LONG time ago!)  Anyway, tell them and be excited with them!  Have you thought of a name for her yet?

    It sounds like you're doing a  lot of things with your new house.  It was fun to get Olivia's message about getting to have snow and her own bed, plus Levi's blog about getting to burn brush and trees and have a wiener roast!  That's the kinds of things the kids will love and remember more than anything.  I remember the bonfires we had out in the back field when we burned the limbs and brush and junk we had collected, then had a wiener roast when it had burned down.

     How are you coming on the remodeling?  What are you doing about the plumbing in your new bathroom?  Keep us informed with pictures, I wish we were there to be  helping with it.  It would be a lot more fun (and a lot warmer) than shoveling snow every day!  We shoveled most of the day today, and we're supposed to get eight more inches tonight.  At least maybe the snow you are getting will help lessen the drought you guys are having.  Or is it farther west than you guys?  We don't get much news here.  We ordered a TV a couple of months ago and it still hasn't gotten here yet.  Mail is slow in Alaska.

     Tell everybody hello for us.  My computer crashed and we have it patched back together a little at a time.  Hope to get my Skype back up and running soon.  Maybe we can Skype you guys for Christmas?

     We sure love you.  Dad.

Journal Entry

18 Nov 2011

Hi all,

Things are going a little slower in Haines now, the snow has hit and so has the cold weather. We have about three feet on the ground now, temp today high of 8 degrees; wind chill is -21 with 30 mph winds. I guess it's a little earlier this year than it was last year, but normal for most years past. I guess they got a lot of rain last year but not much snow because it was warmer. This year it cooled off sooner so we got snow instead of rain.

We didn't have anything planned for Thanksgiving, several of the branch families are leaving to spend it with their families in Juneau and South, so we invited a couple of the widows to come have dinner with us. Well, it kind of snowballed, and it looks like we'll probably have 15 or so, we'll cook some of it here, some of it at the church, a couple of others will cook some and bring it. I think they just wanted a chance to visit and socialize. We're going to take some games over and play games after dinner. They have a fun card game here you play with five decks that is called "Hand and Foot" that we've learned how to play. We also play Farkle and "No Way, Jose," that's a lot of fun. We'll have to teach you some of them when we get back.

There isn't a lot to do here in the winter if you're not young enough to go skiing, snowmobiling, or hunting. We could go to Juneau shopping, but by the time you buy ferry tickets and hotels for two nights, it's $400 even if you don't buy anything! We are supposed to have a zone conference there the first week in December so we'll probably do some shopping while we are there. They pay our transportation, but we still have to pay our food and lodging, but at least that's about half the cost, so we're looking forward to it. I hope the weather is good, if it's stormy, the ferries don't run, so we might not be able to go, or might get stuck in Juneau till it clears. Oh, the joys of living in Alaska!

We had a wind come through the other night that snapped off a pine tree about 12" in diameter about 8' above the ground. Fortunately it fell diagonally across the parking lot, so it missed the shed, our car and our cabin. We need to go out and cut it up this afternoon, it's supposed to warm up to 9, but still with a wind chill of -15, but if we don't cut it up and it snows again we won't be able to cut it up and they won't be able to plow the driveway. We'll block it up and give the wood to one of the ladies in our branch that has a wood stove. She'll be really glad to get it.

Rachel is expecting, the baby is due in February. She was really sick the first four or five months, but is feeling better now in this last trimester. They are really excited. They are waiting until it gets here to find out if it's a boy or girl.

Warren is commuting to Pocatello or Idaho Falls to school every day. He is getting his masters from ISU, also interning at INL in Idaho Falls. We're REALLY glad to have them living in our house to take care of it while we are gone. They are paying all the utilities, insurance and taxes, plus any maintenance that is needed, so it works out really well for both of us. The commute was eating them alive, so they just bought a used Toyota Prius a few weeks ago. He is getting 58 miles per gallon with it consistently, so he says he isn't having ANY buyer’s remorse! They are selling their Subaru and his Dakota pickup to pay for it. He got it from a dealer in Salt Lake for $10,000, which is really a good price. It's a 2007 model with all the bells and whistles--backup camera, blue-tooth phone, Bose stereo system, the works. I told him to try to find us one in that price range to drive when we get back. Gas here is still $4.57/gal, and even with getting 20 mpg in our van, it would be nice to not have to pay $80 to fill up. The nice thing here is that we don't drive nearly as much as we did in Whitehorse where gas was a dollar more than here even.

It's good to hear that Kathy and Reed got a new Dodge van. Is it brand new? I think they are really nice, though I have talked to some people that said they don't think they are as good as the earlier ones. Of course they always say that when a new model comes out. Eric (Bev's boy) has a 2010 Chrysler and they love it. What color did they get? We are really enjoying our Toyota, haven't had any trouble with it other than I backed into our cabin in the snow the other night and broke out a tail light. I ordered another one online, but it takes six weeks or so to get it, so I bought a trailer taillight at the parts house and rigged it up so it will be legal till the new one gets here. Just a little "Mickey-mouse." I'm just glad it didn't do any damage to the fender or break out the back window! I'll bet Lainey is loving having the other van to haul her Cello around. Did they trade in their Malibu? I know they were a little disillusioned with it. They got pretty good mileage, but had it in the shop quite a bit.

The work is going a little slow, people don't get out as much when it gets dark by 3:45 and doesn't get light until 8:45 a.m. We are still visiting the branch members quite a bit, have spent a lot of time doing service for the older ladies. I fixed a couple of stoves, installed a window and a door, fixed several cars, and have spent a lot of time shoveling out cars so they can go to the store. We shoveled out Betty yesterday, the snow had blown level with the top of her car, and we shoveled out about 50' behind it to the road. The drifting reminds me a lot of Rexburg. At least it isn't storming, and the sunshine does a lot to lift the spirit. Also shoveled out Lucy where the plows had buried her car and pickup when they cleared the road behind her. Then jumped the pickup so she could get it down to the shop for a new battery. She is so amazing. She is 87 and still shoveling snow and captaining her own fishing boat. We went over and played Aggravation with her last week and she won both games! She is as sharp as a tack!

We are looking forward to church Sunday, our Stake President and one of the High Council are coming over to speak for High Council Sunday. I hope we have a good turnout. President Lehman and his wife are gone to the lower 48 for six weeks, two members are in the hospital, so it depletes our little branch quite a bit. When you have an average attendance of about 16, just a few is very noticeable!

Well, I guess I'd better go get ready to cut up this stupid tree. Hope you are doing well. Have a fun Thanksgiving! You will enjoy the family. That's the hardest part about ours--we will really miss being with family! We sure love you.

