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.

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

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.

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

Latest Journal

Dearest Family,

   I finally got my journal written for this month.  (I know, it's supposed to be weekly!)  The first page is only sent to you guys, the rest I sent to others who want to hear our adventures.  I hope you are doing well, and know that we love you and surely miss you.  We think of you often, brag about you all the time.  We have shown our treasured family book you all gave us for Christmas to everyone, and they think our family is amazing.  We already know that!  We love hearing about your families and what the kids are doing.  We love the blogs and pictures, and look at them often.  I hope you have great summers, and that you have lots of fun together, and remember us.  We wish we were there, but also feel that we are where we need to be at this time.  We hope we are touching those we are supposed to be here for.

     We love you all dearly.

Dearest family,

Well, this is a general letter I sent out to lots of people, but this part I am only sending out to my kids! Most of it you probably have already heard, but I thought I’d add a little for you guys. I loved hearing about Julie’s week at girls camp, Ed taking the boys fishing to Sand Creek. Fun to talk to so many of you on Father’s day.

Russ, I’m sad to say I’m happy you blew the trans module on your van. It was fun to get to talk to you this morning! I hope you get it fixed OK, and that you can find a module cheap. It was fun to talk to you on Father’s day, too. We were at a soccer match on Saturday and we talked about how much we wished we were in Rigby watching Christian and Bleak play like we did last summer.

Troy, it was fun to talk to you on your birthday yesterday. Sounds like your house is going to be awesome. You might consider building out on the side the garage is on since you’re going to make the garage into a bedroom anyway, just make the house longer instead of deeper. Then you could put the bathroom and other stuff in when you pour your new slab. It isn’t too hard to put up three more walls and extend the roof. You could even extend it 24’ and include another garage! Just a thought.

Brent, it was fun to talk to you. Your new webpage is awesome, and the pictures are great! I’m amazed that your business has built to two days a week this quickly, I’m sure it will continue to grow! I can hardly wait to get down there and see it when we get home. We love the pictures of the kids, hard to believe that Colby is walking and running all over the place. I’ll bet he and Kaedyn are really cute together. Kiley, it sounds like you are staying plenty busy with the kids and getting moved into your house.

Teresa, fun to talk to you this morning, sounds like you’re going to have a fun time in Idaho. We sure have loved the past two summers when we got to see you, we’re definitely going to miss your family this summer! Especially our fishing trip to Meadow Lake and the other fun stuff. I hope you have fun without us! Be sure to write and keep us posted, and send us lots of pictures!

Amber, mom sure loves talking to you. It sounds like you are enjoying your mornings at the gym, I’ll bet you’re really staying slim and beautiful. The awesome thing is how good it makes you feel. Thanks for the fun pictures of Elsie and Sam, they are surely growing fast! Tell Tyler happy birthday this week. I hope his mom is doing ok. We sure love him.

Shaun, it was fun chatting with you the other day. It sounds like you are doing well, wish I could have flown with you over Prairie last week. It’s fun to see all the helicopters here. When we were at the glacier in Juneau I took a picture of four at the same time, but you couldn’t make them out in the clouds very well. We must have seen 50 of them in the hour and a half we were there. I think a lot of them are the Robinson 44’s, once in awhile you see Grummans or Bells. Of course, I didn’t pass my chopper ID test yet, so need to study up on them more! J

Warren, so fun to talk to you several times. I hope you found out what’s wrong with your engine. Did the oil pump fix it? Or do you get to do a rebuild? Glad you got the VW going so you have something to drive besides your bike on the rainy days. Sounds like you surely have been getting a lot of experience doing mechanics. Gives you lots of experience for when you get to start designing stuff! Hope you are having fun working out at the INL.

Well, it seems the days and weeks just slip by and either there isn’t time between “things” to sit and write a good letter, or by the time we have time we’re just too tuckered to sit and try to give the illusion that we’re coherent! We have had a busy few weeks, although there isn’t really much new to talk about. Seems like sometimes we just get caught up in the thick of thin things!

We’ve been busy with the missionary work, especially have had some good opportunities to give service. We had a Senior Missionary Couple Telephone Conference last Tuesday that lasted for four hours. It was interesting to get to talk to the other senior couples, there are ten couples serving in the Alaska Anchorage Mission right now, three Member/leadership support (proselyting-like us), two office couples, two CES, one social services, one military relations, and one medical services. Only one couple has been out longer than us by a month, the rest are fairly new. It was nice to find out that we aren’t the only ones that had to figure out what we were supposed to be doing. The Laters that were on the Aleutian Islands for 4 months just got transferred to Anchorage. He said he spent most of his time over there wearing his “service” clothes, only wearing his missionary clothes on weekends or when teaching a lesson. That’s kind of the way we felt this last month. I helped a less-active build benches and shelves in his shop, changed the transmission in a branch member’s Ford ¾ ton diesel pickup, rebuilt the steering gear in another brother’s Chevy pickup, and (the toughest of all~) helped a brother fix his boat, then helped him try it out to make sure it worked OK! Twice! It did, and we got to see why the Yukon is one of the premier fishing places still left in the world! There are thousands of lakes here in the Yukon, and we fished for Arctic Grayling on one. They are about the size of trout, and you can’t keep any over 16” long. They are a beautiful fish, and good fighters. We kept one that was injured when we took the hook out (all fishing is barbless here, so you can release them, but sometimes they get it too deep and they die), so we kept it and brought it home to eat. They are delicious! So light and flakey, no fishy taste at all! You can only keep two each, but we just kept the one because we don’t have much space to keep them in our fridge.

