Welcome Visitors

Dear Friends and Family,

Daffodils blooming at Temple

Our Anchorage Alaska Temple Visitors' Center officially opened on Monday. We strung a double hose across the parking lot from the side of the current temple and power-washed the outside of the trailer. Then we hung up the welcome sign the Special Projects Department sent us last fall next to the entrance. The sewer was finally hooked up. They found a broken connection last week that had to be fixed. We downloaded commercial-free Tabernacle Choir music to play on the big screen along with numerous uplifting church videos we had already vetted. It's our new home away from home.

Badges

Farrell -

This was an week of organizing. We had our first on-site OAC (Owner, Architect, Contractor) meeting. The church is the owner -- we laugh because we are part of that group and our ID tags say "Owner" on them. The other owner rep here was Brad who is the project manager for the church. He has his hands full overseeing 3-4 temples at the same time. He is really our director/boss and we correspond with him often. He has an official helper, the site manager, Courtney who also takes care of the existing temple. The architect is FFKR out of SLC and they had Adam, the main architect for the project here. The contractor is Westland Construction of Orem with Josh, Creg, Curtis, Dalton, and Charley representing them. 

Visitors' Center trailer outside

There were several others on the video call like Kaylie the interior designer, Nick the landscape designer, and Russell the main design architect of the church. We find these meetings a bit hard to keep up with mainly because we don't deal with the details like everyone else does. The acronyms are numerous. Between the SFFFs, the RFIs, the CCDs, the submittals, etc. it is sometimes a maze. That last one is the equipment details the subcontractor turns in for approval by FFKR and Westland. It is a really big job for them to check all the numerous details.

Inside of Visitors' Center. Site manager's office in back.

The day after this event they had what is called a "pull" meeting. That is a technique for nailing down the timing and sequence of the entire build. All the subcontractors meet together and determine who does what, when, and what has to happen first. They use sticky notes (different colors for each trade) where they put them on a whiteboard with how long each step takes. Each contractor moves them around until all are satisfied. The building is divided into sectors for the build. This building has five areas. As they work each trade moves from one section to the next. It is quite an interesting process. According to the contractor, this building has a complex floor layout -- jogs. It is also hydro-heated so all that tubing has to be laid out in the floor before the concrete is poured.

Inside of  Visitors' Center. Lots of donations from Brayton Bldg.

The civil contractor has continued to move dirt around in a very organized fashion. We are very impressed with them. Brent is the supervisor with a long pointed beard and very friendly -- always calls me, Elder Badger. He is friends with our Stake Patriarch who is the controller for their company. They talk often about the doctrine of the church. 

Our office. View on left out to site, right view to current temple.

We expect major trenching activities to start this next week for all the deep buried lines. The old water line they removed, was over 12' deep. The excavator they have on site is one of the larger ones manufactured by CAT. It is needed for the deep reach.

Office w. corner double desks, monitors, fridge, & microwave.

Sister Badger was out on site one morning and I was in the Visitors' Center alone. The visitors showing up that morning kept me hopping. I'm finding that my technique needs a little fine tuning. It requires quick access to the technology to keep their interest. I have worked hard and long on that -- been buried in computer details. Kitty's computer had a major issue which took hours on line with the church service department to resolve after escalating twice. It is now working well. I have no idea how someone without a lot of computer background would handle this. Thank goodness for Google searches.

Greenhouse

We think Spring is here. Most days are upper 40s-low 50s. All the snow in our backyard here in Anchorage is gone. With that comes the desire to grow something. We toured the greenhouses in Wasilla on Saturday looking for hanging baskets -- two for the Visitors' Center entrance and two for the place we live. Fuchsias grow great here. In Utah they take careful tending. Nasturtiums are also a winner. We came back with a 6-pack of strawberries and sweet pea and nasturtium seeds. We will pick up four hanging baskets in a week (hour drive each way). 

View from a greenhouse in Wasilla 

Luckily we have a nice moderately sized backyard. I learned that bluegrass grows good here but you can't fertilize it too much or it gets overwhelmed with moss. I even discovered a jug of moss killer in our backyard shed.

The trees are just beginning to leaf out. The spruce trees that we said were nearly black are now green we assume because of the 16+ hours of daylight along with new "candle" tips and tons of pinecones. Time for lots of bike rides.

Have a glorious week. #ThinkCelestial

Love, Elder & Sister Badger