Home from Alaska-

 So this will be our final entry of our mission to the Anchorage Alaska Mission, assigned as CES missionaries. As I'm writing this, we are home in Malad, Idaho, and have been released as full-time missionaries. In one way it's very sad, and we miss so badly the people that we have been working with and serving. But we recognize that our service had a time to end and it is now time for us to look to the future and what it holds for us. 

Greeting Party at the Airport

The last two days of the mission was heart wrenching as we realized that many of these people we will never see again in this life. But we have faith and confidence that we will see them again. 

Monday we went to our final District Council with the Westchester District--Young missionaries.  President Larsen our mission President joined us--and unusual treat for all of us. It was so great to meet with them one last time and feel their wonderful spirit and testimony. 

Westchester District

 On Monday night, JUSTIN REEDER, had worked with the YSA Ward and North Stake group to have a combined FHE and the announcement he sent out said we were going to celebrate President and Nelson's 100th birthday by reviewing and sharing how he has impacted our lives. He also said that we are also going to say goodbye to Elder and Sister Cox. He had told us that we might be asked to say a few words at the end so we weren't sure what was coming. As we gathered together as a group with 30 or 40 YSA's

Last FHE some of our friends who came

that we had served with, we were able to share with them, some of our feelings about being in Alaska and serving a mission here. We ended the meeting about 8 o'clock so it was a short one hour FHE and we didn't leave till about 10 that night because we stayed around and talked and laughed and took pictures and had a great time.

Tuesday night was our regular Institute night, and again an opportunity for us to say goodbye to other people who we hadn't already. Although we would've loved to been in the lesson with

Justin Reeder-Our mission leader

JUSTIN, we were needed out in the hall to talk & to counsel with some kids who were in need. We didn't leave that night till about 10 o'clock as well. 

Patti & Darrell Kincaid -she was Thurs night teacher

We love these people dearly and I was talking to Carolee, I thought how amazing it was that we came on our mission, hoping to be able to touch someone and we hope we did, but it ended up that they were the ones that touched us.

As we look back on our 12 months here in Alaska, there is no question in our minds that we gave it our all.

My First friend in Alaska--ALI

A senior mission is way, way different than a mission when you're a young adult. It is so much better, and because our missions are not proselyting missions nor teaching missions per se, we hope that we were able to Influence someone for good among the people that we associated with. We will forever be changed because of our service in Alaska and as full-time representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. We love Him and testify that He lives. 

Love you all...

P.S. This is our favorite Sister Missionary in the whole world--even thought she is not in the coldest mission in the world, but probably the hottest in Tucson, Arizona !! We got to talk with her on Monday before we left when all three of us were missionaries at the same time.  It was an honor for us.  She is so awesome. 

Sister Kaley Cox Our first grandchild missionary!!

September 8,2024

So everyone, this is the last hurrah!  We finish our mission and leave Alaska on Wednesday  9/11/2024. So we only have 2 days left in Alaska!  Totally hard to believe its been a year.  

 

Sisters Soderberg, Paul & Rasmussen (L to R) during 
District Council

We have had a great week! We fed our district a waffle, bacon & eggs breakfast Monday morning at the Institute as part of district council and had a great testimony Meeting with them! We are again really impressed with these missionaries. Again, to watch these missionaries, in a self-directed meeting talk about such truths was so impressive.  We know all missionaries are not like this, but almost all that we have gotten to know are.   It was a new way to celebrate Labor Day!!  We were asked to sub in early morning seminary on Tuesday, so Gary prepped most of the afternoon!  I started packing and organizing.  Since there was no FHE due to Labor Day, we went down to Ocean View Bluff Park and went for a hike along the coast in a beautiful, dense forest. 

Ocean View Bluff Park-we hiked in the forest to the left

It had been raining so the trail was a little sloppy.  But it was an adventure as we traversed a trail that was not visible from the viewpoint.  We love our out of the  way adventures where we see little hidden jewels.  

