August 27, 2011

Our landlord’s dog, Angel, got snapped by a grizzly bear this week. She’s missing some hair but otherwise fine. The monster came out of the woods as Brother Wilcox was jogging down the road with Angel.

And here’s this week’s fish story…The Petersons in our ward ran smack into a whale with their boat. It was sleeping under the surface. Whales are thick around the island and will continue here through October.

We have FOUR FIRST-LESSONS today. By nightfall we’ll be spiritually drained. We’re feeling blessed with finding people to teach, but we mourn the one we lost: Mike. His father died suddenly this month and it devastated him, so he avoids us. He is tremendous, in size and in heart, and his decision is heart-breaking to us. If you have room in your prayers, please pray for him as well as our investigator, Sharon. She’s mourning the loss of her husband, who died about four months ago. We began teaching her the end of July and are making slow progress.

We love teaching the less active members—even after they become active we cannot give them up. Our District Leader said we could teach them up to a year after they activated. Rod and Patty just got their temple recommends, which was a cause for great celebration, but we know the “LA” next to their names isn’t accurate.

Our biggest challenges are those we teach by telephone: Christiana, Adriana, March and William.

Christiana lives in Hidden Falls, accessible only by float plane, but her mailing address is Sitka and a member of the Sitka Ward referred her to us. She’s a serious investigator and has read about a third of the Book of Mormon. She calls into the Gustavus Branch for Sunday meetings. Her husband, Ben, is a great man – is active in the Big Brother program and takes youth on fishing trips. Christiana flew into Sitka with her son for several days and we taught her daily. Since she left we’ve found that the communication to Hidden Falls is very bad and we often cannot understand if she answers “yes” or “no”.

March Runner is a new referral who lives in Galena. She’s an Elder in the Blackfoot Nation, which is a title much like our Elders. This week she’s in Washington DC, where she spends about half her time. She’s been calling into the Bush Branch Sunday meetings and is now ready to learn.

We invested in a de-humidifier. We live in a rain forest and our apartment is 500 square feet at the most, but had seemed to get pretty soggy. Our de-humidifier has been running for two days straight and, although we’ve dumped the gallon holding tank three times, we have yet to get the air to 50%.

We love our family and friends!!!

Love,

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nanny

Rod and Patty Ady.  They're getting ready to go to the temple

Christiana Smith and son, Tristan (4)

Jackie and Thomas Young

We flew to Fairbanks to meet and baptize Adriana Hevezi.  Such a meeting after only hearing voices for so many months.

Adriana pinning up her volumes of hair

Adriana just before her baptism

Our corner 7-11

Sitka is beautiful -- an island surrounded by islands

Our newest find:  an artesian spring.  We were buying water up til now.  Now we happily haul it.

July 29, 2011

Our dear friends from Boise, Nancy and Steve Hunt, flew into Sitka Thursday, July 21, at about 1 p.m. We were able to help them get their car and find their house, and then we ran to appointments. The next morning we flew to Ketchikan for Tommy Jones’ baptism and didn’t return until Sunday night. When we finished our appointments on Sunday night it was pretty late before we checked back in with Nancy and Steve, but found them happy and well acclimated. They’ve gone on splits with us which has been dynamically helpful.

In Ketchikan we were reunited with Tommy and Kara Jones. We hadn’t seen Tommy and Kara since leaving Dutch Harbor, where we had taught their family the gospel. In fact, we hadn’t even spoken with Tommy. He was at sea on a patrol vessel for over 30 days. That’s a long 30 days for missionaries to lose complete track of a golden investigator. When we finally talked with him we were relieved to find that he had been reading the scriptures as much as his 20-hour-day schedule permitted and he was more converted than when he had bid us farewell in Dutch Harbor. We reviewed principles with him and he shared his favorite scriptures. Then the Ketchikan elders interviewed him for baptism. He passed with flying colors.

Steve and Nancy Hunt

Elder Later and Tommy Jones checking for "real water" for baptism of Tommy

Prior to the baptism on July 23, 2011

Tommy and Kara Jones, in their home in Ketchikan.  

When we went on splits, Elder Later and Brother Hunt found Captain Simon.  Did they ever have luck!

Tommy had requested baptism in “real water,” like the Bering Sea of Dutch Harbor. When we thought it would be best for him to be baptized in Ketchikan, his home ward, he was appeased because Ketchikan has real water too. But when we tried to find an adequate place, it was a challenge. Friday night he decided that even bath water was all right, but only asked that he could be held down extra long to make sure he was completely clean from all his past “stuff.” He had been a soldier in a war zone. He was baptized July 23, 2011, and confirmed the next morning, July 24.  He was also ordained as a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. 

