Letter

Dearest Family, May 27, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Dad and Mom.

Journal

May 15, 2011

Dear Family and Friends

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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Dad and Mom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Easter!

Dearest family,

Happy Easter!

I hope you have a fun day with your families, and that the kids got to go hunt Easter Eggs yesterday. I hope the weather was good for you, it was beautiful here. It got up to 47 degrees, the warmest day we’ve had so far.  Several people were out raking the thatch on their lawns. It is really nice to be able to go out without our heavy coats on, usually just wear a sweater or light jacket.

We drove over to Skagway again yesterday, took baptismal clothing over for Brandy Mayo who was able to get baptized finally. She is pretty excited, as she has waited a whole year. It was really a nice service, her parents attended and it was good to meet them. She will be confirmed today during Sacrament meeting, but we didn’t have a place to stay the night, so we came on back over. Skagway is a town of only about 800 people during the off-season, but the big cruise ships start coming in the first of May (I think the first one is May 5^th), and the town will swell to about 5000 for the summer. It’s a fun tourist town, there are lots of fun shops and things to see from the gold rush era, and it’s one of the major stops on the cruise lines. Reminds me a lot of Virginia City, Nevada or the gold towns of California. Some of the little shops were starting to open, and we thought we’d have time to look at some yesterday, but we got hung up at the US border crossing for about an hour, so we didn’t have time. A lot of people were on the road for the holiday, and they only had one border guy there, so it took a long time to process the 15 or 20 cars in front of us. We made it about 15 minutes before the baptism, and we had all the baptismal clothes. Skagway is such a small branch they don’t have many of their own, and they are almost all in kids sizes. They only have about 25 people who attend in the winter, but between 75-100 each week during the tourist season. They have quite a few young people from BYU and BYU-I that come to work here in the summer, kind of like Warren did in Juneau, I guess.

The work is a little slower this week, we ended up only teaching about 5 lessons this week, but we had some great visits with some of the less-active and part-member families in our branch. They are really good people, but many of them have just let the things they want most get in the way of the things that matter most. It’s so easy to get into the mindset of the world. The family we are living with is putting on an Easter dinner for anyone in the branch that doesn’t have family plans, with ham and turkey and all the trimmings. Mom is helping her with it, as she hasn’t done a feed for that many people yet. It should be a fun thing, though we have no idea how many are going to show up. Mom cooked an extra ham just in case the ones they have don’t end up being enough.

Well, I guess I’d better get ready for church. We didn’t have our early correlation meeting today because it’s Easter, which is kind of nice because it gives us extra time this morning. Sacrament meeting isn’t until 10:00 a.m. but that’s only an hour away, so I’d better get ready.

We sure love all of you, and hope you have a great day. Remember that our hearts are with you, and that we love and miss you all! Be sure to give the grand kids our hugs and loves.

Love, Dad and Mom

Journal April

Dear Family and Friends,

Here it is time to write again already. Last Saturday we drove over to Skagway to meet with a young 18 year-old lady that had the missionary lessons last year before they took the elders out for the winter. She wanted to join the church, but her parents told her she couldn’t join until she turned 18 because they weren’t sure it was the best thing for her. She turned 18 in February, and we have been trying to make contact with her. She is delightful, and excited to get baptized. She has already been accepted to BYU this fall. She and her debate partner are flying to Washington DC next month to participate in an international debate tournament, so you can tell she’s sharp! We have set her baptism for next Saturday, and she will be confirmed the next day, on Easter Sunday. They moved missionaries into Skagway this week, so they will be handling all of the arrangements, but we still need to go over because they don’t have any baptismal clothes, so we’ll take them ours. It’s about 2 ½ hours from here, and the drive is beautiful, much like driving over Jackson pass, only here it’s the White pass where most of the miners climbed in the winter of 1879 during the days of the Klondike Gold Rush. Of course it took them 2 ½ months to make the trip, and they had to carry 1000 lbs of supplies over on their backs just to be admitted into Canada! We’ll come back Saturday evening, as we will have investigators out to church Sunday and we need to be here to greet them.

We have been staying busy, wishing we had more time! We updated the branch list, and have been visiting less actives and part-member families. We have loved getting acquainted with them, and have had some delightful visits. We are going to try to visit everyone in the branch, then will try to be sensitive enough to the Spirit to know who we should try to work with first to help them get back to church. We have some returned missionaries that we’d like to get back, they are awesome people, mostly just kind of got out of the habit of coming for one reason or another. Some of them married outside of the church, and it’s hard to stay excited when there isn’t much support at home. We’ve also gotten to do some service for various people, both members and others. I helped one of the members put spark plugs and an oxygen sensor in his car last week, then this morning helped him get a stripped oil plug out so he could change his oil. This afternoon I helped a less-active troubleshoot and fix an electrical problem in his house. One of his switches was burned out, so his stairs light would only turn on from one switch, and then only if the other switch was in the other position. It wouldn’t work at all from the bottom switch. Was tricky to diagnose without a tester or meter, but we got it fixed and had a great visit while we worked on it. His wife isn’t a member, but we have been teaching her and the two kids, and it has been fun to get to know them. They are receptive, but want to progress slowly. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with them, as they have a hard time getting used to the “Old English.” We taught them about baptism and the Holy Ghost yesterday, and they were receptive. They had one of their friends sit in who is a Seventh Day Adventist, and he seemed really interested, but had missed the earlier discussions. We are going to see if he’d be interested in “catching up” next time we visit with him.