Thursday we got to go out to a different lake and fish for Northern Pike. They are considered a nuisance fish here, so you can catch lots and keep whatever you want. I can see why they consider Alaska and the Yukon a sportsman’s paradise! The weather was a beautiful 74 degrees, the lake was as smooth as glass, there were hardly any bugs, and the fish were biting like crazy! I caught probably 40 or 50 in the few hours we were there, Renée and the others caught lots too! We only kept one to eat, which of course Renée caught. It was 10 lbs and 34” long. With the tackle we were using, that’s the largest we could get into the boat. Most of the ones I caught were about 5 lbs or so. I caught one that felt much larger, but when I got him within 30’ of the boat he got tired of playing with me, flipped his tail and took off, taking my lure and line right along with him. He snapped that line like it wasn’t even there. I guess they have a lot of fish in the 60-80 lb range in that lake, and now I believe it! I wish I’d had heavier gear! I caught one about the size of Renée’s, but the net was busy at the time, so when I tried to lift him out of the water, the line broke. It was only 8 lb test. It was a great evening with wonderful friends, and we got pictures of bald eagles and a Yukon sunset, taken at 12:15 a.m. (There are some perks senior couples get that the young missionaries don’t!) We ate part of the fish yesterday for lunch, invited a part-member family over. The fish was delicious. There is nothing like fresh pike! Large, white, flaky meat, tender. We still have half of it left to munch on for the next few days. They do have lots of sharp teeth, though!

A few weeks ago we drove up to Dawson with one of our couples we are working with. It was fun to see the area of the big Klondike Gold Rush. It is just a small tourist town now, probably about 1500 year-round residents, but at the turn of the 20^th century, it was about 70,000. There was more volume of gold taken from there than from any other individual gold strike in North America, and it was from the first ship arriving in San Francisco in 1897 that the phrase came from, “it was carrying a ton of gold!” More than 100,000 “stampeders” headed for Dawson, most of them up through Skagway and over either the Chilkoot or the White pass to trek the additional 500 miles to Dawson. The trek was brutal with temperatures -40F or below, and they had to physically pack 1000 lbs of supplies over the pass for each person, or the Mounties wouldn’t let them into Canada. Too many in the past had starved, and caused starvation in the small towns along the way. By the time most of the stampeders made it to Dawson, all of the claims were taken, and most of them ended up working to build the Yukon-White Pass Railroad, or worked in the mines for the companies that owned them. By 1900 the rush was over, and most everyone left for Nome, the next gold rush. Many of the mines in Dawson are still operating, and they took out huge quantities of lead and zinc as well. We went up to several of the mines and saw some of the abandoned equipment, dredges, etc. I even got to pan for gold on Bonanza Creek, just 100’ downstream from where the original strike was. They must have been pretty thorough, though. I didn’t even find one flake! (Of course, it might have helped if I’d had a gold pan instead of a plastic salad bowl!)

We have loved the missionary work, we get acquainted with so many wonderful people. We have been teaching the Ng family since we got here, and they are still progressing. We have come to love them dearly, and do a lot of things with them. They are attending church regularly now, and we are hoping that Beth will want to be baptized before we get transferred next month. Canadian law only lets us stay for six months on our visas, so we have to be back in the US before August 6^th. It’s going to be hard to leave here. We have seen Tim and Beth and the kids grow so much, and they have learned to love the gospel. We have also been teaching Daniel again, but this time as a captive audience. He was put back in jail for parole violation, he was throwing water balloons at 9:10 p.m., and his probation curfew was 9:00 p.m. so now he gets to spend 8 months behind bars. We gave him a lesson last week on modern prophets, and left him a copy of Pres. Monson’s talk on the “three R’s of choice.” When we talked to him Friday, he said he had gotten the point! He’s in his late twenties, has three kids and a “wife” that are home without a dad and a wage-earner. Our choices affect many! He doesn’t have any major offences, just a string of stupid stunts like that, plus a few drunk and disorderly. The Gospel will certainly improve his family’s life when he gains his testimony!

We are also teaching a couple of young ladies from the Philippines. There are a LOT of Pilipino people here, we have three couples in the branch, and a lot of them work in the local businesses here. Anyway, Ester and Carmina have been coming to a Family Home Evening group we have been teaching at one of the member’s homes, and we asked them if we could teach them about the church. I don’t know how it will go, as they are both active Catholics, but they are very friendly and receptive, and we have enjoyed teaching them. Ester said after her Catechism, she taught it to others for awhile. In our lesson last night we talked about commandments, and in the course of the discussion we mentioned Abraham and Isaac, and how the sacrifice he was asked to make was to teach us of the coming sacrifice of the Son of God, as well as to test Abraham’s obedience. Ester said, “I have taught that story many times, but it never occurred to me that it was a symbol of the sacrifice of the Savior!” We told her that is one of the blessings of a restored gospel!