Tommy has seven sons ranging in age from early 20’s to 8 months. He wants to share the gospel with each one. Kara is already a member. Tommy is always on a fast track, and now Kara is by his side. Ketchikan Ward is lucky to have this little family. Bishop Davis is great and will help Tommy, Kara and their children get to the temple. We want to be there with them when they go.

We love you!

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nanny

July 7, 2011 First entry from Sitka

Coming into Sitka via Ferry.  We had to fly to Juneau to pick up our car and then ferry in to our new mission.

Here we are in Sitka, the most beautiful island in Alaska. We call our apartment “The Treehouse” because we’re surrounded by lush forest greenery on three sides – almost a feeling of being imbedded in the woods. The island is a northern rain forest and we’ve had rain-showers almost every day. The Pacific Ocean surrounds us to the west, but it’s been very quiet – hardly a ripple against the coastline. It feels a world apart from stormy, treeless, dark-watered Dutch Harbor, which we also loved. We miss our friends there and give thankful prayers that they’re a part of our lives.

Sitka Chapel

Our little car:  Chevy Malibou

"There is beauty all around..."

Sitka is a ward. The chapel is a large cedar-building which sits at the top of a hill. The interior is fully cedar-lined with large exposed beams throughout the interior. Bishop Hart is a big-hearted man and very supportive of our efforts, providing us with all the ammo we need to do missionary work. It’s always a challenge to start up a new area when they haven’t had missionaries for awhile and feels like the slow chug of a locomotive as it begins to roll. The getting-started effort requires huge energy, follow-through and lots of service, but we’re so enthused about the work here that we have the extra energy required. We have two investigators—three if you count the one that’s moving to Washington in two weeks. We volunteer at the Salvation Army on Wednesdays. They will only let us stock shelves in the back since they discovered we’re zealots for sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve been helping our investigator, Stephanie Green, move (organizing her garage sale, making her signs and hanging them, and taking her dinner). Bishop Hart gave his consent to our idea of doing a YSA activity on Monday evening, for which we will be making and serving dinner.

During this slower start-up period we’re fortunate to have kept the Bush Branch, which is done by telephone. We will have a baptism in that branch as soon as we can logistically get three priesthood holders (one baptizer, two witnesses) into Galena to perform it. It was originally set for this weekend but it will slip until the middle of August. Adriana Hevezi (42), our baptism candidate in Galena, contacted the church last April and asked how she could join. Her self-referral trickled down to us. We’ve been teaching her via telephone at least once a week since April. She keeps her commitments, love the scriptures, and will be a faithful member—the only member of the church in her village—and will attend weekly meetings by telephone. We hope her good example will allow us to teach others in her village, like brother William Topsekok of Teller, Alaska. Today his cousin consented to missionary lessons. Our little Bush Branch has a sweet, quiet, strong, continuous spirit.

Tommy Jones, our star investigator, will be baptized in Ketchikan July 23. The new mission president (Jon Beesley) is flying us there to participate in his baptism and to meet his family. Tommy has a powerful spirit and is determined to share the gospel with his six sons. He’s such a great find that we told our mission president that we would have served three missions just to find him. Then it dawned on us – we’ve actually served three missions.

Speaking of our new mission president, look up Jon Beesley on the internet. Test pilot extraordinaire. He’s very quiet and personable for such a famous man. We love him.

Love,
Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Nanny and Papa

June 12, 2011: Final entry from Dutch Harbor

The salmon are in and all the locals are camped on the beach, casting out nets for their subsistence fishing. The harvest is bountiful. It’s an ancient, annual celebration for most native families.

Boy, have we been picking up momentum: Peder was baptized three weeks ago, followed last week by Novalee. Adriana’s baptism will be July 9. We got three new investigators within the past two weeks, one of whom has a July 23 baptismal date. We were invited to the Samoan community High Celebration to say a prayer on June 17. It’s a great honor. We’ve been praying for acceptance into that community since our arrival, believing it to be a key to unlock vast teaching opportunities, so we were elated by the invitation. Then, Friday morning our bubble burst when we read our email: THE LORD HAS CALLED YOU TO SERVE IN SITKA. We leave Tuesday, June 14, at noon. There are too many tears right now. To describe our feelings from Sacrament meeting today isn’t possible. Tommy Jones, 43, our baptism candidate for July 23, was asked to share his testimony. What a rock he will be in the gospel. He has seven sons. Kara Jones, his wife, was less active when she arrived here. Fua asked the branch president if she could give the closing prayer today. Before her prayer she bore her testimony. Another WOW for us. Fua would be baptized but will wait for Joshua. We don’t think it will be very long. When she prayed everyone felt close to heaven.