Tuesday we taught early morning seminary at the Institute building, the 9th-10th graders. It starts at 7 now due to school start changes, so not too bad--better than 6:00AM!  Lesson was from Helaman, on prophets, so a great one! I can't believe how much we gain from teaching.  I (Gary) do most of the in front of class teaching, but during our prep time, we are discussing concepts, principles that we want to teach and then discuss questions to ask, approach to take.  It is very helpful for me.  Then Carolee will take a part to teach in almost every lesson.  It has been a great formula for me as she helps me stay focused on topic, gives me different perspective and tells me when what I'm doing makes no sense.  I really appreciate her input and support.  We balance each other well as we seem to do.  

After class, we helped the other teacher with some technical problems she was having.  Once it was fixed I turned to walk from around the podium and tripped over the cord from the TV we were hooked to.  I went down hard on my artificial knee and my hands.  Carolee said I jumped up like I was a teenager and I said I was ok.  Chatted for a few more minutes as I showed her my "clicker" to advance the power point presentation with blue tooth.  I didn't want her to feel bad since she was warning me about the cords as I was falling to the ground.  I should have been more careful.  But I was really hurting.  My wrists were sore and my knee was screaming at me.  The next day I could hardly walk, but each day is a little better.  It's Sunday now and it still hurts to go down stairs, but I can sleep without Advil. 😬 

We went souvenir shopping while we were out cause we were out!  We are getting short on time!  Then we went to the institute at noon and I spent most of the afternoon cleaning then making bread for Institute class. We didn’t have missionaries or others so it was quiet! Justin has a great class on the Book of Revelation. I think we had 25 kids there.  No bread left that night!  Carolee has become famous for her bread, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls--and raspberry jam.  It is such a treat for everyone, even the Stake Presidency who meets there.  If they time the end of their meeting just right, a hot piece of homemade bread is a pretty sweet ending to their night. Most of the time we don't get a slice, so no bread is part of the gift!

Wednesday morning was my last temple day! I was a follower on the first session!  She was sweet to have me do that.  I really hope I will be able to continue working after we return home!  They were very sweet telling me goodbye!  We usually go back to the temple in the evening but a senior sister missionary was showing the movie Escape from Germany at the Institute bldg. so we went to help her and enjoyed the movie with her, Sister Watanabe, Sister Badger and a few friends!  We provided popcorn from our movie theater style popcorn maker.  President Azimi wasn’t sure the movie night is a good idea so don’t know where that is going!  

Also found out that Jarilyn is having a boy!! We are thrilled for her Benny to get a brother along with his 3 sisters!

Due to our Wednesday schedule we went to the temple on Thursday morning!  I love it and the 7 minute drive will be missed!  I did make cinnamon rolls for Thursday night institute. Another last!  We had 12 kids there which was great.  Our last night with Patti Kinkaid. We sure love her! Her and her husband Darrell have become loyal friends and we will miss them.  She has such a pure, innocent spirit that we just love.  We will continue to study the book about gift of repentance from Elder Anderson.

BYU had a football game on Friday so after some errands in the morning, we enjoyed the game and I mended missionary pants!  BYU won, so obviously that was good and Staci and James  and Dallin were there! It was a fun game!  

Saturday,  our last p-day! Carolee was packing (I have not started yet. I am in denial that we are really leaving)  and we spent some time writing talks for speaking in the YSA group in the North Anchorage Stake.  So we decided to have one last adventure so we drove up North to Arctic Valley to see the leaves.  After we were going to Falls Creek down Turnagain Arm to the south of Anchorage, to hike the trail! 

(The following is Carolee's version of a story in 51 words.  If that works for you, then skip the next paragraph where I will tell you the story, not just the facts! 😁)

Carolee:  Lo and behold we had out miracle at the last hour and saw our first bears, crossing Seward Highway!  

Bears!!!  The other cub was a slow poke.

A black bear and two cubs!! Our first, at week 50 in Alaska and with 4 days left here!! It was the last thing on the bucket list!  We can go home now!!

Gary's bear story...I shouldn't have to say this, but every word in my story is true, without embellishment, exaggeration, or stretching the truth.  There is no "binging" going on.  I promise. 