Dondavid and ReNee

Here is my thoughts on the snow. Mom

Monday Nov 14, 2011

Haines

This week we had our first snow storm. At first I didn’t think it was so bad. It snowed maybe six inches and then it rained it all off on Friday. Sunday we got our first big storm. We got up and had probably a foot of snow. It continued to snow all day. By evening we had another eight inches,. We went to the Konahele’s for dinner and when we came out to leave two hours later, we had two-three feet of snow on the ground. We were grateful that we had gotten snow tires. Still we got stuck backing out of the drive and had to shovel a bit to get out. The roads in town weren’t plowed, and it was slow going home. Most of Haines is on a hillside, so there are a lot of up hills, and a lot of people slide off the side of the road. It costs $400 to get a tow truck to pull you out. It does remind you to be careful when driving. When we got home, we backed into our carport of trees and took our back light out on the side of the house. Still we were home safe. This morning we took one look at another additional foot of snow and realized we wouldn’t be going anywhere until we got plowed out. The snow plow came about 9:00am but told us we had better not go to town for awhile because the town roads weren’t plowed yet and there were two or three cars off the road on our hill. After he plowed and I took a look at the high banks of snow, I begin to wonder where he will put the rest of the snow this winter. The banks of snow are taller than our car right now. While it is rather fun in some ways, it appears this will be a long winter. Dad is out snow- blowing the sidewalks at the church, and our “carport,” and a trail to it—carport picture on the right. At least this gives him good exercise. It is still snowing, and they call these “now flurries.” The flurries consist of 8-12 inches according to the weather forecast. The flurry appears to last all day with just a steady light snow—but it lays done a lot. This is not a flurry in my book, but it is all in the perspective, right. In Alaska, flurries are the same as a major storm in Idaho. With some trepidation, I look forward to seeing a major storm. I guess it can drop 3-5 feet of wet snow in one storm if it blows in off the ocean. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen often. Well it is 4:00pm here and is dusk; it will be dark in half an hour. It is semi-light at 7:00am now —lighter by 8:00am. So that gives us about 8 hrs of light which isn’t a lot different from Rexburg. The sun isn’t up until around 10:00am though and never gets very high in the sky. It just kind of skims the edge of one set of mountains.

LDS Life

Hi!

   This was in the Rexburg Newspaper this week.  I thought it was interesting that they put it in.  We got an e-mail asking for some of our experiences, and I wrote this and told them they could edit it down to whatever they wanted.  They pretty much put in the whole thing!  Random!

Love,  Dondavid.

Hibbard senior missionaries serving in Alaska and Yukon Territory

By DONDAVID & RENEE POWELL

Guest writers

We submitted mission papers a year ago in October and indicated we would be glad to serve wherever we were needed and for as long as the Lord would like us. In November we received our call to the Alaska Anchorage Mission for 23 months. We entered the mission home on Jan. 24 for orientation, and then drove our car to Bellingham, Wash., to catch a ferry to our first assignment.

Because our mission includes such a huge landmass, we were assigned to report directly to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, in Canada, instead of going first to the mission home in Anchorage. Whitehorse is a city about the size of Rexburg, the largest city and capital of the Yukon.

Our mission includes all of Alaska, the area of which is one-third the landmass of the United States, plus all of the Yukon Territory. Population wise, it is the smallest state, with fewer than 750,000 people in the whole mission. Anchorage is by far the largest city with just over 300,000 people, while Juneau, the state capital, is about the size of Rexburg with only about 30,000

It is the only state capital in the United States that you can’t drive to! You either have to fly in or take a boat. It is a beautiful city located right on the Inside Passage, with a major glacier (the Mendenhall Glacier) right in town, and you can see whales in the ocean from “The Road.” There is one major road called Egan Drive that is 50 miles long and follows the coast. All other Juneau roads connect to it.

Juneau is also the home of our stake center, and we have three wards there. There are no wards in the outlying areas yet, but we have several branches from Skagway down to Metlakatla, many of them on islands along the Passage. There is also a branch in Whitehorse that is nearly large enough to become a ward, and that is their goal. There are more stakes “up north.”

We served in Whitehorse for the first six months of our mission, and shared many wonderful teaching experiences there. We also learned much about the history of the area, as Whitehorse was a major launching place during the Klondike Gold Rush. It is also where the ore was transferred from Yukon riverboats to the train to be transported to Skagway to be shipped south for refining.

One of our early challenges when we reached Whitehorse was to get used to the cold. When we got to Whitehorse, the temperature got up to minus 25 degrees. At night it usually hovered between minus 30 to 40, not counting wind chill. Although we knew it was going to be cold, the clothing we brought with us was not adequate. We had gotten the warmest we could find in Rexburg, as we thought that Rexburg has cold winters.

Whitehorse reminds us of some of the cold winters we had in Rexburg in the late ’70s and early ’80s when it was below zero much of the winter. The cold just gets into the walls of your house, the windows frost completely over and there are cold spots in your house even with the heat turned way up. We soon got used to it, bought Arctic clothing and were fine. The attitude here is, “There is no cold weather. Just cold clothes.” We plugged our car in at night so it would start, and life went on like normal.

The end of February we attended the winter Sourdough Rendezvous at the city park, where the temperature was minus 35 with a wind chill of minus 53. It was well attended, and everyone had a great time. There were dog sled races, flour packing, snowshoe races, etc. They had ice sculptures that were beautiful, with people coming from many nations to carve them. Of course, the sculptures lasted the rest of the winter.

Summers here are beautiful! The days are long with sunrise at about 2:30 a.m. and sunset at about 1 a.m. in July. We drove for four months without turning on our headlights. Of course, we make up for it in the winters! Average summer temperature is 68 degrees, with warm days reaching the mid-70s, and lows only dip to the high 50s.

In Whitehorse we served with one set of “young” elders, and much of our work as “seniors” was to visit and teach families that are less active or part member. We also spent a lot of time doing service wherever we could. We made a lot of wonderful friends there, and were blessed with the opportunity to teach a wonderful part-member family and see the wife join the church before we left. We were also able to teach others in Whitehorse, many of whom the younger missionaries are still teaching.

Because our visas only allowed us to serve in Canada for six months, in August we were assigned to serve back in the city of Haines, Alaska. Haines is a smaller town with a population of only about 1,500 people. There is a fish cannery here, and fishing is the main industry, along with a limited amount of tourism in the summer. It is on a peninsula between the Chilcoot and the Chilkat inlets, only about 14 miles from Skagway, but the only way to drive there from here is to go back through Whitehorse, which makes it a 7-hour drive. The fastest way is to take a ferry.

We are about 40 miles from Juneau, but we again have to fly or take the ferry, so it is expensive to do so. It takes 4 1/2 hours by ferry each way, and costs about $250, so we don’t go often. We do have to go every two or three months for zone conference, but most of our meetings we hold over the telephone. It only takes about 40 minutes to fly, but it costs about twice as much.