We are NOT being replaced here in Dutch. There aren’t enough missionaries.

Even though we’re tearful, we’re happy to be entrusted to help Sitka. President Dance has prayed and worried about Sitka since missionaries were pulled out of there several months ago. The reports of what we can expect are less than stellar. As we tearfully pack (relieved at some level that we won’t be enduring another winter here) we know that God has a purpose for us in Sitka. We don’t expect the same level of acceptance that we have enjoyed in Dutch Harbor, but we know it’s right for us to go there.

We love you and love this work.

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nana

Baptism in the Bering Sea

Achievement Girls goofing off.  Patient leader: Tami Davis

The view from our walk up the hill by our house

Dutch Harbor convertible

Eagles are all in their nests.  Two patrons going into the post office have been attacked. 

The beautiful Faailoga family

Tommy Jones' boat:  The Stimpson, a State Trooper vessel.  Tommy is first mate.

June 1, 2011 -- NEW BABY BOY!!



Jana and baby, about 2:30 a.m. June 1, 2011



WE’VE GOT A BABY BOY!!!!!

Stats:
Born June 1, 2011, around 2 a.m. Mountain Daylight time
Weight: 7# 12 oz
Length: 19 ½”
Hair: A thick reddish-blond mop, like Hunter
Disposition: Cries when he sneezes
Name: Jace Parker Knoll

Jana and baby healthy and strong. JJ and kids glowing happily.

Papa and Nanny doubling their work load to avoid buying plane tickets.

This was the greatest single event in our current lives, but here’s a glimpse of our activities and discoveries leading up to the debut of our baby grandson:

Last week we attended the Unalaska high school graduation. 21 graduates; About $200,000 in scholarships, some renewable. The money was basically spread over about 14 kids because the others didn’t apply. Some received huge amounts – probably enough to complete their BS or BA. We were sitting with the family whose son received the city’s $10,000 scholarship. He had already received several scholarships from local businesses and organizations, so when all is done he will likely receive around $50k. This is normal for graduates here.

MONDAY: We’ve probably attended sixty Memorial Day services between us, but Monday’s was the best. Unalaska knows how to honor fallen heroes and departed loved ones. Everything was in order – sound system, participants, props and parts. The Mayor, Shirley Marquardt, welcomed the 200 or so guests and said we were building character by attending in such freezing weather. Her words were inspiring, and afterwards she said she would bring a copy to the Senior Center on Wednesday when she helps us serve. Following her remarks the Coast Guard posted the national, state and local colors, then leaders of every denomination gave short poems, prayers or tributes about common values: God and Country. The Mayor read the names of WWII veterans from Unalaska, and then the names of those who had died in the last year or so were read slowly, each followed by a single toll on the brass bell you see at the base of the triple flags. There was an acapella solo, a 21-gun salute and taps. There were colors posted from all the services: Navy, Coast Guard, Army, Marines and a flag posted for prisoners of war. It would be impossible for a soul not to be stirred. It was so moving we forgot we were freezing. The clinic closed for the day and put on a BBQ for the community: hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken, potato salad, and lots of cookies. There was face-painting, balloons, and baseball games, which were not called off because of wind and rain. Betwixt the activities we were able to talk with Jana on Skype and get a glimpse of her cute round figure. We pretty much knew our little guy was coming any minute.

Prior to going to the Memorial service we taught a short lesson to Adriana, who has a baptism date in July. Then we picked up Novalee, who will be baptized Saturday, and took her with us. While at the clinic Richard taught another lesson to a less active brother who sat with him in the corner of the clinic’s waiting room, and then we left shortly before 1 p.m. to teach the Faailoga family. They are progressing well but we don’t have a baptism date for them yet. We ran to the store to get some provisions for our evening meeting with a less-active member who has suffered greatly. We cook for him and teach him on Monday evenings. We could visibly see a change in his countenance. Happy Day!