Day before yesterday we went with them out to Watson Lake to Swan Haven to see the migration of the trumpeter swans. There are thousands of them that move through here on their way north to the nesting grounds. We were really excited, and took our cameras so we could send pictures. Right! Turns out they are out in the middle of the lake where the ice has melted a channel through, and they look like little dots through spotting scopes they set up so you can see them. There were about 100 of them out there, though. There is about half a mile of slushy ice about a foot deep between them and us! Maybe in a couple of weeks if it warms up really fast enough of the ice will melt that they will move closer to the shore of the lake! Just when we think it’s going to warm up, it snows again. We got about 3” this morning, but it did warm up to 37, so most of it has melted off today. We did have a pretty stiff breeze that helped, but it made the wind chill about 15, so we didn’t stand around outside enjoying it much.

It’s been fun seeing the weather warm up, the ice on the Yukon River is breaking up with big slabs floating down the river. They are still about a foot thick, and often 20 or 30 feet across. When they float to where the river hasn’t melted they turn up on edge and make big ice dams. There aren’t enough to block the river, though, so we’re not in danger of any flooding. I guess some years they get Chinook winds that melt things really fast and then they get dams that bock the river and get floods. Not much danger of that this year, though.

We picked up another couple this week, will start teaching them next week. We had some other good lessons this week, we have three couples that we are teaching, but they have small children and are easily distracted, so the wives of all three families have stopped sitting in on the lessons. I think they are embarrassed that their kids interrupt us. We have tried to schedule later, but the kids still get up and interrupt. The husbands seem receptive; guess we’ll see what we can work out. We discussed it a Branch Council Sunday, and some of the members said they might invite them to their houses so they can help with the kids. We’ll see if they are receptive to that when we teach them this week.

Well, not a lot to write about this week. Our weeks are pretty “same,” we are enjoying the study time we get each morning. I finished reading the Book of Mormon again, amazing how much more there is to it when you study it and don’t just read it. I’m going to start again and make notes of scriptures I want to memorize to use in teaching. We use it so much more in our teaching than we did when I was a young missionary, and it’s so much more effective. We loved watching general conference two weeks ago, and I was really excited to hear Pres. Monson announce the temple in Winnipeg! I served four months there on my mission, and there were four wards in one stake at that time, and that included all of Manitoba! Of course, when I served in St. Paul, Minnesota for 8 months there were two branches, with two wards in Minneapolis. Now they have a temple too! Guess some of the seeds sprouted after all! I served in the North Central States mission, and now there are 5 missions that cover that area. When I went out there were 12,000 missionaries, 1.5 million members of the church, 36 general authorities, and 12 temples in the world. The president of the church was David O. McKay, the newest “junior” apostle was Boyd K. Packer, and I reported for 5 days to the old “Mission Home” at 50 N. Temple in Salt Lake City. Guess that tells you how old I am. Wonder what changes we’ll see in the next 48 years!

I hope you are all doing well, we love you and appreciate your prayers and thoughts in our behalf. We definitely feel your support and love. We love getting your letters and hearing what is going on in your lives.

Love, Mom & Dad (Elder & Sister Powell)