Most things cost more in Alaska. Gasoline is $4.57 per gallon, but about a dollar less than in Whitehorse. We are glad! Milk here runs $5.69 per gallon for 1 percent.

The area is beautiful, much like the Island Park/ Jackson area – heavy forests and rugged mountains. Haines is where the bald eagles winter, and by the middle of November, several thousand of them migrate here. Yesterday we drove up the Haines Highway to do some service work, and saw 30 of them on a small sandbar next to the river. It is the National Bald Eagle Preserve. We also see many bears, wolves, moose and other wildlife – much more often than we did in Yellowstone Park.

Our branch in Haines was quite large until the economy crashed. Then most of the branch members moved elsewhere as the fishing industry died out and one of the canneries closed. Now there are only about 50 members on record, and we average about 16 people at church Most of them are older. Our branch president is 77, we only have one Primary child who is 10, and no young men or young women. It does make for quiet sacrament meetings!

Sister Powell and I are mostly involved with service

and membership support here. I am serving in the branch presidency, and we have two other priesthood brethren who attend. Sister Powell is serving in the Relief Society presidency, and we have quite a few widows and part-member family sisters who attend. We have been visiting and working with less active people to invite them back into full fellowship in the branch.

We have a functioning Family History Library here in our chapel, and we serve there two of the three days a week it is open, helping members and community patrons research their ancestors and write their family histories. It is a fascinating and rewarding experience.

One of the things we have come to fully appreciate about members of the church in our mission is their tenacity and dedication to their testimonies of the gospel. Because of the remoteness of most places in Alaska, and the harsh climate, people who are active have a deep, abiding love for the Savior and the people here. They are proud of their Alaskan heritage 

, and are ready and willing to share what they have to help others. Haines is a very close-knit community, and we have been privileged to participate in many community service projects.

Missionary service for senior couples is much less intense than it is for young missionaries. We have a lot more flexibility in our assignments and schedules We are able to use more initiative in who we work with and how we meet their needs. At first we were frustrated with the apparent lack of direction, but as we learned people’s needs, we are grateful for our agency. We love the focus on gospel study, and love studying the scriptures each day.

We truly appreciate our family and friends who keep us informed on events and loved ones from home. We have missed births and birthdays, graduations and games, but the blessings we have received far outweigh any sacrifices we perceive. We are grateful for this opportunity to serve and recommend it to all those who are empty-nesters and want to have an incredible experience together.

Wonderful Talk Mom

Jeffery R. Holland—Nov 5,2011

--Missionary Fireside in Anchorage

The Plight of the Apostles after Christ died.

· How much could they really know? They had been in the church three years or less. They probably felt so inadequate, so humble, and did not fully comprehend what was required of them. And then He was gone. He has repeatedly tried to tell them, I am going to leave. Possibly they didn’t quite believe it. Now he was gone.

· One thing the twelve did—they went to the temple

Why do we go to the temple? To get fortified, so Peter and John went. On the way, there was a man sitting on the steps of the temple about 40 years of age who had been crippled since birth. He was a beggar. The temple is a good place to find people who care where he could get alms. He was carried there every day to beg. (Acts 3:1-13) (Elder Holland uses literary license here) He probably asks for alms and many move past him into the temple. When he saw Peter and John were about to go into the temple he asks for alms. They stopped. Peter said, “Look on us.” The beggar looked expecting to receive something. Probably a dinare-n “widow’s mite or if he was lucky he might get two. And then wow, what did he get. “… Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee; In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6) And he took his hand and lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. “And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping and praising God.” (Acts 3:8) Elder Holland said notice those verbs—the man deserved those verbs, he had never walked and now was leaping and praising God. A crowd gathers; they have known this man for years, and they marvel in amazement at what they see. This is probably an understatement. Peter is offended and asks why they are amazed. Why weren’t you amazed before? Then Peter rails on the crowd. Why do you look on us as if we had done this thing.

“the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his son Jesus; who ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.

“But denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;

“And killed the Prince of life, who God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, who ye see and know; yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. (Acts 3: 13-16).

Peter goes on to say they are offended because they think the apostles have done this. We are fishermen except when we are given the authority that Christ gave us. He tells them to repent and be baptized and prophesied the coming of a great prophet whom we know to be Joseph Smith. Christ will return, repent until He comes again, until the time of restoration of all things.

Five thousand people were baptized. These apostles were untrained, unlearned Galileans—unprepared, illiterate, common, religious ordinary leaders. Much like today

Now the Pharisees and scribes have a problem. The problem didn’t go away when they crucified Christ. It is still here. They are doing miracles, and now the worst scenario is here. They are being done by fishermen, ignorant and illiterate.

Symbolic Problem: A man is healed, praising God all over the area, and the Pharisees can say nothing. They can’t do anything about this active visual aid who is leaping around. Their problem didn’t go away when they killed Jesus.

Another example also exists. In John 9, we read of Jesus healing a man who has been blind since birth. He spit and made clay and anointed his eyes. The man’s sight was restored and Christ tells him to tell no man. The man was so excited to have his sight he tells everyone. The Pharisees go to his parents and tell them to constrain their son. The parents fear the Jews and tell the Pharisees their son is of age, and they should talk to him. So the Pharisees do, and the man says,” Whereas, I was blind, now I see.” They can’t deny it.

There are three applications we can find here:

1. You can’t argue with the evidence. You can walk away; maybe you don’t care; you can say it’s not for me; but the evidence continues to speak throughout eternity-- this is true.

· You don’t have to do anything about it; you can be through with it.

· This is God’s truth, and you have heard it! We are all a little blind, a little deaf, a little lame, a little damaged, but light changes your life. It can be yours if you want it to be

· By their fruits ye shall know them. The church grows despite persecution. The church is the first into any disaster area; faster than any other organization. It doesn’t ask if you are members or not. We’re there. Can’t argue with the evidence.

2. When you come to the truth, you get a lot more than you bargained for.

· Think of what the man felt in the temple. He thought he would get a coin—What did he get? In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth he walked. No coin but strong ankles.

· How about Joseph Smith.? He wanted an answer to a simple question. What did he get? The responsibility to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

· You have not yet imagined what the Lord promised to those who love him. No idea what this gospel will mean to you. You haven’t seen anything yet. Both here and in eternity.

3. You can’t kill this.

· James the brother of John was the first apostle martyred for the church.

· Paul was beheaded. He was drawn and quartered and parts of his bodies were put on the four corners of Rome, and his head placed on a stake in the center of Rome as a warning to other Christians.

· Peter was crucified upside down so as not to appear to be the equal of the Savior.

· The Lord said to Alma in a pivotal point in the Book of Mormon. “I can do my own work. This is for you.”

· This is the last time. These are the Latter Days. It is a culminating time.

· Joseph Smith was killed, but it didn’t end. It is history. Some believe if you are violent enough, you can destroy righteousness. Violence can’t destroy righteousness.

