Well my last full week is done in Fairbanks. I'm getting out before I freeze over so that is a plus, but I have really enjoyed Fairbanks. I got to know the majority of it serving in the YSA. Here are the highlights of the week:
P-Day: P-day on a Tuesday because of zone Conference Monday. We had the APs stay up here for P-day and even Barrow staying down for the rest of the transfer. Everyone in the Zone was here so we played volleyball but missionary style. WE had four teams rotating basically playing king of the court. After that we played chair soccer. So many people having a chair not even five feet away from you most of the time is ridiculous. We had to eventually make it so each person had three lives or else the game would never end. We played lightning (knock out basketball game) and then dodge ball too. For FHE we did pumpkin carving. It's hard to do the small, intricate details so I found a design on Rachel's phone that wasn't too bad. It's a witch, but you can't really tell until you have a light in it in the dark.
Nenana: We drove up down to Nanana for our service day. While at the senior center having lunch Sister Richards had the idea to shovel driveways as a service. We told our branch mission Leader, Brother Verhagen, about it and he said we are "cool missionaries", :) He told us where we could get shovels and he drove around the Main Street asking whose place we could shovel. One was a man named Robert from the senior center. He has attending church in the past. As we were doing other sidewalks we talked to him more and we asked him if we could visit with him when we return and he agreed! We shoveled sidewalks, driveways, and even church ramps for other churches. For once it was a good thing that it snowed. Though it all melted this week. It is fine for it to snow if it is going to stay freezing, but not when it toggles between degrees surrounding freezing. That means the ice melts and refreezes causing it to layer when it continues to precipitate. Not good when you are driving on this. We helped out at the library afterwards before having dinner with Evelyn. We drove home and the roads weren't as bad as I thought they would have been. Everyone kept talking about freezing rain but it didn't come until a couple of days later.
DJ: We had a lesson with him Thursday after dinner at Rachel's house. DJ is in a culinary class and made break that he brought over for us to eat. He made this cream cheese spread with passion fruit which was to die for. After dinner we asked him how he came to the conclusion that he wasn't to be baptized and shared with us his experience with his sister and realizing he needs to be baptized. He says he still doesn't know if he believes this Church to be true yet but he is working on it. We extended an invitation for him to be baptized the 18th of November and he accepted that date via text the next day! So excited. Too bad I won't be here for it.
Productive Day: Saturday we had things scheduled every two hours starting from 1pm. We did our studies and lunch prior to that and the day just flew. The zone Leaders in 3rd ward were having a baptismal service so we invited DJ to come and he came. It was a really good service. The people who spoke about baptism and the Holy Ghost did a really good job. The guy who got baptized shared his testimony which was really powerful. After that we had a lesson with Craig. Kaiana and Ethan came as fellow-shippers. Craig serve a mission and knows all that we are teaching him but at one point he confessed that he hadn't read his scriptures all week even when he committed to do so last lesson. Sometimes it is really fun to call people to repentance. The Spirit takes over whatever it is I'm saying and it is awesome. Craig committed to read again so hopefully he does. I'll write Sister Richards to see if he does. We then drove out to North Pole for dinner with Mack and Taylor, his friend who returned from serving in Iraq. We then drove over to the city of Ester to have a lesson with Corey making good time. He got called into work at the first station so we had our lesson there. We invited David to come as a fellow shipper since he works as a firefighter too.
Transfer call: So I am pink washing (taking over an area where elders were before) Brayton. This ward is in the Anchorage zone meeting at the building in the same parking lot as the temple. That is always exciting. My new companion is Sister Bowers. She was in the Cook Inlet YSA, but now we are both starting new in this ward. Sunday I said goodbye to the YSA Ward up here. It doesn't feel like I'm leaving. It never really feels like you are leaving; especially only after two transfers. We are to drive down tomorrow at 8am to Anchorage. Hopefully the roads won't be too icy.
I've enjoyed serving with Sister Richards. I'm going to miss her and the fun times we have had.
Sent from ALASKA!
Sister Shelley
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