Free Haircut?

Last full week in the Memory Lake Ward, Wasilla Stake.  I've had so much fun in this area and will miss the members greatly.  I feel like I'm part of a big family up here, but all good things must come to an end.  You'll have to keep reading to see where I'm going :). Here are the highlights:

Hatcher Pass Summit:  Why wouldn't we go hiking? This is the 5th week in a row.  I won't get this though where I'm going next.  Need to take advantage now while I have the opportunity.  We get up to the part with four lakes and there is still snow patches on the mountain !! It's been close to 80 degrees the last couple of days and there is still snow on the mountains?!  We climbed higher to just walk the top of the bow. While up there we smelled Marijuana and sure enough there was the plant up there. Crazy.

Painting:  We had a lesson set with Sister Berdeaux but she got asked to help with a project Brother Stolberg was in charge of. We show up to the address she sent us and they were painting the house. We offered our help so we drove back to change into clothes we didn't mind getting paint on.  A family is to move into the house the next day and for some reason, the living room attached to the kitchen had two separate colors of paint on the wall.  A line separating the two was across the ceiling.  It looked terrible. We were re-painting the walls all white which made the old color look completely different than white.  They fed us pizza for lunch, which is always a blessing. 

YW Camp:  We got invited to attend a portion of the Young Women's Camp.  Their theme was "Sharing the Light" so the camp director asked us to come one night and teach about missionary work and how to share the gospel with others.  Before we did that, we got fed dinner and played Ticket-to-Ride.  They didn't have the instructions so I just taught some of the girls how to play.

Free Haircut:  So normally when you hear "free haircut" you don't walk, you run the other direction.  Well, this summer program thing led by some other church would bring in groups from other states to come and help kids at the parks in Alaska. They would feed them and do crafts with them, and this also helped out with the homeless in the area.  We would OYM at the park occasionally and made friends with the head directors.  We showed up on Thursday evening when they normally have their block party.  We completely forgot about it, but we're thrilled to remember when we pulled up.  One of the directors came up to us and offered us food which we declined as we were going to dinner right after.  He then asked if we wanted a free haircut. I had meant to get my hair cut this transfer, but we always went hiking so there was no time.  Sister Pike was sketched out by it, but I was down.  The lady swore up and down that she has a license in cutting hair; that she owns her own salon in North Carolina and has been cutting hair for 35 years.  I just needed a trim so what's the worst that could happen?  We go inside the church with her and she talks our ears off while cutting my hair.  Not too shabby.  Got a free haircut and it actually looks good. We got our calls later than night:

I am going to Fairbanks to be a STL (Sister Training Leader) with Sister Richards (who served in Memory Lake prior to me coming here), but white washing into the YSA ward!  Well, elders used to serve there, so we are actually, what we call, "pink washing". It would be "blue washing" if elders white washed into an area previously covered by sisters.  I have always wanted to serve in a YSA ward my whole mission and I am so excited. I fly up on Wednesday (Aug 9th) with my new companion.  President is doing some changes when it comes to MLC making it more like an actual counsel, which I am excited for as well.  We get to fly down for those!  He is also implementing a new concept called a "traveling assistant" with one of my zone leaders.  Basically, he will not have a full-time companion as he will travel around the mission trio-ing it with other elders helping them out and giving advice. When is is not doing that, he is in a trio with a second set of elders serving in the same ward the the APs.  Crazy, but cool. It will be interesting to see how this works out. 

Miracles Dinners:  For our dinner calendar this week, we had three open days which we were going to have to fend for ourselves, but all of those days were taken care of. The first was taken care of by a new investigator.  She has started learning about Jesus Christ and has asked her coworker who is a member in another ward questions and friend told her to meet with the missionaries.  She fed us dinner prior to our lesson. #Blessing.  The second one we had asked our go-to members if they can feed us.  The last was another blessing.  We were doing service for this non-member family to move this playground set from one house to another and they offered to feed us the next day because they were planning on a BBQ.  It turned out we didn't have dinner that night, so that was amazing. The Lord provides when we are doing His work.

Sent from ALASKA!
Sister Shelley Willden