Alaska Mission

                                          Behind us is the Institute building here in Fairbanks.
                                          We are getting to know the facilities and the young single
                                          adults that attend classes,social activities and church services
                                           here.

                                          Here are some Inupiat Indian dancers at the University of Alaska
                                          performing traditional dances. There are many native American
                                          groups that live in Alaska. They all have their separate and
                                          distinct cultures.

We attended a CES fireside on Sunday, November 7 .  Elder Ballard was the speaker at that fireside and brought up some very interesting points.  He talked about the growth of the church, and how long it took for the church to have 1000 stakes and that was around 1920.  He then went on to talk about how it took fewer and fewer years for the stake number to increase by 1000 to the point that now and in the future the growth of the church will continue to require more and more stake presidents, bishops and every other leadership position in the church from 70s to scoutmasters.  He then went on to ask where are these people that will be taking over those leadership positions in 30 years from now when the church has grown too much more significant size that it is today?  He then pointed out that he was speaking to those leaders.  The youth of the church.  I realize this also includes our grandchildren, and all of the young  in the church.  That is the reason that we need to teach all of the youth of the church the basic doctrines of Christ, while they are young.  Much of what he said came from the book Preach My Gospel, which he highly recommended that all members of the church should be using especially parents to teach their children the basic doctrines of the Gospel.  It was a great fireside that we thoroughly enjoyed.  As we drove home on snow-covered roads I said to JoAnn that it is getting very wintry .