Biblical Far Side

Haines

Dearest Family,

We made it OK from Whitehorse to Haines! We really enjoyed the drive, the fire weed was beautiful, as was the drive itself. By the time we reached Haines Junction the sun had come out, so we really enjoyed the breath-taking scenery of the mountains, lakes, forests and glaciers! We didn't see any wildlife other than a few hundred squirrels, but we were good with that, too! The cabin we are in is really small, but we are fine with it. We got all of our stuff moved into it yesterday afternoon, but still need to find places to put everything. It is really small, we put the queen bed they had into the bedroom, and I have six inches on my side to get into bed, and there is about a foot on Mom's side that we squeeze down to get to the bathroom. But hey, the bed is nice and comfortable. The "living" room has one chair about the size of one of our blue chairs in the living room, plus a folding chair like they have at the church. There is a table about 3' across in one corner with two wooden kitchen chairs. The kitchen is small, one set of drawers, two overhead cabinets, a really small fridge, a stove that the oven doesn't work on, and about enough counter space to set the toaster on over the knife & for drawer. They do have a different stove that I'm going to put in tomorrow that they have used in the church. It hasn't been used much, but is pretty old. Hey, it's a stove! There is a little space along one wall in the living room where we can put up a small computer table. I'll send you pictures when I get some taken. Mom doesn't want to take any until she has stuff put where she wants it.

We don't have any Internet over there, but the church is only about 50' away, so we can come over here and use the one in the Family History center any time we want. They gave us keys to everything, so we are good! There is also a small shed close to our cabin that is about 16' square, but it doesn't have too much junk in it, so I'm going to clean it out and put in a small bench that I can work on and put my tools on. I checked with the counselor in the branch presidency today and he said that should be OK. I do wish I had my pickup here, I think it would be very useful, but will make do with the van. I'm sure when we get to know people someone will have one that we can use for hauling trash and stuff. Looks like we will be responsible for keeping the building clean and mowing the lawns, but that will give me something to do part of the time.

We enjoyed church this morning, the branch is pretty small, we had a visiting family today, a sister and her five kids, and they comprised most of the primary they don't have. Also a young couple from Skagway that came here just for fun before they go back to the US. There were about thirty here including them, only Bro. Berry, Bro. Cox and myself priesthood wise. It was good to be able to bless the Sacrament today, the first time in a lot of years. Seemed kind of strange to bless both the bread and water, Bro. Cox passed it. He is 85 and in not very good health, but a very fine and humble spirit. He is a veteran of WWII, Korean, and Viet Nam wars. Everybody bore their testimonies, and it still left us 10 minutes short, but they closed the meeting anyway, and we had more time in Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society. Mom taught Relief Society and they only had three sisters there. There were two of us for Priesthood, plus two younger boys that aren't members, so we just talked and got to know each other. There is definitely work to do here!

We do have an address! There is no mail delivery here, so our address is: P.0. box 622, Haynes, AK. 99827. We share the phone with the one in the church foyer, and that number is 907-766-2379. When we get our computer set up, we can use our Magic Jack again, and talk for free! Our physical address is 415 Mud Bay Drive. I guess if something had to be sent UPS it would be addressed to that but I'm sure it would cost a mint to send it because it has to come by boat. It is good to be back in the US. We were really worried that they might stop us at the border and make us unpack all our stuff, but they were really nice, and didn't. We had the van packed to the gills again, only this time with a car-top carrier that had all our bedding in it, plus the spare tire tied on top. We are going to go try to get a cell phone tomorrow, will let you know what the number is when we get it. The only carrier that works here is AT&T, so guess we'll go with that. At least it ought to have better service than we had in Whitehorse!

Haynes is a beautiful town, about 2500 people here, fishing is the main industry. The town is located right on the bay, the forest is all around us, like living in Island Park! There are two rivers that come in and the salmon are already running. We went over to the Chilkoot River last night, and there were lots of fishermen. One Native (they don't like to be called Indians or 1st Nation here--will have to get used to that) was using a net and brougt in one about 10 lbs while we were watching. Several others had them on fishing poles. We'll have to get to know some with equipment so we can try it! Of course the bears like it too! I guess after we left they came out. One of the kids at church said he was there last night and they counted 17 bears on their way home. Everything has to be shipped in, so stuff costs more than Whitehorse, except gas. Gas here is only $4.85 a gallon, but we won't be driving nearly as much, so that will save some. Bananas are $1.50/lb, milk is $5.69/gal. Other stuff is about the same amount more, but hey, we can get it! If we need large stuff we will go to Juneau on the ferry, but it costs $100 and takes 4 1/2 hours each way so we probably won't do that often. It would be faster and cheaper to go to Whitehorse because we can drive there, but if we buy anything we have to pay duty on it to bring it from Canada, so probably won't do that either. We'll go to town again tomorrow and see what we can find here. We'd like to get another chair that's nice to sit on. We also want to get some nice fluorescent lights for the cabin, as it's really dark wood so it's pretty gloomy in there.

