Celebrations and Rendezvous

Dear Friends and Family,

We started out by celebrating President's Day on Monday and ended by celebrating Farrell's 71st birthday today. He was pretty excited to wear the new "salmon" tie that he picked out. Our son Aaron and his wife HaLee & family sent him a cute bag of Chews The Right taffy from St. George UT. He appreciated all the cards and well wishes. It was fun to talk and get messages from family today. Farrell didn't want to buy anything special but finally decided last night to go grab some cake and ice cream from the local store. Luckily Kitty tasted it and said it wasn't worth the calories:) 

More items were taken from the Brayton Building last week including parts of the gym floor. It looks like someone traced a pattern and cut it right out. The floor was floating, which made it somewhat easier. We are thrilled it found a good home. We think it is going to the theater group that took the drapes and choir seats. The organ and piano were finally moved to their new home in another ward building. We go over every few days to count parking spots, photograph activity, and keep an eye on the building. We welcomed a couple more of the Westland team who just arrived. We found them exploring the parking lot.

Tuesdays are always busy with construction meetings -- owner (the church), architect, and general contractor. Kitty also submitted a Sealaska Shareholder Resolution and was able to present it during a Zoom Q&A taking place in Juneau that afternoon. Her great-grandmother was born in Wrangell AK, and she is 1/8 Tlingit Alaskan Native and inherited Sealaska stock from her mother & grandmother. Hopefully, they will look into the proposed resolution, as they said. It was wonderful for her to work at the Temple again that evening. She loves the people there and especially the Spirit in the House of the Lord. 

It is really important to have enough parking for the current temple. Believe me, we have counted them many times. Unfortunately, snow and ice bury the parking lines, so it isn't as efficient as everyone would like. On Wednesday Westland Construction started putting up their construction fence. They have been working hard to remove the excess 10-15 feet of snow piled up with huge equipment to begin construction. They officially take over the site tomorrow (Monday). 

We attended the Anchorage Alaska Zone Conference (south and north zones) most of the day on Wednesday and then had a delicious luncheon. It's always fun to see all the missionaries and feel their enthusiasm and goodness. We met with the "elder" Elder Parks and the other service missionaries in a breakout session. His son, the younger Elder Parks, is the Area Authority Seventy we spoke with last week at the Brayton Building:) We also enjoyed visiting with Elder Howell, a service missionary who has also been helping recently at the Brayton Building. His dad, Brother Howell, works as the Facilities Manager for the Anchorage Alaska Temple and he will also be the construction site manager for the new temple.

The power went out at around 11 p.m. on Wednesday evening during a ferocious wind storm and didn't go back on until about 2 p.m. on Thursday. We planned to attend the temple on Thursday, but since the power was out most of the day it was closed. The power went out again on Friday evening during a session. There was backup power at the temple, but it was very limited, so they were unable to finish sessions and everyone had to leave. The Howell's compassionately brought over some wood for us from their camping supply on Thursday so we were able to try out the fireplace for the first time and warm up. We do have a gas stove, so we had hot food. We are so glad we do not have to heat, cook, and wash using wood. The power outage affected a large part of Anchorage. Everything around us ground to a halt. It occurred to us that they built the entire Salt Lake Temple using wood for fuel. We are definitely spoiled with all our modern conveniences. 

We had a fun P-Day Saturday spent with several other senior missionary couples at the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous, Fur Rondy, or just Rondy for short. First, we parked at the Institute Building, donned our warm clothes, and walked a couple blocks to the Chester Creek Trail to watch the 26-mile Open World Championship Sled Dog Races. The dogs move fast and amazingly make almost no noise. Then we walked back to the Institute for a pancake breakfast with bacon, eggs, milk, juice, and homemade raspberry jam.

Next, we drove by the carnival with all the rides in the snow - never seen that one before. The wind chill must be substantial on some of those rides. 