So, after I pushed the 650 pound dead grizzly bear off my chest and holstered my 357 magnum pistol that was still hot from emptying the whole magazine into the grizzly's open gaping mouth,  I checked to see if everyone else was ok...😂

Ok, so here's the bear story.  To preface this story,  we have seen bears before, but we really wanted to see an Alaskan bear in the wild.  It was on our bucket list for our time here and we have gone 360 day without seeing one.    We left our house and as we just started going, I remembered that we hadn't brought our walking poles.  We usually have them in the car but we had emptied the car to clean it for the next missionaries coming in.  So we turned around and went back and got them. We drove off and about the same place, I asked Carolee if she had closed the garage door cause I couldn't remember doing it, so we turned around and sure enough we had not closed it.  So we headed out again and Carolee was cuing up a podcast for us to listen to, but was having some problems.  So before we got on the highway heading out of town, I pulled over and got it going.  We got out of Anchorage with the coast on one side and the mountains on the other.  suddenly the panel truck and car in front of us slowed down and moved a little left like they were going to make a left turn, but then they didn't turn.  In my typical aggressive, critical driving habit (one of these days my repentance will really stick) I was criticizing them when out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in the brush on the passenger side of the road.  I turned and looked and at first thought it was a big black lab dog!  But then I recognized the nose and yelled that it was a bear.  I pulled off immediately into the parking lot  of the Chugach State park and turned to see if we could see it in the brush.  Suddenly it was right to the side of us and it crossed the highway with a cub following it.  Traffic was stopped both ways--like Yellowstone.  Only they stop here, not to gawk, but to allow the bear to cross safely.  So it went off into the trees across and I noticed a road right across from me so we crossed the highway, just after the bears.  I looked back for a second and saw that traffic was still stopped because a 2nd cub was crossing the road.  We pulled into what apparently was a private driveway to see if we could see them.  The reason we went there, was because I got buck fever and I couldn't get my stupid phone to go to the camera and I didn't get a picture of them.  How could I prove to my family & friends that we saw a bear with no picture?  So as we were stopped, we saw the sign that it was a private driveway, so I stopped.  Just then a car pulled up behind me and honked his horn and yelled at me to leave that he lived up there.  So I moved over and let him speed by and suddenly the mama bear and one cub came out of the trees,

This is our Alaskan Black Bear. I think I'll name her "Miracle"

crossed in front of us and disappeared into the trees.  We could see the other cub still trying to get out of some underbrush to follow mama, but we left before he made it.  Now, as we thought of the events of us leaving this morning, if we had not been delayed by those insignificant little things, we would not have seen these bears.  Some call that a coincidence but we don't believe in those any more--they are divine interventions, tender mercies or tiny miracles.  Some people may think it silly to think that, but we had been longing to have that experience, but never shirked our responsibilities to go seek them out.  I think that the Lord is very aware of each of us and it makes me feel like he is in the very details of our lives. Besides, what harm would there be to make this experience happen for us?  It brought a bit of joy to our day and I personally am very grateful for it.  

So, there you have it, 695 words, not counting the Grizzly bear introduction or this explanation.  haha

Falls Creek

We continued on and hiked for up Falls Creek for about a half hour. It was pretty steep, but the name of the creek was accurate.  Beautiful little falls all the way down the mountain. 


Then another little adventure up Indian Creek where we saw more of beautiful Alaska.  We were so blessed to come here.  

We have just had an amazing Sunday day!  We went to the YSA for the last time and got to see a lot of our kids and tell them goodbye!  We then went and spoke at North Anchorage YSA. Very small group but some of our favs like Bishop Afatia, Fen, Cathy!!  After, I came home and made funeral potatoes to take to dinner at Reeders. We had a wonderful visit with them! They have been so kind and thoughtful to us and have become great friends. The highlight was our mission zoom tonight where our district reported finding 200 people this week! Four companionships!  What a huge increase in their teaching pool.  They were able to share with the whole mission some of the things they did and how they exercised their faith and how it just kept getting stronger.  And they remained humble, expressed gratitude and the Lord blessed them. They are such great kids! They are working their tails off. We are really proud of them!  The mission is pulling out of a major slump.