· Now I (Elder Holland) am a witness. I don’t just witness. I am a witness. You can walk away or walk in. But you have been told. He bore his testimony of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This was a profoundly moving talk. You felt the apostolic mantle on Elder Holland. He spoke with power and authority. He did not mince words. There was urgency in his speaking. There were new converts, and investigators in the audience. I pray they were as moved as I was. To have been told and not “walk in” would be a tragedy.

Stuff

Just thought I'd write you an update.  We finally got the white shirts, still no sign of the monitor.  I guess we'll just write it off and consider it lost.  Bummer.  From now on we'll definitely insure and put tracking on anything we send up here. 

I put my origional drive back in the computer.  I figured since it was working in the external case it would probably work in the computer.  It is working fine so far.  All of my programs still work, I'm back to Windows 7, sure glad to have it working again.  Hope it keeps up.  We canceled our trip to Juneau to buy another computer, will probably still pick one up when we have to go in December.  It costs us about $400 each time we go just for the ferry and motel, so try not to go anymore often than we have to.  We also postponed our temple trip to Anchorage so we won't buy our snow tires yet, so didn't really have a good reason to go.  We have to go in December for a zone conference, so will stay an extra day and do that stuff then.

Is there any way to make a backup of this program drive and save my programs so I can transfer them onto a different computer when I get one?  I know the backup program only backs up data files.  But I would like to transfer my stuff onto my new computer if it's possible to do.  I know Troy used to have a program called "Ghost" that did it, but I don't have a copy of it anymore.  I think I left it in Idaho.  Don't know if it would work on W-7 anyway, it was for XP when I got my computer that's still in Idaho.  I did make a new backup of all my data, decided I didn't want to lose it if this goes down again.  I also kept the hard drive I took out with the basic Vista on it that I used to make this work then, just in case.  I also transferred all my data off this drive, but so far it seems to be doing OK. (for the last 3 days, anyway!)

Has been quite a week so far.  Bro. Cox that I'm fixing the tractor for went to Seattle for surgery, was having trouble breathing.  Problem with his tracheotomy.  Found he was two quarts low, so they gave him a blood transfusion.  Checked his wife while there, found she has skin cancer so she's going in for surgery tomorrow.  Then Angela Wilde, one of our young less-actives, got blood clots in her legs yesterday and was life-flighted to Juneau yesterday morning.  When she got there they told her that her father from here in Haines had died of a heart attack.  Of course she can't come home because of her condition.  The father used to be a member, but didn't like the church, joined another one and had his name removed from the records.  We're going over today to see if there is anything we can do for the family.  The mom also had her name removed, so don't know how she'll react.  Should be interesting.  Then Sis. Gilman that was to church but didn't look good was life-flighted to Anchorage yesterday afternoon with kidney failure.  She may have to go into extended care there so she can get dialysis three times a week.  An intersting day.

On top of all that, the branch president, President Lehman is leaving next monday to go to Seattle.  His wife hasn't been feeling well, they think she has a brain tumor.  They will probably be gone 6-8 weeks, so I get to run the branch while he is gone.  So glad we're here!  Definitely feel needed!  We did have a fun Halloween party at the church Friday night, carved pumpkins, frosted and decorated cookies.  We had twenty-two come, three familes who are less-active, a non-member.  I think they had fun, but none came to church yesterday.  Probably a good thing.  I spoke about missionary work.

Well, guess I'd better go get ready for the day. Hope you are having a good week!  At least WE don't have any snow yet!

Love ya. Dad.

Deep thoughts

Journal Oct 30, 2011

I have recently decided I need to write about some things that have touched me or that are just interesting in our mission here in Haines.

First I would like to write about the area here. I believe this is one of the most healing, beautiful areas I have ever been in. I have seen a lot of beautiful places in both the states and in China. Perhaps because I am living here, I am finding Haines healing to my soul. I believe the Lord send me here for me, as well as, for whoever else we are supposed to touch. We came in late summer and the mountains so impressed me. They are high, rocky and pointed. The tops contain white glaciers even in the summer. Waterfalls cascade down the sides of the mountains thousands of feet. Shrubbery and trees grow on the sides of the mountains and appear to be coming out of the rock itself. The power of the slow, tenacious growth of roots, combined with the trickling of rain in the crevices of the rocks cause huge boulders to break lose resulting in landslides. The majesty and the magnitude of the mountains make one constantly aware of the smallness of man. The mountains come steeply down to the edge of the water. There is very little beach and what there is, is rocky. The mountains are magnificent, powerful, and remind me that the power of nature is beyond human control.

The water that runs off the glaciers carries with it glacier silt. This is fine grey-blue silt that fills the rivers and changes their courses. Where the streams enter the ocean, a change of color can be seen seeping into currents. The silt is soft and acts like quick sand in many areas. Rivers here have powerful currents, 3-10 miles an hour. At times, fishermen sink in the sands or get washed down the river from these strong currents. Glaciers do not look like what I expected. They appear as snow trapped between canyon walls with waterfalls rushing from underneath them. The glaciers are huge. There is a blue reflection on the glaciers in some lights. These glaciers recede up the mountain as they melt. In sunlight, they are beautiful.

This is an area referred to as a Boreal forest. The trees grow densely together perhaps fifty to seventy feet tall. The soil is spongy from decayed foliage and pine needles. In areas where there has been a lot of moisture it becomes dangerous; because, it acts like quicksand. In these areas, it is called muskeg and must be crossed carefully. Trees often fall as the ground seems to be continually shifting, either from the wet soil or the steepness of the mountains on which they grow.

Animals are larger here. Moose make Idaho moose seem small. Foxes are twice the size of our fox. Eagles are larger. House cats are even larger by a third again. Maybe the harsh climate makes them more durable and creates a need to be hardier. Texas may brag because of the bigness of the land, but it has nothing compared to Alaska.

In the fall, there are no words to describe the beauty of the leaves. They are almost fluorescent in their brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds. I might mention that the colors in the flowers here are also exceptionally bright. I don’t know if it is the clean air, or the harshness of the climate that makes them so large and intensely colored. It is like they must have this great burst of color and size to validate their short existence. I can hardly grasp enough of the fall beauties. I want to sit outside and absorb them into my very being, reach out my hands and hold the sacred silence. I want to seal them in my heart to nourish me during the long winter to come. I could spend hours soaking in this beauty.

As the leaves fall, there is a grey, murky beauty that comes. One can now see out into the forest, fallen trees, and marshy areas. There is harshness to the environment, but also a promise of tenacious strength that transfers to the animals and people in this area. People here accept the harsh climates, the difficulty of transportation, the limited medical facilities, and survive. They are not whiners. They go on doing what has to be done. Accepting whatever comes. The winters are long and dark, but they know spring comes with sunshine, warmth, and beauty. The harsh winters give people greater appreciation for the short time when the elements cease their relentless buffetings.

