Flowers and Sunshine

Dear Family & Friends,

It's been another busy week on the site. They have started to form the basement walls on the new Anchorage Alaska Temple. The walls are about 14' tall set on top of the rebar reinforced foundation. They use brown metal forms, lay them down together on a flat surface in a large section, and then use an all terrain extendable forklift to move them. They turn them over and use a push broom to sweep off the dust and then spray on a release agent. Once the form is set in place, they use long arms bolted to cement blocks to hold it all upright. A crane shows up this next week and the site will be a hive of activity. The superintendent has identified a no-go and restricted access to essential personnel for the next 20 days to keep everyone safe.

We had a special treat and were invited to dinner Wednesday with Farrell's first cousin and her husband, Opal & Dale Fowler, from Eagle River AK. Farrell's mother, Florence Goodliffe, and her father, Irvin Goodliffe, are siblings. We went to Simon & Seafort's and ate in the bar side, since we didn't have reservations. The food was absolutely delicious and the view was spectacular. It was really fun to hear stories from their childhood, life experiences, and updates on their family. Most of Farrell's memories of her were from about 60-65 years ago. He remembered a lot of details. We hope to have them over for dinner to our home here before the snow flies.

Earlier that day we had our first weekly Cookie Day! It's our way of showing appreciation to the workers. While Kitty worked at the Temple Tuesday evening, Farrell put eight trays of cookies in the oven. We bought Costco chocolate chunk cookie dough balls, but it was still very time consuming. The workers really enjoyed the treats and the Conex break building smelled wonderful. We left out hard hat stickers, Book of Mormons, Family Search booklets, and glow in the dark Anchorage Alaska Temple #Think Celestial wristbands for them. Kitty designed our 3' x 6' sign.

Saturday we went on a bike riding adventure in the Far North Bicentennial Park. In the winter Anchorage grooms wide lighted trails for cross country skiing. In the summer people use the trails for walking and biking. The weather was sunny and pleasant. Some of trail was very tame and easy going. Some of it was at the edge of our comfort zone with a lot of hills. We spent a lot of time gearing up and down quickly. Most of the trails were gravel and rocky. Farrell fell off his bike twice, but rolled gracefully and bounced back up. He was embarrassed but she was just grateful he was safe. Kitty prefers paved bike trails, but did enjoy a change. We drove over several nice bridges with some impressive rivers. She was worried about bears and had bear spray. The salmon are not there yet so no visible bears - at least nothing more than several piles of black bear scat. Then after several fast mountain bikers zoomed past us we just tried to stay as far to the right as possible so we didn't have a head on collision. It wasn't crowded, but they show up without warning. Her favorite is still the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. It is paved, mostly away from the roads, few hills, and is very scenic.

After an hour and twenty minutes and a real workout, we were glad to arrive back at our car. You would think that would be a mild effort but we were at our limits. Kitty was able to go home, take a nice long bath and then take a shower and wash her hair. Meanwhile, Farrell valiantly went back out to wash the car for Sunday and picked up some delicious Thai food. It was a real treat since food is very pricey here. Eating out is 25% more here in Anchorage than back home and easily 50% more in the outlying areas like Seward and Valdez. We usually eat at home since we are both pretty good cooks:)

Sister Athena Afualo and Sister Jodi Taylor gave uplifting talks in Sacrament Meeting today. Sister Afualo's started her talk with Talofa, or Hello in Samoan. Her beautiful family moved into our ward 3 years ago. She learned to turn to her Heavenly Father during a time of great adversity. She was told her unborn son had Down's syndrome and was encouraged to abort the pregnancy when she was 6 mo. along. She decided to continue the pregnancy and asked for a priesthood blessing the night before he was born. She has never forgotten the peace and comfort she felt. He was born perfectly healthy. 

Sister Taylor is a very eloquent speaker. She talked about the US Constitution and our covenants. We are able to worship as we do now because of the Constitution. We have been able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to all of God's children here in the USA because of the Emancipation Proclamation. Since her husband is the Attorney General in Alaska they have been invited to attend many special events. She personally heard a leader of another country tell them, "the United States leads the world." During peacetime in another country, "if the United States is going to lead the world, then they better do it." She cried. It is humbling to be charged with that much responsibility. It is the responsibility of each of us to make this world a better place and also appreciate and share the blessings we have been given from a loving Heavenly Father. 

Josh Foote, Westland's Project Manager, and his wife, Kelsie have moved into our Temple View ward with their three children. It's so good to finally have them up here. He had been commuting from UT. They will be a great addition to the ward as he helps build the new Temple and likely the new Stake center after that.

We had a special request by Sister Esplin, the Stake president's wife, to host her family reunion group at the Visitors' Center this Sunday afternoon. They planned it 6 years ago and we heard about it before we left on our mission. It was a very large group. Luckily, many were children, so we all fit in the trailer.  Many were from UT and one family were our back door neighbors in Mapleton, Josh & Katie Phelon. It was exciting to see them so far from home. It has been a hot summer in UT in the 100's with heat advisories. It's been just beautiful here and it is still more like late spring most days. They are loving it and think they will come back next summer. 

The cottonwoods are releasing their cotton into the air, the lilacs are in full bloom, and the peonies are just budding out. It's been mostly in high 50's to mid 60's, and twice in June it reached 76 degrees. So cute, it's 10 p.m. Sunday night and two elementary school kids from different families are still outside playing. Angus is playing with his dog next door and a little girl just rode by on her bike. Even now, it's still light out:) I wonder in the summer if parents in Alaska ever say, "Be home before it gets dark."

We pray you are all having a wonderful summer enjoying the bounties of the earth and time with your families. Please keep in touch and know that we love and miss you. The only sacrifice to our service here has been missing your company. #ThinkCelestial

Love, Elder & Sister Badger