Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Alaska, Week 37

  

Hello,

This week was pretty crazy. I just finished doing a sick hike. I love
hiking, so it was super funny. It's an Oregon day today, so we got
wet and it was a lot of fun. So I'm going to give you the highlight
reel because my fingers are very cold and slow right now, plus that's
all you savages care about anyways.

I love everything. Being a missionary is awesome. I have way too much
fun, and it goes by way too fast. But it really is the best. We didn't
teach many lessons this week, but we did get to do a lot of finding
and found several people for the other missionaries in our area.
However we did get to meet with Marc a couple times, which was super
fun. We are going to start a scripture study class every week because
he wants to, so we're having the other missionaries bring their investigators

too and it's super fun. We had a lesson on Wednesday
with Whittney and she called me by my first name because she had just
got done Facebook stalking me, which was pretty funny. She also
brought her friend Eric, who we taught the Restoration to, and now
he's super committed to reading the Book of Mormon. Awesome sauce.
Other than that we taught a few other lessons. I also went on exchange
with the crazy Samoan, Elder Crichton, and he tackled me while we
played rugby with the young men. Crazy times. Marc also texts us
every day saying that he is a child of God. He told us that we helped
him solve his identity crisis.

And there's the highlights. Now my fingers are a little less brittle.
I love you all! Have a great week!

John

Cook Inlet, Anchorage, Alaska, Week 36

Hola mis amigos,

Alaska is the best. This is the prettiest place in the world. It's
sunny out forever. The sun sets around 9 30 or 9 45 right now and
comes up before I get up. It rains at night then the clouds break up
in the morning and it gets up into the mid 50's. I broke put the short
sleeved shirt. Problem is, I only have one short sleeved shirt. But
because it's so nice out road construction season has started, which
is nice because the roads up here are terrible, but also annoying
because no one like road construction. But any day where you can role
the windows down and jam to classical music while on your way to a
lesson at 8 30 at night and still have the sun shining on you and not
be freezing cold is a good day. Plus, now that it's light out we can
tract at 8 30. It's the best because everyone is home.

Monday was crazy. We went and played sports at Kincaid Park again, but
this time we played soccer. I got straight tackled by a Sister
missionary. What are you supposed to do in that situation? I also got
kicked in the shin, which there's still a bruise from. But it was a
lot of fun. All the scarily competitive people went to play ultimate
Frisbee so we had a nice game of soccer where no one tried to kill
anyone. It was great. Then we all got ice cream. That's what's up.
That's also why I'm fat. But that's life.

Tuesday was fun. We had a good district meeting. Then we tracted. And
I know we did other things but I can not actually remember what we did
on Tuesday at all. Weird.

I can actually remember what we did on Wednesday. We had a lesson with
Marc in the morning. We've started doing Binle/Book of Mormon studies
with him because there's really nothing left for us to teach him. So
we're just studying and learning together which is really fun. Then I
took Elder Call to the university for the first time so we could talk
to people. And so we talked to people. When people blatantly ignore us
we say "or nah" really loud which usually gets them to laugh. Making
people laugh is the best. That way they at least feel better than they
did before. But we also did get to talk to people as they walked by so
it was fun. Sometimes I feel like Dan Jones, who was a missionary in
the 1840's, because we're doing the same thing he's doing in that
picture of him. Then we had dinner with Whittney and we all went and
partied at the addiction recovery meeting. And by party I mean
everything gets really heavy as we discuss the anguish of addiction
and how to overcome it. So not really much of a party. But still.

Thursday we taught our investigator Laura. She asked if we could have
a lesson in the park, so we went to earthquake Park to have the
lesson. Earthquake Park has its name because when that huge quake hit
in the 60's it turned the ground into this crazy mess, and so they
made a park out of it. So always asks the most random questions, but
this time we were actually able to tie it back into the Restoration,
which was nice. She's going down to Missouri this week to go to a
military ball with her boyfriend and probably get proposed too. So
that's exciting. Her boyfriend also hates Mormons. So that's less
exciting. But we'll see how it goes!

Friday I finally got to do service for a hoarder again! We were
helping this nice old lady move all her stuff from her old house to
her new, much smaller one, and she has a lot of stuff to fit in a
small house. No gun safes this time though. She gave us free year old
samoas though. We get a lot of free really gross food as missionaries.
Funny how that works. The sad part is that we eat it anyway. We're not
sad.

Saturday we did our district tract. We got Bible bashed super hard. I
hate Bible bashing, it doesn't do anyone any good. But it feels nice
to win. But not really because the Spirit's never there when there's
that much contention. Then we had district lunch and I learned a cool
magic trick. That afternoon we had another lesson with Marc. He's
doing quite swell. We were in the Church and he asked us to show him
the baptismal font. Then he asked us how many people he could invite
to his baptism. That's the best question anyone has ever asked. I love
Marc.