I have yet to experience the winds. I guess the winds that blow from the north are cold and merciless. The winds from the channel bring wet snows of up to three feet at a time. Some winters there is up to twenty feet of snow. While the temperatures are more mild here compared to Whitehorse, it still drops to the low teens and down to minus 20. Some years it gets down to -40. Because the wind blows all winter, the wind chill and the moisture make a wet-cold that seeps into your bones and stays. The rain causes black ice to form on top of the frozen ground which makes driving hazardous. I am sure the area takes on a different kind of beauty in the winter which I will write about later.

Update to Uncle Bob

Hi family,

Just thought I'd send you a copy of a letter I sent to Uncle Bob--a few new things that I didn't put I last week's letter to everyone.  We love you!   Dad.

Dear Uncle Bob and Aunt Liz,

It is really good to hear from you again. I'm afraid I didn't do very well answering your last letter, but it was good to hear about your 4-wheeler rides, though it is a shame you didn't get a chance to go more often. Scary about flipping it in the washout. I'm so glad you weren't hurt, and that your machine was OK so you could ride it out. I know what you mean when you said it was hard to get it back up. I think things have just gotten a lot heavier than they used to be when I was younger. And having fun sure takes a lot more work!

It's fun to hear about the kids. How are Kaylene and Mark liking Corpus Christi? They must like it if they're buying a house down there. It's probably more humid than Pahrump was, but I'll bet it isn't any hotter! It sounds like it was really fun to see so many of the kids all at once. Isn't it funny how they fall back into their "pecking order" roles when they get together? We really chuckle about that when our kids get together, even though they are grown with families of their own! I guess they never stop being kids any more than we stop being parents. I catch myself telling Ed what to do, even though he has kids getting ready to graduate from high school! He just grins and is really patient. How did we get this old???

It sounds like a wonderful weekend up at the cabin. It would be so much more justifiable to share it with the whole family with set times and weeks to use it. So many of them sit empty so much of the time, then everybody wants to use it at the same time. Shawna's trip to Australia sounds fun. Is she going to visit any of the areas you were in? I'd be surprised, as it's a BIG country!

We are hoping to go fishing again this week. The Silvers are running, and they must be doing OK, as there are hundreds of eagles along the river, and the bears are coming out again. So are the Canadians! The people here get upset when hundreds of people from the Yukon come here and fish. Our Branch President muttered, "So many danged Canadians you can hardly find a place along the bank to throw out your line without getting tangled up with some Canuk!" I had to chuckle. Two months ago we were one! The Silver Salmon (also called Coho) are REALLY good eating, so we'd like to get two or three for our freezer. It costs us $20/day each for a license (out of state, of course), but if we can catch a few it would be worth it. Silvers in the store cost us $15/lb even here! If we caught three or four 15 pounders it would be cheap fish!

The weather here is fall, the leaves are beautiful, and we're getting a lot of rain. I guess when it does get cold it will dump three or four feet of snow in a storm. That I'm not looking forward to! At least we don't have to shovel the rain!~

We have been working Wednesday mornings in the Family History Center here, I've been cleaning up the hard-drives on the computers so they aren't as slow, also got rid of a bunch of stuff that didn't work anymore. I'm trying to get some more computers, as we only have four, and we've been having five or six people coming. We've taken our laptops over to help fill in the gaps. I set up a wireless network so they can connect easily, and that helps. We are going to open the center on Thursday evenings to see if we can accommodate more people. Tonight is our first night open so we'll see how it goes. We also have it open on Sundays from 2-4, and we get a few from the branch, though a lot of them go home and take naps. I don't blame them.

I went to the high school on Monday to meet the shop teachers. They have one guy that teaches welding, woods, sheet-metal and small engines. Reminds me a lot of the little shop I taught at that first year up in Westwood. They have another guy that only teaches afternoons in the woodshop. He was starting a community night class for woodworking this week and asked if I'd like to come as a volunteer assistant. I told him, "Sure!" We had our first class last night, and only five of the people came. There will be eight next week. Of course I can't wear my missionary badge at the school, but I thought it was pretty neat when Mr. Hayes introduced me to the class. He said, "This is Mr. Powell. He is here in Haines for the next year or so as a missionary for the Mormon Church. He is going to be helping us here for the class, but I'm sure he'd like to talk to you about your church." I hadn't said a thing to him except when we met we told him we were missionaries here and would like to get to know the people. It was really fun teaching woodworking again. I helped a lady make a drawer for her camper, and start on some doors for her entertainment center. Mr. Hayes watched us for a few minutes, then helped other people start their projects. I guess he was satisfied that I wasn't going to cut off any fingers soon. We think it's going to give us an opportunity to get to know people on a more casual basis than just walking around in a suit trying to get them to come visit them.

Troy and Emma just bought a different house; it's out in the country, an older house that they are doing a ton of work to. It's on a couple of acres, and they are excited to have room for the kids to play. They have been in "communities" the last two houses, and the homeowners associations have micro-managed everything they do. They will be glad to be away from that. They are doing major remodeling on the house, adding a family room and bedroom where the garage is, putting in a third bathroom, moving the kitchen and utility room, stuff like that. I kind of wish I was there to go help them, but in some ways I'm kind of glad I'm not. It's going to be really nice when it's finished. He called and asked how I would suggest running the new plumbing under the cement slab floor. Told him he'd better rent a slab saw and have a lot of patience. One of the lines needs to go about 20' through a 4" slab. Good luck! Makes me tired to think about it. The fun thing is that they are going to move in and work on it while they are in it. They want to get their other house up for sale before the market dies for the winter. Right now they are making two house payments and it's pretty hard with the expenses of trying to remodel at the same time. They have saved some money up, so I think they'll be OK for a little while, but I think they put most of their savings as a down payment when they bought it.

Well, ReNee thinks it's time to go do our laundry, so I guess I'd better close for now. We love hearing from you, and hope your health is good. We've come to really appreciate the importance of good health here in this branch where we're the next to the youngest! I'm also amazed at how well some of the people do that are way older than us!

We love you! Tell the kids hello for us.

Dondavid and ReNee

New Letter

October 9, 2011

Dear All,

Here it is October already, and I haven’t written for so long! Sometimes it seems like there isn’t a lot going on, and sometimes it seems we’re so busy we don’t have time. I guess it just boils down to getting up the energy to sit down and organize everything to get it written down. Thank you all so much for your letters, and please remember that even though we don’t write often, we still think of you and hope you are doing well.