We parked and walked up the hill to the Outhouse Races in downtown Anchorage. (Yes, they are built to mimic the real thing and are mounted on skis.) The racetrack is about a block long. Lots of folks wearing fur and lots of furry dogs in tow. Probably won't do this one again. Watching the assortment of people was the fun part. Bob Ross's team & Tree are shown racing.

After that we walked back to our cars (on the usual glare ice) and drove over to the Alaska State Snow Sculpture Championship. They were still working on the sculptures and it was interesting to watch. They all start out with a huge square of compressed snow. President Smith in our ward is the first counselor in the mission presidency over service. He told us today that the winners last year, Brother Coffee & Brother Best, local ward members, are the ones working on Rapunzel. The additional height was added by hand with a pole in the middle for support. It looks very promising for them to win again this year. Not sure how they work so long in the cold. We ran into the missionaries while we were there - they work in the area. I asked Pres. Smith what he thought about letting them make a sculpture of the new Anchorage AK Temple next year. He said it takes up too much of their time. A team works on them for days. The missionaries deal with many homeless people in that downtown area. Apparently, they are there because some housing is provided to keep them from freezing in the winter. Most have serious drug problems (fentanyl). In the summer they move out into the area where the snow sculptures are now to form a tent city.

After a day at the Fur Rondy, we were all worn out and missed the Fur Auction, Grand Parade, Snowshoe Softball Tournament, Frostbite Footrace, Blanket Toss, Rondy Ice Bowling, Running of the Reindeer, and Fireworks Extravaganza, but there is always next year!

We had more snow storms this week bringing our total in Anchorage to 121 inches so far this winter. That is less than half what Park City gets but it sure seems like a lot when the streets never really get fully plowed and form hardpack ice. It is beautiful to look at.

We love you and pray you feel God's love for you. Our Savior lives and we are so grateful to be in His service. #ThinkCelestial

Love, Elder & Sister Badger

Action in Earnest

Hello to friends and family,

What a difference a short couple of months makes. We now have 9 1/2 hours of daylight, up from 5 1/2 in mid-December. Temperatures two weeks ago got down to -20F. This week they rose as high as 40F. More of the warmth is forecast this next week and then it drops back into the teens and single digits again. We will continue to ride the wave. People here get out on the trails riding studded fat tire bikes and love it. I looked into getting studded tires for our bikes but didn't like the price. So, looking for dry pavement in the future. Right now it is glazed over with ice and with the warmup, very slick.

We have had a week to remember, one to enter into the history books. It just happened and we don't expect to see another one like it in our lifetimes. Along with many, many others, we spent the week emptying out the Stake Center of materials and furnishings under the direction of the Church Facilities Manager, Tim Morgan. He is also a counselor in the Anchorage North Stake Presidency. He was so patient and a pleasure to work with. He had a special place in his heart for our future Temple Visitor's Center coming at the end of the month. He selectively provided furniture, artwork, a floor mat, a vacuum, lamps, and many other articles for our use before other entities (other than other church units) received their part. With his help, we hauled all of it over to our two-car garage early in the week. There is still just enough room for us to park our car. In a reciprocal effort, we volunteered to help with what he needed to do. He asked us to remove all of the interior door knobs & locks. That didn't sound like much until we realized there were at least 70 interior doors in the building. We spent parts of three days in that effort -- about 6-8 hours with two of us working on it. The hardware included lever door latches and crash bars. He will probably replace old or lower-quality ones in other church buildings somewhere else in Alaska.

On Friday, a Wasilla Branch President over a correctional institution showed up to see if the Brayton building had any soft-covered books he could take to the book-hungry souls there. We were overjoyed to see the piles of Bibles, Book of Mormons, Come Follow Him manuals, and other literature find a good home. So many members use their phones now and many of the surplus manuals were brand new. The library shelves had already been removed ready to be picked up, so the materials were just sitting in neat piles on the library floor. We loaded them in boxes, clean garbage cans, and he took armloads out to his car.