We went to Juneau last week for a zone conference; we were there for three days, two of which were intensive training, the other one (actually two halves) were in traveling. We have to drive to Skagway, catch a plane to Juneau, then drive to a motel. Juneau is the only state capital you can’t drive to! You have to either go by air or sea. There is one main road in Juneau that is 50 miles long that follows the coast. Of course, there are many roads around town, and they have thousands of cars, trucks, and busses, but it dawned on us that every one of them had to be brought in by ferry. Gas there is $4.38/gallon, but we thought that was a bargain after paying $5.50/gal for it here in Whitehorse. Guess it’s just a matter of perspective! Since everything has to be shipped in, milk is $5.50/gal, eggs 2.50, etc. Much like it is here in Whitehorse.

Anyway, the zone conference was fun, we learned a lot, got to meet 18 other missionaries in our zone plus see the Senior CES couple, the Shindlers, again who are serving in Juneau and Haines. They ferry back and forth. On the last evening of our training, Pres. Dance excused us and the Shindlers so we could go visit and see stuff. We went to see the famous Mendenhall glacier, saw some big-horn sheep through a spotting scope, and just drove around and saw Juneau. The weather was beautiful this time. When we were there in February, it was raining like crazy and we didn’t get to see a thing! Juneau is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains and pine forests, with the ocean along one full side.

I have decided that the weather here in Whitehorse in the summer makes up for winter! It is absolutely beautiful here! The days have been in the low to mid 70s, very little wind. We had some rain last week, but it is a light rain that brings out the flowers. This area is heavily wooded by pines and spruce, much like the Island Park area, with lots of birch, alder, aspen and willows filling in the open spots. The wild flowers are blooming everywhere. When we drove up to Dawson the roads were lined with wild sweet-peas, lupine, narrow-leaf arnica, fireweed, forget-me-nots, bluebells, daisies, geraniums, and many others I don’t recognize. Renée takes pictures of them lots. We’ve also seen lots of wildlife. On the way home from Skagway last week we saw 9 bears along the road. These were all black bears. On the way to Dawson we saw 7, two of them grizzlies. We also see a lot of coyotes, foxes, a few elk and deer, but so far no moose or caribou. The mosquitoes are pretty plentiful, and the big ones are really big, but the ones I don’t like are the tiny “no-see-‘ems” that bite like crazy and leave big bumps, but you don’t even see them. I guess the black flies are supposed to be out in the next week, and they bite chunks out of you. I can hardly wait!

We had a good day at church yesterday, although none of our investigators attended. There was a city league soccer tournament scheduled at church time, and I guess the lure of the world is still greater than the lure of eternity. Even the daughter of our high counselor missed to play. Kind of a dilemma when they barely have enough kids to field a team, and if one of them misses, the team has to forfeit the game. I guess they did win the game, though, only the second one they have won this season. Renée spoke in Sacrament Meeting, taught part of our temple prep class during Sunday School, then taught the Relief Society lesson. She was glad when the meetings were over. She spoke on “Responsibilities of Freedom,” since this Friday is Canada Day, and Monday is the 4^th of July. Of course they don’t celebrate the 4^th of July here, only Canada day. She did a really good job on all of them. We’re kind of sad that we have to go to Juneau again this week on Thursday to meet our new mission president. We come back late Friday, so we will miss Canada day all together because we’ll be in Alaska. Then we’ll miss the 4^th because we will be back in Canada. Oh, well. Guess we’ll wait till next year.

We get our new mission president this week. It was supposed to be Pres. Clark, but he was switched at the last minute with Pres. Beasley that was supposed to serve in Moscow, Russia. He is a retired high level Air Force test pilot, and I guess they were worried about security complications, so he and Pres. Clark traded places. I don’t know anything about him yet, but will be fun to meet him on Friday. I’m sure his personality will be totally different from Pres. and Sis. Dance. Will send pictures and more information next time I write.

Well, I guess I’d better be going for now. I hope all things are going well for all of you. We are enjoying our experience here and learning so much. I have learned how important it is to study the Gospel more, to read the Book of Mormon at least 15 minutes a day, and to ponder and pray about what I have read. I am learning how our Father in Heaven uses small, seemingly insignificant events that are in fact miracles to guide each of us in our daily lives. I have learned that little acts of service mean much more to others than I would have imagined. I have learned that even active members of the church need contact and love too. I have learned that we are our own greatest hindrances to our eternal happiness, and that God would bless us with much greater blessings if we could be worthy of them. I heard a quote that I thought was so true: “Lord, help me endure the blessings I asked for that you granted in order to teach me patience.” My testimony is definitely still growing, and I have a long way to go. May the Lord’s blessings be with you in all you do, and may we all strive to grow closer to our Heavenly Father.

Love, Elder & Sister Powell