Fall is here, the leaves are all changing color and falling off the trees. Our high today is supposed to be 48. It isn't a question of "whether" it will rain, just "how long." It does make for beautiful fall colors, and we have really enjoyed the drives up “the highway” when we visit people who live up toward the border. It is beautiful, and the colors are almost fluorescent. The rain wets the leaves, then the sun comes out and they just sparkle. There is such a variety of color, photography can hardly catch the essence of it. At least we don't measure our rainfall in feet like they do in Ketchikan. Ketchikan is in our zone and stake, so we get to talk to the missionaries from there at conferences.

We had stake conference in Juneau a couple of weeks ago. It is good to get to see the other missionaries. . We took the ferry over last weekend to attend Stake Conference, was there three days. The ferry is nice, but takes about 4 1/2 hours for the trip each way. We took our car so we could shop, they have a Costco and a Wal-mart there, so we stocked up on some things we can't get here. Stuff is still expensive there, but at least we can get it. We also ate at McDonalds and Subway, so it was quite a treat! We don't have any fast-food places here, and hamburgers in the restaurant are $10/ea. Gas is cheaper here than in Whitehorse, only $4.59/gal, about $1 cheaper. We are enjoying that.

On Sept. 20^th we went to Juneau again for a zone conference. We flew over to that one, it only takes 20 min. to fly because it isn’t really that far away, but it takes a long time by boat because it only goes about 8 knots. Anyway, Elder Robert Walker of the Presidency of the 70 was there, and it was really good to visit with him and his wife. It turns out his wife, Vicki VanWagnen Walker, was one of Mom’s friends when she was in high school in Provo. Vicki is Bev’s age, but she recognized mom and they had a great time chatting about Provo and friends they had in common. Elder Walker is over the church temple committee, and it was fun to get to hear about how the attitude towards the church changes as more temples are built around the world. He talked about the new temple in Rome, and how the church met with the Catholic Church before announcing it, and how the Catholic Church has been supportive of the temple from the very beginning. It seems that the Cardinal of the Catholic Inter-faith relations board is originally from France, and the member of the Area Presidency that was assigned to meet with him was also from France, so they thought he could communicate with him better. Turned out that when they met and began to visit, they were from both from the same village in France, and had gone to the same schools together. They had a great visit, and the Cardinal made the recommendation to the Pope that the church be given every kind of assistance that they needed to obtain the permits to build. Sure reaffirms our knowledge that the Lord really is in charge! Pres. Walker also explained that the temple is NOT “within sight” of the Vatican, but is on one of the outlying “ring roads.”

We still aren't teaching anybody here yet, but we are getting to know more people and at least can let them know we're members of the church. Mostly we are just helping out in the branch. We had 21 to church today, which is a pretty good Sunday, but having Pres. Lehman’s son and his family definitely helped. There are only 4 priesthood holders, including me, so we take turns blessing and passing the Sacrament. We do have a nice closeness with the members of the branch, though, and they seem to be really happy we are here. I hooked up a wireless internet system in the chapel last week, spent a couple of hours last night getting the Branch President's ancient laptop to be able to hook up to it. We finally did, but I spent a lot of time on the phone with Ed figuring out what to do. What a valuable help he has been! At the zone conference we were given to believe that we'll be here in Haines for at least another year, maybe till the rest of our mission. That will be fine with us. We really like the small-town feel and love the members here.

We spent a Saturday doing a community service project picking up litter along the beaches. It was fun getting to know some more people in the community, and they appreciated the help. It was our branch project to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the welfare program. We had nine members of the branch that participated, which is a really good turnout for things. They appreciated our help, because only about 30 people turned out in all. We picked up a lot of trash that comes in on the tides, plus a lot of cans people leave when they have parties on the beach. There aren't any nice sandy beaches here, but people build fires and drink beer there anyway. The next issue of the local paper had a picture of two members of our branch rolling a tire up to the pick-up point.

The Monday before conference we had a branch project here at the chapel (Family Home Evening) doing brush trimming and grounds cleanup. We cut a lot of the scrub alder that grows up like weeds here. It is much like willows, and grows to make the church grounds look scruffy and overgrown. At first we tried using a brush shredder, but it was taking so long and was so heavy we finally just built a big bonfire and burned it. It gave us a great excuse for a wiener roast, so we got hot-dogs and the trimmings and finished up eating and singing around the fire. It was fun because the people are older so they know a lot of the songs I do, and we had fun singing. The grounds look a lot better, and we had a great turnout. We had quite a few of the less-active members that don’t usually come on Sundays.

We loved watching general conference last weekend. The satellite dish hadn’t worked for some time, so I spent a couple of days working on it, and between working in the rain and spending a lot of time with tech support in Salt Lake, we were able to get it working. The nearest Stake specialist is up in Anchorage, and they said there was no way we could get someone here to fix it before conference. We were so glad to be able to watch it. We had tried to watch the Relief Society broadcast on the internet the week before, but the connection here is so slow that it wouldn’t stream, and it kept stopping and dropping the signal. We only got to listen to a little bit of Elder Packer’s talk. With the satellite broadcast, we were able to watch all five sessions together, and they came in great! We were able to have dinner together after both Saturday’s and Sunday’s sessions. Because of the difference in time zones, we watched all sessions two hours before they were broadcast! We got to watch them at 8 & 12, with the Priesthood Session at 4 on Saturday! Who says living in Alaska doesn’t have its perks! J I felt especially good when we went to Whitehorse on Thursday and found out that they didn’t get to watch any of it because their dish was not working, and they had to listen to it on the radio! And they have a lots bigger branch than we have! Their ward technical person is pretty protective and won’t let others work with it, but he doesn’t take the time to fix it himself.

We went over to Whitehorse so ReNee could go to the chiropractor. She has been having some problems with the muscles in her neck and back again, and the lady over there really helps her out. It is about a 4 ½ hour drive from here, but the weather was nice (though rainy), and the drive was beautiful. We saw a couple of coyotes and chased a moose down the highway a ways, but didn’t see any bears this time around. I think they are all down at the rivers eating salmon! We are in the middle of the Silvers and Kings run, and the eagles are really starting to move in. We see dozens of them along the rivers eating dead spawners. There are a lot of young fledglings, Bald Eagles don’t get their distinctive white heads and tails until they are four years old or older.

It was really fun to go to Whitehorse again, it felt just like going home. We spent two nights at the home of Tim and Beth Ng and caught up on a lot of great visiting. They are doing awesome in the church, and Sam and Matt, the kids, are still meeting with the missionaries. We are hoping that their mom lets them join soon. They are attending church and mutual, and are enjoying the friendships they have made. We also had two wonderful visits with Tom and Patty Hirsch that we got to know really well while we were there. We also stopped by and visited Mike and Rachel Hrebian. Mike was less-active and Rachel isn’t a member. They began attending again and we taught Rachel the discussions. She hasn’t joined yet, but is attending with Mike regularly, and Mike was just put into the Elder’s Quorum presidency. We are pretty excited! We told Rachel that when she decides to get baptized, we’ll come over again!