The bulk of the Stake Center materials were offered to other religious denominations and non-profits. Approximately 25 signed up. We were involved in the planning and execution along with others, but most of the behind-the-scenes organization was done by Sheldon & Christine Fisher, the Alaska Communications Directors. We were assigned to be greeters and direct groups to either the guides or the pool of volunteers. It was amazing to see all these groups come together along with many volunteer members from at least three stakes to gather and load. Alaska's Institute for the Performing Arts in the Kenai, whose facility had sustained fire damage, was the recipient of the stage curtains and lighting along with cabinets, doors, and choir seats. They cater to a girls' dance group. 

Farrell visited with the Mayor of Nenana (who is a member) along with others who were taking down the basketball standards and scoreboard for a community center they are building to keep kids busy during the long dark winter. They are up near Fairbanks. The organ headed to another ward building. Other groups included the Black Caucus, Alaska Jewish Campus, United Methodist, and many others. The Islamic Community Center of Alaska was the recipient of the whole front podium assembly. When they were initially contacted, a brief explanation of the church started the conversation and the recipient replied, "Oh, I know all those things, my wife and I both have PhDs from BYU." The group was diverse and I was impressed by their respect for what was happening.

One of the highlights was Sister Tammy Hogge from the local Rabbit Creek Ward who broke into song with the New Hope Baptist church folks singing Amazing Grace. Near the end, a brother stood by the piano and started playing. She has a beautiful voice, has sung in the choir for years, and has been invited to sing on many occasions. She says she has probably sung for every funeral held in the building.

The church communications group flew up a cameraman and reporter to document the event. Somewhere in the blurred background of the link inserted below, you will see two Temple Construction Senior Missionaries having the time of their lives. If you spot us, you will be extraordinary sleuths. It was a day filled with lots of warm fuzzies. See this link for the full official church newsroom report.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/in-alaska--new-life-for-materials-from-an-old-meetinghouse

The Area Authority Seventy, Elder Parks, was also in attendance and was one of the official spokesmen. We spent quite a bit of time visiting with him and thoroughly enjoyed it. He gave us several ideas and contacts for our mission efforts. His father and mother are serving as Sr. Missionaries here in Alaska. The story is that a couple of days after he was called as an Area Seventy, he called his own parents out of the blue to serve a mission. Both of these Elder Parks have served as Stake Presidents in a neighboring town. Elder Parks, the Seventy, is planning to give us some time in the next Coordinating Council (all the stake presidents, temple president, and mission president) to coordinate involvement during the new temple construction. I previously contacted his Executive Secretary to arrange that. We want all the members to feel the spirit of this effort.

As far as the construction goes, under the direction of the general contractor for the temple, snow removal from the site has been in progress most of the week. The trucks show up in the middle of the night with a big front-end loader and begin to haul. Not sure of the quantity but the estimate was somewhere around 5000 cubic yards. Westland Construction will take over the site this coming Monday.

We love you all and wish you the best. #ThinkCelestial

Elder & Sister Badger

Gearing Up

Dear Family & Friends,

Men climbing a frozen waterfall.

The Senior Sisters have been given permission to make a 5-minute movie about what the senior missionaries do up here in Anchorage, Alaska. They have three young media missionaries assigned to help them. They work about 30-60 minutes a day on social media. We all had a long meeting on Monday and discussed possible shots and schedules. We have office missionaries in charge of housing, finances, cars, and secretaries. MLS missionaries are helping with Member Leader Support. There are two couples in our mission doing Military Relations. Brother Cox joked that CES missionaries stood for Cooks Every Second. It really stands for Church Education System and they help teach Seminary and Institute. They are often up teaching Seminary early in the morning and also teaching Institute in the evenings. Sister Cox has spoiled everyone with her delicious sweet rolls. They work with young adults and young adults love food. The Sisters would like a drone shot of all the senior missionaries from the area waving in front. As Temple Construction missionaries, they want to wait until our trailer is up and running so they can get a shot at the Visitor's Center and the construction site, so we will be last. They are talented, so this should be interesting. 

