April 18, 2011

How is everything at home? Things are going well here. My last companion Elder Winterrose said he thinks I am the only Elder in our mission who has had 6 baptisms in his first area. I am having a lot of fun teaching people what I know about the Gospel.

President Dance declared a NO caffeine while on our mission rule that other Elders are struggling with. I'm glad I never drink any. It has not been very cold here, for the most part, it just feels like Rexburg. It has snowed pretty good at least once per week this last 3 weeks. The weather in general sounds the same.

I'm glad to hear about Kolby's call, it is cool to hear about all the people coming home and leaving. Thanks for mentioning Kay I was actually going to ask you today about him.
This is a picture of the chapel and foyer in the Willow Ward in Wasilla it is like a log cabin and its pretty nice. My companion says most of them in the bush here are like that.


This is Elder Ofly he was my district leader. He just went home on April 13th.

Being Transferred tomorrow!

April 11, 2011

I am being transferred tomorrow to Wasilla just north of Anchorage about an hour. I will have a new companion. I will be busy packing most of today. I'm excited but, I also kind of wanted to stay. Transfer happen every 6 weeks.

My weekend has been good the investigator we had was baptized and confirmed.

Monday, April 4, 2011

No baptism this week however we have one Friday night.

Conference was very good we watched it at the Stake Center from 8am-10am and 12-2pm, everything is 2 hours earlier. I really liked the talk about how the gospel comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. I thought that was a pretty funny ...all of the talks were really good though. We watched it in English, but it was also in Samoan, Tongan and Spanish. Having to learn language in the missionfield and not having much time to do so yet would mean I would not understand anything unless they said full, hungry, fine, awesome, hello, goodbye and a few other things in Samoan. I'm still working on pronunciation and things limiting my time to practice. We are working hard but lots of things that happen to fall on this month have limited it.

No fishing license yet, to much ice in between us an the fish, that will start in early summer and late spring.

Our recent convert from last week watched all of the conference and the 2 hours of shows in between them as well and really enjoyed it. Her non-member husband watched it as well and seemed to enjoy it. She was very surprised by the fact he stayed for all of it. During our lessons he always got up and left after about half an hour. (not disruptively, he just left).

I was wondering.... what is the possibility that we could mail some fresh salmon down to Pablo and he could overnight me a flat of strawberries or something like that. I really want some fresh strawberries and our members have lots of salmon and I think it sounds like a fair trade. Could you investigate. Also my members wife is in love with Pablo's seasoning she wants to find out if she can order a bunch of it. Yes that's right she wants to pay for it because she could not find it in the stores here. She went on the website and sent a letter inquiring about it.

I love you very much!

March 28, 2010

My first baptism!

All 5 people were baptized and confirmed this Saturday and Sunday as planned. On Sunday we put another investigator on date. I got to baptize one of the 5, my companion baptized one, a previous elder who helped them baptized one, a brother baptized his sister and one baptized his cousin. I got to do a confirmation as well.

Elder Justin White, Raihana H., Elder Britton Winterrose, Bethany P., Lucy H., Sister Sarai T., Shelena H., Elder Tyler Williams, Barcelona P., Brother Jason S., Brother Ben P.

Elder Winterrose baptized Lucy, Elder White baptized Raihana, Elder Williams baptized Shelena, Jason baptized Lona, and Ben baptized Bethany.

This is the chapel we attend.
This is where we live.

This picture shows where our house is compared to our area. Our house is the red x our area is that whole red square. there are other wards in that but our Samoan ward covers that whole area. (Samoan) people only. I was just taking a second look at the area map I sent you the top right side up there is covered by us as well. With the areas like Russion Jack and Mountain View.

This picture the red square is where our chapel is the blue dot is where our house is. Our house is on the north side of the street.

We can go on hikes and visit places if we don't leave our zone on p-days. Sometimes we hang out with the other missionaries at the church.

Other than that nothing interesting has really happened. I heard Chris had to help you with my computer and that it is now the one upstairs. That is a good idea seeing how dad did not need a computer that nice at his office. Mine will do anything you really could possibly need at home. I'm worried about when Chris moves out because no one will be there to help with the computers.

Well I love you all, bye.

Monday, March 21, 2010

(I wrote and told Tyler we were having a birthday party

for Gma Janet and the menu was tacos or pizzas)

First off:

The menu is tacos or pizza and we will be thinking of you as we eat them

(Tyler added 3 crying faces to the end of this sentence)

My week has been pretty good. We have 5 people on date for baptism on this Saturday the 26th. We are doing our best to make sure they stay on track. We have to make sure we can find new investigators or we will be out of a job for awhile, as our area is non tracting based we have to rely on members recommending people. Hopefully we will get a lot of non members to the baptism as well. One of the people getting baptized is Lucy Hansen. She is the person who organizes the Polynesian flag day celebration (apparently in the community it is pretty big especially for Samoans who love to throw a party) and she knows a lot of Samoans we can teach.

The first Samoan party I've been to has happened this week. They had a DJ (one of the priest in the ward with huge speakers on the stage) and lots of food. Now let me remind you this was the Relief Society Birthday dinner no less. It was a lot of fun. It went from like 7:00 - 9:20 pm. They had lots of upbeat music for kids and older people to dance too.

I love you all and hope you enjoy your week as well.

bye mom

Monday, March 14, 2011

The tsunami did not affect Alaska at all, it never made it up here. On my flight to Alaska there were 40 missionaries leaving the MTC with us going to Japan, 20 of which were going to Tokyo...it makes me worry a bit, but I am sure that they are safe.

I am not used to people like Sister Dance, she is really nice but has intense stare, like she stares into your eyes and looks right at your soul and always has something really nice to say about you. She liked the aura that surrounds me and loves how friendly I am. Its hard to respond to her when she says things like that cause I'm simply not used to it. I usually just say thank you. The first time she tried that staring into my soul thing she accidental focused on my left eye and seemed a little confused then looking into my right eye and started saying nice things. (note to self, contacts block people from staring into the soul).

President and Sister Dance are both very nice people, but I will not have them my whole mission, I believe we get a new President in 6 months or so.

We do not do tracting as it is ineffective to preach to Samoans as a bunch of palangi (gringos) unless their friends recommend us to them. We have put 5 people on date to be baptized this year, beating their average baptism per year by one. (average baptism per year in Samoan wards is about 3-4) the ward is very excited and I think they are starting to trust us a lot more considering 3 of them a mom and 2 daughters is friends of the Bishop's wife who she referred to us. My companion served in Anchorage in Samoan before the wards split, there are 3 Samoan wards in Anchorage. We are incharge of the Dimond Ward. There are 2 missionaries in each branch or ward in Alaska.

This week they have been doing specialized training it felt like I was back in the MTC. It was new to the missionaries in the mission field but I had even newer curriculum than they were teaching because I was in the pilot program at the MTC. I pretty much knew what they were going to say before they said it. It was really good but it would be like watching the same episode of monk for 3 weeks straight like 10 times a day.

I love you but have to go see you later.

President & Sister Dance

This last week we received a letter from Tyler's Mission President and wife letting us know he has arrived. Included was picture of Tyler with them. Proof for parents that he is really there!