April 4 journal

Dear Family and Friends,
How the time flies! We are enjoying being in our apartment, although Mom is still moving things around and getting everything more to her liking. We have been pretty busy with stuff, so haven’t had time to spend as much time “moving in” as we would like. I’m not sure what’s keeping us so busy, but it seems like we just get started and something comes up and we’re gone for several hours.
We started teaching two new families this last week, both young couples with two or three kids. As is normal here, they’re not married to each other, but have been living together for several years. Then they start having marital problems and look for solutions. We are happy to help! We taught one couple the first discussion last week, and are going to teach them the second one tonight. The other couple we have met with twice, and will teach them again tomorrow night. We’ll probably review the 1st discussion, since the “wife” wasn’t there the first night. She was really friendly last time, though. We invited them to general conference Sunday, but they didn’t come. One of our families that we have been working with for a few weeks did come to the Sunday morning session, stayed for the luncheon afterwards, then left before the second session. We’ll meet with them again on Wednesday, so will see how they liked it. They are the ones we challenged to get married and begin living the word of wisdom a couple of weeks ago. When we met with them on Saturday night after conference, they still weren’t ready to get married yet (They’ve only been together for 22 years), and haven’t quit smoking yet. But they’re still learning, and hopefully soon their hearts will be touched and they will be ready to make changes. We taught them about faith in Christ again this last week, and talked about how important it is for us to form a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father and our Savior. They seemed very receptive to it. The Gospel is really a giant step for someone with little religious background, but the potential is so great!
We started teaching a lady from Nigeria on Friday, she runs a day-care center here in town. She seems very receptive, but when we went to teach her she had a visitor from Germany that sat in on the lesson. He was older, about our age, but very negative. He stressed that he doesn’t believe in God, that there is no such person as Jesus Christ, and that all religion is a waste of time. We tried to tell him of our beliefs, but he said he didn’t want to hear it, and that religion is just a crutch, and that he didn’t want to hear our message. But he didn’t leave. We gave what message we could to Lillian and made an appointment to teach her again this weekend, but don’t know what kind of reception we’ll have. Guess we’ll see this Saturday.
We are going to Skagway on Thursday to meet with a girl named Brandy who had the missionary lessons last summer, but her parents wouldn’t let her get baptized until she turned 18, which was in February. She wants to get baptized, so we’re going to go over and review the discussions and the baptismal interview questions to see if she’s ready. If she is, we’ll set a baptismal date and initiate the interview process and set up a program. I visited with her on the phone last night, and she seems really sharp and excited that we called. I talked to her branch mission leader a couple of times, but they don’t seem to know what the process is, so we’ll meet with him Thursday too. It’s a three-hour drive to Skagway, but we’re ready for a road-trip. There is still quite a bit of snow, but the weather has warmed up into the high 30’s and lower 40s, so it’s starting to melt and we’re beginning to see some bare ground here and there. It is going to be just beautiful when the snow melts and all of the deciduous trees begin to leaf out and the wildflowers bloom. It’s staying light until after 9:00 p.m. now, so will drive back Thursday night.
It’s fun to be here in the spring (late winter?). The ice on the Yukon is beginning to break up and there are starting to be huge chunks of ice beginning to form ice dams on the river. Mom took some pictures this morning, but I don’t have them downloaded yet. Some of the ice is a foot thick, slabs 15’ across sticking up out of the water with whirlpools swirling around them. Last Friday on the way home from Seminary (I got to teach Friday and Monday while the regular teacher was out of town) we saw a bald eagle fishing from the ice at the edge of the river right here in town. It was as big as a large turkey! We watched it for awhile from just across the river and it didn’t seem to care. We mentioned it to someone after conference on Saturday and people said, “Yeah, we see them all the time.” Well, we thought it was cool! :-} It is really nice to be able to go outside without long-johns on and two pairs of socks. When we’re going to be out for awhile we still dress warmer, because it’s pretty windy most of the time and even though it’s in the 30s it doesn’t take long to cool off with the wind chill. We are liking the extra sunlight, though. It gets light about 6:00 a.m., and stays late longer every day. The day stays lighter for about 10 minutes more each day, and you can see the difference from the beginning of the week to the end of the week. I guess it has to do that if it’s going to stay light all night within another month or two.
I think the local townspeople are enjoying the warmer weather and extra light too. When we go to town there are lots of people out walking and moving about, and a lot more traffic on the streets. Whitehorse is a fairly large town of about 30,000 people, but feels like a small town until people get out and start moving about. There is a lot of dust in the air from all of the dirt they put on the icy roads all winter, and that doesn’t help my allergies much. We’ve had to wash our car every two or three days because it gets so dirty from the mud and the water running down the roads we can hardly tell what color it’s supposed to be! They have a car wash here like the ones we used to use years ago, where you put in a quarter for 5 minutes spray. Except here they charge a dollar for one minute. Usually takes about $4 just to wash off the main layer of mud and dirt. We’ll do the extra special zippy waxie wash when the water stops running across all of the roads and the dust has time to settle. We wouldn’t mind a good rainstorm to wash everything off, but guess that doesn’t come for awhile yet. Still comes down as snow when it storms, though it doesn’t stay as long as it used to.
It was really great to watch conference! We got to watch it all except for Pres. Eyring’s talk on Saturday morning. We had made arrangements to watch one of our contacts play in his little-league hockey tournament, and the Saturday morning game is the only one that wasn’t during a full session of conference. It’s the first time Mom has seen a real ice hockey game, and it was pretty exciting, even though our team lost 12 to 1. Hockey is really a fast-moving game, and it’s really rough and physical. They won their game on Saturday night, lost Sunday morning, and played again yesterday afternoon. I don’t know how they did in that one yet, but they were behind by one point in the second period. Last year in October we missed most of conference because we were on the road to Troys in Texas and couldn’t get it on the radio. We read it in the Ensign, but somehow it’s just not the same! I can hardly wait for next month’s Ensign to come, as I want to read each of the talks again after having heard them. There is so much wonderful information that I just couldn’t absorb it that fast! How blessed we are to be able to listen to modern-day prophets and apostles! Maybe it’s just that we’re more in tune by the nature of where we are and what we’re doing. If so, I hope to be more in tune for the rest of my life. We watched it at the church, since it’s not televised on any station here, but it was much easier to stay awake, and we had a “linger-longer” luncheon between sessions on both Saturday and Sunday, which gave us a great chance to visit and talk about the talks. After the priesthood session we guys had apple pie and ice cream. Since there were only about 10 who showed up, there was plenty to go around!
Well, I guess there isn’t much more to report, except that we are enjoying our experience. We are making a lot of great new friends, and it’s fun to be in a small branch with all of its struggles and challenges. We just studied section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants where it says, “…These things shall give the experience, and shall be for thy good.” We’re getting lots of really good experience! It’s fun to be able to teach the gospel, but hard when people choose not to live it because it’s difficult, and we can see the joys and blessings in their lives that they are forfeiting because of those decisions. I’m sure our Father in Heaven feels the same way as he sees us make unwise decisions that rob us of the blessings associated with those laws upon which those blessings are predicated.
I hope you are all well, and that you had the opportunity to participate in conference. We love you, and miss you, and think of you often. We love to hear from you, and pray that you will feel the blessings of our Father in Heaven in your lives daily.
Love, Elder and Sister Powell (Mom and Dad).

