Pop&Nan: November 12, 2011

Here’s a picture of our number-one ward missionary, Brother Womack. What a great man! Fearless and awesome!!!

Brother Wm. Topsekok and little Jasper (who turns 3 in April). Brother Topsekok is white but was adopted by a native family at birth. His first language is not English.

William Topsekok lost his oldest son in the big storm they had on the north-west coast of Alaska. We usually teach William (of the Bush Branch) on Tuesdays, but this week we’ve been talking with him a few times a day. Teller, Alaska is 80 miles north of Nome and inaccessible right now. It’s on the coast and you can drill down on a Google map to see the tiny village. There are no trees or hills to help mitigate the wind so it was a total onslaught for them. The ice-sheets from the water hit land and waves swept over the road in fury. Kyle, 25, was on a 4-wheeler at 4 p.m. and hasn’t been seen since. There’s no way a human can survive the weather everyone in Teller knows it, so even though a body hasn’t been found they’re mourning Kyle’s loss. We wrote earlier in the year about Brother Topsekok, telling you how his wife had fallen through the ice on a snow-machine and died, leaving Brother Topsekok to raise their 1-year-old son. A few months thereafter Brother Topsekok was baptized in February 2011. This newest tragedy re-opens his previous wounds. However, Brother Topsekok testifies that he is able to suffer this loss much better because he has the gospel. He compares his current experience to his former loss and shares his testimony with us. We love Brother Topsekok and his little son, Jasper.

The Sitka Ward is full of amazing people. A newly married couple, Michaela and Keith Larsen, finished biking across Canada this Fall and gave a wonderful presentation of their experiences to the community last Sunday. They biked 5,900 miles in four months, through 11 Canadian provinces. Prior to their marriage Keith had biked from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the farthest edge of Florida. When he visited Sitka he told Michaela of his bicycle trip and she, being an athlete, was envious. He knew he had found his match. But…she had just received a mission call to South America, so she wrote to the first presidency and they told her to marry Keith, which she did.

We’ll be in Anchorage Monday through Friday afternoon to see a family sealed in the temple, so we’ll be in catch-up mode when we return, trying to get back into the families we generally teach.

We love you!

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nanny