Sunday was really fun. The Bishop totally guilt tripped the ward
council into helping us get referrals which was awesome. Then the
meetings were really good and we had a munch and mingle afterwards
where there was homemade French toast with this super good syrup and I
ate way top much but it's okay because it was delicious. Then we had
another dinner. Then we had another lesson with Marc but our whole
district showed up and we had a crazy group study thing. Marc led the
discussion. He's like the most elect investigator I've ever seen. It's
awesome.

And that's the week. I'm long winded. But I don't care. I like telling
stories. So that's pretty much all I have for you this week. Take it
or leave it. Y'all are the best. Have some smiles this week.

Love,
John

Sister Albrecht, one of the sisters in their district, drew this.

Soccer

The Zone with President and Sister Robinson

Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Alaska, Week 35

How's it hanging?

Never start an essay with a weird open ended question like that.

Luckily this isn't an essay so I don't feel too bad. The weather has
significantly improved. The snow is gone, except in the mountains, and
it's usually in the 50's during the day. It's light outside till about
9 45 and the sun comes up at like 6 30. It's so nice. It's beautiful
up here. Alaska is paradise. At least in the late spring and summer.
We might get another snow fall before it's all said and done, but
we'll see.

Tuesday was fun. We didn't have district meeting because we had zone
meeting on Friday, so I was on exchange all day with my district
leader Elder Younger. He's awesome. We were in my area and it was
super fun. We taught several lessons and tracted and it was just a
nice refreshing day because it had been slow for a while. Exchanges
bring miracles. It's weird how it works. Then we met with Marc that
night. He's doing super well, which is nice.

Wednesday we exchanged back. Then we dug a ditch. That's right. We dug
a hole in the ground to move a puddle from one place to another. And
it was the nicest thing. It's been forever since I've been able to do
a simple service project like that and it was really nice. Service is
the nicest thing because you get to just help people. And also hit
things with an ax. But that's not the point. We did service with the
Sand Lake elders and the Jewel Lake sisters and we hammered it out in
no time. Then that night we met Marc at the addiction recovery program
meeting, which was super good, and Marc came out of it saying that he
wanted to change permanently. The lesson was on confession, so it was
pretty hard core. Luckily he didn't just confess everything to us
right there.

Thursday guess who we met with? If you guessed Marc you would be
correct. He wants to meet with us all the time. It's awesome.
Investigators like this show up once in a blue moon. I feel blessed to
be a part of this process. Then we tracted. All day. Until dinner with
Whittney which was good, as usual, because she spends way too much
money on feeding us. Sometimes I feel bad when these people who I know
are poor college students take us out to eat at nice places. But
that's how it is. She's doing good too. Everyone is doing good. It's
nice.

Friday was full of meetings. But Marc came to waffle and fun night
which was sweet. I also learned that if you hit the ball really hard
in billiards and hit something then something will probably go in
somewhere. So that's pretty much my strategy for billiards. I
understand how the angels work, I can just never hit it right. So I
make up for it by hitting it really, really hard. Sometimes it goes
off the table.

Saturday was a pretty standard Saturday. Working and teaching and all
good things. Then we had the evening session of stake conference. It
was great. Marc was there. This has been a Marc filled week. Awesome.
Then Saturday night I had the worst experience ever. Our toilet broke.
It was nasty. Like straight nasty. It took me two hours to clean. TWO
HOURS. It was so horrible. I had to scrub and rescrub and rescrub the
bathroom and it was the worst. The worst. It made me hate everyone. I
don't ever want to use that bathroom again.

Sunday was nice though. It always is. We had the normal stake
conference and it was also awesome. Then President invited us over for
lunch which was super nice. Ham and potatoes are always welcome in my
stomach. Then, because we weren't able to plan Saturday night because
our toilet exploded, we had no plans, so we tracted all day. I feel
like normal missionaries don't Tract this much. It makes me feel like
I'm doing something wrong. But then I'm like whatever and go for it
anyways. I've taught a bunch of lessons tracting this week. Now I just
hope some of them are prepared because I had to give them all away.
Woot woot. YSA life.

And that was the week. But here's the real question. Why are all my
friends getting engaged? What the heck is this? Am I really old enough
that my friends can get married? How many people's weddings am I going
to miss? Shows what friends you are. You won't even wait till I get
home. That's a joke. Get married if you want. Just save me some cake.
See what I care. Jerks. Just kidding. I still like you. Please save me
cake. Just freeze it for me. I like cake. Will there be themed
weddings?

That's about all I got in the tank. Tune in next week for more
exciting updates. Or not exciting. I don't know yet. But I love you
all. I hope you have a good week!