Moving Experience!

Dearest Family,

Well, we finally got moved! Our apartment is ALMOST done, so we began moving our stuff in Friday morning, finished it up Saturday morning. We have a TON of stuff, I don't know where it all came from, or where it's going to go when we ever get transferred to somewhere else. Mom has been sorting and putting stuff away. I have been working on the kitchen cabinets, the guy never did show up to finish them up for us, so I built shelves for the ones that were just open, stained the trim, etc. so there was some place to put our food and dishes and stuff. I need to go to Home Hardware and pick up a lazy-susan for the corner cabinet that didn't ever get done, and put that in tomorrow so mom can put her baking stuff away. We were hoping the landlord would get it for us yesterday so we didn't have to buy it, as it costs $60, but he didn't, so we'll get it. That should be the last major thing we have to get for awhile. Some of the cabinets don't have doors on them, but we can live with that. There is a guy that's supposed to be having the doors made, but don't think it will happen any time soon.

The apartment is quite a bit smaller than the one we were in, but at least we're not having to live around all of his mother's stuff. We just have our stuff. We did get hooked up to the Internet yesterday finally, we were a few days without it. This one is lots slower, but hey--it works! The one over at Ngs was blazing fast, really spoiled us. I guess we'll get used to it. We are sharing wireless with the family upstairs, and their kids are on it a lot, so that slows it down. But at least we don't have to buy Internet on a long-term contract since we can't be here for more than four more months, as our visa will expire.

I am going to try to borrow the magic jack phone from Tim tonight so we can call you up sometimes. We called Warren on it last week, and it worked pretty good. Nice thing is that it doesn't cost hardly anything to call, but downside is that if there is a bad Internet connection, the call quality isn't the greatest. I still haven't gotten a new mike for Skype yet, don't know how well it will work with a slow connection anyway. Our stuff is downloading at about 24 kb/sec so it takes forever to download a large file. And our signal isn't very good because we're down in the basement quite a ways from the server.

The weather here is finally moderating, today it is up to 44, the snow is beginning to melt, and the roads are wet and muddy. Our car was so dirty you could hardly tell what color it was supposed to be, so we found a car wash and squirted it off. They don't have any automatic washes here, so we went to a do-it-yourself one that you put in a dollar and it runs for about 2 minutes, then you put in another dollar. It took three dollars to get even the first major layer of dirt off. I decided it was good enough for now, since the roads are so wet it looks about the same in about 5 miles. Gas has stabilized at about $5.50/gal, which is nice, but they expect it to go up some more. We just have to bite the bullet and put in $75-80 each time, and try to not let it get clear empty. Other than that, the car has been running great. I'm glad we didn't bring the pickup, we wouldn't have been able to afford to drive!

Brent, it is so exciting to hear that you have been in your new office for two weeks! I'm sure things will pick up as word gets around, but will probably be kind of hard for awhile. It's hard to believe that Colby is walking already, how time flies! I'll bet Kaydin is enjoying gymnastics, it will do so much for her throughout her life. I'll bet Kiley is enjoying getting settled, getting everything moved into your new home and hopefully getting all of the boxes unpacked. I'll bet it was really hectic with building the clinic and everything.

Russ, I hope your job is doing OK now. It can really frustrating to have to work with a jerk for a boss. Just remember Murphy's Law: Most people are promoted to their highest level of incompetence, then remain there. Classic example. Unfortunately, the rest of us just have to learn how to roll with it and survive in spite of them. At least you have a good, stable job in an area of high demand, and you are making good money. You will have a lot more freedom when you get your finances under control in another year or two. It's hard now, but will be better then. Hope Zach's pickup is still running well, but imagine the price of gas has made it hard for him. Stay strong in the church, it's where the true blessings come from, you know.

