Update to Uncle Bob

Hi family,

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

Dear Uncle Bob and Aunt Liz,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We love you! Tell the kids hello for us.

Dondavid and ReNee

New Letter

October 9, 2011

Dear All,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Dondavid and ReNee

Journal Stuff

Dearest Family,

Hi! It’s been awhile since I wrote, but I thought I’d just update you on what’s been going on here in Haines. We are finally getting settled in and are able to go visiting and doing things to try to further the missionary work here. Haines has been heavily tracted for years, so there is some resistance to that type of contacting. We have been trying to do service for members and others, which should help us get to know people and let them know we are normal people and are not going to try to force them into something they don’t know they want. It takes longer this way, but I think it will help in the long run.

We pretty much have our cabin set up the way we want it, and it is really quite comfortable once you get used to living in a smaller space. We are grateful that we aren’t living in a little camp trailer like they do at some of the historic sites. That would be really cozy! At least here we have a table and chairs, upholstered chairs to read and study in, and a full-size bed that we don’t have to climb into. It is a little tight around the sides, but we can live with that just fine. We also have a tub and shower that are full-size with plenty of hot water, and we are grateful for that.

Chapel	Cabin	Chapel & Cabin

This past week we visited several of the members of the branch. Most of those that attend church are older than we are, there are two families younger than us. It gives us good opportunities to do service, this week we fixed the chimney on one sister’s heating stove. She had just had it installed last fall, but they put the chimney in upside down, so when it rained or if creosote ran down, it leaked down the outside of the chimney and made smoke and ugly streaks. It should be a lot better for her now. The stoves here are usually fairly efficient, but they sure aren’t as handy as the ones we made. They don’t have automatic dampers, and burn a lot more wood that we did. Wood here is plentiful, but because of government regulations it still costs about $165/cord. Another problem here is there is not natural gas available around here, so it’s either propane or heating oil that has to be shipped in. As a result, most people are paying between $400-600/mo to heat their homes in the winter. That doesn’t include electricity, which runs about $.40/kwh compared to $.15/kwh in Idaho. Last winter in Whitehorse the people we were with were paying up to $1200/mo just for utilities! Of course in the summer that drops considerably.

We also went out to Bro. & Sis. Cox’s where I helped him change the filters on his back-hoe. He has a John Deere that is really nice, but he is 85 and can’t see or hear very well, but still runs that back-hoe. I changed the fuel, air and transmission filters for him and he was pretty impressed that it didn’t take all day and none of them leaked when we got it back together. He struggles to speak as he has a hole in his throat that he has to cover up with his thumb to speak. I guess he smoked heavily for years before he joined the church, and has had most of both lungs removed. He fought in WWII, the Korean war, and Viet Nam, and is fascinating to talk to. He was also a crab fisherman for many years, and has an awesome crab boat in his shop, but hasn’t used it for a few years because of his health. I’d imagine his son will eventually inherit it. They have bears through their place all the time. He showed me the footprint of one that had been in their garage a couple of days ago and stepped on a piece of cardboard. You couldn’t have covered the track with a dinner plate. I guess a week or so ago he was at the kitchen sink and looked up and there was a bear looking at him through the window above the sink. The window is seven feet off the ground and they were looking eye-to-eye. He said it just looked at him a while, then dropped back on all fours and ambled away. He showed me where they have a regular trail across their yard, but says they don’t bother him much. Of course they’re pretty careful about burning anything that will burn, washing their cans and bottles out well before they put them in the trash, and put their compost pile a long way from the house.

We went over to the Chilcoot inlet to watch them fish the other day. The Coho and pink salmon are both running now, and the fisherman were pulling in some big fish. We thought about going fishing, but decided to wait until the Cokanee and kings run next month. It costs $20/day for a license, or $150 for a season license, and we decided when we go we need to be able to catch enough to make it worth the cost. We’ll catch some and put them in our freezer. I hoped fish would be cheaper here, but it isn’t unless you catch it yourself. Of course I can see why. Commercial fisherman are charged $60,000 for a season license. You have to catch a lot of fish just to break even! Again, aren’t we glad we have government regulations! That doesn’t include costs of purchase and maintenance of boat, equipment or fuel. Commercial boats run in the neighborhood of $150,000+. Reminds me of the farmers in Rexburg and the cost of their equipment. It was really fun to watch the fishing. We did see three grizzlies swimming the river, and a bunch of tourists snapping pictures of them. (Including us!) Some of them had salmon that must have weighed 20 or 30 pounds. I think we’d be fine if we had just one of those! I guess when the Cokanee run up the Chilkat inlet, the Eagles come by the hundreds. Haines is supposed to have the largest bald eagle population in the world, and I can believe it. The other day I saw three circling just above the church and it was pretty impressive. They winter here, and it’s not unusual for them to have 4000-5000 in the area for the winter. It will be interesting to see.

Haines is on the peninsula between the Chilkat and the Chilcoot inlets so we have ocean on both sides of us. We are also nearly at the base of both the Rainbow and the Davis Glaciers. We drove over and looked at them the other day, and they are really impressive. We are across the inlet from them, but they are both huge, and there is a big waterfall that comes off the Rainbow glacier into the inlet. I guess there is so much runoff that it makes the sea freshwater for a couple of miles out into the ocean. It is also very silty, so it makes the water look dirty, but doesn’t seem to bother the fish much.