We returned to Haines Saturday morning, and helped fill the baptismal font so President Lehman’s grandson from Anchorage could get baptized. Jesse recently turned eight, and wanted to be baptized here so his grandparents could participate. He was baptized by his father, and grandpa confirmed him in Sacrament Meeting this morning. It took a long time to fill the font, as the water heater isn’t very big, so we’d put in two or three inches of water, wait an hour for the water heater to recover, put in a couple more, etc. We finally ran out of time, so we heated big pots of water on the stove and poured them in with cold water until we finally got enough to cover him. It’s a good thing he wasn’t very big! I don’t think the font has been used for a few years, as there was a thick layer of dirt, dust, rust and dead spiders in the bottom. It took awhile to clean it, and Pres. Lehman brought the deck-scrubber from his boat to clean it. It looks really good now, and we will try to make sure it gets used again before we leave! Jesse and his family returned to Anchorage this afternoon because Mark has to work tomorrow. It’s about a 14 hour drive from here. In fact driving across Alaska reminds me a lot of driving across Texas—it’s a long way between towns! We passed one car and met four on-coming cars yesterday in the 300 miles to Whitehorse. And it is a holiday weekend! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in Canada!
It was really good to visit with Brent on the phone last week. We called him to see how he is doing after his accident with the chainsaw and the tree, and he sounds like he is doing amazingly well. He has been working, part-time at first, then full time with a back brace, but meeting his patients and operating his business. Kiley has done a great job keeping us posted on their blog, which is at: http://palsrwe.blogspot.com/. When we see the pictures, we realize just how blessed we are!

We have pretty much gotten used to the bears around here. We now say, “There’s another bear,” whereas not too long ago ReNee would scream, “THERE’S A BEAR! STOP!” and would dive for her camera while I’d frantically search for a safe place to pull off and stop and hope the bear didn’t run off before we got a picture of them. I’m sure many of the bears were walking away chuckling, thinking, “Boy, these ‘tourists’ are sure dumb!” We still can’t leave anything out that might attract the bears because it is a misdemeanor to do so, and we don’t want them that close anyway. There are reports of them wandering around town all the time in the newspaper, and the police have to “shoo” them back out into the woods. (usually back across the street!) I guess in a few months when it gets really cold most of them will be full of salmon and find a good place to curl up in hibernation for the winter. Sounds better all the time! Around here a lot of people hunt bears for food, but they don’t like to eat them in the fall because they all taste like fish! I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Eat Alaskan Pork—Shoot a bear!” Most of the bears we have around here are blacks and Alaskan Brown Bear. The only difference between an Alaskan Brown Bear and a Grizzly is that the Browns live on the coast and are bigger because there is so much food to eat. (Spawning Salmon). One of our less-actives got one a year or so ago that would have had a hard time getting its head into a 55-gallon oil drum. It is mounted and at one of the sporting goods shops here in town, and it is huge!

We took this picture out of our kitchen window when this one came to visit while we were having lunch a few weeks ago. It became quite a nuisance because it started breaking into people’s houses, and had returned several times even after they had moved it away. It got so it wouldn’t eat natural food, but preferred foraging people’s garages, houses and chicken pens. The last straw was when a woman woke up in the middle of the night to the noise of it breaking into her house while just she and her daughter were home. They left through the bedroom window as the bear destroyed their kitchen, so the police shot it and gave it to the Native Americans. Just another page of normal life in Alaska! And Warren was complaining about bats in the garage at home?

We went down to the Chilcoot inlet a couple of weeks ago and fished for the Pink Salmon when they were running. They are also called “humpbacks” because of the large hump the males grow when they spawn. It was really fun, and I caught about 25 or 30 in the two hours we fished. We only kept three because we have limited space in our freezer, but they are about gone now, so we’re going to try for some silvers this week. We can only keep two each, but they are bigger, and the meat is better. We want to wait till they are running good, as a non-resident license costs $20/ea for a one-day permit. So we want to be pretty sure to get our money’s worth. Silvers usually run 15-25 lbs each, and salmon is selling in the stores here for about $15/lb, so if we catch one it will more than pay for itself; besides it will be FUN! There are definitely some perks to being a Senior Missionary!

We have enjoyed working with some of the members here. Last week we went out to work on Bro. Cox’s tractor, I put a new fuel shut-off valve in it. The valve had broken off so he couldn’t shut off the fuel when he changed filters, so I changed the valve out with a full fuel tank. Only lost about ½ gallon of diesel, but it was kind of messy. He thought we’d have to drain the whole tank, but that would have lost a lot more fuel than we did, so he was pretty excited. He also has a little John Deere dozer with a broken track adjuster, we need to take it off and order another one, but I need to see if he wants to spend the money on it. The parts are over $500, but it isn’t worth much the way it is. I just don’t know if he’ll use it enough to want to put that much into it. He has a hard time getting around, but it really is good to move snow with, and they have a fairly long driveway to plow when we get a heavy snow. Brother Cox has a tracheotomy so he has to put his thumb over the hole in his throat to talk, and he only has 40% of his lungs left, but he is awesome and has such a sweet, humble spirit. They are so good to us, and so appreciate any help we can do for them. He is the one I was talking about when I told about his looking out of his kitchen window above the sink that is about 7’ above the ground, and looking eye-to-eye with a bear that was looking in the window. Said it startled him a little. He was in the navy and fought in the Korean, Viet-Nam and first Gulf war. He really has some interesting stories to tell!

ReNee and the Relief Society Presidency is setting up a Relief Society culture night for next week on the 17^th, we’ve asked a couple of ladies from the Philippines to come teach the sisters about Philippine culture and food. They seem quite excited about it. One of them is married to a less-active brother, and we had a great visit with him. We decided that since the ladies were going to be having a party and food without us, we should all go have a party without them, so we’re going to go up to 33 Mile and have hamburgers together. We’re going to invite the non-member husband of the other lady and some of the other less-actives and have a “guy” party. Everybody got quite excited about it, so we’re going to see if we can set it up and get as many as we can out for it.

Well, I guess I’d better get going for now. We really appreciate hearing from you, and hope everything is going well in your lives. May the Lord bless you all, and may your families and loved ones be well. We love you all!

Love, Dondavid and ReNee

Life

My first week in Haines Mon. Aug. 15, 2011

Hi Everyone,

Here is mom’s take on our recent transfer to Haines. We arrive about noon and the Schindlers are here cleaning. I am so grateful for Sister Schindler’s efforts to clean the 12 inch yellow stain from the toilet area, and the three coats of soap scum remover she used in the tub/shower. We can use the bathroom. They wanted to help us move in but we decided to go to lunch and we assured them we would be ok without their help. Mostly there just wasn’t room for 4 of us in the house. The Schindlers are large people, meaning tall and big.