Ed, I'm glad you're getting your Camry going. I did e-mail you back when you wrote me, hope you get this one OK. Maybe you're kids thought you had read it and deleted it. I'm glad you got the struts changed up at the college, I'd take it in and have the toe checked, by the time you notice any wear on the tires you have already lost thousands of miles. I suggested you have it checked at Call's Sinclair, or up at the college when they put in the back struts. They should align it for the back anyway, as changing the struts will probably change the rear camber and toe settings, which will wear out the back tires pretty fast. Hopefully you won't have to change any back bearings. What color is this Camry? I'm glad you were able to borrow a scanner from Checker, I've used mine several times here. Funny how fast you make friends when people find out you can diagnose their cars. I did a Saab yesterday that has a bad 02 sensor. It also had a crankcase breather code, and when I took the oil filler cap off it crumbled in my hand. Now he has to get a new one, but has to order it online and will take about three weeks to get it. I told him I hoped he really likes his Saab. He said it didn't matter, it takes a long time to get parts for any car in the Yukon. Hope our car doesn't break! I brought that green plastic tool box with what tools I could stuff in it, and have used every one of them, plus wished I had a few more. Fortunately, several of the members here are in construction, so we've borrowed compressors, nailers, chop-saws and everything else we've needed. The people are great about lending stuff, and we've made some great friends working together.

Teresa, your new cabinets sound awesome! That's a great deal on them! I know you've wanted them for a long time, figured we would just come down and help you put them in when we got home, but you'll probably have them all done by then.

Shaun, I loved your letter about your three jobs. I'm sure it's a struggle to do them all, just don't let them get in the way of your family. I'm sure the activities center thing is fun, but if it takes you away from the family it probably isn't worth what you're making. Of course, it sounds like you've already come to that conclusion. I'm glad Mike got his other business. Is he keeping both busy? I hope the weather there is getting better, as we see the weather reports it looks like you're getting a lot of wind and rain. I'd imagine it's kind of hard to fly in those conditions. We haven't gotten any weather here to speak of, except cold. Most of the snow and rain that was supposed to hit us went around, or we'd get a tiny skiff of powder that would blow off when you drove because the cars were so cold it couldn't stick. It was fun to hear about Summer's blessing and the family fun you all had. It made us homesick and we wished we could have been there too.

Warren, it was fun to get to visit with you the other night. It sounds like you guys are really doing well. I hope you hear from your universities soon, and that you get to do what you want. Thanks for taking care of the place so well. It is a comfort to us to know you are there to keep things working. The story about Sarah was hilarious. Hope you are getting her car fixed. She must have fixed it really good if you ended up having to get a different block for it. Must have thrown a rod through the block?

Amber, mom loved her talk with you last week. It sounds like you guys are doing well. I hope your deal with the house goes though. It would be nice to get one while the rates are low. This tiny apartment here, two rooms, costs us $900/mo. Rent is high here because the housing crunch hasn't hit here, they're still building like crazy. With the price of gold so high mines are expanding operations here. If things keep going like they are, they expect Whitehorse to expand to 200,000 people in the next ten years. Of course, that's what they said during the gold rush of 1900, but it didn't happen then either. I'll bet Sam is getting darling! Be sure to send us pictures! (But compress them, because of our slow connection!)

Troy, it's fun to get Olivia and Levi's blogs, hope you guys are doing well. It sounds like you've really done some fun things together. How is work going? Are you staying busy? Are you still working for the software developing company on the side? How is Emma's photography business going? It looks like Zoe is getting cuter every day! Give them all a hug from us. When we get our Skype, we'll try to talk to them all again. It will be fun.

Well, I guess I'd better be going. Our new address is 98 Alsek Rd, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, Y18-3K6. Our cell number is 867-335-6142. We don't have a land-line, but hope to get one pretty soon. We'll also try to get our Skype hooked up pretty soon. It would be fun to hear from you. When our Magic Jack is working you can call us on an Idaho number at 208-258-9913. I'll try to get it working in the next day or so.
It's hard to believe that we have been here in Whitehorse for two months tomorrow. How fast time flies! I hope you are all feeling fine, I had another bout with bronchitis last weekend, but am feeling OK again now. Maybe I'll do better now that I'm not out in the bitter cold as much.
We love you all,
Dad and Mom.