Bulldozer piling up hauled off snow.

There is so much snow here that they haul it off and make huge piles of snow mixed with the gravel. Here is a picture of the bulldozer pushing it up the hill again last Monday after we had a few more inches of snow. 

We enjoyed another long day on Tuesday with construction meetings at 8 a.m. and again at noon. I am an ordinance worker on Tuesday evenings and I really look forward to it. It makes for a long day, so I try to take a nap if I can. It was a quiet night at the temple. We were expecting a large group coming to do baptisms, but they did not show up for some reason. We always suspect the weather. I was able to spend quite a bit of time being shown all the parts of the baptistry. Then we toured the laundry. Even though this temple does not have clothing provided for regular patrons it does have to wash, dry, and fold all of the clothes for the baptistry and missionaries. They go through a lot of white towels in the baptistry and are very busy. Since it was quiet I also was shown what was inside every organized drawer in the sisters' dressing room. All those beautiful counters are also functionally labeled storage areas. Then I spent some time learning all about the front desk. It looks really easy to say, Welcome to the Temple, but there are lots of emergency protocols - fire, earthquake, flood, etc. I learned a picture of your recommend on your phone is not allowed. I had wondered that myself. Three areas of the world are experimenting with digital recommends, but I have never seen one. 

Bell's Nursery

We have been gearing up for the demolition of the Brayton Chapel. There have been lots of meetings, coordinating, and conversations. The project manager from Westland Construction from Orem UT, Josh, and the project manager from the church living in Olympia WA, Brad, flew up on this week and visited all the neighbors surrounding the temple. There are about 22 homes on three sides of the property. The fourth side is Brayton Drive with a Highway on the other side of that fence. They talked to them about the construction, and property lines with new fences, and resolved any concerns. We invited them over for dinner since they were in the neighborhood. We enjoyed their company and appreciated their sacrifice as it was a cold dark evening when they headed out to visit a few more homes.

We needed a little excitement, so on Friday, we walked through our local greenhouse. We love flowers. It is so calming and hopeful to see all the beautiful vibrant colors. 

Afterward, we drove a few minutes down the road on the highway toward Turnagain Arm to see the frozen waterfalls. The blue frozen ice is the color of the glaciers. There was a guy ice climbing and his friend down below was belaying him. We were going to get out and take a picture with Farrell for perspective, but seeing that guy up on the ice was even more fun and worked as well.

Ice climber about halfway up on the far right. A friend is belaying below.

I went a few minutes away to get my nails done on Saturday and Helen was all dressed up in a beautiful yellow-gold oriental outfit. She is from Vietnam and does a great job. Her shop was all festive with lanterns and a large picture. It was quite busy that day because there was a Sweethearts school dance that evening. Happy Chinese New Year - the Year of the Dragon - Feb 10, 2024.

It was our last Sunday in the Brayton Chapel. We went to the Huffman Ward at 10:30 and to our Temple View Ward again at noon, followed by Relief Society. The talks in both Sacrament meetings were so uplifting. Most centered on overcoming adversity and trusting our Heavenly Father and his timing. We are so blessed to have living prophets on the Earth. In Relief Society we discussed Walking in Covenant Relationship with Christ by Young Woman General President, Emily Belle Freeman. I highly recommend watching it. Our Savior Jesus Christ is always waiting for us with open arms to help us and walk with us every step of the way. 

"Thankfully, we walk this path together, calling out encouragement along the way."  
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/10/42freeman?lang=eng

Have a wonderful week. Please text, email, or blog and let us know what you are up to. You are in our thoughts and prayers. #ThinkCelestial

Love, Sister & Elder Badger

In the Details

Dear Family & Friends,

Beautiful lights Sunday night.

The lights are still on in many Anchorage neighborhoods. We had dinner this evening with the Maisey family and in Anchorage fashion, many friends, neighbors, family, and ward members were there -- they do this every week. There were about 24 of us there. It was fun to meet new people and find out what brought them to Alaska. Many have questions about the new temple.