We went to the library last Friday evening for a presentation on the history and customs of the Tlingit Indians of the area. It was fascinating to see the influence of other tribes and traders on the tribes of this area. There is definite Asian influence because of the Bearing land bridge, as well as major influence from tribes as far South as California, Arizona and Mexico, and Eastern tribes as far away as New York and Nova Scotia. They really got around! It was put on by the University of Alaska Anthropology department and we really enjoyed it. They also had some of the local artists exhibit some of their work. It is similar to that of the Yukon, but there is definitely a difference.

Our weather has been really been cool, nights about 42F, days about 60 for the most part. It has been really rainy; they say that this is the beginning of fall. There are quite a few leaves that are starting to change, a few yellows and oranges, some brilliant red maples up the highway. I think in another month it is going to be absolutely beautiful here. I’m not excited about the coming winter, though they say it isn’t as cold here as in Whitehorse. They said it is not at all unusual to get 3-4’ of snow in a snowstorm, and that the pass back to Canada is closed most of the winter. Guess who will get to clean the walks at the church! I can hardly wait! Even though it doesn’t get down to -40 or
-50 very often, it usually runs about -15 to -20 most of the winter. After being in Whitehorse, I think we can live with that!

We are hoping to get our cell phone this week, I never could order it online because they don’t ship to post office boxes, so I had to order it and have it sent to Rexburg, then Warren is going to send it on up. I decided not to get an iPhone, although that’s what I wanted, but the monthly access cost here is $100+/mo and we can’t afford that. I don’t think I’d use the data plan enough to merit it anyway. We just got the most basic service which is 450 minutes/mo and text messaging, for only $60/mo. We also had to sign up for a two year contract, which is the only one AT&T offers, but they are the only carrier that has service in this area. We do have nights and weekends free so we might have to call you then! We do still have our land-line in our apartment. We can’t call long-distance out, but can receive calls from you anytime! It has been great to talk to Ed, Warren, Teresa and Amber a few times. Our number here is (907)766-2379. Our cell number is going to be (208)709-0377.

Saturday we did a major cleanup around the church. We picked up lots of brush and scrap lumber that was laying around from where they rebuilt a walkway that had rotted out. The people that did the work did a good job on the walkway, but just left all the garbage stacked in a pile. We had to carry it over to an open area where we could burn it, and it reminded me of the burn piles we had out in the back field. We had a pretty good fire for awhile, and after it burned down, we roasted hotdogs and made s’mores. It was a lot of fun and we got to visit with the branch president and his family. President Lehman is 77, but is really active, and we are enjoying each other. He’s my kind of guy, enjoys doing things, likes to fix things, and has a lot of experience. He used to work for the US Fisheries department as an ocean biologist doing fish tracking and studies, and even designed some fishing research vessels for the US Government. He has a 30’ sailboat that I went over and helped him pull a water jacket off the engine because he forgot to drain it, and it froze and broke. He is getting it welded, and when he gets it back we’ll put it back together and try it out. I told him if he knew someone with an acetylene torch I’d fix it for him, but he has a son that’s a welder, so he sent it up to him in Sitka, then he will drop it off in Juneau, and we’ll pick it up when we ferry over there in September for stake conference. I have been called as his counselor in the branch presidency. I am the only one, since we only have four priesthood holders in the branch that come. Bro. Berry is Branch clerk, executive secretary and High Counselor. Bro. Kanahani is Elders Quorum presidency, YM president, and SS teacher. Aren’t small branches awesome! Mom has been called as counselor in the Relief Society and RS teacher. We also maintain the church yard and do whatever else they need us to do. Yesterday we had 16 of us to meetings, one sister that hasn’t been out for awhile, so we’re going to go visit her this week if we can find out where she lives. They only use Post Office boxes here, so hardly anybody has addresses. They often say, “It’s out by mile 33 of the highway somewhere.” Or “it’s up Small Tracts Road loop, you go to the second ‘S’ curve and don’t follow the curve, but bear to the left and it’s about the third or fourth house on the right, I think.” Reminds me of Idaho when we got there and they said “You go out to the West for three or four miles to where the barn was that burned down a few years ago, and turn right and go to the road where the old Plano church used to be, then go to the driveway where you’ll see their blue pickup if they’re home. Of course it may be different now if the flood washed their house away.”

We love the work, and the country is beautiful this time of year. We did have a bear run through the parking lot Saturday after we finished burning the brush. I guess a two-year old cub got caught in an electric fence next door when it was trying to get into the chickens, and it was pretty agitated by the time it got out. They were afraid its mother might be upset, so the police came to the parking lot and sat for awhile to see if it was going to follow the cub. We didn’t see it, so it must have gone another way. We thought they came to check on our fire which was pretty much out by then, but they just told us about the bears. Keeps life interesting.

Well, I guess I’d better close for now. I hope you are all doing well, we love you!

Mom and Dad.

Life

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

Hi Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love ya tons,

Mom

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.