March Journal

March 9, 2011

Dear family and friends,

How time flies when you’re having fun! It seems as if we’re really busy here, but we don’t have a lot to show for it! It is still cold here, but we’re getting used to it, and it is moderating a bit. I guess that’s because we’re moving into spring! It only got down to -15F this morning, was -8 when we went to Wal-mart after our Seminary class, and now it’s all the way up to -1 on our car thermometer. That sounds pretty cold until you realize that we have been having overnight lows between -25 and -35F and daily highs of -10 to -5. I caught bronchitis last week, so spent a few days trying to recover, and am feeling better. I think it was a combination of the cold, plus the dust from the insulation on our apartment, dust from the sheet-rock, and the fact that almost everybody we have visited this past two weeks has been either getting sick, or getting over it. I got pretty chilled at the rendezvous last weekend, and that didn’t help either. It was -15 with a wind-chill of -30F, and my stupid new coat I bought in Rexburg that was supposed to be so warm had a defective zipper, so whenever I zipped it up, it promptly un-zipped from the other end. Anyway, the next day we went to a local store and I bought a new warm coat. It is really nice and MUCH warmer, especially since the zipper works. I would send my other coat back for warranty, but it costs a lot to mail stuff from here to there. Much more than China to the US. I sent two books back, one to Rexburg and one to Burley. It cost $65, and the books cost less than that originally. We decided that we won’t send anything anywhere unless we go to Alaska and mail it from there. Even a mailed letter to the US is $1.25. Thank the Lord for e-mail!

      Our apartment work is progressing. We have worked several days on it last week and this week, and we are hoping that we can move sometime next week. We finished the sheet-rock, finished the taping and sanding. Got the ceilings textured, and got the whole thing painted inside. Monday we went over and installed the flooring, the owner had a guy come over and lay the carpet in the bedroom, for which I was really grateful. About all we have left now is to get the electrician to come back and finish the wiring. To meet code, it has to be done by a licensed electrician, which is fine with me. We also have to wait for another guy to come install the kitchen cabinets so we can finish the plumbing. The cabinets are take-outs from somewhere else, so they don’t fit, but the guy is a friend of the owners and is a cabinet maker. He is also a less-active member, so we went over and helped him for awhile the other night, and had a good visit. We are hoping we can visit him more, and see if we can get them back to church. He is really a fun, sharp guy, and would really be a help to the branch if we could bring them back. He is also trying to blend two different kinds of countertop, and doesn’t like that very much. Things are terribly expensive up here! They want over $1000 just for a cheap laminate countertop like you can buy there for $69 at Home Depot. Problem is, they don’t have any Home Depots here. The closest one is in Vancouver, B.C., which is three days drive South of here. It will be nice when it’s done though. We’ve gotten along great here in the apartment we are in, and have had some great visits with the people we are staying with. He is a less-active member, his wife is not a member. They are really good people, and we had them out to church last week. This week they were at a hockey tournament that the son was playing in down in Watson Lake, about 6 hours away, and it was over the weekend, so they couldn’t come to church. When they got back, we had a great visit, and Bro. Ng (pronounced “ing”) said he really enjoyed going to church, and missed it the week they were gone. He wants to come again this Sunday. He works night shift as a security officer at Yukon College, but gets off at 8:00 a.m., so can make church at 10. He’s kind of tired, but said he could do it, then go home and sleep afterward to be ready for work again. His wife, Beth, enjoyed attending, and we are going to start teaching her this weekend. We are pretty excited. For that reason, we will feel bad about moving to the other side of town, but we’ll be sure to come back and visit often!

The reason we are building the apartment and not just renting somewhere else is because there aren’t any apartments to rent. The housing crunch hasn’t hit here, so prices are still high, and there is still a major shortage of available housing. One of the members of our branch presidency just bought another duplex to use just as a rental. It has a three-bedroom apartment, and a two-bedroom apartment. The two-bedroom rents for $1200/mo and the three-bedroom one goes for $1500 to $1600/mo. Both are plus utilities. Heating here costs a lot because they either have to use heating oil (diesel) at $6.00/gallon, or propane at $5/gallon. A few people use wood because there is plenty here, but it is so expensive to get it out that most just use propane. They don’t have natural gas here, so that isn’t an option. If you heat with electricity, it usually runs $1200-$1500/mo during the winter. The houses are built really well here, with double-wall, double insulation construction, and either triple-glazed or double-double glazed windows, but when it says -20 to -50 below for months at a time, it still takes a lot to heat a home. I really like the mild climate of Rexburg!

While Ng’s were in Watson Lake, we got to “babysit” their dog. It is a little short-haired lap-dog of some kind that has really security issues. We haven’t been here long enough for it to really accept us, so while they were gone Sushi whined and moaned and yapped the whole time. It didn’t bother us as much during the day (most of it, we were gone), but she also kept us up all night! Next day was the same. That night ReNee slept on the sofa in the living room with a pillow beside the couch, and every time Sushi started to cry, she’d reach over and pat her and tell her it was all right. Well, the dog and I got a little more sleep, but ReNee didn’t! I think we were as happy as the dog was when the Ng’s got home about 10:30 Sunday night! At least Sushi will come down and visit us when we’re home now, and doesn’t whine nearly as much while Beth is in school and Tim is at work. Beth is finishing her degree at the college in elder-care, and will graduate in April. She’s pretty excited. She goes to school a week, then works at the Senior center a week on her practicum.

There are several of the families here in the branch that do day-care. They have two levels. One is called “home care” where they can have up to three children without major training or a license. Of course they can’t charge as much either. Then they have “day care” where they can have up to 15 kids in their home, but they have to have schooling and licenses to do that. They can make pretty good money doing that. They get $500/mo per kid, so if you take 10 kids, it turns into pretty good money. And the money is provided by the government, so you don’t have to worry about whether you are going to get paid or not. A lot of the wives are making as much or more than the husbands are. Of course, things cost more up here, too.