Mom's a little worried about the bears. We haven't seen one yet, but there is a lot of bear scat on the lawn all around our cabin and yard. They lock the garbage in the shed because if they don't the bears get into it. They used to have a dumpster here, but had to get rid of it because the bears kept pushing it off and destroying it trying to get inside. They said not to put anything smelly into the garbage, and haul it often. They also said not to cook anything smelly in the cabin, like fish or sausage or bacon, or the bears would probably come visit us. And the doors on the cabin aren't substantial! In fact some idiot made the whole back wall of the living room a set of patio doors that go out onto a tiny porch about 3' by 4' with stairs going down. Dumb! Wonder if they'd mind if I enclosed it, took out the doors, and doubled the size of our living room?

Well, I guess I'd better get back over to the cabin or Mom will wonder where I got lost to! It was hard to leave Whitehorse, It was about like leaving home again! But we will make some great friends here, too, I'm sure. We definitely have lots to do to keep us busy! Be sure to let us know how you are all doing!

Love, Dad and Mom.

Incentive

Just thought I'd forward a little incentive for your trip next summer.  This picture was taken Friday night just outside of Haines.  Josh threw his hook in and picked up the one on the left in about 10 seconds.  Took him about 30 minutes to get it into the boat.  Then Chad threw his hook in and got the one on the right.  Got a hit within 30 seconds. Took him about 45 minutes to get it in.  Then Mark, the guy in the middle hooked his.  (Mark is 6' tall, and the fish tail is folded over on the ground.)  Took him about an hour to get it in.  They brought home fillets from four fish (all they are allowed to bring home to Canada), about 400 lbs of fillets, plus about 10 salmon, averaging 20 lbs apiece.

We went out and helped them sample it last night.  Best halibut I ever ate.  Sure makes a difference to get it fresh!  We ate some baked in lemon seasoning, some in a loaf, and some diced and breaded.  I thought I was going to burst!  White, flaky tender meat, no bones, excellent flavor!  Guess they brought home over $4000 worth of fish!  Would sure go good in a freezer!  They are giving a bunch of it to their friends, want to give us a couple of good sized packages, then they will go out again for the king salmon run the end of September or first of October when they are running.  What a rough life! 

Love ya.  Dad.

Transfer

Well, it's official. We are going to Haines. We will probably pack up all of our junk on Thursday and drive over on Friday. It's about a five hour drive from here, and that should get us in early enough that we can unpack the car and set up a bed for the night. There is a little cabin next to the church that we can use, about 500 sq. ft. which is smaller than where we are now, but it's on the church property, and there is a storage shed that we can store some of our stuff in that we're not using. The couple that have been there helping with the branch said the bedroom is big enough for a queen bed, but no room to walk around it. There is a kitchen-living area that pretty much takes up the rest of the place. Should be interesting! We'll send you pictures of it when we get over there. I don't know what the mailing address is yet, will also send that to you next weekend.

I guess the branch is pretty small, about 50 members with about 25 active in the branch. The branch president is 78 years old and not in the best of health, and the other priesthood member is a guy in his late 50s or early 60s that weighs 350 lbs and has bad knees. There is one boy in the branch that is 10, and he is the only youth, so we don't have a primary or mutual program. Most of the others are older sisters. We will be doing a lot of visiting and service, I'm sure. They have really been struggling with such limited priesthood leadership, we'll go do whatever we can to help out.

We had a good but sad last Sunday here today, although it was greatly boosted by having our mission president and his wife here along with the two assistants to the president. (AP's) He is going to be great to work with, a lot less numbers-emphasis, a lot more focus on retention and love. We're all for that! It will be a little different to work in an area where there aren't any other missionaries and few members of the church. We have enjoyed having the elders here to visit and play with. They will be bring another set of elders to Whitehorse after we leave. We were hoping for another senior couple, but they don't have any that haven't been recently assigned to other areas. There are plenty of opportunities for missionary work here in Whitehorse, it's the third largest city in the mission, but with the fewest missionaries. Part of the problem is that it's so far from Anchorage it's hard to keep in touch, and some of the missionaries here have taken advantage of that in the past. We hope it doesn't happen again.

We're glad that Beth was able to be baptized this week, and that Rachel also wants to be baptized in a couple of weeks. We won't be here for that, but she is definitely ready and will follow through. It will be hard to leave them, but will keep in touch. We already told them that when they are ready to get married in the temple we would come up for it. They said they would hold us to that!

Well, we're pretty hammered, so I guess we'll go to bed for now. I hope you are doing well.

Dearest family,

Just want to let you know that we are still doing well, and that things are going well for us, and that we are thinking of you.