John

    

Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Alaska, Week 35

So you know those days where you email most people and then you're
like "I'll just send my group email later" and then you go play
kickball and handball and wreck your leg and then forget to email
because your leg is wrecked? It's one of those days. It was a good p
day though. I scored a goal so it's okay that I'll probably walk funny
for a couple days. It's nothing serious, so don't freak out (mom), I
just pulled something.

So, I don't have much time so I'll go through the highlights. Tuesday
I went on exchanges with Elder Bird our new zone leader. He's a super
good singer it's crazy. My voice is gone, so that's not fun. Wednesday
and Thursday were both crazy. Then Friday we had zone conference which
was awesome. Then we had General Conference which was awesome. Then
today was awesome. So basically, everything is awesome, but that's
life.

Alright y'all. Stay tuned for the crazy adventure I call my life.
Sorry I'm so inconsistent and terrible at this. Just know that I love
you and I'm here (2000 miles away) if you need me.

Love,
John

Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, AK, Week 33

Yo,

This has been one of the craziest and most tiring weeks of my life.
Woo hoo. But it's also been really fun. There's been a lot of real
sincere prayer this week. I'm going to fall asleep while I type this,
holy cow. I'll just get into the meat of it so I don't ramble to much
here. Also, does anyone know what Middle Tennessee is doing in the
elite eight? I'm confused.

Tuesday was my last day with Elder Santana which was sad. He was
probably my favorite companion so far. So we went hard in the paint,
just like Middle Tennessee, and we talked with a lot of people. Marc
was struggling pretty bad that day, but we were able to contact him
and help him too. So it was a good last day of the transfer.

Then Wednesday was crazy. We had to be at the stake center at 9 in the
morning to do a training with President before we picked up our
trainees. They were really good trainings, but I still have no idea
what I'm doing as a trainer. Then we all went into the big room where
the trainees were and I thought in my mind "Golly, I hope I don't get
introduced to my trainee first because I don't know what to do. Do I
hug him or what?" Then President is all like " Elder Call! Where do
you think you're going?" And so Elder Call points somewhere on the map
of Alaska and then President says "Elder Miller! Why don't you show
him where he's really going!" And I was like "Golly" but what came out
of my mouth is "That's what's up brother!" And I hugged him super hard
on accident. And then I forgot to tell him which ward we were serving
in. But President corrected that mistake. So if you haven't picked up
on it yet, my new companion is Elder Call from Spanish Fork, Utah.
He's a pretty quiet guy, but he's got a strong testimony. He's pretty
funny too, and when we get in awkward situations he makes
situationally inappropriate jokes and I laugh way too hard. This
should be a fun two transfers, if I don't die of stress before we get
to the end.

Thursday we went tracting for the first time. As I expected I did most
of the talking, but we found this woman named Julie who was actually
super interested and we taught her a lesson. It was awesome. I can
count the number of real lessons I've had tracting on one hand with
two fingers cut off. Greenie power right there. We also had our first
lesson together at our dinner appointment. We were teaching Laura, who
is super funny because she does a lot of research on the Church on the
Internet, but she doesn't go to church sponsored websites or anti
Mormon websites, she goes to random, positive, third party websites.
So she comes at us with a bunch of questions that are super deep. And
so we answer them and she understands. But we haven't even really
taught her the basics yet. But she's super interested and loves
learning. So I won't complain. Then I got my haircut at another
lesson. Missionary perks.

Friday was rough. I started getting really sick. I have a horrible
cough and stuff. It's unpleasant. But we persevered because that is
what we do and we went out and got to work. We did more tracting and
finding and we tried to teach a few investigators and less actives but
everyone canceled or wasn't home. So that was hard. It's funny how I
used to think it was weird how trainers were called dad's, but now I
have this weird paternal need to protect Elder Call from the suckiness
of the world. I want him to have the best mission ever. I don't want
there to be hard days for him. This is super weird.

Saturday I got quarantined to the apartment except for set lessons
because I'm sick. It honestly is terrible to not be able to do
anything. Luckily that day we had a lesson with Marc and with Linda
who are both doing really well. All our investigators are doing good
right now, so that's a real blessing. But then we had to stay inside
and play checkers. Elder Call is really good at checkers. Like, scary
good. The good news is that I'm probably losing a little bit of the
freaking 20 pounds I've gained out here cause I'm not eating a whole
lot. Always look on the bright side. Being sick is great.

Sunday was awesome. Because of general conference today was testimony
meeting which was super good. Bishop looked at Elder Call in ward
council and asked him to bear his testimony in Sacrament meeting. Then
we had a super good Sacrament meeting. When I bore my testimony I said
talofa (which is hello in Samoan) and they actually said it back! It
was awesome. That's what's up. Everyone just bore super powerful
testimonies and by the end everyone was crying for the most part.
Funny how that works. After church we had an awesome Easter dinner. We
had ham, and rolls, and scalloped potatoes and it was just like being
home. It made my Easter. Our last appointment for the night was with
Marc and we had a really great heart to heart with him. We gave him a
date for baptism in June. I'm hoping that he can get baptized before I
leave this ward. That would make my mission.