Some of our kids have written and complained at how fast gas is rising there. It costs $4.00/gallon now! That’s outrageous! When we got here, gas was $1.20/liter, which translates to $4.80/gallon. Of course, prices have been jumping here, too. When it jumps 5c, it’s per liter, which is really .20/gallon. It’s going up here every day or two, too. We’re up to $1.30/liter now. I try not to let my car get too low, especially in this cold weather, so when we gas up it usually only costs $73-75 to fill it. That’s not quite as hard to take as the $90 to $100 if it gets really low. But it sure beats walking in this weather! We live in a suburb called Granger that is about 5 miles from downtown, and 8 mi from the church, so we are putting quite a lot of miles on our car. We drive all over visiting, so we are gassing up about once or twice every week. I can see why they say this is a more expensive mission. Between that and the $1100/mo rent, it doesn’t leave lots. Groceries cost more here, milk is about $5/gallon, eggs $2.50, bananas .88/lb, bread $2.50 for the cheap stuff unless you buy day-old good stuff, which is about the same price. Tomatoes and oranges are about $2.50/lb, lettuce 3.49/head. Hamburgers at A & W or McDonalds are $8.99 for a big mac meal, soft drinks are 2.49 for a regular size, 3.49 for a large. You have to remember that Canadian and US dollars are equal now, and if you use US dollars they charge you 10% exchange fee. We have converted mostly to Canadian. A large Quizno’s sandwich runs 11.99, with an extra $2.99 if you want chips and a small drink. We don’t eat out nearly as much as we did in Rexburg! I liked the .6:1 ratio we enjoyed in China where our money went much farther!

The lady that teaches Seminary here has been gone for a week, so she asked me if I’d teach for her. It has been really fun. We meet at the church at 7:00 a.m., and they are studying the Doctrine and Covenants. We just taught sections 106-107 this week on the priesthood, and will teaching 108-109 tomorrow, which is the dedication of the Kirtland temple. We have had four students, but the girl left today to go to visit in Utah, so we’ll be down to three. One of the boys grandmother died yesterday, so he’ll be gone the rest of the week, so now two. And they usually get there about 7:20-7:30, have to be done by 8:00 for school, so it doesn’t leave a lot of time for gospel study! Of course we have to be there on time just in case someone comes on time, so we are getting a lot of good gospel study time in while we are waiting. It has given us a good chance to get to know the high school age kids, though. They are really fun, and since they are the only LDS kids in the high school, they are strong and know the gospel well. The two that came today are both too young to drive, so they have to wait till Bro. or Sis. Ramirez can bring them. They live fairly close together, and Chris’s mom isn’t very active.

Last weekend was the Sourdough Rendezvous, kind of a Mt. Man affair. It was bitter cold, but didn’t seem to make a lot of difference in attendance. It lasted three days, and we went to part of it on Friday like I mentioned above. It warmed up to -15 with a 25 mph wind, which took the wind-chill down to between -30 to -50. They had dog pulls, log-throwing competition, ice sculptures, junior and senior king and queen competitions, lots of stuff. One of the members who just joined the church from our branch participated in the “flour-packing” competition where they pile bags of flour on your back and see how far you can carry how much. He had 607 pounds on his back and carried it about 20’ when the wind caught him and blew him down. He took third place. The winners carried 730 lbs, one for 35’, the other for 20’ to take first and second. The people carrying aren’t all that big, but they’re sure tough! Russell, our member, is only about 5’8”, and probably weights about 200 lbs. He is full-blooded First Nation (Indian), and doesn’t look that strong, but he really is. He grew up in this area, and is a total outdoor survivalist. It’s not uncommon for him to spend most of a winter in the bush with nothing but his rifle and a knife. He builds and lives in brush and snow shelters, and lives off the caribou and moose that he shoots. Not much problem with spoilage at -50, and he loves the solitude. His wife also likes the outdoor, but with 5 kids she doesn’t like the outdoor camping quite as much. They are really a fun family, he and his wife got baptized the week we came to Whitehorse, the next week he was ordained a Priest, and the next weekend he baptized his 11-year old daughter. He has two more kids that are taking the lessons, we are hoping they get baptized pretty soon.

We are teaching a family named Brackenberry, a man and his common-law wife. We are only on the second discussion, will cover the gospel this Saturday when we meet with them. Will challenge them to get married, give up tobacco, coffee, and alcohol and see what comes of it. They have been to church with us three times, and seem quite receptive when we teach them. We have mentioned the word of wisdom when teaching them, and he says it will be a challenge, but he thinks they can do it. It’s been interesting. We are also teaching a young family, the Walls, that the husband is Mennonite and the wife is Catholic. Other missionaries have worked with them quite a bit, but they aren’t progressing very quickly. They like to take things very methodically, we’re hoping to strike a chord of interest somewhere. We had quite a long discussion last week on why Nephi is teaching in past tense about the baptism of the Savior in chapter 31 when the birth of the Savior is still 500 years in the future. It was an interesting discussion explaining why Nephi was quoting Isaiah, who was speaking of the latter days, and that Nephi was speaking to US, not to the people of his time, and he knew that by our standards, the birth of the Savior was 2000 years in the past. Next week we’re going to talk them about eternal marriage.