They pointed out the bear scat (isn’t that a nice polite way to refer to the crap) that was a few days old by the side of the house. This made me feel really safe and happy. The bear stories are beginning to be more credible. We are told to be careful going out in the evenings because that is when the bears come out. Also, we should get some bells to wear so the bears can hear us coming. One lady told Sister Schindler that she would never cook in the cabin because it would attract the bears. President Lehman, the branch president, told me not to worry and go ahead and cook. Yeah, like he is in the cabin. I have cooked and we haven’t had any bears, but when he was taking us to the dump, he did say, “Oh yes the bears do come through there. We had to get rid of our garbage dumpster because the bears came and knocked it all over for the garbage.” So now they keep the garbage in the garage. Like I hope the bears aren’t really hungry because if they want to get in anywhere, they sure as heck can. I just hope they don’t think we, the people, are garbage. We have a lovely, back door to escape from which drops down a hill side where, of course, the bears will go. Well so much for bears, I will keep you posted, but in the event you don’t hear from us for awhile, maybe we have disappeared. Oh, by the way, people disappear here and are never found. One of the branch president’s here went fishing and just disappeared and was never found. I guess when they fish if they lose their balance in the 10 mile an hour river current, their waders will fill with water and off they go. At least they think that is what happens. If bears eat you, they eat even your bones so good luck finding the body. Anyway, we are here now and safe and happy. Oh one last bear tale we plan on going to observe tonight, is the men fish for salmon, and when they get the fish, the bears show up. So the men take off to their cars and the bears come in and eat the fish, then they leave and wait for the fishermen to catch them more fish. Smart bears huh!

Ok, so back to the moving in. Sorry for that long tirade. I was trying to empty some of our blue tubs of things I thought we would need immediately and Dad was getting help to move our queen size bed into our teeny bedroom. I thought we should leave it in the living room, but am glad he persuaded me to try the bedroom. It did fit. We have a whole 10-12 inches on each side of the bed. I can barely move my body through the space by the bathroom facing front, but dad has to turn sideways to fit through. If you have to hurry to the bathroom, it challenging condition. We took the closet doors off so we could fit two white plastic sets of drawers along the wall at the foot of the bed. The closet is 2 feet by 3 feet. The missionaries had put up random shelves all over the cabin, (excuse me, they call it the cottage). We took most down and made a bookcase on one wall in the living room. We redid all the light fixtures with fluorescent lights so it looks more uniform and is lighter. We do have carpet in the living room and bedroom so the floors are much warmer there than they were in Whitehorse. The little ladies informed me they had cleaned the bedroom and the living room, but hadn’t got to the kitchen and bath. Obviously! I cleaned dirt and mold out of the frig and behind it, moved the stove and did the same. Oh, the stove didn’t work, but they bought a new one for the church, so dad installed that and moved the old one over here. Then I attack the bathtub. This amounted to sanding the scum off with a green scratchy and took most of one day. It looks better but could use another round of scum remover in the tub.

Dad in the meantime, cleaned out the storage shed. Wow did they have a ton of old boxes the missionaries had packed up and intended to return and get, but didn’t. Some was 5 years old. So we got permission to get rid of them. It was fun to go through the stuff. We got some reading material for the winter, but most we hauled to the dump or gave to the thrift store. Clothes get moldy and smelly here because of the humidity.

Oh, humidity is doing wonderful things for my hair! It is getting curly. I don’t know what to do with curly hair—I hate curly hair on me. Especially, since I have a terrible hair cut from my friend in Whitehorse, who left it so short I can hardly get it around the curling iron to straighten it. I have burns all over.

Back to the shop. Dad built a work bench, installed lights, fixed the weed eater, mowed the lawn and moved every little shelf, hook, nail that I wanted moved—sometimes 2-3 times. He was wonderful, patient and long suffering. So both of us were dead and I had to cook every night but one. Food here is extremely expensive, and I think you need to shop when the ship comes in because if you wait too long everything good is gone. Like avocados are $2.00 a piece, apples $4 a lb. I think we may give up veggies and fruit and take vitamins.

First nations here are more Indian like we know, while in Whitehorse, there was a stronger Asian quality. They eat more American, less rice here. I find I miss the rice. We went to dinner one night at President Lehman’s house and I felt I was eating at my Aunt Daphne’s ranch. We had “scalloped tomatoes” which were actually really good, and I haven’t eaten those since I was a kid. She apologized for not making biscuits, which was an everyday custom in my mom’s day. They cook veggies here and in Whitehorse in an interesting way. They use the pressure cooker a lot. They just put in whole, long carrots and serve them that way. In Whitehorse, they made soup with chicken legs which are just in the soup, rather than picked off the bone. You get used to it and it makes me feel very removed, like I am from another world somehow. Many don’t have TV. People appear to read a lot here. The Lehman’s play games. We learned a new game called protect your assets that dad even seemed to enjoy. We will teach it to you when we get home.

Oh one of the nice things is we have lots of scalding hot water. Problem is it comes from over at the church and you have to wait about 5 minutes for it to warm up enough to do dishes, shower, or wash your face at night. But when it gets here it is really nice. (I wonder how long it will take to warm up when it gets winter?) Oh, it is fall here. The leaves are beginning to turn colors. It is looking more like late September. They do get snow here—20 feet and it is wet, not dry like Whitehorse and Rexburg. I hope dad doesn’t have a heart attack shoveling this winter because I am sure we will inherit that job. It is also rainy this week. They say they have had a drought, but it doesn’t look dry to me.

We spoke in church yesterday and there were 13 of us there. Three priesthood. I’m feeling young. One lady is 50 with a 10 year old son she adopted. Lucy is 87 and has a schooner license, broke her neck at 75 , but had it fixed and she is very alert and spiffy. I like her. She weighs everyday and if the scale goes over 130 is get it right off! I didn’t enjoy that conversation. There is a grandmother in her 80’s, a daughter in her 70’s, and a daughter-in-law in late 70’s, and a granddaughter probably 40’s. This family is the Wild’s and they are sharp. There is Lemme, who is taking temple preparation lessons from us and is 72 and looking for another man. Her husband died 2 years ago. She is interesting and a little strange. She is into connecting with the universe and nature. She is trying to build some kind of cistern so the water can circulate through her house. I don’t quite understand it and am a bit reluctant to go look because I don’t think dad should start helping there with that project. There is one lady in her 50’s, Patty Perkins who is sharp and teaches gospel doctrine. I don’t dare complain about any aches and pains because they are all so hardy and independent. There are lots of inactive, and part member people here. We were told to take things really slow here. I guess the people haven’t related well to have the missionaries move in and out every six weeks. We understand the Baptist minister dislikes Mormons and comes out in force once he knows you are here. We have been met with friendliness though we haven’t been out and around much.

Well that is about all for now. Besides you probably won’t read all of this anyway. Pray the bears don’t eat us.

Love ya tons,

Mom