Sunday, September 11, 2011

Home evening  Trisha, Pres. Olsen, & Elder Ulu'ave
More Home Evening - Adam, Elder Gledhill, Riley, Joslyn, Aubry
                                            A rabbit we found on our walk in the neighborhood.

We have seen these rabbits along side of  the road as we have driven around but this one was very close and quite oblivious to us so we got right up next to him and took his picture. These rabbits turn totally white in the winter months. You will also notice below that the fall colors are in full swing here in the far north. It is mostly yellows and some orange from the birch trees however there are just a few birch trees that have a bright red top just to add to the beauty of the forest in its splendor of fall colors.  The two pictures above are of the weekly family night we hold where Trisha (the investigator of about two years) is the assigned family night chair-person and we usually have the meeting at her apartment. The pictures above are at what the guys call "the ranch" or the house where several YSA are renting together. We had a great barbecue and a lesson from the full time young elders. Our association with the YSA is certainly a highlight of being here in Fairbanks. They are just a great bunch of young people to associate with. The bottom two pictures were taken on labor day. We went with a couple of YSA and two of their non-member friends out to some of our nearby mountains to hike the trail up to angel rocks. It is an hour and one half drive to the trail head and then the trail goes up a couple of miles and maybe five hundred feet elevation gain to some granite outcrops called angel rock. It was a fun drive and hike to a place we had not been. The two non-members are having the gospel introduced to them by Cameron who is a fellow student with them at UAF in the physics department. We thought we had driven a long way to Alaska but one of the non-member girls had driven all the way from North Carolina. This past week was the first full week of institute classes, and we had The Gospel and the Productive Life on Tuesday evening, Teachings of the Living Prophets at noon on Wednesday, another section of The Gospel and the Productive Life on Thursday at six p.m., Old Testament class on Thursday at seven thirty and a Book of Mormon class on Friday at ten a.m.. We are also teaching temple preparation on Sunday as well. We are having our first early morning seminary in-service this coming Wednesday at six thirty a.m. and we are speaking in the Salcha branch this coming Sunday. So needless to say along with all of the other things we have to do, we are keeping busy.  We continue to enjoy the work here and love to be missionaries.

Jim and JoAnn
 




The hills are beautiful with color.

                                                                    Angel Rocks
Elder & Sister Spens, Cameron, Doug, Jody, Adam, & Matt at Angel Rocks trail head