March 14, 2011

Oh, My! I got interrupted and here it is a week later! How time flies when you’re having fun! We have been working on the apartment, should be able to move into it this week. The electricians came and put in the rest of the outlets, switches, electric heaters, etc. on Thursday, the cabinet brother came and put in the rest of the bottom cabinets on Saturday. He even came to church yesterday! We were pretty excited. We still need the upper cabinets installed, but that won’t take very long. I need to also go over and finish putting in the mop boards now that the cabinets and heaters are in. It’s going to be really hard to leave the place we’ve been staying, as we’ve gotten to be really good friends with the Ngs. They come down quite often, and we’ve had great discussions about the church. Last evening they came down and brought a friend of theirs from the Philippines (that’s where Sis. Ng is from), and we talked to him about the church. He is Seventh-Day Adventist, but we told him we’d get him a Book of Mormon in Tagalog, and he said he’d read it.

Today is our prep day, but I’m helping Bro. Ng remodel his kitchen, so probably won’t get much prep done. He wanted to “open up some space,” so we cut the middle of the wall out between his kitchen and living room. He wants to put cabinets along where it was, and make an island/breakfast nook there. We had to move some wires, a heat duct, a vent pipe, and sheet rock part of the walls, but we’ve only been on it a couple of days, should finish it up in the next day or two. Takes a little while for the mud to dry, and we have to put three coats on. Then he is going to paint it. He doesn’t have the cabinets for it yet, will probably wait a little while before he buys them, they’re really expensive here.

We had some good lessons this week, taught the Brackenberrys again, challenged them to get married and quit smoking and drinking, we’ll see how receptive they are when we visit them this week. He’s fine with getting married, but his wife says she isn’t ready. They’ve only been together since 1982. He said he wants to get married for eternity, and I told him they had to get married for time before they can get baptized, then have to be active in the church for at least a year before they can go to the temple. Was a good discussion, but she wasn’t too receptive to it. We’ll see how that goes. We had another discussion with the Walls, they believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but think that God doesn’t care which church you go to, and that you don’t need the priesthood to act in His name if you are sincere. I think we will let them simmer for awhile. They said they’d finish reading the Book of Mormon, and we left them our number. The elders baptized two young boys on Saturday that came from India. We went with them to teach them on Wednesday night, and they are really sharp. One is 9, the other 11. Their mom wants to join too, but has some things to work out with her past marriage before she can. She attended the baptism and came to church yesterday.

We finally got a cell phone! We never could get one through the mission like we were supposed to, so we borrowed a phone from the people we’re going to be renting from, and will just pay them the bill when it comes each month. Only problem is if we call outside of Canada it is an “international call” so it costs a dollar a minute to talk. At least now we can call the members and other missionaries here in town. We’re going to try to get a land phone when we move, that should make it a lot easier to call family and friends in the US.

We love your letters and appreciate so much the news from home. We got pretty homesick when we heard about Summer’s blessing and the fun everybody had getting together for it. Thanks SO much for the awesome pictures Shaun! It’s fun to hear that Mike got his other shop, maybe it will help you pick up a little extra cash in all of your spare time! How is helicopter school going? Do you still have four students to teach? Are things picking up now spring is on its way? I’d imagine it’s a little hard to fly when it’s pouring rain. We’re pretty excited today! This is the first day since we’ve been here where it hasn’t gotten below zero at night! It’s +1 this morning! (Of course the wind chill is still -9, but who cares!) It’s supposed to get up to 7 today and snow, but hey! Spring is on it’s way! It is even supposed to get up to +25 by the middle of this week! They say the snow could all be gone by the end of April or the first of May. It will really be strange not to have to wear long-johns every day!

Ed, I’m so glad you’re having so much fun working on cars! I know you just can’t stand not to. I’d suggest getting your alignment done at Call’s Sinclair. The guy that does them went through our program. His name is Darren (I think he’s still the one that does them), and he does them the way they are supposed to be done. You might also check to see if Troy has his alignment class going. They could put the struts in and align it in just a day or two. It’s toward the end of the semester, so they should be pretty quick by now. Would take care of both the spring and alignment problem.
It’s awesome that your TSA students took first place in two categories! Those experiences are the ones that don’t show up on budgets or kudos, but the students will remember for the rest of their lives. You are awesome!

Better go. This is already way beyond reasonable. Hope you are all doing well. We are really enjoying our experience!

Love, Mom & Dad (Elder & Sis. Powell)