We clean and pack and go to last district meeting, FHE, and Institute and leave Wed morning!  We will shed some tears but we have loved it all and have no regrets!  We are grateful for our call here and the beautiful world we have enjoyed!  The people are amazing as they would be anywhere when you are in the service of our God!

September 1,2024

We recognize this week we can't say we will do something we want to do later anymore, so we're just doing.  Like Gary will want to know what is down that road so we turn down it instead of drive by it like we have for a year! 

 Also coming up is our next to last Tuesday at the Institute building so time to clean and organize! Along with making waffle cookies and cutting watermelon for class that night, I cleaned out a lot of cupboards and organized our paper goods etc. Should have done this day one here just so i would have been better at knowing all we had! Still will do some more cleaning and organizing this week so our replacements can see better what they are working with! We had a big class Tuesday night studying The Book of Revelation. Justin is a great teacher! 

 Thursday we only had like 3 young adults at class besides missionaries! It is a great course but hard to teach with that number. I did bake bread and everyone likes that. I sent an extra loaf home with Christopher. He comes religiously but does not come into the class room! He is a sad case since suffering a traumatic brain injury a few years ago.  He was a promising young man and now he is state custody and talks intelligent words, but just cannot connect concepts and it ends up total gibberish. He walks 4 miles each way to institute two nights a week no matter the weather.  He is surely one whom the atonement of Jesus Christ will cover in such a beautiful way.  Till then, we are kind and loving to him and Carolee always makes sure there is enough for him to take home. Some interesting challenges! 

I was able to work in the temple and I now only have one more time. Gary went and help butcher & process Caribou again and then we went on a session with our young adults that evening. Talli, the relief society president was the only YSA  there. She broke up with her guy so was sad. I was glad we were there to give her a hug. 

Friends at the Alaska State Fair, Palmer, AK

State Fair 2,035  lb pumpkin  (It's the orange one, 
not the blue one 😂)

Friday we went to the state Fair in Palmer. We went with the Badgers and Gailey's who work down in Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula! It was a nice day to enjoy the culture and be with friends! We spent all day and were glad we went! Badgers had us for dinner again! Steaks and it was all delicious! We are so sad to say goodbye to them!  We have had a lot of adventures with them.  We hope to come back to visit them with Kuerths next summer sometime! 

 

Fall is really here because not only are the leaves changing but BYU football started so after a morning walk down a trail we came home to watch the game! It was a fun game! I was able to stay a little distracted by mending some elders clothes and prepping food for Hawaiian haystacks for our break the fast today at church! We made way too much food cause only 40 or so came. We had 65 in Sacrament meeting but they hadn't announced this meal ahead so kids have plans I think! 

Campbell Creek Estuary

Fall is coming

Saturday after the game, I (Gary) cooked a Caribou Roast for dinner.  Michael shared it with us.  I swear, it tasted just like chicken!!😂😂 Actually, it is not a very gamy flavor, looked like a beef roast, but was very, very lean.  So I blew it by over cooking it a bit so it was kind of dry.  We used different  sauces with it.  It was kind of good, although I'm not sure I would order it or ask for more.  If offered to me, I would take it.  

I'm saying Caribouuuuu, not doing what face 
the kids nowadays pull...the smoldering kind of look!

 We also visited the Russian Jack ward. I met some sisters there that a family member needs institute! I was able to encourage and give info! Gary was able to talk to a young poly waiting for his mission call who was discouraged! He helped encourage him. We bear our testimonies tonight on Larsen's Lessons which is our Sunday night mission-wide zoom meeting, so I think that means adios!! We'll show them and work for another week! We do love it here!  (Gary) We have so loved being missionaries.  If you want to do something valuable with your time, that will make a difference in the world, a senior mission is such an awesome way to do it.  We can't wait to be home, but it is getting harder and harder each day telling people we've come to love good-bye.  

We love all of you and can't wait for hugs! May God bless us all this week! Think Celestial!