And that's the week. Happy Easter everybody! During the Easter season
(and hopefully always) remember the greatest words perhaps ever spoken
by an angel "Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? He is not here,
for He is risen." Now go eat some leftover ham or something.

John

Cook's Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Week 32

To be real with you, I don't really remember two weeks ago all that
well, plus I'm too lazy to try and type out two of these because I'm
super long winded anyways and you would probably fall asleep, so I'm
not even going to bother trying to type out what happened. It was a
good week, we taught people, we had fun, we ate some cheese. Good
times.

This week was pretty crazy though. March doesn't make sense in
Anchorage. One date it's 44 degrees, the next day there's a blizzard.
This time of year is called break up because it's when all the ice and
snow breaks and melts, but right now there's still a ton of snow. The
snow is always really pretty for one day, then it gets dirty and
gross, so that's less fun. But it is fun to drive on.

Tuesday we had our last district meeting, which was actually a pretty
good one, and transferdamus. So we all guessed where everyone in the
zone was going to go for transfers. I only got one person right. And
only one person got mine right. It was also free cone day at Dairy
Queen, so we got some free cones. They were good, mainly because they
were free. Then we met with Marc. Marc calls us three to four times a
day to talk with us and check up and pray with us. It's pretty funny.
He's my favorite. Then that night we also met with Linda, who is also
doing well. Good day.

Wednesday we met with Moroni and his girlfriend Maria. Sadly, they
plan on getting married so we have to turn them over to their family
ward elders. Well, that's not really sad for them, just for me,
because Moroni is the best. His girlfriend isn't a member, but she's
totally going to get baptized because she loves the church and her
grandparents are members, so there you go Brayton elders. Don't say I
never did nothing for ya. We also got Marc all moved out of his house
today and got to destroy more stuff at the dump. He was going to give
me this really pretty glass elephant, but then it broke, so we just
decided to break it even more. I also gassed a room with Glade because
it smelled like someone died in there and no one else was willing to
go in. By the time I was done there was more air freshener than oxygen
in the air. Then that night we taught our investigator Laura, which is
always super fun because she asks funny questions. Also a good day.

Thursday and Friday were both relatively uneventful so they'll get a
paragraph together. Because our area is going pretty well right now
we've been working with other areas to help get them going to. This
week we did a lot of tracting with the Elders in the O'Malley ward who
are on struggle street right now because they had one investigator,
then she got baptized and now they have no one to teach. So we went
tracting with them for days. It was really fun. We'd split up and
knock out a bunch of streets and we actually found several people for
them. The only sad part is we couldn't find any young single adults
for us to teach. But that's okay. We got trolled super hard Thursday
night by our Elders Quorum President, Payton Olkjer, and his dad.
Payton said his dad wasn't a member so we started teaching him at
dinner then like halfway through Payton was like "No, he's actually a
member" and then fell out of his chair laughing. The best part was
that they didn't plan it. It was all improv. Friday night President
forgot to call us for transfer calls too.

Then Saturday morning we got our transfer call. I was super surprised.
Elder Santana is going to Chugach Foothills and I'm staying here for
another 12 weeks and training. So I'll be in this ward for six months
by the time I'm done. I won't know who I'm training until Wednesday
when all the trainers pick up their trainees. But holy cow, I'm
training. Did not see that one coming. Saturday we also had a
blizzard. There were points where it was a whiteout. It was awesome.
In one day we got over a foot of snow. It was scary driving on the
roads though. As we were driving we found a 20 car pile up crash.
Craziness. The weather here doesn't make sense. It's March.

Then Sunday was again pretty uneventful. Everybody in the ward is
super sad that Elder Santana is leaving because he was only here for
one transfer. I'm sad too. He's one of my favorite companions. I've
only had four, so I hope he would be. But this has been a really fun
transfer, I'm excited to get back to six week transfers now though.

I hope all of you are having as many adventures as I am. Good luck
this week. I'll try not to get eaten by the bears.

John

I assume this is John's district.

This was last Monday and the reason we did not get an email.  Looks like he was too busy to write:)

I believe this is the blizzard John referenced in his letter.

Not sure what is going on here.  I asked John and he didn't know but he said it is totally Alaska.  I love this picture but hope the dog and the eagle are both ok.

Cooks Inlet YSA, Anchorage, Week 31

What's up party people?

This week was awesome. It was so awesome in fact that I totally didn't
write an email for all you crazy cats out there. I was at a bonfire
today and I didn't exactly have time so I promise I'll tell you all
about this week next week. Anyways, I love you all, have a great week
on behalf of me. Peace.

John