Farrell checking the mail.

As usual, a weather report is in order. They have a big winter carnival in Willow  AK, up the road a couple of hours, to which we were invited but we just couldn't bring ourselves to go into the night cold at -37F to watch them. It doesn't get that cold where we live, only -20F for a low this week. It hovered around -8F to 5F. We kind of feel like we are in the banana belt compared to the rest of Alaska. Apparently, those temperatures are near record-breakers for here.

Snow and more snow.

We were invited to a fun family history fair Saturday night by Bro. Maisey. His mother invited us to dinner. They had lots of kids, teens, and adults there. Good desserts and games were the general fare. We were asked ahead of time to tell the group all about the new temple. Kitty spent time typing up a guide. We alternated the discussion and it went well. A Q&A afterward went on for quite a while -- everyone was anxious to hear and get an update. Questions like -- what is the earthquake design, which way does the temple point, was there an Anchorage architect involved, when does it start, how long will it take, what is the design motif, what will they do with the furnishings in the stake center, when does the stake center get torn down, has the design left enough room for pushing snow and many, many more. We at least gave partial answers to most of those questions. Some information we can share comes from the meetings we attend every week with the architect, contractor, and church and some comes from my (Farrell's) detailed study of the plans. Because many church members have had special experiences in the stake building, they are sensitive to demolishing it. I told them to take lots of pictures and to record/write those memories so that they can pass them on to their future posterity in their family history. As pioneers, they can do much good that way. I repeated that in the testimony meetings in two other wards.

Rome Italy Temple Visitor's Center stained-glass
 mural of Jesus Christ by Holdman Studios, Lehi UT.

Kitty has begun her temple service, so spent Tuesday evening in the temple as a worker. She wound up serving as a patron doing sealings. Then on Thursday evening, I attended an endowment session with the Elder's Quorum while Kitty did initiatory ordinances. That was followed by time alone in the bride's room studying ordinances for her temple service. The bishop spoke today about the Worldwide Event for Youth on January 29, and seeing the stained glass mural of the Savior when he visited the Temple Visitor's Center in Rome, Italy. We saw it when we visited Holdman Studios as they were working on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHrtOzslLcQ We realize it is a unique blessing to be building a temple and at the same time being able to attend a temple. This is not Utah where that would not be an issue. The decision to keep the current temple operating while the new one is being constructed is a tender mercy. The closest other temple now is Vancouver, BC, nearly 1400 miles away. Because there is a direct flight, I think it is still quicker to fly to Oahu -- 6 hours and 19 minutes $327 round trip:)

Our street. A winter wonderland.

The Project Manager (Joshua Foote) for Westland Construction, the general contractor for the temple, along with the Church Project Manager (Brad Hill) arranged to supply all the neighbors whose property borders the temple with a handout saying they would stop by to visit each individual family on February 7 to answer questions and resolve any concerns. They are flying up specifically to do that. The Westland Superintendent (Creg Norton) for the project, moved here with his wife on January 22. We had them over for dinner last Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed the three-hour chat. They are from Saint George, UT. 

The fine young man from our ward hired by
the church to shovel. He is such a hard worker.

We feel a kinship with all those we have worked with so far. It really is quite amazing what they pull off. The rest of Westland's team is moving up this month. Most are bringing young families. All our meetings start with prayer. We have been impressed with Josh's because they center on spiritual things. We are getting excited about the upcoming events -- we collect all of the supplies for the visitor's center on February 12. The last day for the wards in the building is Feb. 16. It will get emptied on February 17, by around 200 people and approx. 20 different organizations (our church, other churches, and non-profits). It will be another busy week. 

View of Turnagain Arm, De Armoun overpass.

We are grateful to see the hand of the Lord in the details of our lives and in the lives of those we love. Have a wonderful week and keep in touch. We love hearing your comments and what you are up to. #ThinkCelestial

Love always, Elder & Sister Badger