Pop&Nan: April 2011

We love teaching the atonement. This is an island with many churches with faithful, kind ministers helping seeking souls and they also enjoy teaching the atonement. We don’t feel criticism or competition with them, but we all work together in harmony. As Jesus said, “Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:50)

Two little eight-year-olds will be baptized tomorrow evening: Hailey and Skyler. They will be confirmed on Easter Sunday. We’ve been close with the families so the baptism feels exciting and new, and very appropriate for this beautiful Easter Sunday.

Hailey: quiet angel

Skyler: happiness on wheels

Dutch Harbor Car Wash: You know how you drive into a car wash and the high-pressure water hits the car sideways and then you go through a wind tunnel (about 60 mph) to dry it? We have that:

Passenger side is now clean

Richard getting into the car to turn it around

Now the driver's side can get cleaned.

Voila! Ready for Easter.

We’ve had a traveling companion this week: Hunter K. Juneyour.

We had a challenge taking JuneYour's photo in the wind, but we wanted him shot with the eagles.

Here he is in front of a fishing boat. We had to prop him up with cardboard

To our Ward: Thanks for the group letter. It’s great to hear from you and imagine your faces. We read it together and shared memories about each of you.

Here’s our littlest investigator, Peder, with his friends. His mother, Darlene, is a member. In our last lesson he told us he wanted to be baptized in the Bering Sea. We tried to discourage it, but he said he’d go and jump into the creek that runs from the glacier and prove to us that he could do it. We tried to discourage that too. Here he is with his friends showing us that he is determined to go through the process of getting baptized in the Bering Sea. The kids jumped into the creek, knee high, and jumped right back out, ran up the hill and into a warm garage. It’s a little different to wade into the Bering Sea to waist level, stand there for a very fast prayer, and then get completely immersed. We’re hoping...

Love to all.

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nana

[photos at the end of this entry]

We’re delivering Easter hats to the elderly women today – the ones in residence at the senior’s home. People here call them “the elders” and treat them with reverence and respect, which probably stems from the Aleut culture. The city council is generous with their needs and local norms protect and care for them.

We teach Natalie and Jan on Thursdays, which is our favorite day because their happy spirits are so contagious and their yearning for knowledge is so keen. Before coming over Natalie has to pick up Missy, for whom we prepare a light snack. Jan (an investigator) and Natalie (our best missionary) have healthy curiosities and tend to ask one another gospel questions as they work together. They keep us on our toes. On St. Patricks day they wore green shiny wigs. They’re making their own Easter hats but we asked them to put these on just for our blog. Cute, huh?

Fua shared her testimony on fast Sunday, March 27. If you haven’t heard a Samoan testimony lately we wish we could transport a dose of Fua’s spirit through this text. She talked about her sick baby and wanting to come to church with her baby even though it was stormy. She called her mother on the islands and her mother said she must find us. That day we had clothing for Fua’s baby (thanks to our Natalie) and were trying to find her. It was one of those testimonies that jerked our heartstrings into a big lump in our throats. We realized how the Lord helps us get into the right places but we also realized we need to listen more intently. Fua and her husband, Joshua, and their three children bless our lives. Joshua is likely the largest Samoan in Dutch Harbor, and his heart is bigger than he is. Teaching the family hasn’t been consistent because of scheduling challenges, but we will make a greater effort.

We have sweet experiences teaching the Bush Branch by telephone. We don’t know what people look like but only hear their voice. We are in various stages of teaching three and hope to pick up a fourth. We open with prayer and talk about their questions, then go through a new principle. Brother Topsekok is doing very well. He’s an avid reader and reminds us, when we try to teach new words like “dispensation” that he only has to know three things: 1. Jesus Christ is our Savior; 2. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; 3. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and is another witness of Christ like the Bible. His accent is Aleut and we feel “the gathering” as we teach. Tonight we taught a first lesson to Randall. We asked him how he felt about his Heavenly Father and he said “I love him. He gives me everything.” We are thankful to the Russian Orthodox religion for the basis of strong faith they give to their members.

The Russian Orthodox congregation has no place to sit in their church. The members sing and pray for hours standing up – often for six or seven hours at a time. They feel that if Christ suffered they should not be comfortable. Most of their worship service is about the crucifixion. For our Russian Orthodox friends we give the DVD entitled “The Lamb of God” as an Easter gift. It depicts the last week of Christ’s life.

We were going to take our trash to the dump so threw it into the back of the pickup. A huge bald eagle swooped down and took ownership. His (her?) head was about a foot taller than the cab of the truck and he had a very intimidating expression. We just stood there for a minute wondering what to do, then Richard waved his arms and hooted. The eagle considered him for a moment then flew off.

A small miracle happened. We were able to get General Conference live on our computer Sunday morning. Rich had worked into the night Saturday to get things set up, but I was pretty sure our provisioning was inadequate. We couldn’t get the provisioning to work Saturday and we couldn’t get it to work Sunday afternoon, but Sunday morning we watched the entire session with very few blips.

We love you!
Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nan