February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Anchorage Zone Conference, Feb 2011

Richard and I had a fast trip to Anchorage this past week aboard a twin-engine prop. The airport closed the day of our departure due to weather. When that happens we instantly became standby passengers, and the lines were long the next morning. Two potential investigators (airline managers) helped assure that we were on the first flight out, and we cannot forget their generosity and sweet faces.

While in Anchorage we were able to see my little brother, David, and niece, Abby, and attend zone conference, then back to our island. It’s so interesting to fly into Dutch. The plane descends into fast-moving clouds and lots of white mountains, sort of curves around them, bumping a lot, and when it fights the wind to touch down it’s a dice throw to see if we’ll have to go back up and try again, but the pilot needs to hurry with that decision because the Aleutian Ocean is at the end of the runway. The fun actually begins at check-in where they weigh your bags then weigh you, unless you show your driver’s license, which reveals your weight. The small aircraft has weight-distribution considerations. So, not wanting to announce my weight, I showed my new Alaska driver’s license. The glitch was, I didn’t know my license had a typo in that little weight box. Whereas I’m 5’8” tall, they typed in that I weighed 508 pounds. We think that’s the reason they left everyone’s bags behind. There’s zero security. You just check in and then walk out in the snow, climb the steps onto the plane, and they give you a set of complimentary earplugs. None of the challenges of flying here mattered because when we saw our island we felt the warmth of coming home.

Our Anchorage zone conference was a big boost. We met with President and Sister Dance and all the young elders and sisters of two zones. It isn’t possible to describe the saturating spiritual feelings, but one of the things we learned is that the church is launching a new media program on Mormon.org. There are lots of faces and you can click on any of them to get their story. You can submit your own story as well. We are to meet with the members and go over the link, but since we’re low-speed internet here we won’t be able to do a lot with the site. You can, however. Have fun with it.

We’re busy with four investigators and several activations. Yesterday Fua and Joshua Faailoga (Samoan) came to church with their three children. Our faithful Patti was here, as always, but Ken didn’t make it. There were also two newly-activated families. Dutch Harbor Branch is starting a Cub and Boy Scout program, and the parents are excited. We have about 12 boys, age 8 and above. Our newly-activated families help us “find,” and their energetic spirits keep our time maximized. We have to keep careful notes of each lesson we teach in order to help with progression correctly. The value of our area book (where we keep track of everything) cannot be over-estimated. We’re seeing a lot of happy faces, which we love. The big surprise is that the temple isn’t a priority. We took it for granted that they would immediately want to prepare, but they haven’t experienced the culture of a temple-centered ward. We have permission to teach temple prep classes but no one can schedule additional lessons (we can’t teach during church). Granted, they work as many hours a week as possible since they’re paid time-and-a-half for anything over 40 hours, but our views are much different and our expectations are great. Patience is good.

Some of the reasons we're here:

Our sweet Patti



The Williams family has now held two family home evenings and loves the program.




The Jones family has four boys.  This is baby Hunter, the youngest.



Hailey and her mom just started back to church and we don't know how we ever managed without them. 



Mayor Shirley Marquardt is a friend and great support to missionaries



Chet is active now, shown here with investigator, Ken Reeves (right)

Both Peder and Reese (Primary children) were champion spellers in the school spelling bee

Becky is now active

Lin Ellsworth decorates cakes, is on the board of the Methodist church and the library, and is learning about her family history.





There was a convert baptism in the Bush Branch.  The new member was taught over the telephone and traveled to Nome for his baptism.  He lives two hours away (by snow machine) from his home teacher.

Given our heavy teaching schedule we’d like to cut back on community involvement. We serve lunch at the retirement facility, read stories to the children and help them do crafts at the library, and are helping with a project for Alaska’s special Olympians. Additionally, we will vigorously use a pot-luck here at the church Saturday as an inviting tool. We love service. We love to teach. We love each of you. We love.

Richard and Linda/Mom and Dad/Papa and Nanny