TUESDAY: Spent an hour and a half with Adriana to complete baptismal paperwork and teach remaining principles. Met with the Jones family, a favorite highlight. Tommy Jones, the dad, is our newest investigator. They’re moving so we took them some dinner later in the day. We’re hoping Tommy gets baptized prior to leaving, but don’t tell him. We taught Brother Topsekok several principles and helped him through some spiritual challenges. We talked with the Faailoga family—a sweet experience. Darlene Jeppesen came over with Peder and we decided to work with Peder to build a roller coaster out of lego-type-things, which wasn’t going too well. We fixed Peder Top Ramen and warmed up chicken tenders for Darlene. She’s the hardest worker on the island – takes care of everyone. Then we got a call and had to leave them and run to Fumiko’s to help her. She’s never going to be baptized but she allows us to help her, for which we are grateful. She loves to sing and would be happiest if we went to karaoke nights with her.

Tuesday night: Received a phone call after we were asleep and knew it was Jana. WE’RE GETTING A GRANDBABY!!!! JJ called less than an hour later and said he was born. WOW!

We love you.
Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nana

Unalaska Memorial Day Service, 2011

Fisherman's monument, Memorial Day 2011

Good Friday, April 22, 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

April 4, 2011

[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

Jan (left) and Natalie trying on the Easter hats we made for the Senior Center residents

Jan and Natalie in their St. Patrick's Day hair

Natalie's little Missy mid-way through our lesson

The Russian Orthodox church is a landmark in Unalaska

Marko (left) and Skyler making mooring ropes

April Fool's Day.  We though Spring had come just the day before.  Notice the sideways icicles at the top.

March 21, 2011

Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we taught our two favorite people a first discussion and then found four new people to teach. Also last week Bishop Morgan (part of the FM group) came out to fix our Branch’s satellite. It hasn’t worked since our arrival and we’ve kept it at the top of our weekly letters to our mission president, hoping to get it calibrated before April’s general conference. On Thursday we sent the following message to our mission president:

   Thanks, President! The satellite is working and we look forward to

   viewing conference with the members. Bishop Morgan (Anchorage FM group) is

   in the shadowed left side of the photo. Three large priesthood brethren

   helped maneuver the satellite dish to the new connection. All is beautiful

   in Dutch Harbor!

To which President Dance replied: Very Exciting...and just in time for General Conference. How perfect!

Friday was a banner day for finding and teaching people. This island is what the locals call “a working island” and no one makes excuses for missing meetings because working is the number one priority. The more hours you work, the more overtime you’re paid, and that’s the goal. So it was a small miracle that we were able to find and share a message with 14 people. At one juncture we were going to turn left and we felt we should turn right even though we had nothing to turn right for. Because of that turn a chain-reaction of small events followed, allowing us to meet with almost everyone on our list, and a couple of people that we’ve added to our list since.

On Saturday the winds returned. We’ve enjoyed several weeks of outstanding weather – sunshine and 45 to 50 degrees. Saturday’s storm began small and built to 69 mph by the time we left for our service project at the high school at 5 p.m. We finished up around 8 p.m. and the winds were in their glory – over 100 mph (the high school has an illuminated gauge). As we were driving homeward we noticed the branch president’s car behind us. Our satellite dish was gone. Here’s our email to our mission president:

   Winds exceeded 100 mph today. As you can see by the attached picture, our
   satellite dish is all over the neighborhood and up yonder mountain. It blew
   away when we were at an appointment and the neighbors called President
   Clark, who was behind us when we were driving home.

Here’s his reply: Oh dear, the picture tells a thousand painful words. Now we don't just have a dish that is not stabilized and callebrated...we don't even have a dish.

The danger to islanders isn’t the wind; it’s what the wind carries. Richard and the branch president worked to tie down the remaining parts of the dish. Our police officer member spent Saturday night trying to hold a roof onto a family’s home but eventually lost the battle and the family had to find rooms at the hotel. A couple containers blew over (a container is like one of those long boxes on the back of a semi) and we could see boards and metal roof pieces flying up the mountain.

The winds impacted church attendance Sunday – 27 faithful souls came.

We’ve been sending up prayers for our Japanese brothers and sisters. If we didn’t have such a strong testimony about the power of prayer we would say we are not doing enough. If we do it right, appealing to the God of our entire universe, who created all things and controls the elements, is the single most powerful thing we can do. We humbly ask His protective blessings to be upon each of you.

We love you so much.

Richard and Linda, Mom and Dad, Papa and Nanny