I just read this article about someone who attended the pageant from the United Kingdom, and thought about what a difference these pageants make to the people of the world. The link is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jul/24/christians-mormons-pageant, I it comes up ok for you, but it is a very positive reaction from someone who is not LDS.

We had our very first baptism this week! Wazoo! Beth Ng, who we have been working with almost since we got here finally got baptized! Her husband is an EX-less-active member and they have two kids by his previous marriage. Matt is 12, Samantha is 11. Samantha also planned to be baptized when Beth did, but changed her mind when her mom gave her so much static. She still wants to be baptized, but decided to wait till the heat dies off a bit. I think Matt will join too, but he is kind of waiting to see if his dad is serious about staying active in the church. The dad's name is Tim, and he has come SO FAR! They have attended church with us regularly for the past four months, even though he works Graveyard and doesn't get home till 8:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. He has given up his coffee and is working to advance to the Melchizedek Priesthood and be ordained an Elder. They have committed to be worthy to be sealed in the temple while we are still in Alaska, and we told them wherever we were serving, we'd be there for that!

We also have another wife of a part-member less active ready to join, her name is Rachel, and we have taught her all of the discussions, and she was going to be baptized this Saturday, the 30th, but decided to wait two weeks because she is involved in planning a wedding for her girlfriend, helping her in-laws with their daughters wedding, and is hosting tons of family this week. She wants to wait till things slow down so the experience isn't "just another thing on a busy schedule." We told her that would be a wise idea! We are disappointed that we won't be here for it, but we want what is best for her. She and Mike have a year-old daughter, and Mike is a returned missionary that went inactive. He had some problems he had to work out, but he has committed to bring his family to church and be totally active, and has prepared himself to be worthy to baptize her! We told him we want to know when they get sealed, too! Rachel wasn't comfortable meeting with the young elders, but she has been a golden investigator for us. We have only been teaching her for three weeks, and she is in the middle of Alma in her Book of Mormon, and has read every pamphlet we have left with her discussions. I guess that's one of the true rewards from being senior missionaries!

Sadly our time in Whitehorse is drawing to an end. Our visas are only good in Canada for six months, and ours expire next Saturday, so we have to move to Alaska now. Hard to believe we've been here for six months! We have to be out of Canada for six months before we can come back, so we hope they will send us back toward the end of our mission so we can finish up here. If the next year and a half go as fast as this one, it will be no time at all!

I have been having opportunities to give lots of service this week. I helped Tim put two new entry doors into his house. The old ones were warped and leaking cold around them, so he bought new ones. We rebuilt the jams and installed new weather-stripping, painted them, then hung the new doors. We also put a garage door opener on his shop door. Wednesday morning a less-active we've been working with called, and he had borrowed a scissor-lift to put the siding on his new house, and the starter went out of it. Turned out the mounting plate had broken and the starter shifted and broke off the end of the starter and took all the teeth off the flywheel. Had to pull the transmission to get the stuff off to fix it, welded up the mounting plate, the new starter and ring gear came in last night, so will go put it all back together this morning. Also rebuilt the hydraulic rams on Tom's loader, welded up the loader bucket, and put a new set of brake shoes on his John Deere tractor. Surprising how things like this lead to awesome gospel discussions and interest in the church. Some of the members here in the past have done some pretty shady dealings, and in a small town the word spreads. Hopefully some will learn that some of us can do things for them without taking advantage of them.

Tomorrow afternoon our new mission president is coming over to Whitehorse to tour the area. We are really excited, as it has been several years since one has visited here. Our branch theme for the month of July has been missionary work, and we have all had the opportunity in sacrament meeting to speak on missionary work. We weren't expecting to cap it off with a visit and talks from the president! We are pretty excited. We expect when he comes he will tell us where and when our new assignment will be. It will be hard to leave here, because we have made such close friends with so many members of the branch, and it has become such a part of our lives. We have really enjoyed the life and culture of the Yukon! They have a rich and varied history, and people here are so friendly and accepting. It is amazing to see the diversity of cultures! We have people from India, the Philippines, many European nations, the Polynesian Islands, Africa, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, South America, and from all areas of Canada and the US. There are also many "1st Nation" tribes here, probably about 35% of the population. It's amazing how well everyone gets along.

It was so fun to hear every body's experiences with Teresa's family this summer, we really missed it! It sounds like you did some really fun stuff, and it made us miss family even more. We loved getting the pictures and looking at the blogs. Thank you so much for sharing them!

Well, I guess I'd better go get busy for the day, or I won't get the stuff done that needs to be done. I hope you are all doing well, and that you always remember that the things that count in life are the things that you can't count. The Gospel is true! What a blessing it is to be God's children having such a marvelous mortal experience! May God bless 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

June 27, 2011

 

    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 early 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.  Sister Powell 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. Beesley 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