CAROLEE: It is a beautiful Easter season! We woke up to a winter wonderland again! It actually is beautiful because the white snow is back and way more attractive than the black stuff!! We do see some signs of spring before when we saw pavement and sidewalks. As we taught of the resurrection and atonement last week it helped us focus on this world changing event and made us especially grateful for our Savior and his life and sacrifice!! We did not talk to family at all for the weekend but we did have a memorable holiday! Our fellow missionaries shared our day with. Chocolate Eclairs and all!
We do manage to keep really busy even when the temple is closed and our regular routine is interrupted . We are still exploring trails all over Anchorage for our exercise use. So many beautiful places to discover!
We learned today that our replacements have their call and will be here the week after we leave in September! Wow that seems weird but we are thrilled they will step right in when we leave! We still have lots of year end stuff like senior night at the institute and summer activities! We will continue to try to find these kids!
We now have light until 9 pm. We figure almost two hours more light than Utah right now. This is as weird as the dark was! Love we get to experience all of this.
We are very grateful to be missionaries! Love all we serve and serve with! We do love all of you at home! we continue to pray for the Kidney Stoners.
GARY:
March 30, 2024
It’s kind of a rainy, wet cold Saturday today and the snow is melting quickly. It doesn’t look like a trail walk would be a very good idea. So we asked the Kuerths our good friends, who are serving as military relations missionaries to do something with us today. So we started out at Denny’s, the only Denny’s in Alaska and as we left, we saw the sign that said it is the northernmost Denney in the world. So we took a picture of us in front of the sign.
We were going to go down to a factory where they make Uulu knives, but they had decided to provide an Easter dinner for the young single military people tomorrow instead of joining us at Badger home for a senior missionaries Easter dinner. So they left and went shopping and do their thing so we went home and took a nap. It felt really good to not do a lot. But tonight we went to an Easter Cantata put on by the south stake choir, and it was beautiful, but only lasted a half an hour, so that was a good outing. There were seven or eight of our seminary students who were in the choir and performed so we were glad we were there to support them and talk to them after.
April 2, 2024 The past several weeks have been challenging, rewarding, difficult, educational and so many emotions that it’s hard to put on on paper what is going on in my mind. But that is impossible to do!
Most of the activity last couple of weeks has been dealing with seminary and Institute. Big surprise there since that is our calling, but we taught seminary three days for brother REEDER and Institute last Tuesday. It’s interesting, how studying to teach, is different than studying for yourself. I’m not sure which is the most beneficial because when you’re teaching you’re thinking of your students, and when you’re studying alone, you’re thinking of yourself. So needless to say, we’ve learned a lot because we’ve taught one day out of the book of Mormon, one on the teachings of President Nelson, and another on Easter week and on the resurrection, so it’s been great variety, and great principles to learn to relearn.
But as I look back, there were two lessons that have made a significant impact on me, and both of them were taught by brother REEDER, not by me.
Let me share one principal that I think is very important.
Seminary Class Activity
Sister DeVries & Sister Soakai
In todays world, wise parents are are using tools to help their children navigate the Internet and the things that they are confronted in through life. One of these tools is to acknowledge out loud, what they are seeing. For example, if they see an inappropriate image as they close the image, they should say out loud, that is pornography or that is immodest; or that is excessive violence; or that is abusive behavior, etc. By doing so it helps them understand that it is real what they are viewing and how it makes them feel. So typically that tool is used to identify negative things.
The same tool can be used for certain specific positive things as well. For example, when we have a positive experience or spiritual experience or a learning experience, we should write it down, tell someone about it, so that we know that what we have felt or experienced or learned is real, that it really happened. So that later on when recalling that event, you don’t wonder if you mis-remember or if you imagined it or if you weren’t sure what had happened.
There are times, that are very personal to me that I have done that very thing. The last couple of weeks have been sometimes discouraging, but also a time of some deep, spiritual feelings. I’ve written them in another section of my journal, I’ve shared them with my wife, and I’ve shared a high-level on my experience with the Institute students. And one of the reasons I told Bro Reeder I was sharing it, was because I wanted to make sure that they knew, and that I knew that those experiences I had were real, not something in my imagination.
Another lesson that Brother REEDER gave was the Friday before Easter that was just incredible. I’ve got the PowerPoint so I can remember some of the things we talked about so that I can record them & to be able to remember them. It was about three Hebrew words, Kaphar-atonement--a verb that means "to cover" or "to forgive". Closely related is an Aramaic word Kafat meaning "a close embrace" and Hesed which President Nelson described as "a special Love".
To me, this is one of the blessings of being a missionary, and that is have my mind completely focused on the savior, and on finding his lost sheep. It’s hard to duplicate this mindset when there are so many competing distractions in the world. This has given us a chance to be out of that world, not totally, but our minds can turn back if we get too distracted. So it seems that every lesson, every talk every sacrament meeting, stake conference, zone, conference, etc. etc. I feel I am learning so much. I guess that’s what we’ve always been told-- you get out of the meeting what you put into it.
This has been a boring entry, but we got three or 4 inches of snow to cover up the dirty snow on the sides of the road, it frosted the pine trees again, made the sheets of ice again, and made it winter again, when we had been getting a teaser of spring in the air . But this will go away fast, well, kind of, probably not till May. And we have a little more coming this week. We’ve been told to expect a large snowstorm sometime in April. I am looking forward to that. No seriously I am looking forward to that. With us coming into spring our daylight time is getting longer and it is as weird as it was when the days got shorter. It is so fun to experience these wild extremes.
We are going up this weekend for four days to Fairbanks, which is about a 7 Hour drive from here. We’re hoping to see more of the northern lights, go to the north pole, sit on Santa’s lap, see his reindeer, you know that kind of stuff you do at the north pole . You may think I’m kidding but wait till next week when you see the pictures.
I’ve been making a list of all the things that we haven’t done yet and we have a lot of work, or play to do before we leave. Well, I guess a lot of work and play. So we are in the tweener season of spring so we’ll just take whatever weather we get,
The gospel is true, we are so happy doing what we are doing and praying for all of you.
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